God runs into Satan at a party. Satan mentions he just came back from God's shoddy creation ā ie; earth. God knows what he's getting at, says "not all of it sucks" and points out that "there's this guy Job who's pretty cool" The devil says "Yeah, but he's loaded, has a rocking business and his family all loves him. If he was broke and alone, then he wouldn't be so cool... He'd probably hate you"
So god makes a sort of bet. Says "Go ahead, trash everything around him, he still won't hate me. We're cool like that..." So, Satan devalues Jobās stock, kills the staff and sends a hurricane to take out the house party where all of his kids are at. No one survives. Jobs life now sucks
He gets emo but still doesn't blame his creator. Satan comes back and this time it is God who brings up Job again. Taunts him with "Job still thinks I rule, even after you made me mess up his life... See, we're cool like that" And so Satan says "If we kicked his ass he wouldn't like you anymore" and God says "Go for it, but keep him aliveā¦"
So Satan gives Job welts from head to toe and needless to say, his wife will no longer let him hit that shit - which you'd think would turn Job atheist but instead he says "if we accept goodness from God, we should accept the bad as well" And this makes his wife think he is stoopid.
Then his friends show up to comfort him but he looks like shit and so they don't really know what to say, as "you look like shit" would seem a bit cold given the circumstance So they just hang out with him silently for seven days and seven nights, which I find rather intriguing, as if a man is being built in silence in the way the world was. The symbolism is intriguing. Or maybe Iām reading into things. Maybe the bus to Jobs place from the other side of town only showed up every seven days, and bros had to make it back. But it could be symbolism as well.
By chapter five the writing gets uber poetic to an impressive degree as Job curses the day he was born. Then a guy shows up with equally uber poetic dialogue and tells Job that life does suck but itās okay because he can be at one with the animals and the trees. The prehistoric hippie also says that āyouāll live through six shit storms and on the seventh, youāll come out of it pretty chill.
Then Job replies to the pseudo psychic hippie āGod obviously is crushing me on purpose and Iām bummed and just wish that he would kill me.ā Job then bitches about not having enough strength, no hope and goes into a 4 page poem about how his brothers suck. Itās the most detailed poem about brothers sucking that youāve ever heard in your life, to degree that it reminds one of a mid eighties punk or the first violent femmes album. Strangely, for such detailed poem, he left out being pissed at the girl, which is what keeps the book of Job more of an artistic meditation than a factory produced pop song. Ā
Now, in all fairness, he deserves to be as verbose as he wants. This guys life is pretty effed up. Heās lucky heās not Buddhist, as heād have so many assumed past life guilt issues going on by this point. By chapter 7, Job finally asks what heās done to deserve it, about six and a half chapters after most would have. Then the pseudo psychic hippie guy says āStay upright and God will give you a whole ultra cool lifeā. And while that would make most say āI donāt want a new dog, I want my old one backā, he does make sense when he says that those who donāt have God have to try and find their satisfaction in products with poor manufacturing and functionality.
Then Job says āI do believe in God but Iām only human, born to make mistakesā¦ā Then Job goes on to talk about all the cool stuff God makes and does but conveniently leaves out the Platypus and Bush Administration. And eventually Job gets all worked up and hostile with the hippie ā āIs this going to cause you to speak badly of God? To examine him? Imagine if he examined you broā¦ā Then Job says God is mighty and you donāt want to piss him off.
He then continues with āEven though he trashed my life, I believe in Him. Weāre cool like that. If I see him, Iāll plead my case but thatās about it.ā Then Job finally addresses God directly and says āIāll stop hiding from you if you stop kicking the shit out of me. Why are you pissed at me?ā At this point, Job is obviously not completely living on faith as his pleas reveal that he doesnāt exactly believe that all will be good. He then says trees got it easy because when their branches are cut off they grow back but being human sucks because once your limbs are cut off youāre pretty much fucked.
Then another guy says to stop blaming God, unaware of the human version of a poker tournament happening in the sky. By Chapter 16, all Job is doing is groaning and acting in disbelief over how cruel God can be, ignoring the obvious fact that you get what you expect from this world. When most talk about Job they speak of his patience, loyalty and obedience. I question his lack of faith in the moment. All of his faith statements trout the future. None trout the present. To be honest, Iāve known people who actually have it WORSE than Job, and the still have a glow about them, simply because they know that they can.
Itās a steady stream of groaning for the next several chapters and on 23, he seems to be expecting God to torture him more. At what point will he ask not for mercy but for provision? Then he talks more about the process of God creating the earth and with it, wisdom. By chapter 29 Job says āI miss how cool God and I wereā and it becomes clear that heās been talking a lot about God but not really to him. By Chapter 32, Job has painted a picture of himself as perfect and the three friends condemned him for it. Then a fourth gets mad at the friends for finding wrong in Job without reason and then gets mad at Job for justifying himself instead of God.
Now, this guy is way younger so he has to spend a good 3 pages explaining to them that while he is young, God gives him as much wisdom as life has given the Geriatrics and therefore they should listen. He then says āLook, none of you have come up with anything that says that Job aināt cool. You couldnāt answer his arguments so therefore you condemned him for simply having them. How wack is that? Pretty effinā wackā¦ā
In Chapter 38 God finally calls up Job and not in that āhey whatās up broā sort of tone. He says āLook Job, why are you trying to figure it out on your own when you donāt know much about the grander scheme of things?ā Then, God points out that Job wasnāt around when he created earth and hasnāt really seen shit in comparison to what heās seen during the course of itās development. He then says that Job also hasnāt seen all of Godās special powers, including storage areas for snow and hail that he has ready in case people start fighting each other for one reason or another. Itās possible that he left out his method for creating instant precipitation from rapid water movements spreading at high velocities out of fear that theyād try it at home and end up with the hydrogen bomb. God then justifies his power by discussing everything that he created, but what is most interesting, is how ācreatedā takes a back seat to the term āgave birth toā.
And this is where it becomes clear how this character God, if you were to look at him as a person, feels about what he made. It came from me, he says. You can practically feel the guys anguish from that point on. Heās seen it all, felt it all and heās in love with it all. And now, heās pretty pissed about it all. And he knows that job has no idea. He then goes back into reminding Job that he has special powers and Job doesnāt. He also points out that he figured out how to do cool stuff like make an Ox a loyal servant by nature so bros could get around. By pointing out that this was done on purpose, he intends to make it clear that lots of things were done on purpose so one must have faith in the grander scheme of things.
He then began pointing out a lot of the cool inner workings of the animal kingdom and how they were all designed for the benefit of man and that one should realize that someone had to actually figure out how to make a chicken not give shit when we eat their young and decorate the eggs. I think that what God is saying here, is that that one wasnāt very easy.
He also mentions he created the Leviathan and if any guy ever tried to pick a fight with the Leviathan, the Leviathan could easily beat the shit out of him. And if the Leviathan could kick his ass, then God could really really kick his ass. Job replies āYouāre right. I havenāt seen much of anything. Iām sure the rest of everything is really complex and awesome and Iām sorry if I spoke like I knew everythingā¦ā
So basically, the two friends made up. God won the bet and still had his bro, a feat comparable to the whole chicken thing. God then got mad at Jobās friends for giving crappy advice and told them that they need to take a large chunk of the animals that they use to make cash, burn them and leave them on Jobās lawn. After Job, mind you, covered in welts and broke, not to mention he probably had to clean up burnt Oxen off the front lawn, was still there, praying for his friends, God decided to make him rich again.
His wife let him hit it like never before and cranked out ten new kids and to top it off, his seven daughters were all uber hot which youād think would make most fatherās lives a living hell but Job thought it was cool and because there was no genetically altered lettuce back then he lived another 140 years and by the time he died, if youād asked him, heād probably look back and say his life was pretty rad. He lived it allā¦
