The Speech about God in Job 42:7–8

A Contribution to the Coherence of the Book of Job

The Difficulties of Job 42:7–8 within the Context of the Book

The epilogue of the book of Job begins in Job 42:7. In this verse, God tells Eliphaz,

“My anger burns against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken the truth

about me as has my servant Job.” The verse appears immediately following Job’s

(apparently humble)1 submission to God (Job 42:1–6; cf. 40:3–5), in response to the

divine speeches to Job out of the whirlwind, where God castigates Job for his

presumption in challenging the creator (Job 38–41). After informing Eliphaz of his

anger at him and his two friends, God instructs Eliphaz to go with them to Job, offer

sacrifices, and ask Job to pray on their behalf, so that God might not act vilely2

1
The meaning of Job’s response in these verses is actually subject to lively discussion. Some see Job
42:6 as Job’s expression of contempt or defiance toward God. For variations on this approach see John
B. Curtis, “On Job’s Response to Yahweh,” JBL 98 (1979): 497–511; Meir Givati, “Overt and Covert
Irony in the Speeches of Job,” in ‫ציון לוריא‬-‫( ספר בן‬ed. Z. Shazar et al.; Jerusalem: Kiryat-Sefer, 1979),
130–39 [Hebrew]; Edwin M. Good, “The Problem of Evil in the Book of Job,” in The Voice from the
Whirlwind (ed. L. G. Perdue and W. C. Gilpin; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 50–60; Jack Miles,
God: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 313–25; 425–30; Edward L. Greenstein, “In
Job’s Face/Facing Job,” in The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation and Biblical Interpretation (ed.
Fiona C. Black et al.; SemeiaSt 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 301–17; idem, “The Problem of
Evil in the Book of Job,” in Mishneh Todah: Studies in Deuteronomy and its Cultural Environment in
Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay (ed. Nili Sacher Fox et al.; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 358–
60. Against this approach see Michael V. Fox, “Job the Pious,” ZAW 117 (2005): 351–66, at 364–66;
Stephen A. Geller, “Nature’s Answer: The Meaning of the Book of Job in Its Intellectual Context,” in
Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word (ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson; Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2002), 109–32, esp. 124–29. I find the approach hard to accept because any
continued expression of insolence by Job at this juncture compounds the difficult transition from God’s
stern reprimand of Job in the whirlwind speeches to his expression of pride in Job in 42:7–8. Are we to
understand, as intimated, e.g., by Walter Bruggemann (Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony,
Dispute, Advocacy [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997], 392) that God expresses his pride in Job for
having told him precisely “where he can go”? But Job had already severely criticized God throughout
the book. Why didn’t those attacks evoke God’s pride? Why did they evoke his ire instead? And why
was God proud of Job in Job 2:3 for submissively accepting God’s cruel treatment of him in Job 1:21?
In light of these difficulties it seems best to understand that Job, in the end, is cowed into submission to
God. See Ellen J. van Wolde, “Job 42, 1–6: The Reversal of Job,” in The Book of Job (ed. Willem A.
M. Beuken; Leuven: Leuven University Press / Peeters, 1994), 223–50.
2
This is the JPS translation of ‫נבלה‬. Good renders “doing anything foolish” and hears an echo of Job
2:10, where Job accuses his wife of talking like a fool. See Edwin M. Good, In Turns of Tempest: A
Reading of Job with a Translation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 383. However, it seems
rather odd of God to refer to his own action as foolish or vile. Some scholars suggested emending ‫נבלה‬
to ‫ כלה‬and understand that God threatens to kill Job’s friends. See Avraham Kahana, ‫( ספר איוב‬Tel

1
against them (Job 42:8). God closes his instructions to Eliphaz and his friends by

repeating the central sentence which will concern us in this article: ‫כי לא דברתם אלי‬

‫נכונה כעבדי איוב‬, which is generally rendered, “for you have not spoken the truth about

me (taking ‫ אלי‬as ‫ )עלי‬as has my servant Job.”3

This repeated sentence is pivotal for the interpretation of the book of Job as a

whole,4 and of the speeches of God to Job out of the whirlwind in particular. The

divine statement to Eliphaz, as rendered above,5 clearly implies that, as opposed to the

friends of Job, who spoke incorrectly about God, Job has spoken the truth about God.

God, it would seem, reprimands the friends for their misguided theology and praises

Job for his correct theology. As in the prologue to the book, where God brags about

Job to the Satan, referring to Job as his “servant” (1:8; 2:3), here, too, God appears to

brag about Job to Eliphaz. God again refers to Job as his “servant” (four times in two

verses!), and informs Eliphaz that Job will have to intercede on behalf of him and his

friends for them to receive an acquittal from the heavenly court. In fact, Job is the

only individual who can stop God from punishing them: “for to him alone will I show

favor and not treat you vilely, for you have not spoken the truth about me as has my

servant Job (42:8).” It would seem, then, that Job’s particular virtue that renders him

Aviv: Mekorot, 1928; 2nd ed. 1968), 226. This suggestion is supported by the LXX and by the fact that
the phrase ‫ עשה כלה‬is very widespread in the Bible (Gen 18:21; Isa 10:23; Jer 4:27; 5:10, 18; 30:11;
46:28; Ez 11:13; 20:17 etc.). N. H. Tur-Sinai, The Book of Job: A New Commentary (Jerusalem:
Kiryat-Sefer, 1967) [Hebrew], 580, rejects the option on the basis of the fact that the Job passage has
‫ עשות נבלה עמכם‬whereas ‫ כלה‬takes ‫את‬. This objection seems very weak, since there is no essential
difference between ‫( לא אעשה אתכם כלה‬Jer 5:18) and ‫לא אעשה עמכם כלה‬.
3
Some prefer to render ‫ נכונה‬as “truthfully” rather than “the truth.” For a discussion of this approach,
see below.
4
See James Barr, “The Book of Job and its Modern Interpreters,” BJRL 54 (1971–72): 28–46. Barr
says about Job 42:7 (at 45–6): “Is this not after all in a way the keystone of the whole book as it now
stands, the foundation of its paradoxical character? It adds a whole new dimension which, if the verse
were not there, would be entirely absent . . .”
5
A unique translation of our passage is offered by Duck-Woo Nam, Talking about God: Job 42:7–9
and the Nature of God in the Book of Job (Studies in Biblical Literature 49; New York: Lang, 2003).
Nam suggests understanding ‫ נכונה‬as “constructively.” See, however, the review of Duck-Woo Nam,
Talking about God, by Edward L. Greenstein in Review of Biblical Literature at
http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/3195_3573.pdf. Greenstein shows that there is no basis for Nam’s
translation and that the meaning of ‫ נכונה‬is indeed, as conventionally understood, “(what is) true.”

2
worthy of interceding for his friends consists in the fact that he professed a theology

that is in some way deemed correct. This might even be taken as the basis for the

restoration of Job in the continuation of the chapter. God in the end restores Job’s

good fortune and even doubles it because Job spoke the truth concerning God.6

This divine statement about Job’s “God-talk,” however, is extremely difficult

within the overall context of the drama. If Job had spoken the truth about God in

contrast to Job’s friends, and is even deemed particularly meritorious specifically

because he did, why did God just previously reprimand Job in the whirlwind

speeches, castigating him for speaking “words without knowledge” (38:2)? Has God

suddenly changed his mind about the value and accuracy of Job’s speeches

throughout the book? We must also wonder: Is God proud of Job here for correctly

accusing him of cruelty and injustice?7 Is not such speech, rather, a sign of impiety?

Even if we assume that, given the circumstances, Job’s fulminations against God are

understandable, it still remains unclear why the fact that Job spoke the assumedly

grim and harsh truth about God’s cruelty and hostility, or at least God’s indifference

to the dictates of justice, should be so commendable in God’s eyes as to render Job

the one and only individual who can pray on behalf of his sinning friends? Let us also

not forget that, at least for many readers,8 Job in some sense took back his accusations

against God, admitting that they were based upon a lack of knowledge (42:1–6). If so,

however, how can God be proud of Job for having taken a correct stand about God

6
See David J. A. Clines, “Deconstructing the Book of Job,” in The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in
Biblical Persuasion and Credibility (ed. Martin Warner; London: Routledge, 1990), 71. In a later essay
Clines concedes that this is not the only way of reading the epilogue. See David J. A. Clines, “Does the
Book of Job Suggest that Suffering is Not a Problem?” in Weisheit in Israel: Beitrage des Symposiums
“Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne: anlässlich des 100 Geburtstags Gerhard von Rads
(ed. David J. A. Clines et. al; Munster: LIT, 2003) 105–6.
7
See James G. Williams, “’You have not Spoken Truth of Me’: Mystery and Irony in Job,” ZAW 83
(1971): 231–55, at 236, “It very clearly may be understood as a condemnation of God—by God!”
Bruce Vawter, Job and Jonah: Questioning the Hidden God (New York/ Ramsey: Paulist Press, 1983),
85–86, “Job is being praised for having berated the Lord, challenged him, satirized him, dared him,
spurned him.”
8
See note 1 above.

3
from which he subsequently backed down? Finally, Job 42:7–8 would seem to clash

not only with what precedes it, the whirlwind speeches and Job’s subsequent response

to them, but also with what follows. If Job was right about God’s injustice in relation

to the world at large, and in relation to himself in particular, and if it is indeed

important to God to publicly affirm that Job’s theology of divine cruelty was correct,

and that the theology of the friends was false, why does God go on to restore Job so

impressively and double his previous fortune at the end of the book? For many, this

striking restoration of Job’s fortunes immediately after the divine verdict of 42:7–8

has the appearance of a divine reward to Job for speaking the truth as opposed to

Job’s friends.9 Yet, if God truly seeks in 42:7–8 to publicly affirm that Job spoke the

harsh truth about him, shouldn’t he rather allow Job to continue to suffer and to serve

as living testimony to God’s miserably unjust character? Doesn’t Job’s spectacular

restoration, on the contrary, imply that Job’s assertions about God’s cruelty and

injustice were inaccurate, and give credence, on the contrary, to the purportedly

incorrect theology of Job’s friends? Or, to put it differently: Isn’t there an inherent

paradox in justly rewarding Job for his correct assertion that God is unjust? And isn’t

there a similar paradox in threatening to justly requite Job’s friends for their sinfully

incorrect assertion that God punishes justly?10 Before offering my own response to the

9
Of course, though the epilogue seems to return to the paradigm of retributive justice, many
interpreters offer other interpretations. See, e.g., N. Whybray, Job: Readings (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1998), 173. For Whybray, the restoration is simply the expected return to the situation
that adhered before the test after the test is completed. This, however, fails to account for the
duplication of Job’s wealth. See also n. 6 above.
10
See Robert Polzin, “The Framework of the Book of Job,” Interpretation 28 (1974): 182–200, at 185–
86: “Finally we come to what is perhaps the most amazing inconsistency in the whole book: Some of
God’s words seem to contradict his actions. He states in 42:7 that Job was right and his friends were
wrong (to Eliphaz): ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not
spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has’ (italics mine). Note that this statement appears to be
inconsistent not only with Yahweh’s speeches in chapters 38–41 but also with what follows verse 7 in
the epilogue (where he proceeds to act in accordance with the principle of retribution: He rewards the
good Job and forgives the repentant friends). . . .Immediately after God says that Job was originally
correct in questioning the universal validity of the principle of divine retribution, he proceeds to reward
Job for his repentance. God apparently acts like the kind of person he praises Job for denying him to
be. Concerning Job’s friends, at the same time as he says they are wrong in their naïve insistence that

4
problems surrounding Job 42:7–8, let me first review and critique some of the

prominent ways that these problems have been treated by scholars.11

Responses to the Difficulties Surrounding Job 42:7–8 in Job Scholarship

One of the most common ways in which critics have responded to the difficulties

mentioned above is by using them as clues for reconstructing the history of the book’s

composition.12 Scholars have long sensed various tensions separating the narrative

frame of the book, whose “happy ending” seems to reflect a rather naïve and pious

perspective on the problem of suffering, from the poetic speeches, which seem to

present radical religious skepticism with considerable poignancy and empathy. This

perceived gulf has led to the conclusion that the story reflected in the frame of the

book was once an independent folk tale that was not composed by the author of the

main body of the book, who wrote this section in poetic form.13 If we read in the

narrative framework that God condemns Job’s friends for not speaking the truth about

God the way that Job did, this must indicate that in the original folk tale, now

preserved incompletely, Job affirmed God’s righteousness to the very end, while the

friends rejected the justice of God, and urged Job, as did his wife, to curse God and

die. Originally, then, the vindication of Job in 42:7 was a vindication of Job’s perfect

piety and absolute faith in God’s goodness. In spite of Job’s suffering, Job affirmed,

against the contrary claims of Eliphaz and his friends, that God is just, thereby giving

God a decisive victory in his wager with Satan. The Job of the original folktale thus

he always punishes the evil, he threatens to punish them for being evil, “for not speaking of me what is
right.” He will avert disaster from them if they repent and admit that he does not always avert disaster
from the repentant! Clearly what God says in the Book of Job and how he acts within it provide us with
its central paradox.”
11
For a brief compendium of answers offered by recent scholars to the question: “In what sense has Job
spoken of Yahweh what is right?” see Clines, “Does the Book of Job Suggest,” 106–7.
12
See the bibliography in David J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (WBC 17; Dallas: Word Books, 1989), cxii.
13
See, e.g., H. L. Ginsberg, “Job the Patient and Job the Impatient,” in Congress Volume, Rome, 1968
(VTSup 17; Leiden: Brill), 88–111.

5
spoke “rightly about God.” This is why God is so proud of Job, and why he names his

“servant” Job as the one who must intercede on behalf of the sinful friends. Finally,

this is why Job’s previous fortune is restored and even doubled at the end of the book.

This restoration provides the final confirmation that Job indeed spoke that which is

correct about God. God indeed maintains justice, and rewards the pious in the end, as

Job had intimated in the prologue.14 It is only the author of the poetic section who

reverses the roles of the characters of the book, presenting Job now as impious, and

the friends as the upholders of conventional piety. By removing the original middle

section of the story and inverting the stances of Job and his friends, the author of the

poetic sections sought to radically reinterpret God’s vindication of Job in 42:7, and to

present it now as a justification of theological skepticism and a condemnation of

dogmatic piety.15

In spite of its continuing popularity,16 the neat and simple separation of prose

and poetry in the book of Job must be deemed extremely tenuous. It would be fairly

reasonable to sever Job 42:7–10 from its immediate literary context if it could be

connected smoothly to an earlier narrative thread. It is special pleading, however, to

suggest severing it from its given literary context in order to affix it to hypothetically

14
Actually, Job never explicitly affirms in the Prologue that God is bound by the laws of justice. See
on this Edward L. Greenstein, “The Problem of Evil in the Book of Job,” in Mishneh Todah: Studies in
Deuteronomy and its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay (ed. Nili Sacher Fox et al.;
Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns 2009), 339. At the same time, it is reasonable to suppose that this
was Job’s basic assumption in life, which was only undermined through the course of his suffering.
15
Another higher critical procedure in response to the problem of Job 42:7–8 is to remove the God
speeches as a secondary addition. For a good presentation and rebuttal of this thesis, see R. A. F.
MacKenzie, “The Purpose of the Yahweh Speeches in the Book of Job,” Bib 40 (1959): 435–45. J. L.
Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 100, rejects the
possibility of completely separating the poetry from the prose. The prologue of the book is, after all,
necessary so that the dialogues may have a context. The epilogue, however, in Crenshaw’s estimation,
“can be dispensed with altogether. . . .” See similarly, e.g., Moses Buttenweiser, The Book of Job (New
York: Macmillan, 1922), 67–69. For a defense of the importance of the epilogue for the meaning and
message of the book as a whole see Moshe Greenberg, “Reflections on Job’s Theology,” in Studies in
the Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 331. See also the final
sections of this article.
16
Fox, “Job the Pious,” 356 and n. 11; Geller, “Nature’s Answer,” 110; Carol A. Newsom, “The Book
of Job: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in NIB 4:634. See also C. A. Newsom, “The Book
of Job as Polyphonic Text,” JSOT 97 (2002): 87–108.

6
missing textual material that the critic must reconstruct out of thin air.17 What is more,

there is nothing in the introductory chapters of Job that would indicate that Job’s

friends are on the verge of condemning God. On the contrary, it is Job who is

implicitly moving in this direction, as he progresses from blessing God and “not

sinning” in 1:21–22 to “not sinning with his lips” in 2:10. The subtle implication of

the change in wording is that Job, after being additionally stricken with terrible bodily

pain, begins to question God’s justice in his heart, and that he will soon give verbal

expression to these thoughts in his attacks against God.18 This, of course, implies that

Job’s friends will be the ones to unswervingly uphold divine justice. This indicates

that the continuity from the narrative material in Job 2, where Eliphaz, Bildad and

Zophar first enter the story, to the poetic sections of the book, where they offer their

speeches in defense of God, is integral and inseparable. If so, there is no justification

for severing the divine address to Eliphaz and his friends in Job 42:7–9 from the

poetic sections of the book that precede it. This all must derive from the same

author.19 If God condemns the speech of Eliphaz and his friends about God in Job

42:7–9, this must refer to the things they said in the poetic sections of the book, more

or less in the form that we now have it. And if God approves of Job’s speech about

God in these verses, this must also relate to the things Job said in his poetic speeches

17
See n. 20 below.
18
Meir Weiss, The Story of Job’s Beginning: Job 1–2; A Literary Analysis (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983),
71–74. The interpretation is supported by the fact that the distinction between sinning against God
through speech and sinning in thought alone is highlighted in Job 1:5 with reference to Job’s sons,
contra Yair Hoffmann, “The Relation between the Prologue and the Speech-Cycles in Job,” VT 31
(1981): 163–64.
19
So also Shalom Spiegel, “Noah, Danel, and Job: Touching on Canaanite Relics in the Legends of the
Jews,” in Essential Papers on Israel and the Ancient Near East (ed. F. E. Greenspahn; New York: New
York University, 1991), 207. This conclusion is also supported by the literary links that scholars have
noted between the prose and poetry of the book. See Hoffmann, “The Relation.” For further critique of
the contention that Eliphaz and friends sought to induce Job to curse God in an earlier version of the
story, see Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation and Special Studies (New
York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978), 574–75.

7
throughout the book.20 And, of course, even if the higher critical analysis were

accepted as correct, it still would not explain the meaning of the final form of the

text.21 In the book of Job as we now have it, the correct speech of Job can hardly refer

back to the material in the Prologue.

A carefully argued interpretation of the book of Job that has bearing on our

topic was recently offered by Michael V. Fox.22 Fox maintains that the message of the

book of Job “is pietistic, demanding unqualified faith in God’s goodness.” It seeks to

promote human acquiescence to a basically good divine power, in spite of the

apparent evil that is found in the world. Following a traditional understanding of the

message of the whirlwind speeches, Fox sees them as expressing the idea that God’s

ways in the world are good and just, and that how this is so is beyond man’s ability to

understand.23 Job is reprimanded in these speeches both for wrongly denying God’s

equity and goodness, and for assuming that he could fathom God’s ways. Job’s

humble repentance following the divine reprimand plays a pivotal role in the final

unfolding of events, as it gives vital expression to the central lesson that the book, in

Fox’s view, seeks to teach: the proper response to human suffering is silent

resignation before God’s just and inscrutable will. To deny God’s goodness is both

mistaken and presumptuous, but humble repentance after stating such views,

20
This is not meant to imply that there was never an independent folk tale about “Job the pious.” On
the contrary, I follow those who find in Job 42:11–17 the direct continuation and conclusion to the
original folk tale found in Job 1:1–5, 13–22. This story is indeed continuous, and does not rely upon the
hypothesis that lost textual material once bridged the literary gap. This original tale, however, spoke
only of unnamed family and friends who come to console Job and offer him some financial aid (42:11).
It knows nothing of Job’s three sage-friends, the Satan, or Job’s physical affliction. These elements,
though introduced in the book’s Prologue, most naturally derive from the author of the poetic sections
of the book. See Spiegel, “Noah, Danel, and Job,” 203, 207; D. E. Fleming, “Job: The Tale of Patient
Faith and the Book of God’s Dilemma,” VT 44 (1994): 468–82. Thus, the poetic sections of the book of
Job never existed independently, but were written, from the start, as an expansion of the original folk
tale.
21
See Good, In Turns of Tempest, 8–9.
22
Fox, “Job the Pious,” 351–66.
23
See similarly Gordis, The Book of Job, 560.

8
accompanied by silent resignation, can lead to ultimate rapprochement and

restoration.

How does Fox accommodate for the fact that, according to the divine

statement of Job 42:7–8, Job, who denied God’s justice, spoke correctly about God,

whereas his friends, who upheld God’s attribute of justice and promoted Job’s

repentance, spoke incorrectly of him? Job’s friends were wrong about God, according

to Fox, because they claimed that suffering was always punishment for sin, when, in

fact, it sometimes comes for other good or justifiable reasons. The “correct speech” of

Job, on the other hand, refers not to Job’s speeches throughout the book, but to his

humble submission to God in the immediately preceding section, 42:2–6.24 Though

Job, according to Fox, essentially cursed God in his speeches, thereby sinning, and

proving Satan right in his wager with God, Job finally succumbed to the inscrutable

and almighty ruler of the universe, and repented from his sinful speech.25 This is why

Job’s good fortune was finally restored, and why he was even deemed worthy of

praying for forgiveness for his friends’ incorrect speech about God’s absolute

commitment to the principle of retribution. God’s final restoration of Job’s good

24
Fox, “Job the Pious,” 355, 360, n. 16. A similar interpretation was already suggested by Ibn Ezra and
Nahmanides. The latter points to the fact that the text does not literally state that Job spoke correctly
about God (‫)עלי‬, but to God (‫)אלי‬. Job’s speeches throughout the book, however, were mainly
addressed to the friends, Nahmanides tells us. Job’s repentance in 42:2–6, however, was indeed
addressed only to God. Job’s friends, accordingly, face God’s anger in 42:7–8 because they did not
express the same remorse to God that Job did. This is why they must now offer penitence. See also N.
Whybray, Job: Readings (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 172–73; S. Porter, “The
Message of the Book of Job: Job 42:7b as Key to Interpretation?” Evangelical Quarterly 63 (1991):
291–304; D. Timmer, “God’s Speeches, Job’s Responses, and the Problem of Coherence in the Book
of Job: Sapiential Pedagogy Revisited,” CBQ 71 (2009): 301–3. Yet, how can God blame Job’s friends
for failing to repent as Job did, when Job’s repentance came in the wake of a frontal assault directed
squarely at him by God? Surely the friends would have similarly repented had they been so addressed
by God beforehand. Furthermore, if the source of God’s anger is their failure to repent of their
theological positions the way Job assumedly did, why should God insist that Job pray on their behalf?
Should God not simply insist that they follow Job’s example and take back their words?
25
Fox claims that Job’s harsh accusations constitute cursing of God, and that Satan consequently won
the wager (“Job the Pious,” 360–61). Even if the identification between harsh speech and laying a curse
could theoretically be sustained, this would imply, according to Fox himself (ibid, 360), that Satan
succeeded in deconstructing the moral order of the universe, proving that human righteousness is
nothing but self interest, and divine reward mere bribery! This hardly accords with the moral of the Job
story, as Fox interprets it.

9
fortunes, in spite of Job’s previous sinful speech, is the final demonstration of God’s

essentially good, even gracious, nature. God is quick to forgo punishment, and eager

to restore those who repent.

To a great extent, much of Fox’s reading of the book of Job stands or falls on

an interpretation of Job 42:7–8 that can reasonably sustain it. The interpretation of

42:7–8 provided by Fox, however, is clearly forced. First of all, the text speaks of

speech about God. Job’s “confession” in 42:2–6, however, is not speech about God. If

anything, it is speech about Job. Job here confesses that he was wrong to speak

without knowledge. He does not, however, say very much about God himself. Nor is

there anything strikingly heroic or obviously meritorious about Job’s resigning

himself to the overpowering will of God when this resignation comes so belatedly and

in the wake of a dramatic and terrifying divine theophany. There is therefore no real

explanation as to why Job is suddenly the source of such divine pride in our passage.26

Most important, Job 42:7-8 contrasts the “correct speech” about the God of

Job with the “incorrect speech” about God of Eliphaz and his friends. The correct

speech of Job must therefore correspond to the incorrect speech of the friends in a

direct way. Yet there is nothing in Job’s words of submission to God that stands in

correlation or conflict with the speeches of the friends. The two statements do not

really stand in any relation to one another at all. The speeches of Job and his friends

throughout the book, on the other hand, do stand in clear association with one another.

There, each party contests and contravenes the truth of the other party’s claims, and

26
It also seems imprudent to place so much interpretive weight on Job’s response to the whirlwind
speeches in 42:1–6. Not only is the text not entirely clear, but the narrator in Job 42:7 makes no
mention of Job’s previous response to God. God speaks to Eliphaz, the narrator tells us, “after God
spoke these words to Job,” and not “after Job spoke these words to God” (Good, In Turns of Tempest,
380). Furthermore, God too makes no reference to Job’s response to him when he affirms to Eliphaz
that Job must not be maligned by his fellows. In sum, the Epilogue completely ignores Job’s response
to the whirlwind speeches.

10
they both speak directly about God. There can be little doubt, therefore, that if God, in

Job 42:7, contrasts the incorrect speech about God of the friends with the correct

speech about God of Job, the reference of the latter must be to Job’s irreverent

speeches throughout the book, which God must somehow be commending. Yet if this

is so, one can hardly maintain, with Fox, that the book unequivocally promotes silent

acceptance of God’s good if unfathomable ways.27

Another interesting approach to our difficulty was suggested by E. Dhorme.28

According to Dhorme, the lesson of the whirlwind speeches is not only that God’s

ways are mysterious, but also that it is presumptuous for man to attempt to discuss

them in any positive way. “The words of Yahweh have no other aim but to show how

vain and futile it is to presume to speak about the nature of God and His works. God

alone knows these marvels and He alone can give voice to them.”29 This, then, is the

reason why God reprimanded Job in the whirlwind speeches. Job attempted to explain

his suffering by making assertions about the nature of God. God’s ways will perforce
27
There appears to be a bit of inconsistency in Fox’s reading of the book of Job. On the one hand, Fox
sees the book as affirming God’s goodness and demanding “unqualified faith” therein. The testing of
Job served the vital purpose of proving that God and man are not “colluding in a game of bribery and
paybacks.” This “local suspension of the workings of justice” was the only way for God to uphold his
own justice, and the moral order of the world (360). The reader learns: “Inexplicable suffering has a
role in the divine moral economy, for it makes true piety possible” (363). At the same time, Fox depicts
the test as an expression of God’s personal need for “unconditional loyalty,” even under the most
extreme conditions. “Playing on this divine insecurity,” Fox states, “the Adversary can goad God (2:3)
into testing the moral core of humanity’s finest” (362). The reader learns that “God cares more about
human fidelity, rigorously defined, than the perfection of his own justice” (366). God seeks to show the
Satan, and to demonstrate to himself, that he is loyally worshipped even in the most impossible
situations. Accordingly, God endorses the destruction of Job’s family and servants and the terrible
emotional and physical torture of Job himself, not because this is the only way to affirm the moral
order of the world, but because God, in his insecurity, needs demonstrations of extreme and absolute
fidelity, and this is more important to Him than justice. I would agree with Fox’s second
characterization of the test rather than the first. After all, if the purpose of the test were only to affirm
the reality of human righteousness there would be no need to inflict upon Job such extreme torture and
suffering. It is important to note, however, that this characterization of the test as one of personal
loyalty presents justice as something that God willingly sacrifices on the altar of His vain desire for
aggrandizement, and not as something that he suspends reluctantly and unavoidably in order to make
true piety possible and thereby uphold the moral order of the world. Accordingly, one can hardly
maintain that the purpose of the book is to demand unqualified faith in God’s goodness. The book, after
all, tells the reader quite openly that goodness and justice are secondary in God’s hierarchy of values.
What is first for God is His own glorification. All means are legitimate for the attainment of this end.
28
E. Dohrme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (trans. H. Knight; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984),
lviii–lx; lxxx–lxxxi; xci–xcii.
29
Idem, Job, lviii.

11
remain forever a mystery, and it is not man’s place to try to explain that which is

beyond him. This is also why God expresses his anger at Job’s friends. Their rigid

theology of divine retribution was, as all theologies about God’s nature must be,

incorrect or inaccurate, and they were wrong for having expressed it. Unlike the

friends, however, Job was not entirely incorrect in everything that he said. On the

contrary, Job was completely right about the things that he negated. Job correctly

negated his own personal guilt, and he correctly negated the theology of retribution

propounded by his friends. God thus confirmed in Job 42:7-8 that Job spoke correctly

when he rejected the theology of retribution of his friends, even if he was

reprimanded in the whirlwind speeches for having “discussed too vehemently

questions which surpassed the scope of his mind.”30 E. W. Nicholson makes a similar

distinction. Job is censured in the whirlwind speeches, according to Nicholson, for

“the bitter accusation that God is unjust and his creation a travesty.” He is

commended by God in 42:7–8, however, for correctly exposing the falseness of the

belief in “the automatic harvest of the righteous.”31

The basic idea that Job is reprimanded in the whirlwind speeches for his

attacks against God, yet ultimately vindicated in Job 42:7–8 in his claim that he had

not sinned, may well be correct in the final analysis. (See below.) It is unclear,

however, how this can legitimately be made to fit in with the wording of 42:7, “you

have not spoken the truth about me as has my servant Job.” As I have already

indicated, the formulation here requires that the two speeches about God, that of Job

and that of his friends, must stand in direct correlation. Job and his friends clearly

disagree throughout the book on two issues that are inseparable for them: the guilt of

30
Idem, Job, lxxxi.
31
Ernest W. Nicholson, “The Limits of Theodicy as a Theme of the Book of Job,” in Wisdom in
Ancient Israel: Essays in Honor of J. A. Emerton (ed. John Day et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 71–82, at 81–82.

12
Job and the justice of God. Whereas Job denies that he is guilty of (severe) sin and

therefore affirms that God is unjust, the friends deny that God is unjust and therefore

affirm that Job is guilty of sin. It is illegitimate to contrast the “incorrect speech about

God” of the friends, referring to the entirety of their position as an indivisible totality,

with the “correct speech about God” of Job, referring selectively to his claim of his

personal innocence alone.32 What is more, Job’s assertions about his innocence, when

severed from his conclusions about God’s injustice, can hardly be referred to as

speech “about God.” Finally, if Job is to be praised for rightly negating the positive

theology of strict retribution, why are the friends not equally praised for rightly

negating Job’s positive theology of divine cruelty?

Some interpreters have taken the comparison between the incorrect speech of

the friends and the correct speech of Job in relative and comparative rather than

absolute terms. Accordingly, Job is not really praised for saying about God something

correct in an unqualified sense. Rather, in relation to the speeches of the friends, the

speeches of Job were closer to the truth. Job’s friends did not speak as rightly about

God as Job did.33 Thus, Job is scolded in the whirlwind speeches for the false things

32
The same critique applies to the analogous interpretation of H. H. Rowley, Job (Century Bible;
London: Nelson, 1970), 344: “God is concerned only with what has been said about him. The friends
had said many true things about God, and Job had said many wrong things, for which he hand been
condemned in the Divine speech. Had Job not just repented of the things he had said, and confessed
that they were wrong? But the friends had maintained that merit and experience were invariably and
manifestly matched, while Job had declared that they certainly were not. In this Job was right, though
he had drawn wrong deductions from it; but the friends were certainly wrong, as the OT again and
again makes clear.” Again, it is not legitimate to pick and chose which God statements made by Job are
referred to as correct and which ones made by the friends are referred to as incorrect. The text
compares and contrasts the statements about God of Job and of his friends as a whole and without any
limitation or specification.
33
Matitiahu Tsevat, “The Meaning of the Book of Job,” HUCA 37 (1966): 73–106, at 106: “The error
that Job upheld and was compelled to renounce was yet closer to the truth than the arguments of the
friends for all the support of many authorities that these arguments enjoyed.” Gordis, The Book of Job,
494: “Job’s courageous and honorable challenge to God is more acceptable to Him than conventional
defenses of God’s justice that rest upon distortions of reality.” Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job
(OTL; London: SCM, 1985) 583: “The blunt and forthright accusations of Job from the depths of his
agony are closer to the truth than the conventional unquestioning pronouncements of the friends.”

13
he said about God, but praised afterwards because those false things were more

truthful than the false statements about God of the friends.

This resolution to our difficulty, however, is also problematic. The idea that

God’s final divine verdict would consist of a comparison of the varying degrees to

which the competing statements about God succeeded in approximating the ultimate

truth about God’s nature seems very forced. It would imply that though Job’s friends

approximated the truth about God to a more limited extent, Job came closer to

reaching the ultimate goal. Does this mean that Job must pray on behalf of his friends

because, let us say on a scale from one to ten, Job’s friends got a score of only four,

while Job got a higher score of six or seven? This hardly seems to make much sense.

If Job’s friends are condemned by God for their false speech, and are even in mortal

danger of being afflicted by God’s wrath, this must surely indicate that they spoke

falsely in absolute terms, and not because they spoke less rightly than Job did. If this

be the case, the text must be stating that what Job said, which is contrasted with what

the friends said, was true in absolute terms as well, and that God is proud of him for

stating it. If so, however, why did God reprimand him in the whirlwind speeches?

Some have suggested, either in combination with the previous approach, or

independent of it, that the word ‫ נכונה‬should be taken to connote “with sincerity” or

“truthfully” rather than “that which is correct” or “the truth.” Accordingly, Job is

commended for (more) honestly and courageously searching for and expressing the

truth as he understands it (cf. 27:2–6). In the speeches from the whirlwind, God

reprimands Job for incorrectly asserting that God is guilty of callousness and

injustice. In Job 42:7–8, on the other hand, God praises Job for the sincerity, integrity,

and courage with which he expresses his inaccurate position. Job’s friends, in

contrast, timidly spew forth dogmatic formulas that were not born of real inner

14
struggle or an honest search for the truth. Their main interest, at best, was to preserve

and safeguard the religious doctrines that they had lived by.34 Thus, even if they were

at least partially correct in maintaining that God’s ways are just, their speech was

grounded in ulterior motives—their personal desire to maintain their own cognitive

security.

Possibly, some interpreters seem to intimate, Job’s friends did not even truly

believe in God’s justice at all, though they espoused it repeatedly. What motivated

their speech in this reading was not the need to insulate their worldview of faith from

the ominous encroachment of doubt, but the hypocritical desire to flatter God with

praise they knew to be vacuous so that they might ingratiate themselves with him (cf.

34
For the understanding of Job 42:7–8 as contrasting the sincerity and integrity of Job with the rigid
dogmatism or even outright hypocrisy of the friends, see Marvin H. Pope, Job (AB 15; Garden City:
Doubleday, 1965), 290: “If this verse refers to the arguments of the Dialogue, it is as magnificent a
vindication as Job could have hoped for, proving that God values the integrity of the impatient protester
and abhors the hypocrites who would heap accusations on a tormented soul to uphold their theological
position.” This interpretation appears to have been anticipated already by Rashi in his comments on Job
13:15–16. See Habel’s formulation (Book of Job, 66–67): “Job’s presentation of the dark side of God is
acknowledged as a more honest expression of the truth than the traditional formulations of justice
promoted by the friends (42:7).” See also Tsvi Adar, Humanistic Values in the Bible (trans. Mrs. Victor
Tcherikover; New York: Reconstructionist Press, 1967), 404–407; Spiegel, “Noah, Danel and Job,”
209; J. E. Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1988), 539 and n. 2. Edward
L. Greenstein, building on Kant, highlights the distinction between truth in the objective sense and
sincerity or truthfulness, and sees God as commending Job in 42:7–8 for the truthful manner in which
he confronted God. See Edward L. Greenstein, “Truth or Theodicy? Speaking Truth to Power in the
Book of Job,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin 27 (2006): 238–258. (See, however, Greenstein’s review of
Duck-Woo Nam’s Talking about God. Here the author provides compelling philological evidence in
support of the conventional meaning of nākôn as “that which is true.”) Greenstein does not attempt,
though, to harmonize this with the whirlwind speeches by seeing in them God’s rebuke for Job’s
theological inaccuracies. Rather, Greenstein reads the whirlwind speeches from a forensic point of
view, and sees God as disqualifying Job’s competence to prosecute him. This disqualification,
however, is strictly technical, and may therefore cohere well with the divine assertion that Job spoke
the truth, or truthfully, about God. See Edward L. Greenstein, “A Forensic Understanding of the
Speech from the Whirlwind,” in Texts, Temples and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (ed.
Michael V. Fox et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 241–58. Though I find Greenstein’s
forensic reading of the whirlwind speeches compelling, I do not believe that it provides a satisfying
resolution to the conflict with the text of Job 42:7–8, even if we were to accept the thesis that the latter
refers to truthfulness rather than truth. After all, the God of the whirlwind speeches does not merely
disqualify Job’s credentials as a witness to God’s activities in a dispassionate manner. Rather, God
rebukes Job severely and even brutally for the very attempt to put him on trial (see Greenstein, “The
Problem of Evil,” 353–54), which God implicitly depicts as highly presumptuous and insolent in the
extreme. If so, however, how can God go on in 42:7–8 to proudly commend Job for the truthfulness
and sincerity that he exhibited in those same deplorable speeches?

15
6:21; 13:7–10).35 They are thus not simply less sincere than Job. They are not sincere

at all. Job, in contrast, represents fearless integrity not only in comparison to his

friends, but absolutely and in his own right. God commends him because he is a

critical thinker who boldly challenges conventional beliefs and says precisely what he

thinks regardless of the cost. In sum, the friends either spoke about God without the

same degree of personal integrity as Job did, or alternatively, they spoke about him

altogether hypocritically and cynically. And Job spoke about God either with greater

integrity than his friends, or with thoroughly commendable fearlessness.36

This approach, however, is fraught with difficulties. Even if we may agree that

the speech of Job’s friends about God lacked the deep personal integrity and daring

that characterized the anguished God-talk of Job, is this in and of its self reason for

God to punish the friends? If Job’s unswerving commitment to speaking the absolute

truth about God as he sees it is indeed heroic and fearless, why should God threaten to

punish the friends so severely for being less than heroic? What crime is there, within
35
The degree to which the friends truly believed in what they said about God is evaluated variously
among those who follow this approach. Adar seems closest to intimating that the friends spoke of
God’s justice cynically and without any genuine belief. See Adar, Humanistic Values, 406: “The root
of this need lies in their fear that God may punish them: ‘For now ye are become His, he see a terror,
and are afraid’ (6, 21). If they agree with Job’s words, they may be punished for blaming God—and
therefore they must justify God. This justification is easy, safe, worthwhile and conducive to success.”
Greenstein, who sees the book as presenting Job in unequivocally positive terms, is a bit less harsh than
Adar in his evaluation of the friends. See Greenstein, “Truth or Theodicy,” 248: “Their words do not
touch Job’s heart because they are insincere. . . . The friends, on this reading, know deep down that the
dogmas to which they adhere do not come to grips with a case of innocent suffering like that of Job.
But they rehearse their inadequate theodicies anyway.” See also Amos Hakham, ‫( ספר איוב‬Da’at Mikra;
Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1970), 99, 330.
36
A unique version of this approach is found in E. A. Phillips, “Speaking Truthfully: Job’s Friends and
Job,” BBR 18 (2008): 31–43. Phillips takes the ‫ אל‬in 42:7 as “to” rather than “about,” and translates:
“you have not spoken to Me in the right manner and my servant Job has,” and suggests that the friends
are contrasted with Job in that they never address God as he does. According to Phillips (40), “Job
repeatedly addressed God while the friends never made any appeal, whatsoever, on behalf of Job to the
God whom they were defending.” The fact that Job, in spite of his accusations, addressed God directly,
and did not merely speak about Him in the third person as did the friends, testifies to the fact that “his
deepest concern was his life with God” (42). Again: “God declared unequivocally (two times) that
speaking correctly meant speaking to him” (41). In spite of the intrinsic appeal of this Buberian
reading, it cannot be sustained. It makes little sense for the text to refer to the failure of Job’s friends to
intercede on his behalf as “not properly addressing God.” The assumed problem, after all, is not they
failed to address God properly, but that they failed to address Him at all! Furthermore, since the
speeches of Job and his friends are being contrasted they must directly correspond to one another.
However, there is no such correspondence between Job’s accusations addressed directly to God, and
the failure of the friends to appeal to God for help on behalf of Job.

16
the worldview of the Hebrew Bible, in seeking to defend the justice of God with the

added human motivation of maintaining one’s own cognitive security? Let us recall

that Job himself refused to challenge God’s behavior, even after his possessions and

children were taken from him, until he was stricken with his own personal bodily

pain. If so, one can hardly fault Job’s friends, who are not physically stricken, and

who cannot share Job’s inner certainty about his personal innocence, for “rigidly”

standing up for God’s just character. Indeed, at least according to one reading, in 16:4

Job admits that were the situation reversed, and his friends were the sufferers and he

the comforter, he would say to them precisely the things they say to him.37

The contention that in Job 42:7–8 God deems the affirmations about God

made by Job’s friends not merely feebleminded or intellectually timid in comparison

with those made by Job, but downright cynical and hypocritical in and of themselves,

is particularly open to criticism. There is little basis for assuming that the friends of

Job said outwardly that God is just while secretly harboring an inner recognition that

this is not so.38 What could have brought Job’s friends to arrive at such a nihilistic

recognition? How could they know that their time-honored affirmations about God’s

justice were really untrue? Again, if Job himself only came to question God’s

goodness after he was afflicted in his own body, why should we doubt that Job’s

friends, who were not so afflicted, maintained a genuine conviction in God’s

37
For this understanding of the passage see Greenstein, “Truth or Theodicy,” 247–48. Contrast this
with Clines, Job 1–20, 379.
38
See Greenberg, “Reflections on Job’s Theology,” 331, who concedes that the friends argued their
position about God “in good faith.” Note also the comment of A. B. Davidson, The Book of Job,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 331: “The three friends, and Elihu too, whatever the
faults of their logic may have been, are yet represented as speaking in all honesty and with all
reverence in their defence of God’s dealings with men.” It is true that Job refers to his friends as
“smearers of lies” (13:4) and “false comforters” (16:2). This does not mean, however, that Job sees his
friends as dishonestly professing a theology that they do not really believe in. Rather, Job is affirming
that the honest faith of his friends leads them to make false assertions about Job’s allegedly sinful
behavior, and to offer the false comfort that repentance over this behavior will lead to the restoration of
his happiness. We must also keep in mind that Job speaks out of terrible anguish. In his suffering, and
in the heat of debate, he may exaggerate the truth (cf., e.g., 6:27). Thus, we should be wary of
identifying too closely with every accusation that he hurls as his friends.

17
goodness, and offered it in good faith. Of course, there is something rather callous in

the way Job’s friends fail to empathize with his anguished theological position, and

even go on to affirm, in the midst of his misery, that his outbursts against God merely

confirm that he is a sinner. Strictly speaking, however, this offense relates primarily to

the insensitive manner in which the friends spoke to and about Job. It thus correlates

poorly with the wording of the passage in question, which emphasizes, according to

the proponents of this approach, the dishonest manner in which the friends spoke

about God.

One may also question the contention that the book presents Job as thoroughly

and heroically fearless in his confrontation with God.39 As long as Job had his own

health, let us recall, he accepted God’s evil without question. He only challenged God

after he was suffering terrible pain in his own body, had little left to lose, and was

convinced that he did not have a long time to live in any event (7:21; 17:13–16). To a

great extent, the idea that God praises Job for his fearless integrity in 42:7–8 only

makes sense if one follows those who see Job as responding insolently to the God of

the whirlwind speeches in 42:1–6 (see n. 1 above). It makes little sense for God to

commend Job’s fearless integrity after Job was cowed into submission! The

understanding of 42:1–6 is not, however, unambiguously clear, and I, for one, find the

reading according to which Job here puts God in his place difficult to accept. One

may also wonder how it is that a deity who supposedly admires honest speech to such

a great extent that he publicly commends his great detractor Job for honestly deriding

him, should himself speak so evasively in the whirlwind speeches, carefully avoiding

any honest reference to his wager with the Satan.

39
Greenstein, “Truth or Theodicy,” 258 and n. 87. For Greenstein, Job is “the book’s only unequivocal
hero.”

18
 Finally, had the author sought to express the idea that Job’s friends spoke

without the sincerity and integrity that characterized Job’s discourse, he would have

stated that they did not speak ‫( באמת‬cf. 1 Sam 12:24; Ps 145:18); ‫( בתמים ובאמת‬Josh

24:14); ‫( בלב שלם‬2 Kgs 20:3; Isa. 38:3); ‫( באמונה‬Isa 59:4; 2 Chr 19:9), or the like. The

basic implication of speech that is ‫נכונה‬, on the other hand, is that it is true and

correct.40 We may well understand the word to imply not only the factual correctness

of the statement, but also the truthful manner in which it is stated.41 That which is

false is most often stated with the intention of deceiving, and that which is true is

most often stated in good faith and with good intentions. This is especially true in

juridical settings such as the one presented by the book of Job.42 But one cannot

legitimately separate the two connotations and understand our passage as referring

only to the manner in which the statements were offered. If Job’s friends are said to

have spoken falsely, this clearly implies not only that they had improper and dishonest

intentions (on which see below), but also that the content of what they said was

objectively false.43 The same must apply then for Job, who is contrasted with them. If

Job is said to have spoken correctly and properly, then what he said was not only

spoken with honest intentions and complete integrity, but was also correct in and of

itself. But, once again, if what Job said about God was both presented with

40
For ‫ נכונה‬as “the truth” see Greenstein, “Review of Duck-Woo Nam, Talking about God.”
41
For the rejection of ‫ נכונה‬as signifying “sincerity” see F. Delitzsch, Job, Two Volumes in One (trans.
F. Bolton; in C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes, Volume
IV; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1985) ii, 386; Pope, Job, 350; Newsom, Job, 634. Though
Delitzsch rejects the possibility of taking ‫ נכונה‬as signifying sincerity, he goes on to affirm that
“objective truth and subjective truthfulness are here certainly blended in the notion ‘correct.’”
42
See nn. 56–58 and 74 below.
43
See the comment of Davidson, The Book of Job, 331: “Neither can the charge made against the
friends here be merely that brought against them by Job, that they did not speak in honesty and
sincerity (ch. vi. 25, xiii. 7), though this may be included. Rather, the friends are blamed for speaking
in regard to God that which was not right, or true, in itself; and the reference must be to the theories
they put forth in regard to God’s providence and the meaning of afflictions. On this point the friends
spoke in regard to God what was not right, while Job spoke that which was right (ch. xxi., xxiii.–
xxiv.).”

19
commendable integrity and factually correct as well, why did God reprimand Job in

the whirlwind speeches?

An important approach to the whirlwind speeches sees them as affirming a

theology of divine transcendence beyond the bounds of justice and morality.44 God

reprimands Job in the whirlwind speeches not for asserting that God is callous or

unfair, but for complaining about it, and demanding that God behave any other way.

God shows Job in the whirlwind speeches that the world is founded on sheer power

and divine caprice, or on a particularly developed amoral sense of esthetic pleasure.45

God, as the supreme creator of all that is, can play with his toys precisely as He

pleases. Human demands that God subject himself to a moral order are nothing less

than brash impertinence. This approach to the message of the whirlwind speeches,

needless to say, is much easier to coordinate with the passage in Job 42:7–8. Indeed,

some representatives of this approach even invoke Job 42:7–8 for support.46 The

passage confirms, it is sometimes claimed, that Job indeed spoke the truth about God

when he argued throughout the book that God does not play by the rules of justice.47

The whirlwind speeches merely offer Job further evidence from the entire cosmos of

44
Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961), 165–6;
Tsevat, “The Meaning of the Book of Job;” Eddy Zemach, “What Did God Answer Job?” Mo’znayim
61/9 (1989): 14–17 [Hebrew]; Habel, Book of Job, 65–66; Good, “The Problem of Evil;” Greenstein,
“In Job’s Face/Facing Job;” and others. For a critique, see Fox, “Job the Pious,” esp. 352 n. 3; Geller,
“Nature’s Answer,” 132, n. 18. I would suggest that rather than propounding a deliberate and carefully
reasoned theology that unequivocally affirms that God is not bound by the dictates of justice, the
speeches from the whirlwind exhibit God’s impassioned rhetorical attempt to subdue Job into
submission while at the same time remaining as evasive and noncommittal as possible with regard to
the issue of justice. God, in this reading, does not seek to definitively proclaim that the dictates of
justice are meaningless for him. He simply seeks to affirm that he does not have to give an accounting
of his actions to the insignificant Job. Even if he does imply that he is above justice, God is being
emotional, and does not necessarily want to be held to his word here. In any event, I would insist that
God’s true position on the problem of evil cannot be derived from his speeches from the whirlwind
alone. Any determination of God’s position must also take into account his subsequent speech to
Eliphaz, and his final restoration of Job. See below.
45
Zemach, “What Did God Answer Job?”
46
Kaufmann, Faith of a Heretic, 165–66; Greenstein, “In Job’s Face/Facing Job,” 302. See also Clines,
“Does the Book of Job Suggest,” 107.
47
See Habel, Book of Job, 67: “In a backhanded way, Yahweh’s words to Eliphaz vindicate Job’s
integrity publicly and concede that Job had exposed the ‘truth’ about God’s treatment of humans like
Job. The ironic circle is complete: Job was afflicted without cause and subsequently acclaimed for
demonstrating that God may act in just that way.”

20
just how right he really was!48 The friends, who contravened Job’s assertions and

claimed that God is just, were wrong about God, and God angrily condemns them for

misrepresenting him.

Difficulties, however, persist. It remains unclear, in particular, why the same

speeches of Job that evoke divine anger in the whirlwind speeches find not only

vindication in God’s address to Eliphaz, but even praise! Let us recall that Job’s

misguided insistence that God should run the world by the laws of justice is integral

to the thrust of his outcries throughout the book. Why, then, does God, after

castigating Job for his impertinent attempt to tell God how he should run the world,

subsequently brag to Eliphaz about “his servant Job” just because in those same

impertinent speeches Job happened to have spoken “the truth” about God’s injustice?

Is this something that is worthy of such divine pride and admiration? Is not the

manner in which one relates to God at least as important as (if not more important

than) the degree of accuracy with which one characterizes him? Again, it was

specifically Eliphaz and his friends who maintained that God should not be expected

to give an accounting of his ways before man, and that man should accept God’s

decree in humility and contrition. Even if they inaccurately maintained that God’s

retributive justice is impeccable, the fact remains that they commendably upheld his

authority to act without being subject to human questioning, where Job did not. Why,

then, doesn’t God praise the friends for the basic appropriateness of their stance on

the way man should relate to God? Why does he condemn them instead for what

would seem to be little more than a technical error?

Finally, this reading still leaves the final restoration of Job unaccounted for. If

Job was admirably accurate in his negative characterization of God, and if this is
48
Greenstein, “In Job’s Face/Facing Job,” 313: “… God knows what Job knows about God. God only
has more evidence, and he flaunts it in Job’s face. In the end he can only confirm what Job had said.”

21
precisely what God sought to affirm in his speeches from the whirlwind and in his

address to Eliphaz, why does God double Job’s fortunes in the end? Does not this

ending confirm the incorrect and condemned theology of Job’s friends? Does it not

prove that those who act in ways that evoke divine pride will ultimately receive their

just rewards?

Is Theological Accuracy a Biblical Virtue?

Before I offer my own suggestion, I would like to raise one basic difficulty that is

shared by almost all of the approaches mentioned above, and which will serve as a

counterpoint to my own position. Most of the above mentioned approaches follow the

assumption that the word ‫ אלי‬in the phrase ‫ כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה‬should be taken as ‫עלי‬,

“about me.” The decision that God renders in Job 42:7–8 thus relates to the realm of

theology, statements about the nature of God.49 God comes in a whirlwind to

determine who spoke correctly about God. God is proud of him whose theology is

correct, and angry at the ones whose theology is wrong. Norman Whybray writes,50

To the author of the book, this [theology of retribution of the friends] was not

only untrue; it was blasphemy. It was those who held and taught this view who

were ipso facto the real sinners. This spirit of uncompromising hostility to the

religious opinions of other members of the same community, sometimes

expressed, as here, in exaggerated language (nebala) is a common feature of a

certain strand of Old Testament literature (cf. e.g., Ps. 73; Isa. 65).

In a similar vein Moshe Greenberg writes,51

49
See Davidson, The Book of Job, 331: “The Lord blames the three friends for not speaking that which
was right concerning Him, not concerning Job; He also commends Job for speaking what was right
concerning Him.”
50
Whybray, Job, 172.
51
Greenberg, “Reflections on Job’s Theology,” 331.

22
 How highly the author prizes right knowledge of God is revealed by his final

estimate of Job’s friends. Although they argued in evident good faith, in the

Epilogue God is angry at them and declares them in need of forgiveness

(42.7–8). Wrong thinking about God is reprehensible. One might say that an

aim of the author of Job is to warn men away from such culpable

misconceptions. After Job, God is not willing to be conceived of in the

friends’ terms; after Job, such views are abhorrent to him.

However, the idea that Job and his friends are judged with regard to the

correctness or incorrectness of their theological positions is extremely problematic.

Generally speaking, theological formulations are not treated in the Hebrew Bible the

way they are, for example, in later Christian tradition.52 No character in the Hebrew

Bible is praised or condemned, rewarded or punished, because of the correctness or

52
See M. Buber, Two Types of Faith: A Study of the Interpenetration of Judaism and Christianity (New
York: Harper, 1961). Buber contrasts the prepositional “faith that” of Paul and later Christianity with
the existential “faith in” of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and Jesus. The contrast between Christianity’s
emphasis on creed and Judaism’s emphasis on deed has been often and repeatedly noted. See, e.g., R.
T. Herford, The Truth About the Pharisees (New York: Menorah Press, 1925), 36–37; Samuel
Sandmel, We Jews and You Christians: An Inquiry Into Attitudes (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1967),
62–74; Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Westiminster, 1987),
60–62; 103; 128–9. In any event, it is abundantly clear that there is no attempt in the Hebrew Bible to
present any specific theological perspective concerning the nature of God as a divinely required tenet
that must be affirmed. See the important critique of Gerhard von Rad’s Old Testament Theology in H.
W. F. Saggs, The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel (London: Athlone Press,
1978), 64–68, and 204, n. 14. Significant in this context is also the question of the place of theology in
the formation of the Hebrew canon. Note the comments of Sid Z. Leiman, “Inspiration and Canonicity:
Reflections on the Formation of the Biblical Canon,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition: Volume
Two; Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period (ed. E. P. Sanders et al.; London: SCM Press;
1981), 56–63, esp. 62: “Books written in Hebrew and ascribed to the biblical period which challenged
central halakic teaching of the rabbis were ipso facto excluded from the biblical canon. Thus, the book
of Jubilees, which is predicated upon a calendar at variance with the rabbinic calendar, could not be
considered a serious candidate for inclusion in the biblical canon. A call to celebrate all the festivals on
the ‘wrong’ days of the year… could only be viewed as rank heresy. I stress ‘books which challenged
central halakic teaching of the rabbis’, for books which challenged central theological teachings of the
rabbis, while problematic, were not necessarily excluded from the biblical canon. Ecclesiastes is a case
in point. Its seemingly antinomian, pessimistic, and often contradictory sentiments left the rabbis
nonplussed. Despite the theological problems it created for the rabbis, Ecclesiastes retained its position
in the biblical canon precisely because it did not challenge central halakic practices in any substantive
way.”

23
incorrectness of his or her theological conception of God.53 They are praised or

condemned, rewarded or punished, for the correctness or appropriateness of their

actions. Contra Whybray, the sinners of Isa 65 are not condemned for their

theological conceptions but for their illicit practices.54 To the very limited extent that

theological speculation about God is at all assessed, this assessment is made not by

standards of objective “correctness,” but in light of how it is applied to life. Thus,

theological notions about God’s providence will be regarded as sinful when they are

propounded so as to promote active rebellion against God’s law (cf., e.g., Ps 73:11

[see below]; 94:7; Zeph 1:12; Ezek 18:25–29). Yet there is surely nothing inherently

rebellious in Job’s friends’ act of expounding a theology of divine justice, even if it

may be deemed incorrect or inaccurate. And there is surely nothing particularly

meritorious, in and of its self, in Job’s act of expounding a theology of divine cruelty

and caprice, even if it be deemed completely correct. The entire tendency to interpret

the divine verdict of Job 42:7–8 as a verdict about theological accuracy seems to me

to be inherently anachronistic, reflecting a “Christian” mode of thinking.55

A growing body of recent scholarship on the book of Job has come to

highlight the importance of the legal discourse reflected therein for a full appreciation

53
Most instructive is the speech of Rahab in Josh 2:9–13. Rahab states that the entire Canaanite
population is terrified of the Israelites because they have heard of the miracles performed for them by
the Lord and realize that “the Lord your God is God in the heaven above and on the earth below” (v.
11). This recognition of the God of Israel on the part of the Canaanites, however, in no way stands to
their credit. They are destined for destruction because they live in the land designated for Israel. Even
Rahab is saved only because of her act of protecting the spies. It is true that the Pentateuch presents
God punishing Israelites of the desert period for implicitly denying the divine character of the exodus
from Egypt (Num. 16:12–15, 28–34; cf. Exod. 16:2–4, 6–7; Num. 20:4–5, 12). This denial, however,
concerns God’s involvement in a specific event in the historical past rather than a conceptual
characterization of the nature of the Godhead.
54
The proto-sectarianism of the Persian period, like that of the later Second Temple period, centered on
matters of law and cult, rather than theology. See Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Interpretation and the
Tendency to Sectarianism,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 2: Aspects of Judaism in the
Graeco-Roman Period (ed. E. P. Sanders et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 1–26, esp. 4–7.
55
We may compare the following comment of Saggs, Encounter with the Divine, 68, “By imposing the
concepts of ‘faith’ and ‘Credo’ upon the Old Testament data, von Rad is attempting to force the
evidence into a Christian straitjacket.”

24
of the book’s significance.56 The book of Job abounds in forensic terminology and

metaphors, and appears to depict the characters engaged in legal proceedings of one

kind or another.57 According to this approach, when the Lord appears out of the

whirlwind he appears not so much as theologian coming to settle issues of dogma or

faith, but as judge in the courtroom, coming to address matters of legal dispute.58 I

would suggest that this same forensic approach should apply to the divine verdict

against Job’s friends in 42:7–8. If God’s address to Job is largely legal in character,

coming in response to Job’s dispute with him, his address to the friends immediately

thereafter should also belong within the legal sphere. The offense of the friends

should suit the juridical context of the book, and consist of something that would

typically be punished in a court of law. In the following analysis of 42:7–8 I will

attempt to identify what that offense might be.

A Textual Solution to the Exegetical Difficulties

Little consensus has been attained with regard to the interpretation of Job 42:7–8. The

fact that so great a variety of divergent interpretations continues to appear with regard

to this passage testifies to the impasse that has been reached. I suggest that this

56
Sylvia Huberman Scholnick, Lawsuit Drama in the Book of Job (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University,
1977); Bruce Zuckerman, Job the Silent: A Study in Historical Counterpoint (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 104–17; Claus Westermann, The Structure of the Book of Job: A Form–
Critical Analysis (trans. C. A. Muenchow; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 17–30; Habel, Book of Job,
54–57; Yair Hoffman, A Blemished Perfection: The Book of Job in Context (JSOTSupSer 213;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 142–72; Carol A. Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of
Moral Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 150–61; F. Rachel Magdalene, On the
Scales of Righteousness: New-Babylonian Trial Law and the Book of Job (Providence, Rhode Island:
Brown Judaic Studies, 2007).
57
For a helpful presentation of some of the major disputed issues related to the trial motif in the book
of Job see Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness, 6–8 with footnotes.
58
For divergent approaches to the whirlwind speeches within a forensic context see, e.g., Greenstein,
“A Forensic Understanding of the Speech from the Whirlwind;” Sylvia Huberman Scholnick, “Poetry
in the Courtroom: Job 38–41,” in Directions in Hebrew Poetry (ed. Elaine Follis; Sheffield: JSOT,
1987), 185–204; Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness, 247–62.

25
impasse can be broken by reading, with several MT manuscripts,59 the LXX to verse

8,60 Testament of Job 42.4,61 and Saadiah Gaon,62 ‫ בעבדי איוב‬instead of ‫כעבדי איוב‬.63

59
See C. D. Ginsburg, The Writings: Diligently Revised According to the Massorah and the Early
Editions with the Various Readings (London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1926), 565. We may
also see a possible attestation to this reading in Job 32:2–3. Elihu, in this passage, expresses anger at
Job for assuming that he is more righteous than God, and at Job’s friends for failing to respond
appropriately to Job’s claims about God, and consequently convicting Job of sin (‫על אשר לא מצאו מענה‬
‫ ;וירשיעו את איוב‬so, correctly, Ibn Ezra; Hakham, ‫ספר איוב‬, 246.). This depiction of Elihu’s anger both at
Job and at his friends seems to be patterned (at a secondary stage in the composition of the book) after
God’s twofold anger as depicted at the book’s end. God first expresses anger at Job for his attacks
against God (Job 38–41), and he then expresses anger at Job’s friends for falsely accusing Job of
misconduct (42:7–8: ‫)כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה בעבדי איוב‬. For the secondary character of the Elihu material
see, e.g., Dohrme, Job, xcviii–cx. As noted by Tur-Sinai (Job, 457), the widespread acceptance of the
tradition according to which “they convicted Job” in Job 32:3 is a scribal correction (‫ )תיקון סופרים‬for
“they convicted God” cannot be sustained. The fact that the friends, despite their best efforts, failed to
silence Job can hardly be turned into an accusation that they convicted God. Nor can we accept the
interpretation according to which the friends are condemned for failing to convict Job, following the
understanding that the negation in the previous clause (‫ )לא‬carries over to here (so Samuel R. Driver
and George B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job [ICC; Edinburgh: T&T
Clark 1986], 232). After all, the friends repeatedly affirmed Job’s guilt! Furthermore, what is new in
Elihu’s speeches is specifically the claim that Job may be suffering as a divine act of discipline in spite
of his innocence (33:12–22). If so, Elihu cannot possibly be angry at Job’s friends for failing to find
him guilty. In short, the interpretation of Ibn Ezra and Hakham is most plausible, and may well attest to
the the version of Job 42:7–8 as reflected in several manuscripts.
60
The LXX translation differs in verses 7 and 8. In verse 7 LXX renders: “for you have spoken
nothing true in my presence, as has my attendant Iob” (ώσπερ ό θεράπων µου Ίώβ).” In verse 8 LXX
renders: “for what you spoke against my attendant Iob (κατα του θεράποντός µου Ίώβ) is not true.” (I
cite here the recent English rendition of the Septuagint. See Claude E. Cox, “Iob,” in A New English
Translation of the Septuagint (ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 696. Note that when κατα is followed by the genitive, as in verse 8, it means
“against.” Compare LXX to passages such as Exod 20:16 ‫ ;תענה ברעך עד שקר לא‬22: 11 ‫אם לא שלח ידו‬
‫ ;במלאכת רעהו‬Num 12:1 ‫ותדבר מרים ואהרן במשה‬. κατα can take the meaning of “as” only when followed
by the accusative. See T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Louvain: Peeters,
2009), 364–67.) (Note that there is nothing corresponding to ‫ אלי‬in the LXX on verse 8.) There should
be little doubt that we have here another example of a “double translation” which reflects two variant
textual readings. On this phenomenon in LXX and the Targums, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “Double
Readings in the Massoretic Text,” Textus 1 (1960): 144–84, at 150–56. See also Raphael Weiss, The
Aramaic Targum of Job (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 1979), 288–93 [Hebrew; English Summary at
xvii].
61
See Robert A. Kraft, ed., The Testament of Job: According to the SV Text (Missoula, Montana:
Society of Biblical Literature and Scholars Press, 1974), 78–79. The Testament of Job, like LXX to
verse 8, does not reflect the word ‫אלי‬. For the dependence of the Testament of Job on the Septuagint see
B. Schaller, “Das Testaments Hiobs und die Septuaginta-Ubersetzung des Buches Hiobs,” Biblica 61
(1980), 377–406, esp. 380 and n. 7 with regard to our passage.
62
Note Saadiah’s translation to Job 42:7, “My wrath hath waxed against thee and against thy fellows,
for ye did not speak the truth in My presence about my servant Job.” See L. E. Goodman, The Book of
Theodicy: Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job by Saadiah ben Joseph al-Fayyumi (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 410, 412, n. 5. Goodman, however, fails to realize that Saadiah’s
unique translation almost certainly reflects a variant textual reading. This, however, is clearly reflected
not only in the translation but also in the commentary: “The fault which God found in Eliphaz, Bildad,
and Zophar is that they said of Job what was not true of him, as He states, “For ye did not speak the
truth in My presence [about My servant Job] (vv. 7, 8), as I have taught regarding their saying, Is not
thine evil great?... Thou hast stripped thy brother… Thou hast not given water to the fainting (22:5–7),
and the like. Since their sin was not against God, but solely against Job, God made the means of their
atonement their seeking Job’s intercession.” The textual variant is correctly noted inYosef Qafih, ‫איוב‬
‫( עם תרגום ופירוש הגאון רבנו סעדיה בן יוסף פיומי זצ"ל‬Jerusalem: Ha-makor, 1972/3), 206, n. 7 [Hebrew

26
God, in this reading, tells Eliphaz that he and his friends have spoken falsely, or have

offered false testimony, against Job. Following this reading, God passes no judgment

at all here on Job’s speech concerning God’s justice. God simply makes no mention

here of Job’s speech at all. He had related to that subject already in his address to Job

from the whirlwind. Here God is passing judgment only on the speech of the friends.

Furthermore, God makes no reference to the friends’ general affirmations about the

justness of the deity in his dealings with the world. God’s judgment regarding the

speech of the friends explicitly relates specifically to what they said about and against

Job. The phrase ‫ דבר ב‬occurs several times in the Hebrew Bible in the sense of

speaking against someone (Num 12:1, 8b; 21:5, 7; Job 19:18; Ps 50:20; 78:19). And

in Psalm 73, a Psalm that has been noted for its affinity with the book of Job,64 we

find it awkwardly said of the wicked, ‫( וידברו ברע‬verse 8), “they speak with malice,”

which almost certainly should be vocalized to read “they speak against their

fellow.”65 This is precisely what Eliphaz does to Job in his final address to Job in Job

22:5–9.66 Eliphaz tells Job:

numbering]. See also ‫ ספר ארחות חיים‬in J. D. Eisenstein, Ozar Midrashim: A Library of Two Hundred
Minor Midrashim (New York: J. D. Eisenstein, 1915) 30:
‫ הוי זהיר לנחם אבלים ולדבר על לבם כי לא היו ראוים להענש חביריו של איוב אלא על שאמרו דברי קנטורים ולא דברי‬,‫בני‬
..‫ כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה בעבדי איוב‬,‫ דכתיב‬,‫נחומים‬
63
This reading, as far as I can find, has almost never been given serious consideration. It was endorsed
as a serious possibility, however, by A. Wolfsohn, ‫( איוב עם תרגום אשכנזי ובאור‬Vienna: Anton Schmid,
1817), 113. He writes:
‫ והראוי "דברתם נכונה בעבדי"; ואם כדבריו כן הוא‬,‫וחד מן חבריא אמר שנתחלפה הבי"ת בכ"ף כמשפט האותיות הדומות‬
.‫יותרו כל השאלות והספקות בפסוק זה‬
See also the recently published nineteenth century Hebrew commentary of Abraham M. Piorka, Derech
Hakodesh – The Path of Holiness: A New Commentary to the Pentateuch, Prophets and Writings (2
vols., Jerusalem: Makor, 1980), ii, 584 [Hebrew]. The reading is dismissed rather hastily by Gordis,
The Book of Job, 494: “This reading represents an effort to “make sense” of the heinous charge against
the Friends, from the standpoint of traditional religious believers, who could not comprehend the
sophisticated idea that Job, and not the Friends, had spoken the truth about God. This reading is
manifestly impossible from the standpoint of syntax and meaning.”
64
See Amos Hakham, The Bible: Psalms with the Jerusalem Commentary; Volume Two, Psalms 58–
100 (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 2003), 134, 141–42.
65
The only scholar who correctly noticed this, as far as I have been able to determine, was Tzvi Peretz
Chajes. See idem, ‫ תורה נביאים וכתובים עם פירוש מדעיספר ת‬:‫ מקרא מפורש‬,‫הלים‬,; (ed. Avraham Kahana;
Jerusalem: Makor, 1960 [reprint]), 158. Chajes also plausibly suggests reading at the end of the verse
‫ עשק במרום ידברו‬instead of ‫ממרום‬. The verse thus characterizes the wicked as those who speak evil both
of friends and of heaven. This nicely parallels the following verse: ‫ ולשונם תהלך בארץ‬,‫שתו בשמים פיהם‬.

27
 You know that your wickedness is great, and that your iniquities have no limit.

You exact pledges from your fellows without reason, and leave them naked,

stripped of their clothes. You do not give the thirsty water to drink; you deny

bread to the hungry. . . . You have sent away widows empty-handed; the

strength of the fatherless is broken.

Job explicitly makes reference to false testimony that is brought against him by

various groups, including his closest friends (6:15–27; 13:7; 17:5). In Job 19:18–22 he

condemns his friends for their betrayal:

Even youngsters despise me; when I rise they speak against me (‫)וידברו בי‬. All

my intimate friends abhor me, and those I loved have turned against me…Pity

me, pity me! You are my friends! For the hand of God has struck me. Why do

you persecute me like God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

And, of course, in Job 31 Job vigorously affirms his integrity and guiltlessness before

God. Job holds on to the hope that God will ultimately vindicate him with regard to

the false accusations of his friends, and punish them severely for falsely maligning

For the theme of betrayal of friends, or of innocents in general, with false speech see Pss 5:7, 10; 10:7–
8; 12:3–4; 28:3; 31:19; 38:12–13; 41:6–8; 55:12–15; 109:2–5, 20. It is possible, though far less certain,
that a similar vocalization as the one suggested for Ps 73:8 should be supplied in Ps. 50:19. See N. H.
Tur-Sinai, Peshuto Shel Mikra: Volume 4a (Jerusalem: Kiryat-Sefer, 1976), 105 [Hebrew]. This Psalm
also has strong affinities with the book of Job. See below.
66
For the pivotal place of Eliphaz’s indictment of Job in ch. 22 within the context of the trial motif of
the book, see Hoffman, Blemished Perfection, 153–55, 159, and my comments in n. 74 below.
Greenstein (“The Problem of Evil,” 347–8) follows Tur-Sinai and Ginsberg in understanding the
accusations here as placed by Eliphaz in the mouth of God, with verse 4 serving as the introduction to
God’s pseudo-speech. Eliphaz “is parodying the bill of indictment that Job imagines God is holding
over his head. It is part of Eliphaz’s rhetorical strategy. If Job would only see how ridiculous his image
of the divine charges is, perhaps he would cease pursuing his case.” Though this reading is possible, I
do not find it compelling. It seems to be motivated, at least in part, by the desire to temper the extreme
harshness of the critique of Eliphaz, and to bring it into harmony with Eliphaz’s affirmation of Job’s
integrity at the beginning of the book. However, the shift in Eliphaz’s position, stark as it may be, may
still be understood as reflecting an escalation of the positions of the characters as the drama progresses
and passions flare, and as a reflection of Eliphaz’s dogmatism (see Yair Hoffman, “The Figure of the
Man of Faith in the Book of Job,” Reflections on the Bible [Hagut BaMikra] 3 (1980), 84–94
[Hebrew]). Eliphaz’s harsh critique of Job’s character also provides the necessary backdrop for Job’s
adamant declaration of impunity in Job 29–31. Furthermore, the attempt to attribute greater consistency
to Eliphaz comes at the cost of attributing greater inconsistency to God, who is made to angrily
threaten Eliphaz with terrible punishment for affirming God’s justice after he himself berated Job for
questioning it.

28
him (13:10, 16; 16:19–21; 19:25, 29; 27:2–7). And this is precisely what God does in

Job 42:7. He unequivocally establishes that the friends of Job testified falsely against

him, and he threatens to punish them for this. Job, it is clearly implied, was right for

refusing to justify his friends and admit to crimes that he never committed (cf. 27:4–

6). His suffering had nothing to do with any alleged sins that were wrongly imputed to

him.67 Unlike the act of professing faith in God’s justice without complete sincerity,

the acts of offering false testimony and of groundlessly accusing an innocent of

wrongdoing are ones that are eminently subject to penalization in court.68 And since

these offenses are inherently forensic in nature, this interpretation fits most suitably

within the forensic context of the book of Job.

God’s vindication in 42:7–8 of Job from the charges that Eliphaz and his

friends leveled against him can hardly be taken, however, as a public endorsement of

the harsh things Job said to God, or about God, in the wake of his suffering,

throughout the book. It cannot even be taken as an endorsement of the honest manner

in which Job registered his complaint. Such public endorsement at this point would be

quite absurd after God severely rebuked Job and Job, in response, retracted his case

67
A possible objection to the proposed reading ‫ כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה בעבדי איוב‬is that it posits a splitting
up of the phrase dibber be – “speak against” (or “speak about;” see 1 Sam 19:4; Ps 122:8) with
intervening phrases. In most cases, the verb of the dibber be phrase stands together with the
prepositional object, with no intervening words or phrases. At most, the subject of the verbal phrase
may intervene between the verb and the prepositional object (cf., e. g., Num 12:1, ‫ותדבר מרים ואהרן‬
‫)במשה‬. When there are additional words or phrases beyond this, they usually come after the dibber be
phrase. Thus, in 1 Sam 19:4 we find ‫ וידבר יהונתן בדוד טוב אל שאול אביו‬and not ‫וידבר יהונתן טוב אל שאול אביו‬
‫בדוד‬. Again, with the parallel phrase ‫“ – ענה ב‬testify against,” we find in Deut 19:16 ‫“( לענות בו סרה‬to
testify against him falsehood”) and not ‫לענות סרה בו‬. On the other hand, we do find in Ps 122:8 ‫למען אחי‬
‫“( ורעי אדברה נא שלום בך‬I will speak well of you”). Furthermore, if we examine the similar phrase ‫דבר‬
‫על‬, we find that the phrase can be split up. Thus, in Deut 13:6, when the death sentence is pronounced
for the idolatrous prophet, the verse adds the explanatory clause ‫כי דבר סרה על ה' אלהיכם‬, “for he spoke
falsehood against the Lord your God.” (This structure of this verse, by the way, is not unlike the
structure of our passage, where the sentence of severe punishment for Job’s friends is followed by the
explanatory clause “for you did not say the truth about my servant Job.”) See also Num 10:21 (‫כי ה' דבר‬
‫ )טוב על ישראל‬and Esth 7:9 (‫)למרדכי אשר דבר טוב על המלך‬. For dibber et we find both ‫( וידבר אתו משפטים‬Jer
39:5) and ‫( אדבר משפטים אותם‬Jer 4:12). And in the case of dibber el we find in 1 Kgs 22:13 ‫הנה נא דברו‬
‫( הנביאים פה אחד טוב אל המלך‬for ‫ דברו‬see LXX). Here the words ‫ הנביאים פה אחד טוב‬divide between the
verb and the propositional object. In the final analysis, then, there is little reason to assume that words
or phrases cannot split up the dibber be phrase in Job 42:7–8.
68
Deut 19:16–19; cf. Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20. See B. Wells, The Law of Testimony in the Pentateuchal
Codes (BZABR 4; Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 133–47.

29
against God (42:6). To judge from the stern reprimand of the whirlwind speeches

(possibly voiced in the hearing of Job’s friends), God was severely displeased with

the vocal attacks Job directed against God and the attempt to put him on trial (though

not necessarily because Job’s allegations were deemed factually incorrect). In Job

42:7–8, then, God pointedly accuses Job’s friends strictly of wrongly defaming Job’s

good character, and attributing his suffering to sins that he never committed. The two

issues that were inseparably intertwined for both Job and his friends—Job’s guilt and

God’s justice—are carefully separated by God in both of his addresses, which now

cohere together quite well. In the speeches from the whirlwind, God refrains from

challenging Job’s affirmations of personal innocence, but he castigates Job for his

impudence and pretension in (publicly) attacking him and attempting to put him on

trial. In God’s address to Eliphaz, God in no way attacks the friends for their defense

of God’s justice as such, but he does controvert their affirmations of Job’s guilt prior

to his suffering. After God condemns Job for speaking against him without sufficient

knowledge, he essentially condemns Job’s friends for speaking against Job without

sufficient knowledge. In short, God affirms in the whirlwind speeches and the speech

to Eliphaz, taken together, that Job’s suffering was indeed that of an innocent, but that

God must not be spoken of irreverently, or vocally accused, rightly or wrongly, of any

wrongdoing. Since both the issue of Job’s innocence prior to his suffering and that of

the legitimacy of challenging God’s justice are highlighted throughout the book of

Job, it is only fitting that God should address both of them at the book’s conclusion.

This reading of Job 42:7–8 not only allows it to cohere with the whirlwind

speeches that precede it, but also with the narration that follows. Since there is no

reference at all to Job’s correct speech about God, there is nothing inconsistent in the

fact that Job’s good fortune is restored. Whatever the reason for God’s decision to

30
restore Job to his previous state may be, there is no longer any textual indication that

it reflects God’s just desire to reward Job for correctly asserting God’s injustice,

which, as we noted, would be most paradoxical. Similarly, since the sin of the friends

was not their general affirmation that God is just, but only their presentation of false

testimony against Job, there is nothing inconsistent in the fact that God justly

threatens them with punishment. Pious trust in God’s justice may be all well and good

in God’s eyes, but it must never be bolstered by knowingly submitting incriminating

testimony against fellow human beings that is based solely on surmise, particularly

when those human beings are in the midst of tragedy.

Once we follow the reading ‫ בעבדי איוב‬we can no longer take the phrase ‫כי לא‬

‫ נכונה אלי דברתם‬in the sense of ‫“ עלי‬about me.” The sentence “You did not speak the

truth about me against Job” clearly makes little sense. How, then, may we understand

‫ ?אלי‬The friends, as far as we know,69 never address God directly, so it is difficult to

take ‫ אלי‬in the usual sense of “to me.” This is surely the reason that the LXX to verse

7 takes ‫ אלי‬as “before me”70 and Saadiah’s translation renders it as “in my

presence.”71 However, we do not find this meaning of ‫ אל‬elsewhere in the Bible. In

my view, one should not rule out the possibility of taking ‫ אלי‬here in its regular sense

of “to me,” in spite of the fact that, technically speaking, Job’s friends never

addressed God directly.72 Karl Budde73 commented that the verse follows the

theological understanding that ultimately, “all human speech has God as its hearer and

is directed toward him.” In light of the fact that the exchanges between Job and his

69
It should be recalled that the third cycle of speeches is in clear disarray. Zophar’s speech is missing
and Bildad’s is extremely short (25:1–6). For various critical attempts to reconstruct the material in
chapters 24–27, see Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1948, 670–72. It is not inconceivable, then, that in some lost material the friends did address
God directly, though this does appear rather unlikely.
70
See n. 60 above.
71
See n. 62 above.
72
We would have to assume, following this approach, that LXX on verse 8 refrained from translating
‫ אלי‬into Greek for purposes of clarity.
73
Karl Budde, Das Buch Hiob (HAT; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1896), 254.

31
friends are depicted in terms of juridical proceedings,74 this explanation is perfectly

feasible. Even if we may question whether “all human speech” is conceived of as

ultimately directed toward God, legal testimony is certainly so conceived. Thus, legal

proceedings, even when they clearly do not take place at a sanctuary, are

characterized as taking place “before the Lord” (cf. Deut 19:17), since “judgment

belongs to God” (Deut 1:17).75 The verb “to speak” often means to “testify” or “state

a case,” particularly in the book of Job (9:35; 11:15; 13:3, 13, 22; 19:18; 21:3; 33:31,

32; 40:5; 42:4).76 Since Job “stated his case to God” (‫ ;אל שדי אדבר‬Job 13:3), God may

most naturally refer in our passage to the counter testimony of Job’s friends, who

sought to come to God’s defense by testifying to the sinful acts of Job, as having also

74
See nn. 56–58 above. The overwhelming majority of forensic scholarship on Job focuses on the
juridical nature of the conflict between Job and God. But the verbal clash between Job and his friends
also constitutes a disputation with a clear juridical tenor. In 13:6 Job refers to his altercation with his
friends as ‫ תוכחתי‬and ‫ריבות שפתי‬. Elihu says of the friends in 32:3 that they found Job guilty (‫וירשיעו את‬
‫)איוב‬. This comports particularly well with Eliphaz’s harsh indictment of Job in 22:5–10. As noted by
Greenstein (“Forensic Understanding,” 243–44 and n. 16), litigation in Israel and the ancient Near East
often begins when witnesses bring charges. Greenstein argues from this that Job’s suit against God
formally begins in chs. 13–14, when Job presents God with his charges. But it may equally indicate
that the friends begin to play their formal prosecutorial function in relation to Job when Eliphaz
presents his charges against Job in ch. 22. In 27:5 Job refuses to admit to the charges of his friends,
which, as he says, would be tantamount to finding his friends “in the right” (‫)חלילה לי אם אצדיק אתכם‬.
And although Job’s oath of innocence in ch. 31 may indeed reflect Job’s attempt to force God into
specifying his charges against him in court (cf. Michael Brennan Dick, “The Legal Metaphor in Job
31,” CBQ 41 (1979): 37–50), it clearly responds as well to Eliphaz’s allegations. On the altercation
between Job and his friends as disputation of one sort or another, see Ludwig Koehler, “Justice in the
Gate,” postscript to Hebrew Man, (trans. Peter R. Ackroyd; London: SCM, 1956), 158–63; Pietro
Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice: Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in the Hebrew Bible (trans
Michael J. Smith; JSOTSup 105; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 73–4; Westermann, The Structure of
the Book of Job, 1–15; Hoffman, Blemished Perfection, 153–55; Magdalene, On the Scales of
Righteousness, 199–223. Potentially significant in this connection is 16:21, which presents Job saying,
apparently with regard to the heavenly witness, ‫ ובן אדם לרעהו‬,‫ויוכח לגבר עם אלוה‬. According to several
commentators, this as an expression of Job’s wish that the heavenly witness might adjudicate both in
the disputation between Job and God, as well as in the disputation between Job and his friends. See
Hakham, ‫ספר איוב‬, 130–31 and nn. 30 and 31; A. S. Hartom, ‫( ספר איוב‬ed. M. D. Cassuto; Tel-Aviv:
Yavneh, 1958), 61 [Hebrew]; Delitzch, Job, 290–91; Davidson, The Book of Job, 146; Driver and
Gray, The Book of Job, 149. Following this reading, the passage precisely foreshadows that which
occurs at the end of the book, as here interpreted. God appears in the whirlwind and judges in his own
favor in the dispute between himself and Job, and then judges in favor of Job in the dispute with his
friends.
75
Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1996), 184, 378, n. 49.
76
Scholnick, Lawsuit Drama in the Book of Job, 225–27.

32
been stated “to me” (‫)דברתם אלי‬.77 Job explicitly characterizes the position of the

friends as false testimony submitted in the divine court (Job 13:7–10). Moshe

Greenberg noted that God’s final condemnation of Eliphaz and his friends in Job

42:7–8 is anticipated in 13:10, where Job warns his friends that God “will surely

condemn” them, if they attempt “to deceive God” (v. 9) by testifying falsely against

Job in court.78 If these passages truly allude to one another, as in fact seems most

likely to be the case, the wording of God in Job 42:7–8 is perfectly appropriate. God,

in the end, indeed condemns Eliphaz and his friends, as Job predicted, because they

indeed attempted to “deceive God” by falsely testifying “to God” against Job.79

77
According to Magdalene (On the Scales of Righteousness, 199–223), the interactions between Job
and his friends throughout the dialogue have the character of settlement negotiations. In these
negotiations the friends refuse to serve as third-party witnesses for Job, seek to impeach his character
and veracity, demonstrate their willingness to serve rather as witnesses on behalf of God should the
trial continue, and make their own settlement proposal for Job to consider. However, given the
illegitimacy that the friends attribute to Job’s attempt to put God on trial, one may wonder whether,
from their perspective, they indeed serve, or seek to serve, as formal witnesses in Job’s lawsuit against
God. Newsom understands the legal terminology here (and in the book as a whole) more
metaphorically. She writes (Newsom, Job, 433): “Having framed his remarks in legal terminology,
Job’s accusation that the friends have spoken ‘falsely’ and ‘deceitfully’ for God (v. 7) amounts to a
charge that they have borne ‘false witness.’ . . . The friends, of course, have not thought of themselves
as participating in a trial. They are simply counseling a friend about the proper religious understanding
of his situation.” It is also possible that, at least beginning with Eliphaz’s indictment of Job in ch. 22,
the friends see themselves as participating as plaintiff in a legal dispute with Job alone, with God
exclusively playing the role of judge, not defendant (cf. n. 74 above). In any event, it is important to
remember that the divine verdict of 42:7–8 does not give expression to the view of the friends
concerning their role in their altercation with Job. It gives expression, rather, to the view of God. In
42:7–8, God essentially vindicates the perspective of Job as expressed in 13:7–10. In 13:7–10 Job
asserts that, as far as he is concerned, the friends are basically speaking falsehood to God (see
Greenstein, “Truth or Theodicy,” 248: “it distresses Job that, from his point of view, the friends are
speaking falsely to the deity”). God will condemn them if they continue on their path of accusing Job.
In 42:7–8 God affirms that Job was right in his assessment of the role the friends were playing. They
indeed spoke falsely to him about Job.
78
Moshe Greenberg, “Job,” in The Literary Guide to the Bible (ed. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode;
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987), 283–304, at 299–300; repr. in Studies in
the Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 353. Note that the
expression “smear with lies” in verse 4 is a phrase for slander about a person (Ps 119:69). For Job, the
awareness that the friends lie about him is integrally related to the belief that they lie about God. In Job
42:7–8, however, God clearly restricts the crime of the friends to the act of speaking falsely against
Job. Of course, this does not mean that God affirms that what the friends said about God was correct.
However, even if it was false, the affirmation of faith in God’s justice was hardly something for which
God would punish the friends.
79
Alternatively, one could follow Seforno in taking ‫ אלי‬as the equivalent of ‫ עלי‬with the meaning of “on
my behalf.” We may note in support of this that in 1 Kgs 2:18–19 Bathsheba “speaks on behalf of”
Adonijah to King Solomon. Accordingly, Job’s friends are condemned in Job 42:7–8 for falsely
testifying against Job on behalf of God. This would form a nice parallel with Job’s attack on his friends
in 13:7, “Will you speak falsely on behalf of God?”

33
 Having said all this, we must remember that the word ‫ אלי‬is not reflected in the

LXX to verse 8 or in the Testament of Job. It is thus quite possible that the word ‫ אלי‬in

the MT is simply secondary.80 Following this possibility, the verse, in its original

form, would have plainly read: ‫כי לא דברתם נכונה בעבדי איוב‬, “for you did not testify the

truth against my servant Job.” Since the clause in this form is simpler, it may well

constitute the preferred reading.

To recapitulate, the sin of Job’s friends was not one of improper doctrine but

of improper behavior. It did not consist of what they believed about God, which, as

far as God was concerned, was in and of itself either neutral or positive, but what they

testified about Job, which was false and unfounded, and therefore reprehensible.

Unlike their general affirmation that God is just, which they surely believed to be true,

Job’s friends knew full well that the allegations that Job exacted pledges from his

fellows without reason and stripped them naked, denied bread to the hungry, and

broke the strength of the orphan were completely unfounded (cf. 22:6–9). This was a

truly malicious act that justifiably evoked God’s wrath. They acted in clear violation

of the universal law reflected in the Decalogue: “Do not offer false testimony against

your friend” (Ex 20:16).81 The sin of maliciously offering incriminating false

testimony is repeatedly highlighted in biblical Wisdom literature. According to Prov

6:19, false testimony is one of the seven things that God hates. Prov 19:5, 9; 21:28

assure us that the bearer of false testimony will not escape punishment. Defamation of

80
In light of the fact that Biblical Hebrew exhibits both ‫ דבר ב‬and ‫על‬/‫ דבר אל‬for talking about or against
someone, one might conjecture that the MT of 42:7–8 reflects a conflation of two variant textual
versions: 1) ‫ ;כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה‬2) ‫כי לא דברתם נכונה בעבדי איוב‬. According to the first version, the
friends are condemned because they spoke falsely about God. According to the second version, which
is here preferred, they are condemned because they spoke falsely about Job. For the phenomenon of the
conflation of double readings see Talmon, “Double Readings in the Massoretic Text.” Note that in 32:3
we find precisely the same textual duality regarding the offense that Elihu attributes to Job’s friends.
According to MT they sinned in that they found Job guilty whereas according to the tradition that the
text has been changed by scribes for theological purposes [cf. BHS], they sinned, in the original form of
the text, in that they found God guilty. See above n. 59. Of course, suggestions of this kind must
remain speculative.
81
Other verses include Lev 19:11; Deut 19:16–21; Prov 19:5; 24:28.

34
character in general is severely condemned (Jer 9:1–8), and the betrayal of friends or

innocents in general through evil speech is commonly referred to in various Psalms of

lament.82 In the case of the Job story, of course, the crimes of betrayal and false

testimony were particularly pernicious, since they were committed as Job was

suffering such terrible affliction.

Most instructive in this connection is Psalm 38. The Psalmist, like Job, has

been stricken by God over his entire body with wounds that stink and fester (vv. 3–

11). Though he admits to some sin, he also insists that he is a doer of good (v. 21).

Amidst his state of pain and anguish the Psalmist makes reference to his friends and

kinsmen:

“My friends and companions stand back from my affliction; my kinsmen stand

far off… those who wish me harm speak evil; they utter deceit all the time.”

It is clear from the context that the deceit that the friends speak consists of false

accusations with regard to the sufferer. The Psalmist, in response to this deceit, acts as

if he has no retort to the charges, and waits for God’s vindicating testimony (vv. 14–

16). The similarity of all this to the story of Job is obvious. It strongly supports the

contention that when the friends of Job are condemned by God, it is not because of

their theology per se but because they maliciously maligned an innocent sufferer,

attributing to him sins that they never witnessed. God appears to Eliphaz not as the

final arbiter of abstract theological truth,83 but as a judge of earthly affairs who gives a

verdict in a dispute between litigants and vindicates Job from the unfounded charges

of his accusers.

82
See n. 65 above.
83
Of course, God’s vindication of Job has clear theological implications. It reveals that the friends’
theology of retribution is wrong, and that there is indeed such a thing as innocent suffering.
Undoubtedly, the author of the book was interested in showing that the simplistic theology of the
friends is incorrect in the objective sense. This, however, must not be confused with the reason that
God as a character in the story expresses anger at the friends, and demands that they offer sacrifice and
get Job to pray on their behalf.

35
The Supporting Evidence of Numbers 12 and Psalm 50

A comparison with the story of Miriam’s leprosy in Num 12 strongly supports the

correctness of the reading ‫כי לא דברתם נכונה בעבדי איוב‬. In this story, Miriam and Aaron

speak against Moses (‫)ותדבר מרים ואהרן במשה‬, and the Lord hears it (verses 1–2). God

then summons Moses, Aaron and Miriam to the Tent of Meeting, where he vindicates

Moses. God appears in a pillar of cloud and reprimands Miriam and Aaron for

speaking against his “servant” Moses. God’s anger burns against them, and he inflicts

Miriam with a skin disease. Aaron then begs that Moses intercede on behalf of his

sister. Moses complies, and intervenes with God on behalf of Miriam. God responds

by requiring that Miriam be isolated outside the camp for seven days, subsequent to

which she could be brought back into the camp.

There are several striking parallels between this story and the story of Job.

First, both stories deal with a case of an unusually righteous man who is maligned by

evil speech. Of Job we hear God boasting to Satan: “Have you noticed my servant

Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man blameless and upright, fearing God

and avoiding evil” (1:8). Similarly, we hear of Moses, “The man Moses was very

humble, more than all the people on the face of the earth” (Num 12:3). And in His

address to Aaron and Miriam (vv. 6–8), God sings the praises of the servant Moses,

noting how Moses is uniquely trusted in all God’s house, and how he stands above all

of God’s prophets.

Satan, we recall, maligns Job, and asserts that his apparently unique piety is, in

actuality, selfishly motivated (Job 1:9–11; 2:4–5). Job’s friends also besmirch Job’s

character, and insist that his life is full of iniquity. They also challenge his claims to

36
being privy to any special divine knowledge (5:1; 15:8–9),84 and insist that they know

as much as him (18:3). Similarly, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses, and imply

that Moses has raised himself up above his peers out of self-centered concerns (Num

12:1–2). They also imply that Moses is no closer to God than they themselves are,

since God communicates to them all alike (‫)הלא גם בנו דבר‬. God finishes his reprimand

of Miriam and Aaron with the statement “why did you not fear speaking against my

servant Moses” (verse 8). This forms a strong parallel with Job 42:7 as I suggest

reading it: “for you did not speak the truth against my servant Job.”

Other similarities bolster the significance of the parallel. In both stories God

appears as judge, giving a verdict in a dispute between two parties. As noted above,

several scholars point to the forensic character of the disputation between Job and his

friends.85 A similar legal background informs the story of the leprosy of Miriam. One

of the characteristics of the Tent of Meeting, the site where God manifests himself

and vindicates Moses in Num 12, is that it is the place where disputes are settled and

legal decisions handed down.86 Thus, in Num 27 we learn that the daughters of

Zelophehad bring their claim against their uncles to inherit the land of their father to

the Tent of Meeting. Moses brings the case before the Lord, and the Lord instructs

Moses as to which of the litigants is in the right. In this case, the Lord tells Moses: ‫כן‬

‫בנות צלפחד דברת‬, “the daughters of Zelophehad speak correctly.” This formulation

recalls God’s verdict in the case of Job’s friends, when he tells them: ‫לא דברתם נכונה‬,

“You did not speak correctly.”87 In Num 36 we read of a counterclaim presented by

84
For the revelation of the spirit to Eliphaz in Job 4:12–21 as displaced, and belonging originally to
Job, see Tur-Sinai, Job, 88–91. This position is defended extensively by Edward L. Greenstein, “The
Extent of Job’s First Speech,” in Studies in Bible and Exegesis, vol. 7: Presented to Menachem Cohen
(ed. Shmuel Vargon et al.; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2005), 245–62 [Hebrew].
85
See n. 74.
86
See Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, Volume 2: Religious Institutions (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1965), 349, 354.
87
Note also Deut 13:15; 17:4. These passages speak of instances in which testimony concerning
idolatrous practices of an individual or city is heard. The allegations are verified by the investigating

37
the clan heads of Menasseh. They fear that if the daughters of Zelophehad receive

their own plots of land and then marry out of the tribe, the tribe will lose some of its

land. In this instance God rules to restrict the daughters of Zelophehad from marrying

out of the tribe. Again, the verdict is given when God declares which of the litigants

spoke correctly. In this instance we read: ‫כן מטה בני יוסף דברים‬, “the tribe of the sons of

Joseph speaks correctly.” Though these instances of resolution of dispute come from

the late priestly source, the institutional reality reflected in them is surely ancient.

These instances indicate that a legal-like dispute lies behind the divine verdict given

at the Tent of Meeting in the non-priestly story of Num 12 as well.88

The fact that God appears in Num 12 to give his verdict in a cloud recalls the

divine theophany out of the whirlwind in the book of Job. And the reference to the

“divine anger” at Miriam and Aaron (verse 9) is reminiscent of the divine anger

directed at Eliphaz and his friends. We also should not miss the fact that both stories

depict God sending a terrible skin disease to one of the disputants. The difference,

however, is most significant. In the story of Miriam the skin disease serves as a clear

sign of a guilty verdict, whereas in the story of Job it is precisely this conception that

is debated and ultimately rejected.89

Finally, it is most significant that in the story of Num 12 Moses is asked to

intercede with the Lord on behalf of Miriam. The reason that Moses is the one who

must do this is perfectly clear. Moses is the offended party. He was the one who

Miriam unfairly accused of wrongdoing with her evil speech. He is thus the one who

court, which determines ‫אמת נכון הדבר‬. In Job, the divine judge determines that the allegations brought
against Job were not true.
88
Divine verdict given at the sanctuary in favor of one of two disputing parties is attested also in
Numbers 16:6–7, 18, 35; 17:16–24.
89
On disease and illness as a sign of divine judgment in the Ancient Near East, see Magdalene, On the
Scales of Righteousness, 13–25.

38
will have to intercede on Miriam’s behalf if her physical condition is to be healed.90

The same logic pertains in the story of the copper snake (Num 21:4–9). The people

spoke against God and Moses, and were punished with snake bites. The Israelites then

turned to Moses and asked him, as one of the offended parties, to intercede with God

so that they might be healed. The story of Sarah’s abduction by Abimelech in Gen 20

follows a similar pattern. Abimelech’s household is stricken with infertility because

Abraham’s wife was taken into the king’s palace (vv. 17–18). Since Abraham is seen

as the offended party here (cf. v. 16), he is the one who must intercede for the king

with God so that the affliction can be removed from the royal household (vv. 7, 17).

The same logic, then, must also apply in the case of Job and his friends. Job is

not chosen as the one who must intercede for his friends because he spoke correctly,

or even just sincerely, about God’s injustice, nor because he correctly repented from

his incorrect speech about God’s injustice. Rather, Job is chosen for this task since he

is the one against whom the friends spoke. Job must show that he has forgiven his

friends for their offense against him before God can then revoke their sin. This is the

clear force of Job 42:8b: “Job my servant must pray for you. To him alone will I show

favor and not treat you vilely, for you did not testify the truth against my servant Job.”

If the sin of the friends were their incorrect speech about God, the coherent structure

of this sentence, and the compelling rationale that it expresses, would no longer exist.

An interesting partial parallel to the divine conviction of Job’s friends

following the divine reprimand of Job is found in Psalm 50. In this Psalm God

appears as prosecutor and judge in a dramatic theophany (v. 6, ‫)כי אלהים שפט הוא‬. The

divine appearance is described in terms of a devouring fire that goes forth before the

Lord with a whirlwind surrounding him (‫)וסביביו נשערה מאוד‬. The judgment is

90
Note the rabbinic principle (m. Yoma 8:9) that the Day of Atonement does not atone for sins
between man and man until the offended party has been appeased.

39
addressed to two separate parties: the “pious ones” (v. 5), and the “wicked” (v. 16).

First, God testifies against the “pious ones,” the people of Israel (,‫שמעה עמי ואדברה‬

‫)ישראל ואעידה בך‬. They are reprimanded for imagining that God wants or needs their

sacrifices, given that the whole world is his (vv. 8–12). Instead of bringing regular

animal sacrifices, they are urged to call out to God in time of trouble, and then, after

he saves them, glorify him publicly with their thanksgiving offerings (14–15). Next,

the divine speaker addresses the “wicked.” The wicked one is accused of hating

divine instruction and consorting with thieves and adulterers. He is also attacked for

his evil speech. He speaks against his brother (‫)באחיך תדבר‬, and slanders his mother’s

son. God reprimands him, and then calls upon all those who forget God to beware,

lest God tear them up relentlessly.

All of this is quite similar to what we find in the book of Job. Here, too, God

appears out of the tempest and acts as judge. Here, too, he addresses two distinct

parties. He first turns to Job, his loyal servant, and reprimands him for his failings.

Then he turns to Job’s friends, expresses his anger at them, and declares them guilty

of evil speech against their innocent friend. Here, too, the ones found guilty of evil

speech against their fellow are threatened with severe divine punishment.

Conclusion

A tenacious tendency in the modern exegesis of the book of Job continues to insist

that the poetic material of the book is of an essentially different character than the

narrative framework, and that that they do not constitute a coherent whole.91 To a

91
See, e.g., Pope, Job, xxviii; Zuckerman, Job the Silent, 13–15, 25–33; Newsom, Job; idem, “The
Book of Job as Polyphonic Text.” Newsom’s appropriation of the critical division between prose and
poetry in her literary reading of the book as a whole is intriguing. She writes (Job, 337–38): “Surely
one is supposed to adopt and endorse the perspective articulated by none other than God. Yet the book
gives the last word to the prose tale. Moreover, the transition to the prose conclusion creates ironies
that undermine the conviction that the book as a whole endorses the perspective of the divine speeches

40
great extent, the despair of finding coherence in the book as a whole is facilitated by

the perception that the divine vindication of Job in 42:7–8 as the one who has spoken

correctly about God is incompatible with God’s severe reprimand of Job in the

whirlwind speeches. Once the two passages are assumed to be incompatible, and are

read separately from one another, they can each be taken in unequivocal terms. The

speeches from the whirlwind can be taken as an indication of God’s utter contempt for

Job’s accusations against God, and the divine vindication of Job in 42:7–8 can be

taken as an expression of God’s wholehearted commendation of Job’s assumed piety.

With the new reading of 42:7–8, however, there is little justification for seeing the

two divine addresses as reflecting different narrative strands and to read them

separately.92 Indeed, the divine speeches from the whirlwind cannot stand on their

own since they convey only God’s response to Job concerning his attempt to put God

on trial. They find their necessary completion in 42:7–8, where God further responds

to Eliphaz and his friends for serving as false witnesses against Job’s character and

behavior prior to his suffering. The two divine addresses must thus be read as two

parts of an integral whole. This, in turn, implies that neither one of these divine

addresses gives us the entire picture concerning God’s true feelings about his servant

Job. Each divine address must be read in light of the other. From the vindication of

Job in 42:7–8 we learn that God is not quite as utterly enraged with Job as one might

think from a reading of the whirlwind speeches alone. After all, God still defends Job

as the one true point of view. By having God declare that Job has spoken rightly (42:7), and by having
events turn out just as the friends had predicted, the book wryly affirms perspectives that had appeared
to be superseded and rejected. What gets challenged in this process is the very notion that discerning
the truth is a matter of choosing one perspective and rejecting all others, that the truth about a complex
question can be contained in a single perspective…” However, my suggested reading of 42:7–8 largely
neutralizes the alleged dissonance between the prose and the poetry. God never declares, in this
reading, that Job spoke rightly, or that the friends spoke wrongly, about God. Furthermore, events do
not really turn out just as the friends had predicted, as Newsom claims, since Job’s restoration did not
come in wake of any admission of guilt for prior sins. Instead it came after his vindication, as at times
anticipated by Job.
92
See nn. 19 and 20 above.

41
as his servant, vindicates him in the face of the accusations of his friends, and then

restores him to health and wealth. Similarly, from the whirlwind speeches we learn

that God does not thoroughly commend Job, as one might think from a reading of

Job’s vindication and subsequent restoration. After all, God does condemn Job for the

pretentious attempt to put God on trial. The new reading thus allows us to read each

divine address as part of the whole, and to appreciate the fact that God’s true feelings

about Job at the end of the book are as mixed and complex as his own multifaceted

and mysterious character.

42