Noise and silence in the book of Job

Whenever we read the Book of Job, we often focus solely on the words of the text and the emotions that arise from reading those words. Indeed, the deafening intensity of these feelings is so great that it seems to drown out any other sound. But a close attention to the way that noise (other than the sound of voices) and quiet functions in Job 3 will enrich our understanding of the book.

An example of what I mean from later portions of the book will illustrate my point. During Job's last speech he complains of noise within: "My inward parts are in turmoil, and are never still" (30:26). Professor Good translates it as follows: "My bowels are boiled, they are not silent." Then, throughout the conversation with the friends, the friends accuse Job of "windy words": "Should the wise answer with windy knowledge, and fill themselves with the east wind" (15:2)? When we realize that it was an unexpected gust of wind that made Job's son's house collapse, we see that an external noise is swirling around the conversation. Gurgling within and wind without mirror the psychological rumblings felt deeply by Job in his anguish.

The Longing for Silence

When Job's pain finally begins to sink in on him in ch.3, he first explodes in anguish. The repetitive use of "dark" and "darkness" in 3:1-10 functions as a kind of insistent jackhammer which pounds anger, anguish and despair deeper and deeper into Job. Then, he decides to take a mental "break" in 3:11, and he travels to a different distant mental location. Notice the words that would characterize this new realm:

"Now I would be lying down and quiet; I would be asleep; then I would be at rest" (3:13).

We can almost taste Job's desire. For a moment he is able to free himself from the the shackles of pain and enter a world where he can imagine rest. It takes him four verbs to express the thought. He would lie down (shakab) and become quiet (shakat). Certainly then he would fall asleep (yashan), and there would be rest (nuha) for him. The fourfold repetition of the idea of rest is probably meant to counteract, reverse or balance the relentless jackhammer of darkness in 3:1-10. Job 3:13 gives the original sounds of silence, where Job could curl up and sink into the warm arms of sleep, and sleep the sleep of Endymion.

3:17

A few verses later a similar thought is expressed. Job longs to be "buried" like a stillborn child who never saw the light. He would go to a place where:

"the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest" (3:17).

The word translated "troubling," is the Hebrew rogez, a word that could be rendered "trouble" or "turmoil." The word suggests that the wicked's acts of depredation and injustice will stop "there" (sham), in the pleasant environment of Sheol. More than one scholar has commented that Job's positive picture of Sheol here is unparalleled in biblical literature. Again, we rush back to rest. Again we have sham, as if the reader could have forgotten that place. The word "weary" is really two Hebrew words, the yegieh koh, the "exhausted of strength." Scholars differ as to whether the "of" is a subjective genitive (the phrase would be appositional to the first phrase of the verse, so that it would mean that the wicked are exhausted) or an objective genitive, where the meaning would be those who are exhausted by the depredations of the wicked. We need not go to the mat on this one with anyone; it suffices as a reminder that behind the English translation lies a rich and often ambiguous Hebrew text.

The verb translated "at rest" is our old friend (from v.13) nuha. It appears about 30 times in the Qal (tense) in the Bible, with three of them being in this chapter of Job alone. Job's desire for rest, then, is the countervailing theme to the longing for darkness in 3:1-10. When the mind engulfed in darkness is able to escape for a moment, all it wants is a trip to a realm of quiet.

Returning to Reality--3:26

While silence characterizes the place where Job longs to go, noise is the reality to which he returns in 3:24-26.* Interesting

[* I will speak of the "noise" of 3:24 in the next essay]

to note is that Job again uses a four verb verse in 3:26, his summative verse, to express why the quiet he longed for in 3:13,17 is not a reality for him. Interestingly enough, also, of the eight words in 3:26, three of them are identical to words we have mentioned in 3:13,17; three are the word "no" (to negate the thought of 3:13,17); one is the verb "come" and one is a verb not used above. That is, 3:26 is a conscious repudiation of the hope and longing of 3:13,17. The verse is as follows, with Hebrew words interspersed where appropriate:

"I am not at ease (lo shalavti--from shalah), nor am I quiet (lo shaqati); I have no rest (lo nahti), but trouble (rogez) comes" (3:26).

The verse is almost a perfect reversal of the hopes in 3:13,17. Though shalah, which only appears seven times in the Bible, does not appear in 3:13 or 17, the other three meaning-carrying words of 3:26 do. The "quiet" of v. 13 is negated here, as is the "rest" of both vv.13 and 17. "Trouble," which appears in 3:17 and which will also appear a few instances later in Job (notably 14:1), is the last word of the chapter in Hebrew.

Conclusion

Job has not explored the contours of his emotions very fully in this chapter. He has, however, used concepts of noise and quiet to express the surging reality within and without him. The noise will seem to subside for a while as Job and the friends explore every dimension of his anguish in the coming chapters, but we should never forget the tumultuous din that encircles the work.