So I took a breath and decided it may be interesting to approach the Book of Job, likely one of the earliest stories in the Bible. Job’s terribly dark, chewy, poetic and ultimately sublime. What I provide is just a sketch really – but I’ve recorded the whole book in its entirety for us to follow if you wish. That in itself was quite the experience. There’s many long-stewed and reasoned commentaries on Job already out there. This isn’t that exactly. All four audio sections are here (if you don’t know the story you may want to commit to the labour of listening to them first! I’ll add them again as we go.)
I’m coming at it clearly not as a theologian, but a human that has suffered a little and loves stories. So today’s responses are not strategic and well combed, but allowing a little emotion in from Job’s initial impact. What you lose in depth you gain in energy, then one returns and reads again, then again.
William Blake, Job rebuked by his friends
You likely remember the synopsis: there’s a man called Job, upstanding and wealthy. “He was the greatest man among all the people of the East,” Job 1:3. God singles him out to the Devil and the Devil is permitted to ruin his life, but can’t end it. A group of friends come and advise Job, and their dialogue takes up a great deal of the book, till God speaks from the centre of a storm and responds, not in the way Job seeks, but in a way that re-orders his head and heart.