Third Cycle and Book of Job

An indication of how much conversation has broken down between Job and the friends by the end of the second cycle can be gleaned from the virulent words of Zophar in chapter 20. The "wicked," the subject of his speech, swallow down riches but vomit them up again (v.15). They will "suck the poison of asps; the tongue of a viper will kill them (v.16)." Continuing his focus on the belly, Zophar says, "they know no quiet in their bellies (v.20)" and that God will "fill their belly to the full" with his fierce anger (v.23). Bronze arrows will pierce the wicked until the glittering point comes out of them (v.25).

Job Dominates

Once Zophar has finished his screed, Job takes up his discourse again. The third cycle of speeches is incomplete and unbalanced. Job and Eliphaz have "normal" speeches (Job 21; 22), but then Job has a long speech (23-24) which concludes with a chapter replete with textual problems (24). The upshot of chapter 24, however, seems to be that God not only permits the wicked to prosper and run roughshod over the righteous (21), but actively works in favor of the wicked (24:21-25).

Bildad, then, only speaks for six verses (25) before being interrupted by Job, who continues to speak until chapter 28. The hymn to wisdom is unattributed, but I have argued elsewhere that it functions as a kind of hinge between sections of the book. Finally, Job concludes with more than 90 verses of memories, humiliations and oaths in chapters 29-31. It is all Job by the end of the third cycle. Other voices have been interrupted or silenced.

The Ideas of the Cycle

One reason that the conversation breaks down around chapter 25 is that Job has introduced even more unpalatable ideas into the discussion than he did in the first and second cycles. There his focus was primarily on his own distress and his anger at God for bringing massive dislocation into his life. Though the friends were shocked at some of his statements and increasingly offended by Job's claims of personal righteousness (cf. 16:17), they never seemed to lose sight of the fact that Job, their friend, was before them.

However, beginning in chapter 21, Job generalizes from his experience to conclude that God acts this way toward all people and not necessarily just toward him. Job's argument is not only the classic way people argue (either consciously or unconsciously extrapolating from their own experience of life to the experience of everyone in the world) but it allows the friends an opportunity to attack him with a new vehemence. Job deliberately baits the friends with his sweeping generalizations: "How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does calamity come upon them (21:17)?" The friends argue that "God stores up their iniquity for their children (21:19)." Job wants God's putative power to be shown now: "Let it be paid back to them (the wicked) that they may know it (21:19)."

It is probably because of this that Eliphaz, for the first time in chapter 22, directly attacks Job's ethics. "You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the orphans you have crushed (22:9)." Result? "Therefore snares are around you, and sudden terror overwhelms you (22:10)." If it is possible, Job increases the harshness and intensity of the conversation in chapter 24 where he frankly accuses God both of not "keeping times" (24:1--being concerned with justice) and actively working to prolong the life of the wicked (24:22). Bildad then can only begin to get warmed up in his next speech (25:1-6), by repeating themes already mentioned by Elihpaz in his first speech (4:17-19), before Job interrupts and has not just the next word but every word after that, until Elihu speaks in chapter 32.

Conclusion

Rather than looking at the third cycle, however, as an "incomplete" cycle that therefore is literarily problematic, I choose to see it as very finely structured, when looked at from the psychology of conversation.* Conversation breaks down for two reasons: first, Job has become even more "obnoxious" from the perspective of the friends, and second, either he does not permit them to continue the attack or they have already exhausted their vituperative rancor in earlier cycles and just remain there, staring in disbelief or sadness at their friend.

[*Some older commentators said that the literary difficulties in the third cycle demonstrated the problematic transmission history of the book. But we have no manuscript evidence for this. Why not try to accept the text as is, in the first instance, and see if there is a plausible literary or psychological explanation for the arrangement?]

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