Theory of Retribution in Job:

  Theory of Retribution in Job

In the book of Job, there are numerous themes that we can learn from it. Job is famous in its story on the value of suffering in life. However, one highlighting theology that is popular in Job is the Theology of ‘Retribution’. Retribution is the idea that good deeds are always rewarded and bad deeds are always punished. So what does the book of job say about retribution?

As a gist in the book, Job was inflicted with all kinds of evil in the world. That entire he possesses, wealth, property, and family, were all gone in just a click of a finger. Job became an object of test between God and Satan. Job is God’s faithful servant and God argues Satan that Job will not betray him whatever may happen to him. As he was suffering from all evil, his friends came to him and gave advices. All his friends insisted that Job must have committed sin or offended God that he received all evil. This is the theory of retribution enter.

Along the story of Job, his friends insisted and argued with him that all the suffering he endured was a consequence of his misdeeds from the past. It all started when Eliphaz rebuke Job in chapters 4:1-5.

“Then spoke Eliphaz the Temanite, who said: ‘If someone attempts a word with you, will you mind? For how can anyone refrain from speaking? Behold, you have instructed many, and have made firm their feeble hands. Your words have upheld the stumbler; you have strengthened his faltering knees. But now it comes to you, you are impatient; when it touches yourself, you are dismayed.” Job 4:1-5

Eliphaz reminds Job that he has instructed and strengthened other in their times of distress; but now when he finds himself in distress he fails to heed his own counsel: Job should apply to himself the counsel he so often offered to others (4:1-5). Eliphaz admits that Job’s words “have helped the tottering to stand, and you have braced up those with shaking knees” (4:4). But now when the situation is reversed and Job finds himself to be the one who is suffering, he faints and is dismayed (4:5). One thing that is implied about Job’s counsel to others, the very thing Job himself now needs, and the thing Eliphaz fails to minister, is compassion.

Eliphaz then adice Job that he should take confidence in the fact that the righteous are sustained while the wicked are overthrown (Job 4:6-9). Job should be confident that, because of his devotion to God (his “fear of God” and his “integrity,”) God will take care of him and will bless him: God will come to his rescue (4:6). Eliphaz callously counsels Job to let his fear of God (i.e.; his devotion to God) sustain him in his time of intense suffering (4:6).

Job then replied to the advice of Eliphaz. “A friend owes kindness to one in despair, though he have forsaken the fear of the almighty.” Job 6:14. To such counsel Job responds by pleading, “To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown by his friend; or else he might forsake the fear of the Almighty” (6:14). Job confesses that he is ready to faint; indeed, he is at the point where he is severely tempted to “forsake the fear of the Almighty.” Due to his excruciating and seemingly unjustifiable suffering, Job is severely tempted to renounce his devotion to God—the very thing the devil desires for him to do. Eliphaz has told Job, “Let your devotion to God sustain you, knowing that God will surely reward the righteous.” Now Job tells Eliphaz, “I need your compassion, or else I may be tempted to forsake my devotion of God!”

Job declares that his anguish and misery weigh down upon him with a weight that is greater than the sand of the seashore; the heaviness of his anguish accounts for the rashness of his words (6:1-3). Job portrays God as having set Himself against His servant as a mighty adversary (6:4). The fact that God appears to be his adversary is especially grievous and inexplicable to Job, a man who has been devoted to the Lord and who has experienced the Lord’s favor.

Job has reached such a point of despair that he desires to die (6:8-9). His request is that God would “crush” him (the Hebrew word has the meaning, “to be trampled to death”) and “cut him off.” Job’s one consolation, indeed, his “joy,” is the fact that he has “not denied the words of the Holy One.” In other words, even in the midst of this awful ordeal Job has maintained his devotion to God. Job steadfastly maintains his innocence; indeed, it is the very fact of his innocence that causes his present trial to be so inexplicable—Why is he, an “innocent,” upright man who is devoted to the Lord, suffering the fate reserved for the ungodly?—and therefore so tormenting.

Another friend of Job insisted that he has sinned against God. “Does God pervert judgment, and does the Almighty distort justice?” Job 8:3. Bildad appeals to the fact that the justice of God is the sure and unanimous testimony handed down from the ancients. Bildad concludes his speech with a final confident assertion of God’s justice: Surely God will not reject a blameless man (i.e.; a man who is morally upright, as Job himself is described in 1:1), and neither will He strengthen the hand of evildoers.

“Behold, God will not cast away the upright; neither will he take the hand of the wicked. Once more will he fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with rejoicing. They that hate you shall be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked shall be no more” (8:20-22.)

We can attest here that if Job was upright why he would experience all these evils rather God will make him happy and crash all his enemies. Job agreed with Bildad that it is true. God will not forsake those who are upright. (Job 9:1-2) Despite this persuasive will of Bildad, Job explained further that God has created him with His own hands, yet now God seeks to destroy this very one whom He so lovingly and painstakingly made (10:8). He pleads with God to remember that he has been made out of clay, i.e., he is fragile (10:9). Job describes his conception (using the imagery of milk being curdled into cheese) and the fact that upon being born he became the object of God’s affection and care (10:10-12). But now God has hidden these things in His heart—i.e.; God has withdrawn His affection and care for Job, He has hidden these attributes deep within the recesses of His own heart. By reminding God of these things Job is hoping to induce God to take pity on him and be merciful to him.

His third friend charged him all of what he was saying empty and he is only babbling. Zophar charges Job with being “a man full of talk.” The word used here means “empty,” or “idle,” talk, thus Zophar is accusing Job of uttering meaningless babble. According to Zophar, Job does not know what he is talking about. Furthermore, Zophar charges Job with being a scoffer when he insists that he is blameless and the calamities he is experiencing are not the just consequence of his sins. Zophar’s wish is that God would speak, that He would reveal to Job the secrets of wisdom.

By supplying superficial answers (namely, that God always and immediately punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous in this world), answers that do not address and do not explain the moral anomalies of life (as presented in 12:4,6), Job’s friends have spoken “unjustly on God’s behalf” (13:7). In an effort to defend God’s righteous character, they have shown “partiality toward him” (13:8a), as though the Almighty in His majestic greatness needed anyone to “contend” for Him (13:8b). Job charges his friends with seeking to deceive God (13:9), doing so by “secretly” showing “partiality” (13:10). Job’s friends appear to be objective champions of truth and justice, when in fact they are prejudiced against Job—refusing to even consider his claim to innocence for fear that if they do acknowledge Job’s innocence that fact will call into question God’s justice, for it will raise the question: If God is just, how can He do this to an innocent man? So, in order to “defend” God’s justice, the friends are prejudiced against Job. Here is Job’s testimony: because God is absolutely just, He condemns the effort on the part of Job’s friends to “defend” Him by being prejudiced against Job and thereby failing to abide by the standard of strict, impartial justice. Thus, despite his present intense spiritual struggle, Job continues to display a deep reverence for God, acknowledging His absolute justice and His inscrutable greatness. (13:7-12)