Job 9 and book of Job

Job 9 picks up on Job's decision in 7:11 to speak "in the anguish of my spirit" and to complain "in the bitterness of my soul." Nothing that Bildad said dissuaded him from continuing in that vein. In Job 9 he considers three strategies to speak his anguish: legal, "happy face," and personal purity. Each of these will have its fatal shortcomings, however. Thus, in Job 10 (next page), Job will simply speak his unvarnished agony directly to God in the second-person. Here, however, like Hamlet in his fourth soliloquoy, he mulls his options.

Legal Strategy. The option Job considers most extensively is the legal one. Job ultimately will settle on legal metaphors to explain what he is doing (13:18; 31:35), but here he considers legal process only seemingly to discard it. The legal reality assumed in Job is that the complainant may bring his case and the defendant can either answer or decide to conduct a cross-examination of the plaintiff. So, Job muses, "If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand (9:3)." So great is the disproportion between divine and human power that God need not answer at all, and if God answers, "I do not believe that he would listen to my voice (9:16)." Instead of answering, God simply "crushes me with a tempest (9:17)." God is so strong that he would make Job's own mouth condemn him (9:20). "Though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse (9:20)." Such a frustrating situation leads Job to posit a complete moral relativism in the world. "It is all one; therefore I say, he destroys both the blameless and the wicked (9:22)." Not much hope here.

The "Happy Face." Then, another idea comes to mind, which passes away almost as quickly as it comes. Like a precursor of the modern 'possibility thinker,' Job muses, "I will forget my complaint; I will put off my sad countenance and be of good cheer.... (9:27)." As people say, "Smile a lot. Make 'em wonder!" Why not just adopt a more cheerful countenance? Social scientific research seems to confirm that the more you smile the happier you are. Why not just "solve" the problem through smiling? It might not have worked for Malvolio in Twelfth Night, but it may work for Job. But Job immediately nixes that idea; if he would do so, "I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent (9:28)." Job may smile, but God would be, in the meantime, pulling another arrow from the divine quiver.

Choose Purity. A third option, also quickly dismissed, has Job resolve to "wash myself with soap and cleanse my hands with lye (9:30)." This is not just an attempt to get "Zestfully Clean;" the Hebrew words suggest use of the finest cleansing agents in the world. What would the result be? "Yet you [God] will plunge me into filth, and my own clothes will abhor me (9:31)." Don't lose the picture: Job is patiently (and painfully) scrubbing; God is mercilessly plunging Job back into the filth. Something more is needed.

No Umpire. In a verse of great long-term importance in the book, Job laments that there is no umpire between him and God to separate the contestants and let Job speak without fear (9:33). Would that such an umpire existed, Job thinks. But it is not so. Chapter 9 brings Job to the seeming end of his resources. Yet, he will keep speaking and will take his case directly to God.

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