Sunday Lectionary: Job 29
For the feast of St Barnabus
The portion of Job 29 which is set for this Sunday comes from the portion of the book usually called ‘Job’s silliloquay’. Chapter 29-31 is Job’s great defense of himself - he is no longer interrupted by objections from his friends and this portion of the text allows him to expound upon his own righteousness at length.
Our portion of the text says this:
11 When the ear heard, it commended me,
and when the eye saw, it approved;
12 because I delivered the poor who cried,
and the orphan who had no helper.
13 The blessing of the wretched came upon me,
and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
14 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;
my justice was like a robe and a turban.
15 I was eyes to the blind,
and feet to the lame.
16 I was a father to the needy,
and I championed the cause of the stranger.
We are going to explore two significant themes that emerge from this passage to deepen our understanding of it, and they are justice and kingship.
Job e a mulher (Job and his wife), Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal ALC.455, fl.169, circa 1220, wikimedia commons
Justice
The book of Job has a strong emphasis on justice. Much of the dialogue between Job and his friends focuses on questions of what just behaviour looks like and what the consequences are when one acts in ways that are unjust. For the friends, Job’s suffering might in some way be caused by unjust behaviour - something which the protagonist firmly denies.
In 29:14 Job claims that he ‘put on righteousness and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban’ . The clothing imagery emphasises how key to his identity he considered justice to be.
In the Hebrew Bible the concepts of justice (מִשְׁפָּט mishpat) and righteousness (צְדָקָה tsedaqah) are significant. They are both key to the character of God, and are characteristics which are encouraged among the people of Israel.
The biblical scholar Carol Newsom says justice and righteousness are the 'content of the moral norms which bring expressions of approval from his peers’.1 In 29:11-16 then, Job attempts to get his peers back ‘on side’ by emphasising the extent to which he treats the poor well.
Kingship
The book of Job seems to be set in the ‘pre-monarchic’ period (eg before Israel had a king), where communities were led by elders who met and made decisions at the city gate.2 In 29:7 Job makes reference to his own ‘seat at the gate’ indicating that he was a significant community leader’. The language of ch 29, however, shows us that ideas about kingship, and specifically how a good king behaves, loom large in the book.
The Hebrew Bible has a great deal to say about kingship. When we look at texts like Psalm 72, we find long descriptions of the way in which a good king should be just and fair, treating the poor with equity. Further to this, they should have a particular concern for the widow, the orphan and the alien.
Does this sound familiar? It certainly will if we’ve just read Job 29. Here, many of the qualities that Job is claiming for himself are those of a good king.
The Psalm set for this Sunday is 112, which says
5 It goes well with those who are generous in lending ♦︎
and order their affairs with justice,
6 For they will never be shaken; ♦︎
the righteous will be held in everlasting remembrance.
this is another text which picks up on these themes of justice and righteousness. As the church reflects on the role of St Barnabas within the early church, we might remember the ways in which the first Christians also sought to take care of those who were in need, in the way of Christ who is our resurrected king.
Newsom, C. A., The Book of Job : A Contest of Moral Imaginations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) p 189 - a 35 page preview is available on google books, and I highly recommend reading the introduction because it is very good!
Note, though, that this was not necessarily when it was written. Scholars generally consider Job to be quite a late book, perhaps post-exilic, because of the extent to which is wrestles with questions of suffering.