Then three friends came to see him. Finding him suffering so, they believed that he must have been a great sinner, and that the suffering was God's punishment for his sin. They tried to make him see that he had sinned. At first they only hint it, very gently and tenderly, but when he still insists that he has not sinned in any way which should bring such suffering, they become more harsh and [{180}] plainly charge him with being greedy of gain and cruel to the poor. He says that he has not been guilty of these things. And so, the poet means to say, when men suffer, it does not always mean that they have sinned. Then, in the poem, God speaks out of a storm. He says that Job cannot understand the sea or the sky or the storm or the winter's cold or the instincts of the animals. Does he think, then, that he will be able to understand how God deals with men? He trusts God in the things that are good. Can he not trust him in the things that seem evil also? Job is willing to trust God, and the book ends with a picture of a happy, prosperous old age for this man who has suffered so much.
What is the writer's answer, then, to the question why good men suffer? His answer is that we cannot tell why such men suffer. But we know that God is wise and good, and we may trust him, even if we find it impossible, as we always shall, to answer all the questions of life.
The book of Job is a great dramatic poem. It is dramatic not because it was meant to be acted as the Greek and English drama; the Hebrews knew nothing about drama of this kind. But it consists of dialogue between various speakers, and has the true dramatic spirit and intensity of personal feeling. It is the nearest approach to the drama in the Bible. It is printed here in dramatic form because it was felt that this would be suggestive and helpful to the reader. It has a prologue and an epilogue which are in prose, while the speeches are in poetic form, and are printed like the blank verse of the Greek or English drama.
PROLOGUE
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and shunned evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east. And his sons went and held a feast in the house of each one upon his day; and they sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And whenever the feast days came round Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts." Thus did Job continually.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
And thus they spoke:--
THE LORD--"Whence comest thou?"
SATAN--"From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."