When I Was Job

He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Job 1:21  NASB

Has taken away – Years ago, when I wrote the first email that eventually became Today’s Word, I thought I was like Job.  I was wrong, but it took a long time and a lot more suffering to see that.  When catastrophe occurs, it’s easy to imagine that our suffering is undeserved.  That’s usually because we think of ourselves as basically good, faithful people.  Since we assume that the doctrine of just rewards governs life of the faithful, we conclude that our suffering is ultimately unwarranted.  We think of ourselves as first cousins of Job.  We really don’t deserve our trials anymore than he did.  I have come to believe that this mistaken assumption contributes to two tragic results.

First, it causes us to completely misunderstand the story of Job.  Instead of recognizing it as a moral lesson concerning sovereignty, we go to battle over the issue of justice.  We treat the Accuser as the arch-enemy of God, and we spend our time, like Job’s friends, trying to solve the problem of evil in the world.

Second, we interpret Job’s battle as an analogue of our own.  We look to Job for answers to our own questions about why bad things happen to good people.  We’re not so much interested in the problem of evil as we are in how we are supposed to continue to believe when evil tears us down.  We hope that Job will show us the way—and we’re usually quite disappointed when he doesn’t.

What we miss in both of these mistaken approaches is the fact that we are not like Job.  We are not righteous (if we were, why would we need this story).  We are outsiders to the kind of character Job presents, morally deformed.  Still human (in some sense) but not close to the high plane of Job’s “perfection.”  Since we overlook this fact, we search for answers to the wrong question, for our quest is not to understand why evil besets us but rather why we think it shouldn’t.  This verse sets the proper context.  I came with nothing.  I will leave with nothing.  I am not owed anything.  All the in-between is a gift on borrowed time.  Any expectation that life should be different is a fundamental misapprehension of the position of humanity.

The Buddha understood this.  Most Westerners, and certainly most Christians, do not.  Not that the Buddha’s solution wasn’t without problems, but perhaps it will remind us that the issue is not with the battle between good and evil or with the dichotomy of God’s sovereignty and the presence of suffering.  The issue is us—our expectations about how life should be lived.  With that in mind, we should recognize the power of the verb used by Job.  It is:

לָקַח (lāqaḥ) take (get, fetch), lay hold of (seize), receive, acquire (buy), bring, marry (take a wife), snatch (take away).^[1]  In Paleo-Hebrew, it combines the ideas of control, authority, speaking, word, openness, and fence.  “To take” implies the authority and ability (control) to do so.  In Hebrew this is related to speaking a word of power that puts a fence around the space of life.  “To take” is to enclose life, to restrict its potential.  And if this action is authorized, who can object?  Even more importantly, why should anyone object?

Job understands the Buddha.  Perhaps it was the other way around.  The one who gives, who grants life’s possibilities, owns the result—and can take it back with just as much ease.  Why not?  “Lord, grant me the ability to accept what You choose.”

Topical Index: take, authority, assumption, expectation, Buddha, lāqaḥ, Job 1:21

^[1] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 1124 לָקַח. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 481). Moody Press.