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14. This point will be in some tension with the preceding one, because it stresses that hope emerges gradually for Job in the midst of his deep distress. But, we don't know in fact what is "real" for Job. Is the hope real? Or is the distress real? Or are they both real but does he wear them on alternate days like we might change our clothes? I think Job's confusion over hope and despair mirrors our own confused process. Life is not a gently ascending line, rising up the mountains of life, where we stop and check out the unparalleled vistas along the way. Rather, like the character Richard III in the play of that name by Shakespeare, our "lifeline" is a jagged line of serrated edges, notched and prickly, bristling with incovenient points, acuminated and fastigiated with sharp and painful edges.

Nevertheless, hope emerges for Job. At first, in 9:33, it is a hope that disappears eftsoons it emerges. As a matter of fact, some might say that there is no hope in 9:33 because Job says, "There is no umpire." But I think that Job's ability even to conceptualize a helper who cannot exist means that he has dug himself partially out of the hole of chs. 3, 6-7. Then, in Job 14, he lingers longer over a hopeful scenario. He asks God to hide him away in Sheol until the divine wrath is past, and then, possibly, God can "remember him." Significant for me is the langauge of 14:15. In that situation, "You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands" (14:15). Job uses the language of law (call and answer) but not has transmuted it into relational terms. The nature of the restored relationship would bury the legal framework that Job has erected to try to handle the "case" he has against God. Notice that in ch. 9 Job only entertains hope for about one or two verses. Here he plays with it for about five. Hope has not yet taken wing, but it is something that has a more substantial existence than it did in ch.9.

But what is the role of hope in life when you have read my previous essay? If you just have to "live with the pain," what role does hope play? We can begin with the pablum-type observation that humans need hope in order to live. I would say, "yes, but..." and "maybe" and "it depends what you mean." I think that there is a natural human tendency to try to construct a more positive scenario in the midst of distress. Actually, I think that you can't control the human mind on this issue. Just as you cannot eliminate thoughts of sex, even if you wanted to, from coursing through the minds of teenagers young and old, so you cannot get rid of people's hopeful inclinations. Though just as the sexual fantasies are 99 percent fantasy and 1 percent reality in most instances, so the feelings of hope in the midst of crippling loss may be that fantastical. Nevertheless we have them.

And Job continues to entertain them. In ch. 16 his hope becomes instantiated or enfleshed through a "witness in heaven." He is still thinking in legal terms, however, and the longing for such a witness is part and parcel of the legal strategy that Job has been devising since ch. 9 (see below). This witness will speak for Job and defend him in his case. Then, there is the most famous expression of hope--19:25-27, where Job says that he knows that his redeemer lives. We don't know much about this redeemer because of the sorry state of the Hebrew text, but something about seeing him on the earth seems to be behind the passage.

Thus, Job's hope dawns gradually and comes about in the midst of his debilitating pain. But the words of hope come from a different world than will ultimately be useful for Job. That is, the words of hope come out of the legal world. Job wants a witness, a legal fixture. Job wants a redeemer, which is the classic Hebrew term for one who maintains the family honor either through reprisal or through buying back or "redeeming" a person or property (Boaz, in the book of Ruth, is the quintessential biblical "redeemer").

15. One of the means Job uses to try to "manage" his pain, to use language from 2005, is to file a lawsuit against God. Job 13:18 says it best, "I have indeed prepared my case; I know I shall be vindicated." Throughout the Book of Job, beginning in 9:3, Job uses language of contention, of calling of answering, of preparing his case, of being vindicated, that shows that the world Job wants to "lean on" to get a measure of self-respect as well as to secure vindication is the legal one. Law is the great, and often false, source for restoring a person's dignity when they feel they have been humiliated. Job feels the kind of humiliating rejection that cannot be remedied by punishing people or by retailiating against them. People are now laughing at him; they mock him; those to whom he would not even have given the time of day are now people who reject him. Children make fun of him. So, he turns to law as the means by which he can be vindicated. By filing his complaint he, as it were, compels God to answer. Unless you answer when a complaint is filed against you in law, the plaintiff wins a default judgment. Job knows that he is dealing with God, the ruler of the universe, and so it isn't simply as easy as filing a complaint and then having a legal encounter. Yet several scholars point to the language of 29-31 as "compulsion" language--that is, Job's oath of innocence in those chapters functions as a requirement for the God to answer.

I never knew the extent of Job's reliance on legal techniques until I had studied law and become a lawyer. Then, Job's "legal" method jumped at me in nearly every page of the book. Elihu recognizes Job's obssession with law in his long speech: "But you are obsessed with the case of the wicked; judgment and justice seize you" (36:17). And, when Elihu says this he isn't commending Job. Law seems to be the means Job uses to try to save small traces of his self-respect while the rest of his world is collapsing.

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