The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [363]
The Book of Job
The story of job, probably developed from a Babylonian original around 400 BC, is not like anything else in the Bible. It begins with a hero who is described as `a perfect and upright' man, `one that feared God and eschewed evil'. He is rich and powerful, `the greatest of all the men in the East'. He has `a very great household', many servants and possessions, and lives happily surrounded by a large family, including seven sons and three daughters. But then Satan, described as a 'son of God', suggests to God that the only reason why job seems so perfect is that God has `made a hedge about him'. Of course it is easy for job to be God-fearing when he enjoys every blessing the world can offer. But Satan throws down a challenge. If God will allow him to undermine job's prosperity, he will soon win job away from his perfect loyalty. God agrees to this, on condition that no harm is done to Job physically.
Satan sets about destroying job's `kingdom' with a will. Job is robbed of all his possessions. His servants are put to the sword. A mighty wind blows up from nowhere, destroying his eldest son's house and killing all his sons and daughters. In face of all this horrifying news job remains unshakeable. `The Lord giveth, he says, `the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Round one to God. However, Satan then gets permission from God to afflict job directly, with the worst possible physical torments, so long as he does not actually kill him. Job develops boils all over his body, so agonising that he finally curses the day he was born. He is beginning to crack.
Then follows a long debate between job and three of his friends, who come to comfort him. Initially he seems to have recovered his philosophical acceptance of what has happened. But gradually he turns on his `comforters, accusing them of just preaching empty words at him. He muses on how really wicked people, `those that rebel against the light, so often seem to get away with their crimes, without being punished. He reminisces self-pitifully about how he used to be blessed and respected by all, but now `they that are younger than me have me in derision'. He begins to list all the virtuous things he has done throughout his life, to show how little he has deserved his terrible fate. Why has God abandoned him? And at this point `the three men ceased to answer job because he was righteous in his own eyes'.
Then a fourth, younger man, Elihu, breaks in to reprove not only job himself but also the three others, because they have so obviously failed in getting job to understand. `Job hath spoken without knowledge.' He has dared question the actions and wisdom of the creator of the universe, whose power and knowledge are far greater than any mere mortal can begin to understand. Not only are all men sinners, including Job. He has now added `rebellion to his sin'. And at this point, in an awesomely dramatic intervention, God himself addresses job `out of the whirlwind, in a speech of overwhelming power. `Who is this that darkeneth counsel without knowledge?' Where were you, he asks Job, `when I laid the foundations of the earth?' After a long recital demonstrating his omnipotence and omniscience, job is utterly crushed: `I know that thou cans't do everything ... I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Seeing his abject capitulation, the Lord accepts that the test is over and blesses `the latter end of job more than his beginning'. He ends up twice as rich as before, with seven new sons and seven new daughters ('in all the land were no women found so fair') and lives happily for many more years until finally coming to a peaceful end, `old and full of days'.
Lesser dark version: Brave New World
In the Book