Divine Silence
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has shut off? Job 3:23 NASB
Way is hidden – The verb is sātar. Its uses are important.
The root in its basic meaning “hide” is common to West, Southwest, and Southeast Semitic. The subordinate thought of protection involved in the root, which helps to distinguish it from its synonyms ʿālam “conceal” and ḥābāʾ “withdraw,” “hide,” is reflected in such Amorite names as Sitř-Baḫlum, “Baal is my protection.”[1]
The Niphal is also used passively. Job laments that his way is hidden from God (Job 3:23). Israel falsely believed that God did not take notice of her, let alone adjudicate her cause justly (Isa 40:27).[2]
The verb sātar is usually implies protection, but here Job seems to use it with exactly the opposite meaning. Instead of being “hidden” from the evils of this world, Job discovers that he is “hidden” from God’s benevolence. The way of the righteous has turned to dross. It is as if his path toward the divine calling suddenly turned into a detour toward death. And even more crushing is the fact that he was sent on this path from the beginning. He was born to suffer even if at the moment light entered his eyes he had no idea that the world would be so cruel. And had he knows . . . well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? If we knew all that would befall us, would any one of us choose to start? When I look back on all that I have suffered, and all the suffering I have caused—the heartaches, the disappointments, the failures—all stretched out on the timeline of my future, would I still choose to be born if I had the choice? But, of course, none of us have the choice. We’re all thrown into this world, as Heidegger suggests. No choice of time, place, parentage, or any other factor that might ease our pain. The Babylonian poet comes to mind.
One of the significant differences between the rest of the ancient civilizations and the Torah of Israel is this important fact: the Torah provides a pathway—in detail. All those civil, social, legal, and spiritual instructions are intended to give us, for the first time, precise details about what God wants and how to live pleasing Him. In other ancient societies the gods were fickle, at best, leaving men to guess what should be done. Israel’s Torah erased that anxiety. But Job experiences a counterpunch. He has followed God’s instructions—meticulously. He is accounted righteous, by God Himself. And yet this path, the path that is supposed to ensure God’s favor, has led him to unmitigated disaster, to unimaginable loss. How could this be? How could the pathway to life turn out to be a detour to death? And if it is, for some unexplainable reason, then why travel it at all? “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Sparks don’t fly downward. It seems that trouble is inevitable even if we follow the Torah. Is that true?
Topical Index: hidden, sātar, protection, Torah, pathway, life, death, Job 3:23
[1] Patterson, R. D. (1999). 1551 סָתַר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 636). Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
Hope is acquired and sustained only on the ground or foundation and undertaking (ὑπόστασις) of inter-relational faithfulness… a bond of fidelity and commitment made by like-minded participants who together desire to obtain what is in accord with a shared common good. The foundation… the substance or realization of that common good… is understandably undermined by any disloyalty or betrayal of fidelity/faithfulness.
Job’s temporal experience feels to him like he is hidden from God’s benevolence…
(In fact he is “shielded” from it in part. Even so, it is only for a brief moment relative to all eternity. And we should take note of the Adversary’s overwhelming destructive power that was rendered in that “moment”)… But Job’s experience must feel to him like a betrayal of God’s fidelity/faithfulness to one who has lived in confidence— in accord with his fear of God and the integrity of his ways.
What this demonstrates is that trouble is inevitable— in accord with the fact that the presence of sin is also inevitable— because there is not one among the children of humankind who has not gone astray; neither is there one who does good. There is no one who understands; no one who seeks God. By the works of instruction of Torah— “the law”— all flesh will not be declared righteous before Him, for through the law comes knowledge of sin. (c.f. Romans 3:20)
Job feels that his confidence in the integrity of his ways because of his fear of God has been betrayed by God. The very foundation of his understanding is undermined, and Job begins to quake under the weight of his fractured realization of what was not that for which he hoped, anticipated, and even expected. Indeed, could the pathway to life instead turn out to be a detour to death? Trekker… beware!