On Job

Reward and retribution theology is the framework Job's friends use to criticize him. They didn't know of his innocence, but God did. That is why God gave Job a clean chit. However, God did not choose to answer, "Why did these adversities happen to such a man as this?" God's counter questions to Job underline human finitude and God's supremacy. Job humbled himself and repented "of" dust and ashes. 

After meeting God, Job understands he doesn't need to do a roadshow of repentance in dust and ashes. Job doesn't need to repent because he did not sin against God. He only needed to understand that God was in control, though things in his life were spiraling out of his control. As he first acknowledged, Job only needed to accept God's will, "God gave, and he took it away." What an authentic statement of faith! In the statement, Job acknowledges that all that Job had was by God's grace only. 

God wanted Job's friends to repent and evaluate what was happening to Job from a perspective of God's grace, not of retribution. After all, as Paul says in Romans 9, God can choose to do what he does with anything and anybody. Eventually, however, God showed Job mercy because of who he is: God is always good and gracious. The lesson for us is to accept everything in life humbly and worship God in every circumstance. For we are humans, and he is God. 

God manages his world in a framework of grace, justice, and love that we can never comprehend fully. More so if we look at it from the perspective of our sufferings. Why would God allow Abraham's children to suffer as slaves until the sins of Amorites were fulfilled? What did Abraham's children do to inherit slavery? We don't know. They weren't even born! 

Even so, the Biblical author does not think answering this 'why' –that many commentators may have asked eventually– is essential. Why? I think because there are things God chooses to reveal only later, and there are other things that God may never reveal to us humans fully. Or, maybe we don't have the categories to understand God's perspective on such matters. 

In a sense, we can argue that maybe God wanted to give a fair opportunity to the Amorites before allotting their land to Abraham's children. God is God. He sees all humans as equal. Perhaps that is why God doesn't change powerful tyrants until they abuse their power entirely. Moreover, God may use their lives as an example to those he chooses to fulfill his purposes. God chose Pharaoh's arrogance as an example to Israel first and then to us (Romans 9).