The suffering Job.

by Alejandro Roque Glez.

“For I know that my redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day on the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

(Job 19:25-27)

According to ancient tradition the Book of Job was written by Moses, which implies that both––by being direct descendants of Abraham––knew each other. Remember that Moses lived under the care of his Midianite father-in-law around forty years and once he fled Egypt, knowing pretty well the tribes of the area. We also know that Moses was educated in Egyptian universities, able to write better than his contemporaries, having enough time in the quiet of the years as a pastor together with his wife Zipporah; nevertheless, others attribute the book to a later period, associating it with Jobab, the second king of Edom (Gn 36:33). For the narrative and the antiquity of it, I personally incline to the time of Moses; but be either any time in his life, we are talking millennia.

It is an ancient book, where the philosophy of life is discussed and the court of God is open to human understanding. Here is a righteous man who is tested, apparently destroyed, and later on extraordinarily remunerated living a long life full of blessings. His suffering has been the subject of controversy, some explanatory ones, and other detractors, mostly those who strive to deny the existence of God. I recommend a thorough reading of the Book of Job; it is a masterpiece and also encourages us in the midst of our sufferings.

Job is worthy to be loved, one suffer with him when reading it. It shows our Adamic condition without losing our faith that somehow justice would prevail––as eventually happened––and there are many details that we are not conscious of. For instance we don’t know exactly what kind of life led these children of Job who were exterminated; albeit the father himself tells us that he had to pray for them constantly as they spent much of their time in festive banquets. Sometimes we judge a story without faith, but God in his omniscience one day will reveal face to face the reason for many of the things that happen to us, and to which we often do not find the right answer, blind in our own righteousness and self-deceptions while we are also affected by the human societies in which we develop.

Here in this quote we are analyzing Job, in a flash into the distant future, prophesied by the Holy Spirit about the person of mankind’s Redeemer, Jesus Christ. With stunning clarity––matching the one of the apostle Paul but centuries before––Job assures us the future resurrection of Christians (1 Cor 15:52-54) not only in soul and spirit, but in fleshly body and glorious likeness of Jesus after being resurrected and glorified, seeing under such eternity, our God with his own eyes; as emphasizing this is credible, real and true. Similarly centuries after king David prophesied in one of his Psalms when he said: “But God will redeem my life from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me” (Ps 49:15).

The whole story of Job is used by the Holy Spirit filled with grace and revelations, including references to the End Times. In the midst of suffering, without losing his faith in the omniscient Creator, Job declares: “The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him. The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath… That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath” (20:27-29, 21:30). He announces here the awaited everlasting righteousness (Rom 8:9, 22).

Science is present in the wise words of Job. He speaks about heaven, the wind, rain and lightning (28:24-26); we are instructed––millennia before the Middle Ages––in relation to the delights of the Pleiades, Orion and Arcturus, together with the stars and heavens’ ordinances (38:31-36); and when the sons of God in the stellar world rejoiced as God created us here on earth in his image and likeness (38:4-7), under a starry world, work of His hands. Millennia before the Vatican and its inquisition was willing to burn whoever said that the earth was round, already Job emphatically told us that God “stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangs the earth on nothing” (26:7).

Job is a man to be admired. He reveals how our friends can become our accusers, our companion in life transformed into a kind of cursing enemy, our hope vanished,and the pain of feeling ignored and disregarded. Humans go through those valleys of shadow and God promises that one day they will cease, and sorrows shall be forgotten because “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away…Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:4-5).

(What will life be on our planet once the Lord fulfills the promise of his coming. If interested you can read it in the form of a literary narrative, recreated in the author's book entitled: 'The King Victorino').

[These and other Old Testament prophecies are explicatively compiled in the author's book entitled: 'Minor Prophets of the Old Testament;' in print and digital editions]

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