Job 40 and God and book of Job

The thesis I am arguing is that Job is undone in 40:3-5 principally because of the overwhelming implications of the ideas God suggests, especially in Job 39. The central idea, derived from an examination of creation, is that creation, God's playground, and hence God, do not observe rules of morality.

Some scholars maintain that rather than being abashed or overcome, Job is just gritting his teeth and mouthing words God wants to hear or just dropping out of the conversation because he sees that God is still angry and out of control. In other words, some scholars see no change of heart in Job here at all. I think that approach is belied by the phrase "I lay my hand on my mouth (40:4)," a sign, as in 29:9, of submission, not sullenness, and perhaps fear.

God Continues

But God is not done. Far from it. He poses a question of Job that takes the discussion out of the moral realm and into the realm of divine power. "Will you even put me in the wrong? [another translation has it, "Will you annul my order," hence 'overturn my structure of justice?' E. Good, Job (HarperCollins Bible Commentary, 2000, p. 391] Will you condemn me that you may be justified (40:8)?" Then immediately, before giving Job a chance to answer, God states what constitutes the divine 'structure of justice:' "Have you an arm like god, and can you thunder with a voice like his (40:9)?" Shockingly, the divine order (justice) of the universe is based on power and a loud-thundering voice.

God Respects Power

In three passages of ever-more dramatic proportion and length, God then shows how He practices and respects the show of power in the world. First, God would "acknowledge to you (Job) that your own right hand can give you victory (40:14)" when Job, like God, can "pour out the overflowings of your anger" and "abase" all those who are proud (40:11). The verb translated "acknowledge" is the standard verb used in the Psalms for human thanksgiving to God (see, especially Ps. 136:1,2,3,26). God would acknowledge Job as another divinity if he can tread down the wicked and bring low the proud (40:12).

Second, the reader is taken now to a more mythological realm, where God talks about his dealings with another creature, Behemoth. Though some scholars still talk about this creature (and the next) as the hippopotamus (and crocodile), more recent scholarship focuses on them as imaginative creatures. This creature was "the first of the great acts of God (40:19)" and is of amazing strength. "Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like bars of iron (40:18)." However, God threatened Behemoth with the sword (40:19, New Jerusalem Bible), and now Behemoth lies under the lotus plant and is near where all the animals play (40:20-21). Now Behemoth eats grass (40:15).

Third, and most dramatic, is the overwhelming thirty verse description of Leviathan (41:1-34), a beast so stirring and terrifying that it provided the root metaphor for Thomas Hobbes in his great treatise on political philosophy Leviathan. Leviathan even terrifies the gods (41:9,25). Leviathan is described in excruciatingly precise detail: his teeth (41:14), his plated back (41:15), his breath (41:21). Even his sneeze is noted (41:18). The only ways that God could describe Leviathan with such detail is if He had engaged in hand to hand combat with this divinity-frightening monster or had carefully shaped every sinew of its being. "On earth it has no equal, a creature without fear (41:33)."

Leviathan is the "king over all that are proud (41:34)." This creature has done what God urges Job to do earlier in the chapter. Thus, as the chapter closes one gets the impression not so much that Leviathan is a dangerous foe of God but that it is admired by God for the awesome display of its power.

Conclusion

Power breathes through Job 40-41. It is the only throbbing reality when God speaks in an unhindered form. Perhaps God respects one who can put down the proud because it is so difficult even for God Himself to do that. In a strange sort of way, the life of God may even be described as the life of imitatio Leviathani. As Job sees Leviathan disappearing and leaving its shining wake behind it (41:32), his entire conceptual universe has been subverted.

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