Insult and Injury
Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God. Job 1:22 NASB 1995
Nor did he blame – But the Hebrew isn’t quite what we think of when we read these words in English. We think of “blame” as assigning responsibility or finding fault. So, in our Western theology, if God is truly sovereign, then He is ultimately responsible for everything and we assign that responsibility to Him. If God fails to meet our standard of goodness, then He is irresponsible. But the Hebrew phrase suggests something else. It is ve- lōʾ-nātan tifplâ, literally, “not to give offense.” In Hebrew, holding God responsible for what we consider bad or evil is the equivalent of offending God. Why? Why does Hebrew have this perspective when the Tanakh clearly asserts that God is sovereign?
The answer is simple—and confronting. God is good. End of argument. Whatever God does or doesn’t do is good. Therefore, God cannot be “blamed” for something that I think is bad. To “blame” God is to insult His character, His essential goodness. Blame, a negative assessment, has no place in God’s interaction with the creation, and, in particular with me. Job did not sin because he did not impute blame to the God of goodness. Job lived according to the Hebrew view of the goodness of God. He knew that, no matter what the circumstances, blame had no place in an assessment of what God does or does not do.
We realize that we cannot claim that God is liable for things we consider bad. But that isn’t the same as knowing how this can be true. We still have questions. Why do innocent people suffer? Why do millions die at the hands of cruel men? As Heschel remarks: “Giving birth to one child is a mystery; bringing death to millions is but a skill.”[1] Why do you suffer when you are doing your best to follow Him? Why do I suffer? Those questions don’t suddenly disappear simply because we adopt a Hebrew perspective. Nor is it much consolation to hear someone say, “Well, God’s ways are not our ways.” Yes, that’s true, but it doesn’t take away the pain.
Unfortunately (perhaps), Hebrew thought doesn’t answer these questions. It simply tells us that God is not to blame. It takes theological gymnastics to try to resolve the conflict, and usually not very successfully. Ascribing all evil to Man’s sin (or his sinful nature?) doesn’t cover the problem of natural disasters. Explaining natural disasters as “accidents” of a random element in creation doesn’t do much for the doctrine of sovereignty. We try and try—and fail to find any “reasonable” explanation for our situation. Maybe the Bible’s approach is really the only approach. God is good. Bad things happen. No one really knows why. That must suffice in theory, but then those bad things happen to me, oh, well, that’s a different story. Then we need to listen to what Job doesn’t say.
Topical Index: evil, suffering, sovereignty, blame, insult, tifplâ, offense, Job 1:22
[1] Abraham Heschel Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 83.
