Conversion
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
Fearing God – We are familiar with the Hebrew verb yārēʾ. Used hundreds of times, this word has a wide umbrella of related meanings:
biblical usages of yārēʾ are divided into five general categories:1) the emotion of fear, 2) the intellectual anticipation of evil without emphasis upon the emotional reaction, 3) reverence or awe, 4) righteous behaviour or piety, and 5) formal religious worship. Major ot synonyms include pāḥad, ḥātat, and ḥārad as well as several words referring to shaking or quaking as a result of fear.[1]
When Job is described as “fearing God,” we can easily see how categories three, four, and five apply. Job is, after all, the epitome of a religious man. We identify. But perhaps that isn’t quite enough. Perhaps we really don’t “fear God” until we experience all of the tension of the umbrella. Perhaps fearing God requires converting our safe, theological, religious “fear” into real shaking and quaking, into real emotional and intellectual apprehension of evil. At least this seems to be Job’s story. Apparently his religious fear needs conversion into real involvement with unjustified evil and its consequences. Apparently Job needs to wrestle with the unanswerable question, “Why me?”
I asked if you knew anyone named Job. I rather doubt you do. It’s not just because the name recalls inexplicable suffering. It’s also because the name intimates unresolved conflict with the divine. We fear this name for all that it portends, but it is a name that we must be familiar with. It is a name that must, in some sense, become a part of us, even if only by acknowledging its place in our conundrum about God. Like the book of Ruth which is not really about Ruth at all, so the book of Job isn’t really about Job. It’s about God—and our mystified misunderstanding about fearing Him.
Job fears God. We applaud. We would like to be as religious as Job, fearing God and turning away from evil. But, then, what did the fear of God really do for Job? Nothing! Nothing except put him in the crosshairs of divine and demonic scrutiny—and misery. Better, it would seem, to remain under the radar, to be a part-time observer, an un-noteworthy nobody—and avoid all the attention that brings Job to the point of wishing to die. Why fear God if all it does is cause us pain? Why not just “get along” with life, keeping our heads below the surface and away from the guillotine? Why not a Walter Mitty faith, a safe spot in the middle pew once a week?
Perhaps Job is the real story of conversion, not the pie-in-the-sky in the bye and bye, but the willingness to die because of the cry, “Why?”
Topical Index: fearing God, yārēʾ, conversion, evil, Job 1:1
[1] Bowling, A. (1999). 907 יָרֵא. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 399). Chicago: Moody Press.
