The Introduction
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil. Job 1:1 NASB
There was – Job’s tale is a sad and disturbing one. It’s sad because none of us want to experience the trauma that Job endures. It’s disturbing because it appears that this tragedy befalls Job for no other reason than God’s willingness to let the righteous suffer. Of course, theologians and preachers try their best to justify this divine misbehavior, and perhaps they sound successful, but underneath all the hand washing is the gnawing feeling that something just isn’t right here. After all, the story begins with a definitive statement of Job’s faithfulness. His character and actions are perhaps the epitome of religious commitment and observant lifestyle. Of all the men in the Bible, he should be our model. Except, of course, that we really don’t want anything about him to infect us. His righteousness seems to be the excuse for his destruction, and we would rather be tainted and comfortable than pure and punished. But perhaps there is something else to the Job account than we first notice.
Let’s begin at the very beginning. “There was,” opens the translation, but the Hebrew is a bit more direct. hāyâ, it begins, something more like, “It came to pass,” or “It happened.” But the use of hāyâ here is quite unusual, for the simple reason that Hebrew almost never uses hāyâ to designate existence or identification. Note Victor Hamilton’s remark:
Very seldom in the ot is hāyâ used to denote either simple existence or the identification of a thing or person. This can be illustrated by a quick glance at almost any page of the KJV on which one will find numerous examples of words such as “is, are, was, were,” in italics, indicating that these are additions by the translators for the sake of smoothness, but not in the Hebrew itself. In such cases the Hebrew employs what is known grammatically as a nominal sentence, which we may define most simply as a sentence lacking a verb or a copula, for example: I (am) the Lord your God; the Lord (is) a sun and shield; the land (is) good; and in the nt, blessed (are) the poor. This almost total lack of hāyâ as a copula or existential particle has led some to use this phenomenon as confirming evidence that “static” thought was alien to the Hebrews, the latter thinking only in “dynamic” categories (see Boman in the bibliography below).
An alternative way in Hebrew to express existence besides the nominal sentence is by the particles yēš (positive) and ʾayin (negative), really another type of nominal sentence “perhaps ‘there are’ fifty righteous in the city”; “ ‘there is’ no God.” Both of these words are more substantival in nature than they are verbal, and in function they resemble the French il y a and the German es gibt.
There are instances, however, where hāyâ is used with a predicate adjective: (a) in the description of a past situation which no longer exists, “The earth was (hayĕtâ) formless and void” (Gen 1:2); (b) in historical narration, “The serpent was (hāyâ) more subtil [sic] than any beast of the field” (Gen 3: I); (c) in the expression of a gnomic truth, “It is not good that man should be (hĕyôt) alone” (Gen 2:18). Notice the juxtaposition of the verbal sentence, with hāyâ and a nominal sentence without it: “You shall be (tihyû) holy for I (am) holy (qādôš ʾănî, Lev 19:2).[1]
What does this tell us about Job? There is something strange about this whole character, Job, that demands hāyâ rather than yēš. Why does the Hebrew text pointedly use hāyâ if not to alert us to the strange tale we are about to read? Furthermore, the Hebrew actually reads, “a man hāyâ in the earth Uz.” That isn’t exactly “There was a man from Uz,” although it can be translated that way. It seems to me more likely that the author wants us to connect this strange character with the earth, ʾereṣ, not such a region called Uz. More precisely, since the earth is the Lord’s, Job’s place of residence is in fact a divine lease. And since ʾereṣ is used countless times to refer to the Promised Land, the divine election of a particular topography spills over into Job’s world. Before any discussion between the accuser and YHVH commences, the reader knows that Job is under God’s domain.
Now let’s backtrack. The syntax of this sentence in Hebrew is not the same as the translation. As above, the verse reads, “A man hāyâ in the earth Uz ʾîyôb name.” This man, whose name is highly significant, comes out of the earth Uz, which belongs to YHVH. Uz itself is strange. Used two other times in the Tanakh (עוּץ (ʿûṣ) counsel, plan [Jud 19:30; Isa 8:10][2]), Uz might be a location, but given the plot of this story are we not to think of this man as an example of the Lord’s counsel? The entire tale of Job is about the council of divine and the counsel of human and divine figures. Every word in this introductory sentence plays hide and seek with the reader.
Before we examine the name of this orthodox apostate, read this opening sentence again, only this time read it as a condensed prologue to the entire book. Then you will be ready to meet Job.
Topical Index: hāyâ, there was, Uz, Job 1:1
[1] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 491 הָיָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 213–214). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 655). Chicago: Moody Press.
