The Book of Job background

In the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, the Book of Job is the last book of the Writings section, in the sub-section known as the “Poetic Books”, located after Proverbs. The book may be the oldest in the Bible, with a style similar to the Pentateuch, and Jewish tradition attributes it to Moses. Although the author and date of composition are not definitively known, internal evidence indicates that the story is set in the patriarchal era, from Abraham to before Moses. For instance: the father served as the family priest (1:5), wealth was measured in livestock (1:3; 42:12), people lived very long lives (42:16), silver and gold rings were used (42:11), and God was frequently referred to as “the Almighty” (5:17), yet there is no mention of the Exodus, the Sinai Covenant, or the Law.

The Book of Job is a classic work on the meaning of good and evil, narrating the story of Job, a righteous and wealthy man, who lost the most precious things in his life—including his children, property, and health—in a series of immense disasters. However, the truths revealed in the book are far more profound than just suffering.

As the saying goes, good is rewarded and evil is punished; there is a law of cause and effect. Traditional causality dictates that there can be no “effect” without a “cause,” the past determines the present, and the present determines the future, with the arrow of time moving ever forward. Yet, modern quantum mechanics has discovered that a present measurement can determine the path a photon took in the past. In other words, present actions seem to be able to change history, where an “effect” can exist without a “cause,” and “nothing” can bring forth “something.” This fact suggests that the past has not truly passed, and the future has not yet existed; they influence each other, and we must think about causality from an entirely new temporal perspective.

However, more than three thousand years ago, the Book of Job had already profoundly answered these questions that philosophers and physicists are still struggling with. God is the “thing-in-itself” (or “the self-existent one”), the self-existent God who needs no “cause.” Instead, He is the “cause” of all things. Therefore, He transcends space and time and is above all cause-and-effect relationships. Causality is not limited to space and time; the past has not disappeared, the future is already predetermined, and will continue into eternity (Eph. 1:4-12). Humans cannot fully comprehend created things, let alone comprehend God. But this “self-existent one” is a personal God who is willing to reveal Himself to humanity. Only by knowing God and receiving His life can a person transcend the law of causality and gain true freedom.

Although the Book of Job was written more than three thousand years ago, its magnificent and majestic prose is worthy of comparison with the greatest works of Homer and Shakespeare. Although it is largely poetry, it contains almost every literary genre found in the Old Testament, making it the highest achievement of Hebrew literature. Although it discusses suffering, it does not dwell on shallow explanations but is instead full of dramatic turns and climaxes, a truly breathtaking work.

While ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian wisdom literature often discussed suffering, no other book before or since has ever equaled the Book of Job in its depth, scope, impact, and literary technique. Any comparison only makes it stand out further. The British Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson called the book “the greatest poem of ancient and modern times.” The French author Victor Hugo said, “The Book of Job is the greatest masterpiece ever produced by the human mind.” In the Old Testament, perhaps no other book has had a greater influence on Western literature than the Book of Job. Traces of Job can be found in Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Goethe’s Faust, Hugo’s Les Misérables, and Shakespeare’s King Lear.