In his book, Playing with Fire, Walt Russell discusses the purpose of Wisdom Literature, “Wisdom Literature is designed to encourage us to transcend the insight or principle spoken of in the saying and apply it to our own experience.”1 Walt Russell, Playing with Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in Your Soul, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 161 Most scholars include Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs as the wisdom books of the Bible. Some include Psalms and Song of Solomon.2https://www.gotquestions.org/wisdom-literature.html As wisdom literature, these books deal with how to live well. 3https://www.gotquestions.org/wisdom-literature.html Wisdom is practical and accessible. It is therefore structured in a concise, simple, and profound way, a way which observes reality, values experience, and offers advice on how to skillfully deal with the mishaps and hardships of life.4https://www.gotquestions.org/wisdom-literature.htmlThe Retribution Principle in The Old Testament Wisdom Books. Anthony Costello. https://www.academia.edu/38236766/OT_Wisdom_and_the_Retribution_Principle_pdf{[(|fnote_end|)]}
Wisdom literature was a category of literature in many cultures in the time of the Old Testament. 5https://www.gotquestions.org/wisdom-literature.html The wisdom literature of ancient Israel was unique in that God was recognized as the fountainhead of all wisdom. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). 6ibidA first principle in the Oriental Wisdom, which corresponds in part to our Ethics, was, that it is well with the righteous and ill with the wicked, Isaiah 3:10-11. This principle is set at the head of the Psalter in Psalms 1, and is reiterated in many shapes as an unalterable law in the Book of Proverbs. According to this principle Job and all acquainted with him would see his piety reflected in his worldly prosperity, and regard this as God’s blessing upon him on account of it. It is not the intention of the writer of the Book to break with this principle absolutely. On the contrary when he lets Job at the end of his trials be restored to a prosperity double that which he enjoyed before, he gives in his adhesion to the principle in general. If he had not done so his position would have been more false than that of Job’s friends, who asserted that the principle prevailed in the world without exceptions. The Author’s design goes no further than to teach that the principle is subject to great modifications, and that sufferings may arise from causes more general than any connected with the sufferer’s own life. His object, however, in teaching this doctrine cannot have been the limited one of correcting a false theory of Providence, he must have had before him the wider purpose of sustaining individuals or most probably his nation under severe and inexplicable trials and encouraging them with brilliant hopes of the future. 7 Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. https://biblehub.com/commentaries/cambridge/job/1.htm
One common denominator between the theology of Job and his friends is a belief in the retribution dogma, a simplistic understanding of the principle of divine retribution: God (Job without exception) punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. Since the righteous are always blessed and the wicked always receive God’s judgment, Job must be a sinner since God has removed his physical blessings. Because God never punishes the godly man or preserves the evildoer, all three friends contend that Job’s suffering is a sign of hidden sin (Job 4:7-11; 5:8-16; 8:11-22; 11:4-6,14-20; 18:5-21). Eliphaz implies (Job 4:11 —see the context of Job 4:7-10) and Bildad (Job 8:4) states that Job’s children were killed as punishment for their sins. In the second cycle of speeches, all three friends emphasize God’s certain punishment of the wicked. Both Eliphaz (Job 15:17-35) and Zophar (Job 20:4-29) explain Job’s initial prosperity by the prevailing idea that the wicked many enjoy temporary prosperity before God metes out retributive judgment.
Job denies the accusations of his three friends that he is being punished for sin and openly questions the validity of the retribution dogma by citing counterexamples of the prosperity of the wicked (Job 21:7-16,31). Furthermore, he properly challenges the corollary that God punishes children for the sins of their parents (Job 21:19-21; see also Deuteronomy 24:16 ). Yet, when Job accuses God of unjustly punishing him for sin (in order to maintain his own innocence — Job 9:20-23; 40:8), he unconsciously retains the dogma of divine retribution.
Even Elihu argues that God operates according to retribution so that he ought not be accused of perverting justice (Job 34:11-12).
The purpose of the Book of Job (negatively stated) involves the refutation of this retribution dogma, which assumes an automatic connection between one’s material and physical prosperity and one’s spirituality. Both Job and his friends unknowingly restrict God’s sovereignty by their assumption that he must always act according to their preconceived dogma. Because of this dogma, Job impugns God’s justice in order to justify himself (Job 40:8). Though divine retribution is a valid principle (see Deuteronomy 28) the error is making it an unconditional dogma by which one can predetermine God’s actions and judge a person’s condition before him. God is not bound by this man-made dogma but normally will bless the righteous and punish the wicked.
The Book of Job also refutes the corollary that God is obligated to bless man if he obeys. This issue surfaces in the prologue, when Satan claims that Job serves God only for profit (Job 1:9-11). After Job’s numerous possessions are removed, Job demands that God give him a fair trial in court (Job 10:2). Because God does not answer his plea to specify charges against him, Job dares to challenge the sovereign power of the Almighty by trying (as it were) to subpoena him for testimony (Job 31:35). He accuses God of oppressive tactics (Job 10:3), including apparently the forcible removal of what rightfully belongs to him. When Job assumes that God owes him physical blessing since he has been obedient to Him, he was imbibing a concept that undergirded ancient Near Eastern religions—that the human relationship to the gods was like a business contract of mutual claims that was binding in court. The Book of Job shows the absurdity of demanding that God operate in this manner since he is obligated to no one: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:11). Thus, God’s free sovereignty is independent of all human rules, including those imposed by any religion.
The traditional wisdom belief in moral retribution, which lay at the core of ancient Near Eastern religions,61 had become a dogmatic assumption (with no exceptions) for Job’s friends. Because the righteous were always blessed and the wicked always punished, Eliphaz and Bildad alleged that Job’s suffering proved he was guilty of hidden sin (4:7-11; 8:11-20; 18:5-21).62
The Book of Job serves to refute this “retribution dogma,” a simplistic understanding of the divine retribution principle maintaining that there is an automatic connection between one’s material and physical prosperity and one’s spirituality.63 Though divine retribution is a valid biblical principle (Deut. 28), the error is making it an unconditional dogma by which man can predetermine God’s actions and judge a person’s condition before Him.
God is not bound to act according to this man made retribution dogma, though He will normally bless the righteous and punish the wicked. Perdue argues that the traditional metaphors of creation theology that Israelite wisdom literature shared with the ancient Near East have been “deconstructed” in the Book of Job. The man Job made a wholesale assault on each metaphor of creation faith in order to challenge the view of Yahweh as the righteous Ruler and Judge who maintains creation with retributive justice.64 Second, along with noting how the Book of Job challenges traditional wisdom assumptions, the expositor should consider parallel literature (including the “innocent sufferer” texts). The expositor should utilize both primary and secondary resources to observe key parallels or contrasts to the Book of Job.65 A general comparison of the Book of Job with the “righteous sufferer”66 texts in the ancient Near East shows that the Book of Job contains the same basic solutions to the problem of “innocent suffering” as found in the extrabiblical texts.67 The main difference between the Book of Job and these other texts is the direct theophonic intervention of God and His direct speeches (chaps. 38-41).68
Thus the Book of Job offers neither a definitive answer to Job’s question “why?” nor a solution to the problem of innocent suffering; therefore the significant point of the book is not its approach to the problem of suffering,69 but the uniqueness of the God to whom man must properly relate (whether suffering or not).70
https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/18-job/text/articles/parsons-understandingjob-bs.htm
But the book is not about how Job exemplifies the righteous being blessed. The book instead explores a situation where the righteous and blameless are not blessed but experience deep suffering and seem to be cursed. The book could try to explain the “why” behind this righteous man’s suffering, but it instead explores the internal wrestling with God when life does not line up with how we think it should. The book of Job moves beyond the black and white that Proverbs presents and explores the gray found in life, providing a more nuanced and grounded perspective on wisdom. David J. A. Clines writes in his commentary, “Job and Ecclesiastes introduce the needed element of sophistication and realism into the philosophy of Wisdom, calling into question as they do so the universal validity of the tenets of Proverbs… (Job) earns its place beside (Proverbs) within the corpus of ‘Wisdom’ literature for its implicit instruction on how to live rightly when one is suffering.” In Old Testament Wisdom Literature, Craig G. Bartholomew and Ryan P. O’Dowd add to this thought, “One of the main lessons in Job and Ecclesiastes is that the wisdom of Proverbs is not a simple path; human wisdom must be combined with faith and endurance. Faith and hope do not eliminate mystery; they assume and embrace it.” Thus, the book of Job is not dismissing the wisdom principles found elsewhere in the Old Testament but instead takes its readers deeper into an exploration of situations that seem to contradict those principles.8 https://medium.com/@ruthmartin_67587/research-paper-the-message-of-job-wisdom-literature-81910fafbff9
References