let it be darkness and let god not seek it from above and job 3:4 and Job 28:27 and wisdom

As I turn to a closer reading of the Hebrew text of Job, I find myself stopping every few words, as if I am some kind of literary horticulturalist who is so fascinated by what the eyes see and what the nose smells that I simply have to, like Moses at the burning bush, "turn aside and look at this great sight." As Job begins his great exclamation of pain, his extrusion of emotion, in ch.3, his will say, "May that day (day of his birth) be darkness; May God not seek it out from on high" (3:4). Many commentators have focused on the first of these phrases, but not as many on the second. The purpose of this essay is to explore the contours of the phrase, "May God not seek it out from on high."

Job's Desire to Reverse Everything

First, however, a word about the four words translated "Let that day be darkness." Almost all commentators point to the echo of Gen.1:3 in this verse. In Gen.1 God's first words were "Let there be light." Here Job's early words are "Let there be darkness." Job not only wants to erase "his day" from the calendar, but his invocation of the language of Genesis 1 suggests that he also wants to undo the work of creation itself. 'Turn off the lights,' he suggests. 'Let it all return to darkness.' If words create, why can't words uncreate?

This reference to Gen.1 also ought to alert us to another fascinating aspect of Job's speeches to come. He will "play" with Scripture. You have to know Scripture very well in order to turn it on its head, and that is precisely what Job will do in other passages. Job's anguish is intensified because he is saturated with Scripture. This also suggests to me that the Book of Job is a rather late book, probably written in the Exilic period, when a sense of canon has already begun to develop in Israel, a canon which Job (or the author of Job) has mastered and deeply reflected on.

Seeking out the Day

But the four Hebrew words which follow "let that day become darkenss" are those that arrest me. Literaly they are translated, "let not God seek it out from above." The verb translated "seek out" is the standard Hebrew term darash, which is used more than 100 times in the Hebrew Bible. I didn't study all 100 usages of it, but the predominating flavor of the word is the human search for something--for knowledge, for God, or even for vengeance. A favorite verse for many people is Is.55:6:

"Seek the Lord while he may be found,/ call upon him while he is near;/ let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrigheous their thoughts;/ let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Is.55:6-7).

Sometimes, however, God is said to search for things, as when it says that the Lord "searches every mind" (I Chron 28:9). Indeed, sometimes God seems to search things out in order to prepare to punish people. Ps. 10 reflects this reality. The wicked are arrogantly persecuting the poor (10:2). In their pride they say, "God will not seek it out" (10:4--presumably to set matters straight). The Psalmist protests: "Why do the wicked renounce God, and say in their hearts, 'You will not call us to account' [literally, 'you will not seek']?" (10:13). The Psalmist then prays for God to "break the arm of the wicked and evildoers; seek out (darash) their wickedness until you find none" (10:15).

God's Search in Job 3:4

But what does God "search for" in the day, so to speak, and what is this search that Job would like to reverse? Maybe it might be more helpful to come at the question from another angle. That Job wanted God not to "search out" his birthday means that Job thinks that the creative work of God, in calling forth each day, takes work. We might have gotten the impression from Job's "reversed" quotation of Genesis 1:3 that Job was "buying into" the view of God suggested in that text. That is, in Gen. 1 God is portrayed as a majestic deity who effortlessly calls forth creation simply by his word. Stars and moon and animals and humans--each is brought forth in an orderly sequence by the simple word of divine command. Simplicity and order, majesty and dominion. God has it in Genesis 1 and God gives some of it to the humans.

Lest we think, however, that Job is adopting the "Genesis 1" view of God's effortless creation, Job quickly adds, "Let God not search it out from above." The creation of the day was therefore an expression of God's "search," of God's expending effort. It was not easy for God to bring things into existence, to set things straight, to establish his rule on the earth. Maybe Job adopted this theology because he was a man of action, who had not only become the greatest man in the East in terms of material possessions, but had also achieved the pinnacle of success as a judge at the city gates. Job knew that things just didn't happen by words or, if they did, it was only because words had been preceded by lots of work, planning and action.

God's Hard Work

This view of God's having to work at it is not only compatible with the picture of God in Genesis 2-6, where God is portrayed as a potter who tries to "shape things" properly but who ultimately becomes disgusted with his product and has to "smash" the clay back on the potter's wheel through the flood, but, more to the point, reflects the language of the rest of the Book of Job. One passage will illustrate this. In Job's great "hymn to wisdom" (Job 28), the author celebrates the fact that the way of wisdom is ultimately the only way to extricate the four stymied conversational partners from their verbal conundrums and collapsed conversation. Why is wisdom able to help them out? Because it is something that God "worked at" when he set it up at the beginning of time.

God knows the place to wisdom (28:23). When God was in the midst of creating the rest of the world, the author said that he also established wisdom. But it took God four sturdy verbs to make sure that wisdom was "up and running." God "saw it and declared it; he established it and searched it out" (28:27). The verb for "searched it out" is a different verb in Hebrew (haqar), a verb that is used only sparingly in the Hebrew Bible (less than 30 times, six of which are in Job), but the idea is the same [Indeed, the word darash seems to be synonymous with haqar in Job 5:8,27. In the former Elihpaz urges Job to "search for God," and in the latter he tells Job that he has "sought out God." Thus, the idea seems to be the same in the author's mind]. We see God hard at work in setting up wisdom. God is hard at work in seeking out the day. Perhaps God has a whole lineup of days out there, like suits on the hangers in a clothing store, and he goes through them until he finds the precisely appropriate "fit" for the day that will come. In any case, God is a working God for Job.

Conclusion

It is this "working God" who has screwed up his life, Job believes. Though Job will return to the themes of God's majesty and awesome power, and though these beliefs are central to Job's theology, he also knows that God, too, had to work at things. Maybe this is why Job will give God a break and let God get over his anger (14:14ff.). It takes a gracious person to put up with the divine mistakes.