Job

Job, (Hebrew Iyyob) is the principal interlocutor in the book bearing his name. This book is the most peculiar in the canon of Old Testament, peculiar alike for its setting (otherwise little-mentioned countries), its nomenclature of personnel (mostly elsewhere quite unmentioned), the predominance of Satan (who is not even mentioned elsewhere in the canonical Old Testament), and (perhaps most peculiar of all) making a distinction between YHWH and elohim. However, elohim is not mentioned by name in the Book of Job, but instead the Bene elohim ('Sons of God') are (in 1:6).

Its description of Behemoth (in 40:15-24) and of Leviathan (in 41:1-34), however, is somewhat reminiscent of Christian themes; for, Behemoth "can draw up Jordan" (40:23) rather alike to Joshua halting that river's flow and to Jesus being baptized in it; and Leviathan can be made a "banquet of" (41:6) rather alike to the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:7-10).

As for the literary style of the Book of Job, it is characterized by long series of religious questions (as in 38:2-39:27), a style somewhat characteristic of other canonical "Wisdom Literature" (such as, Proverbs 30:4).

Owing to the over-all literary and stylistic peculiarity of the Book of Job, textual critics tend to assign it to a foreign origin (in 1:1, the book assigns itself to the land of Uz: especially to edom^[1]^, on the basis of Genesis 36:28 (where Uz is clan of Edom and of Lamentations of Jeremiah 4:21 (where the daughter of Edom is dweller in the land of Uz. One of the other interlocutors in the Book of Job, Eli-hu, is designated as from Buz, which is mentioned together with^ [2]^ Te\^ma> (east of Edom) and Dedan (south of Edom) in Jeremiah 25:23. There was another country, also named Uz., in Aram (Syria), and favored by^[3]^ Josephus( Antiquities of the Jews 1:145).

References

  1. ? Wisdom in Ancient Israel. Cambridge U Pr, 1997. p. 56
  2. ? Edouard Dhorme (tr. by Harold Knight) : Commentary on the Book of Job. Thomas Nelson, 1984. p. xxiii [1]

  3. ? John E. Hartley : The Book of Job. Eerdmans Publ,

    1. p. 66, fn. 9