Textual Criticism

But he said to her, “You are speaking as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we actually accept good from God but not accept adversity?” Despite all this, Job did not sin with his lips.  Job 2:10 NASB

Accept/ adversity – Do you remember that I mentioned the verb qābal (take, receive) created a small textual problem?  Coppes’ remark (“Our root appears to be a loan word, perhaps from Aramaic (as suggested by KB). It occurs only in clearly late texts except for the technical sense of Ex 26:5; 36:12.”) has a rather difficult implication.  If qābal is a loan word in late texts, then what does that say about the authorship of Job?  Christian tradition often claimed that Job was one of the earliest books of the Bible, but words like this (and other idiosyncrasies in the text) suggest that it was written much later, after the Pentateuch, probably after the Babylonian exile.  If that’s the case, then the story of Job has a completely different audience than we might have first believed.  What if the real audience of Job is the people of Israel following their exile in Babylon?  Doesn’t that make Job’s trials—and God’s response—far more relevant?  Aren’t the questions raised in Job precisely those that Israel would be asking about their experience at God’s hand with the captivity?  Perhaps we need to rethink our exegesis on the basis of the post-Babylonian society rather than an isolated story juxtaposed before the exodus from Egypt.  The story of Job is a legend that attempts to answer the question, “Why?”

This consideration helps us recognize why Christian translations tend to soften Job’s declaration.  English Bibles read “adversity,” or “bad things,” or “trouble,” or “calamity,” or “afflictions,” rather than what the word literally means, that is, “evil” (raʿ).  Fortunately, there are a few English Bibles that don’t opt for smoothed translations.  The NASB isn’t one of them.  Substituting “adversity” or “calamity” for raʿ  removes the punch in the gut.  It puts God squarely in the center of the debate, assigning good and evil to His will.

The essential meaning of the root can be seen in its frequent juxtaposition with the root ṭôb. Thus Moses concluded, “See I set before you today life and what is good [ṭôb], death and what is evil/bad [raʿ] (cf. Mic 3:2). Frequently they occur in the merism that one distinguishes “good and evil/bad” (II Sam 14:17; 19:35 [H 36]; I Kgs 3:9; Isa 7:15; cf. here “tree of good and evil,” Gen 2:9, 17).^[1]

Job doesn’t skirt the issue.  Translations that do mislead us.  This is not a story about a cosmic battle between two celestial superpowers.  This is a story about God’s character.  haśśāṭān is merely the agent of the divine will.  Don’t forget that!

That leaves us with one unavoidable question: “How is it possible that God is the author of both good and evil?”  Our human emotional logic wants to shout, “No, it can’t be.”  But the biblical text might say something different—if we allow it to.

Topical Index: qābal, authorship, raʿ, adversity, evil, Job 2:10

KB L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, 2nd ed., Eng.-Ger., 1958

^[1] Livingston, G. H. (1999). 2191 רָעַע. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 854). Moody Press.