Job 30 and Book of Job

The feeling of being humiliated is so close to the springs of our personal identity that we often mask it through expressions of anger, resentment, grief or bitterness. The theme of Homer's great epic, The Iliad, is stated in the first line, the "wrath" or "anger" of Achilles. but you don't have to probe too far beneath the surface of that classic to discover, however, that at the root of Achilles' great anger is a sense of humiliation: Agamemnon took his "prize of war" (Briseis) from him. Anger is the manifestation; humiliation is the internal reality.

So it is not until chapter 30 that Job fully confronts his feeling of personal humiliation. Indeed, he mentioned it in passing earlier (12:4--"I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called upon God and he answered me, a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.") and he also referred to his abandonment by his remaining friends (19:13-19), but never before chapter 30 does he have the courage to search out his sense of personal humiliation because of his great loss at any length. When he finally does so, he uses language of unbelievable intensity and compactness, which can only be hinted at in this essay.

30:1-8

Job, the great wise man of chapter 29, is now made sport of by the young men (v.1). There is much more in v.1 than the recounting of his being mocked by the young. These young men are those "whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." A multi-level insult is intended. First Job refers not to the mockers but to their fathers, who have more respect in the Wisdom tradition. Then Job says that he would not have even placed their fathers with his dogs. Job is not saying that he would not have permitted his insulters' fathers to watch his sheep; he is saying that the fathers were not worthy to keep the watchdogs company. Indeed, these mockers will be driven out of the society (v.5) and, without any resources, will be forced to "gnaw the dry and desolate ground (v.3)." They are "senseless" and "disreputable," and will be "whipped" out of the land.

30:9-15

Job tersely describes his humiliation by the mockers. Seeing that God has cast off all restraint in dealing with Job, the rabble imitates the divine conduct (v.11). They send him sprawling (v.12), break up his path (v.13), attack him as if breaking through a breach (v.14). In a word, "They abhor me, they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me (v.10)."

30:16-30

Words of anguish pile up one after another. Job speaks in the third person (16-19) in language similar to a Psalm of lament but, in contrast to those Psalms there is no prayer for forgiveness or restoration. Instead of a confession, Job then turns to second person speech (20-23) and hones in on God's silence. "I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely look at me (v.20)." Then, he uses a word which will require its own essay: "You have turned cruel to me (v.21)." God's conduct is inexcusable because Job is morally upright (24-26). It is all for naught; "But when I looked for good, evil came; and when I waited for light, darkness came (v.26)." He concludes (27-30) with a wrenching portrait of his personal turmoil. He goes about in sunless gloom. "I am a brother of jackals, and a companion of the ostriches (v.29)." Ironically, his destiny seems to be to roam in the same country to which he consigns his mockers (vv.3-7). The humiliators and the humiliated meet in the gullies of wadis to enjoy their meal of nettles.

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