Robert Moses - 'the Satan' in Light of the Creation Theology of Job

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/187122012X602558

brill.nl/hbthHorizons in Biblical Theology 34 (2012) 19-34

“The satan” in Light of the Creation Theology of Job

Robert MosesThe Divinity School, Duke University

[email protected]

AbstractThe fĳigure who instigates God to affflict Job, “the satan,” vanishes entirely after the prologue of the book of Job. But his role in the prologue is mirrored by Job’s friends in the poetry section of the book. We argue that the presentation of “the satan” in the prologue is entirely consistent with the theology of creation profffered in the poetry section of the book of Job. The possible implication of this fĳinding for the fate of Satan is spelled out.

Keywords“The satan,” Satan, Job, Creation, Theology

The genre of the Book of Job has been labeled as narrative poetry, lament, disputation, and wisdom literature.1 The framing of poetry with a narrative prologue and epilogue has not only vexed interpreters but has also given rise to myriad proposals as to how to understand the prologue in light of what follows.2 Tensions exist between the prose and poetry sections of Job;

1) On the genre of Job, see John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996) 16; David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1989) xxxiv-xxxvii; Claus Westermann, The Structure of the Book of Job (Philadelphia: For-tress, 1981) 1-15.2) For diffferent proposals on how to read the prologue of Job, see Marvin H. Pope, Job (AB 15; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973) xxiii-xxvi; George Fohrer, Das Buch Hiob (KAT 16; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963) 29-33; L. Alonso Schökel and J. L. Sicre Diaz, Job (NBE; Madrid: Christiandad, 1983) 36-43; Yair Hofffman, “The Relation between the Prologue and the Speech-Cycles in Job: A Reconsideration,” VT 31 (1981) 160-70; William P. Brown, Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerd-mans, 1996) 54-58; Carol Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 3-71, 259-64; idem, “The Book of Job” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (vol. 4; Nashville: Abingdon, 1996) 360; Norman C. Habel, “In Defense of God the Sage,”

20 R. Moses / Horizons in Biblical Theology 34 (2012) 19-34

for example, the upright and blameless hero in the prologue (2:8) is rebuked in the poetry (cf. 38:1-42:6). The most glaring of these tensions is the vanish-ing of the fĳigure who sets Job’s sufffering in motion, “the satan.” It is, there-fore, possible that the prologue of Job is unrelated to the poems. But it is also possible that the prologue serves as a rhetorical strategy for the rest of the book. This paper hopes to contribute to the latter assertion by taking a close look at the presentation of the fĳigure who incites God against Job: “the satan.” It is our contention that while this fĳigure may have vanished entirely after the prologue, his presence and presentation in the prologue is entirely consistent with the theology of the poetry section. In short, we hope to show that the non-anthropocentric creation theology of the divine speeches and the characterization of Job’s friends help us to see “the satan” in a new light that makes the prologue consistent with the poems and later epilogue.

The Elegant Universe: Job’s Narrow World Picture

The Book of Job begins with an idyllic scene concerning a man named Job in the land of Uz. Job is said to be a “blameless and upright” (1:1)3 man who fears God. Job is also wealthy, blessed with sons and daughters and various livestock, and is described as the greatest man in the east (1:3). Having pre-sented this blissful earthly picture, the author abruptly shifts the setting from earth to heaven. In heaven the divine council convenes before God. A dialogue ensues between God and a member of the divine council, “the satan” (הׂשטן),4 to whom God brags about Job’s blamelessness. “The satan”

in The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job (ed. Leo G. Perdue and W. Clark Gilpin; Nashville: Abingdon, 1992) 21-38; Terrence E. Fretheim, God and the World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005) 224-25.3) Scripture quotations follow the NRSV. In certain crucial places we offfer our own translation.4) The Hebrew word means “adversary.” An important note on denotation: where “the satan” is spelt with a lower case “s” (and with the defĳinite article), it refers to the fĳigure we encounter in the Book of Job—a member of the divine council, who, as we shall argue, is on the way toward evil and hostility; Satan (upper case “S”) refers to the evil arch enemy of God (the Devil) that we encounter in later Jewish/Christian writings. This denotation is occa-sioned by the distinction most scholars make between the OT portrayal of Satan and later Jewish/Christian texts. See, for example, Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); also Clines, Job 1-20, 19-20. As we hope to

R. Moses / Horizons in Biblical Theology 34 (2012) 19-34 21

argues that Job’s piety is not disinterested service; Job does not fear God for naught (1:9). If God would take Job’s blessings away, “the satan” asseverates, and remove the protective hedge around Job, Job would curse God to his face (1:11). God capitulates to “the satan’s” allegations and enters into a wager with “the satan.” This sets the stage for the drama of extreme sufffer-ing for Job. “The satan” affflicts Job, using both people and natural disasters to destroy Job’s possessions and his children (1:13-20). When the heavenly council convenes again, the Lord and “the satan” enter into another wager. This time “the satan” insists that though Job persists in his integrity, he would curse God if God affflicted his body as well. God grants “the satan” permission to affflict sores on Job’s body, “from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2:7), setting the stage for the poetic dialogue between Job, his friends, and Elihu, which culminates in God responding to Job from a whirlwind (38:1-42:6).

Job laments his woes, declaring himself to be innocent of any wrongdo-ing. His friends, however, challenge Job to repent of his wickedness, as such torment as his is only the lot of evildoers. For these friends, and Job as well, God dispenses blessings to the upright and woes to the wicked. Job repeat-edly declares his innocence and summons God to answer him on why the wicked prosper while the righteous sufffer. Job’s lament is narrowly anthro-pocentric. His lament proceeds from the assumption that humans hold a central place in God’s creation; and as such God needs to answer to Job for a perceived world in which innocent humans sufffer while wicked humans prosper. Where Job speaks of creation in his lament, he assails the entire cosmos, demanding “a complete inversion of creation that would move life back into the regions of chaos and nonexistence where all pain and sufffer-ing cease.”5 Job tries to “uncreate” the world (3:1-7): he wants day and night to perish, the light to turn to darkness, and life to change to death.6 Job invokes the animal world to disparage his mockers by comparing them to his despicable dogs (30:1), the implication being that he (a human) has been reduced to the low position of animals (30:29). He speaks of nature to compare the habitation of his mockers to symbolically chaotic elements of

show in this essay, scholars need not drive a huge wedge between OT and later Jewish/Christian depictions of Satan.5) Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job ( JSOTSup 112; Shefffĳield: Almond, 1991) 95; see also idem, “Job’s Assault on Creation,” HAR 10 (1986) 295-315.6) See Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Job Uncreates the World,” TBT 34 (1996) 4-8.


the created order (30:5-10); Job’s mockers are those who are located in such desolate places.7 Job invokes the created world in order to denigrate nature, and thereby show how he himself has been relegated to the lowest of the low.8 His focus primarily concerns humans, who for him are the primary benefĳiciaries of God’s care. Job never assumes in his rationally grounded protests that the calamity that struck him also afffected oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, the land on which these animals grazed, and the material structures that housed these animals (1:13-19). That nature and livestock are equally affflicted as Job himself is beyond this character’s purview.

As the narrative highpoint to the story of Job, it is indeed striking, then, that God’s speeches9 to Job make direct reference neither to Job’s plight in particular nor to humans in general. While Job places humans at the center of his argument (5:7), God places the cosmos. God refuses to make humans the subject of his discourse; rather, God gives a tour of the elegant universe. In the fĳirst speech, God presents the structures of the universe (the earth, sea, light and darkness, depth and death [38:4-21]); meteorology and astronomy (hail and snow, rain, winds, ice, frost, dew, clouds, stars, and lightning [38:22-38]); and fĳinally the animal kingdom (lion and raven, mountain goat and deer, wild ass and wild ox, ostrich and horse, hawk and eagle [38:39-39:30]). God invites Job to imagine the natural world:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!Or who stretched the line upon it? (38:4-5)

God’s speech envisions a universe perfectly functioning without human intervention or engineering. God describes a universe that runs its course whether or not humans are present to enjoy the benefĳits of its natural cycle. In fact, God’s speech contains only one reference to humans. This single reference to humans points to a place on earth where no humans inhabit:

7) See Newsom, “The Moral Sense of Nature: Ethics in Light of God’s Speech to Job,” PSB 15.1 (1994) 9-27.8) For other references to creation in Job’s speech, see 3:3-9; 7:16-19; 9:4-24; 10:8-13; 12:7-9, 13-25; 25:1-6; 26:5-14; 36:24-37:24.9) Fretheim, 223, argues that the “God speeches (chs. 38-41) carry the most basic (if not the only) perspective regarding God (and sufffering) that is commended to readers.”


Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain,and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no one lives,on the desert, which is empty of human life, to satisfy the waste and desolate land,and to make the ground put forth grass? (38:25-27).

Rain falls on lands where no humans live and grass sprouts in desolate places, with no benefĳit to humans.10 “God cherishes and rejoices in creation quite apart from any human interest therein.”11 The morning, dawn, light, darkness, snow, hail all have their dwelling places (38:12-18), and when they emerge from their territories, no human can guide them back to their dwell-ing places. On such a cosmic scale, so immense and overwhelming, humans almost seem insignifĳicant in the grand scheme of things. Even when God turns his attention to survey the paired animals (38:39-39:30), he makes no reference to human beings. If Job wanted to summon God because he, as a human, held a special place of importance in the created order, God top-ples this presumption, and in the process renders Job and his miseries almost insignifĳicant.12

God also speaks of a realm entirely devoid of humans. In this other realm, heavenly beings exult in God’s magnifĳicent handiwork:

On what were [the universe’s] bases sunk,or who laid its cornerstonewhen the morning stars sang togetherand all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? (38:6-7).

10) See David Neiman’s wonderful discussion in his The Book of Job (Jerusalem: Massada, 1972) 111-70; also Bill McKibben, The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) 33-68. 11) David Wheeler, “Job 38:1-40:2—Rain on a Land Where No One Lives, Oxen Who Won’t Plow Your Field,” RevExp 96 (1999) 446; author’s emphasis. 12) There are certainly passages within the OT where humans are depicted as holding a prominent place in the created order (Gen 1-2 (?); Psalm 8). This is not the case, however, for the Book of Job. On the links between Job and Psalm 8, see Samuel E. Balentine, “ ‘What Are Human Beings, That You Make So Much of Them?’ Divine Disclosure From the Whirlwind: ‘Look at Behemoth,’ ” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (ed. Tod Linafelt and Timothy K. Beal; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 259-78; also Michael Fishbane, “The Book of Job and Innner-biblical Discourse,” in The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job (ed. Leo G. Perdue and W. Clark Gilpin; Nashville: Abingdon, 1992) 87-90.


The reference to these heavenly beings harkens back to the divine council in the prologue and God’s wager with “the satan,” also a member of the heavenly court. These heavenly beings seem to have existed long before humans came upon the scene, for they were present and rejoiced when God laid the foundations of the universe.

Against readings that see in God’s speeches an overbearing, dominating deity,13 God invites Job to situate himself within this broader horizon of creation. He ushers Job into a new realm of imagination. “Job is invited in efffect to liberate himself from the microcosm of his egocentricity, to bor-row the perspective of God without pursuing the mirage of self-deifĳication, and to discover the broad horizons of the macrocosm of life on the grand scale.”14 And in the process, Job obtains a new vision and understanding about what it means to be a part of God’s creation.15 Job adopts the position of silent consideration (40:4-5),16 and after contemplation makes a poi-gnant confession in light of a newly acquired converted imagination:17

על כן אמאס ונחמתי על עפר ואפרTherefore I recant and adopt a diffferent opinion concerning dust and ashes (42:6; my translation18).19

13) See, for example, Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988); David Penchansky, The Betrayal of God: Ideological Conflict in Job (LCBI; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990); Edwin Good, In Turns of Tempest: A Reading of Job with a Translation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).14) Samuel Terrien, “The Yahweh Speeches and Job’s Responses,” RevExp 68 (1971) 497-509.15) On the transformation of Job, see John C. Shelley, “Job 42:1-6: God’s Bet and Job’s Repen-tance,” RevExp 89 (1992) 541-46; also Daniel Timmer, “God’s Speeches, Job’s Responses, and the Problem of Coherence in the Book of Job: Sapiential Pedagogy Revisited,” CBQ 71 (2009) 286-305.16) On Job’s silence, see Thomas F. Dailey, “The Wisdom of Divine Disputation? On Job 40.2-5,” JSOT 63 (1994) 105-119; also Charles Muenchow, “Dust and Dirt in Job 42:6,” JBL 108.4 (1989) 597-611.17) I borrow this phrase from the title of Richard Hays’ book, The Conversion of the Imagina-tion: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005).18) My translation takes the preposition על as functioning referentially, not as spatio- loca-tive. For other possible translations see Muenchow, 597-611; Dale Patrick, “The Translation of Job XLII 6,” VT 26 (1976) 369-71; J. Gerald Janzen, Job (Interpretation; Atlanta: John Knox, 1985) 254-59.19) See William Morrow, “Consolation, Rejection, and Repentance in Job 42:7,” JBL 105 (1986) 211-225.


The one who had only lamented his personal misfortunes without giving a single thought to the fact that calamity also struck animals and nature now sees even the dust and ashes as an important part of God’s creational design.20

We contend that God’s wager with “the satan” in the prologue is best understood in light of this non-anthropocentric creation theology. The reader may fĳind it troublesome or offfensive that God is manipulated by “the satan” into a deal that leads to a person’s innocent sufffering “for no reason” (2:3). Yet in this the reader adopts Job’s perspective, not God’s. From the divine perspective, however, God owes nothing to anyone:21

מי הקדימני ואׁשלמ תחת כל הׁשמימ לי הואWho has given to me that I should repay him? All that is under the whole heaven belongs to me (41:11; my translation).22

God’s voice from the whirlwind makes it clear that humans are not at the center of creation; the created order does not uniquely revolve around human beings.23 Humans are only a part of creation.24

20) Contra John Briggs Curtis (“On Job’s Response to Yahweh,” JBL 98.4 [1979] 497-511), who sees in Job’s response a total rejection of God (who has supposedly lost touch with human-ity). Also, James Crenshaw’s statement that the “divine speeches utter sublime irrelevance, for they offfer no insight into the fundamental existential dilemma confronting Job” is too strong (“When Form and Content Clash: The Theology of Job 38:1-40:5,” in Creation in the Biblical Traditions [ed. Richard J. Cliffford and John J. Collins; CBQMS 24; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992] 76). Against such interpretations, see Daniel J. Simundson, The Message of Job (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986) 147; also Dale Patrick, Argu-ing with God: The Angry Prayers of Job (St. Louis, Miss.: Bethany, 1977) 92-93; idem, “Divine Creative Power and the Decentering of Creation: The Subtext of the Lord’s Addresses to Job,” in The Earth Story and Wisdom Traditions (ed. Norman C. Habel and Shirley Wurst; Shefffĳield: Shefffĳield Academic Press, 2001) 103-115.21) See J. Randall O’Brien, “World, Winds, Whirlwinds: The Voice of God Meets ‘the Vice of God,’ ” PRSt 30.2 (2003) 159.22) Cf. 1:21.23) Cf. Wheeler, 448: “ ‘Job,’ the Lord says. ‘It’s not just about you. It’s about Me!’ ” Author’s emphasis.24) See Neiman, 111-30; Jurgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993 [orig. 1985]).


“The satan” Resurfaces: Job’s Friends as Adversaries

It is indeed the case that after the dramatic assembling of the divine council in the prologue “the satan” disappears from the book, except for the passing implicit reference to the heavenly beings in the voice from the whirlwind (38:7). But has the work of this adversary totally vanished from the narra-tive? A closer reading reveals some striking similarities between the por-trayal of “the satan” in the prologue and Job’s friends. In this section we attempt to show that these similarities not only have great implications for how we understand the book as a whole but also its creation theology.

“The satan,” according to the prologue, is a member of the divine council in heaven who appears to present cases before God. He seems to function as a chief-prosecutor25 who brings litigation to God’s court. In this instance, “the satan” accuses Job of serving God because of material blessings bestowed upon him. Job, according to “the satan,” is not motivated by love.26 The accusation is serious enough for God to agree to try the case. God, therefore, gives “the satan” the necessary privileges he might need to amass evidence for his case.

“The satan” seems to have a divinely mandated function to bring evi-dence before the divine bar for prosecution. But as the narrative develops, the reader discovers that “the satan” is not a benign prosecutor. At the very least we discover “the satan” becoming an evil, hostile prosecutor. When he seeks permission to inflict torment on Job in order to get Job to curse God, he seems to no longer be a benign prosecuting attorney who executes judg-ment based on evidence; rather, he is striving to entice a person to commit crimes so he will have evidence to punish him. “The satan” is wrong in his assessment that, when deprived of comfort and blessing, Job would curse God to his face (1:11; 2:5). Job never curses God to his face; and from the flow of the narrative, then, “the satan” has brought slander and false accusations against Job. The heavenly appointed prosecutor who is supposed to try a

25) Cf. Zech. 3:1-2. For “the satan” as human prosecutor or adversary, see Psa. 109:6; 1 Kgs 11:14, 23, 25.26) For Ellen Davis, “the satan’s” charge puts the covenant relationship between God and his most devoted servant in jeopardy, since God’s love is not being reciprocated. If this exemplar of uprightness (Job 1:1) will not serve God gratuitously, then God’s own notion of covenant is “nothing more than divine delusion” (Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament [Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefĳield, 2001] 124-25). On the theme of covenant relationship and the Book of Job, see Janzen, Job, 38-39.


case based on evidence27 has pronounced the accused guilty without any evidence. In his excessive zeal to fĳind evidence, “the satan” oversteps his bounds. Not only does he inflict punishment on a person before conviction of any crime, but also by placing the verdict before the evidence “the satan” declares that he fully knows humans, an insight solely reserved for God;28 and thereby puts himself in the position of God. “The satan” thinks that humans are simply a given in creation whose loyalty can be gauged by the benefĳits of divine favor. In both of the above judgments, “the satan” has failed to discern his own place within the created order, and as a result he is on the way to becoming evil.29

The above insight must be read in light of God’s response to Job from the whirlwind. Two important features of the creation theology expounded in the voice from the whirlwind help to shed light on the fĳigure of “the satan” (and also Job’s friends). Firstly, God has set limits upon creation. In God’s speech, he presents to Job a vision of the boundaries of creation (38:4-18). Language of limits and place dominate God’s speech. This is seen in the limits God has set on the sea:

Who shut in the sea with doorswhen it burst out from the womb?—when I made the clouds its garment,and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it,and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,and here shall your proud waves be stopped’? (38:8-11).

The sea can only come so far, because God has set limits upon it. All creation has allotted territories and limits;30 and for the created order to

27) See 1:7 and 2:2; “the satan” claims to have come “from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it,” presumably in search of evidence to bring before God. Some scholars have detected a similarity between this portrayal of “the satan” and intelli-gence agents of Persia’s kingdom, who roamed the empire seeking signs of disloyalty among the people. See Forsyth, 114.28) Cf. Psalm 139.29) Later Jewish and Christian texts make Satan (who goes by various names such as the Devil, Mastema, Belial) an evil fĳigure who opposes God. See, for example, Jubilees, 1 Enoch, 1 QS, CD, and the New Testament.30) See Habel, The Book of Job (CBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) 204-5.


achieve its divinely intended purpose each creature must operate within her allocated boundaries. The theme of limit is also present in the pervasive language of gates, dwelling, ways, paths, territory, storehouses, and chan-nel.31 Each creature has its limit, where others may not encroach or tres-pass. This image calls for all creatures (including Job) to know their place within creation.

Nonetheless, secondly, God has also allowed enough freedom within the created order for creation to be itself, including straying on occasion from assigned boundaries. God’s speech ushers the reader into the wild and untamed aspects of the physical world. God proudly celebrates the paren-tal instincts of animals, whose young ones’ cry to their mothers for food is also a cry to the God who cares for all creation (38:39-41). Yet within this rich celebration of life, care, and survival, evil and death looms; for the maternal predator poses a serious threat to her prey (38:39). God even cel-ebrates the silly ostrich (39:13-18). Yet this ostrich whose exceptional speed causes her to mock the horse (39:18), and whose pure speed is aesthetically pleasing to God, lacks the wisdom required to care for her young ones.32 In her ebullience, the ostrich subjects her young ones to danger:

For it leaves its eggs to the earth, and lets them be warmed on the ground, forgetting that a foot may crush them, and that a wild animal may trample them (39:14-15).

Even in speech that celebrates the birth of new life the danger of death loiters. God has not only allowed the ostrich enough freedom to be negligent, but God has even ensured this by depriving the ostrich of wisdom (39:17).33 Creation is fĳilled with ebullience and wildness. This freedom for wildness in creation is also at the same time a potential danger (and possible evil) within creation. These beings that are beautiful to God can also be danger-

31) So also Newsom, “Moral Sense,” 20.32) Izak Spangenberg has emphasized that the ostrich is misrepresented; see idem, “Who Cares? Reflections on the Story of the Ostrich ( Job 39:13-18),” in Habel and Wurst, 92-102.33) It is important to note that this portion of the divine speech which holds God responsi-ble for the ostrich’s negligence describes God in the third person and not the fĳirst person. Cf. O’Connor, “Wild, Raging Creativity: The Scene in the Whirlwind (Job 38-41),” in A God So Near: Essays on Old Testament Theology in Honor of Patrick D. Miller (ed. Brent A. Strawn and Nancy R. Bowen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2003) 175: “When God does claim to act using ‘I’ language . . . the speech accentuates divine creativity more than control.” See also Simundson, 142.


ous. When God turns his attention to Behemoth and Leviathan in the sec-ond speech (40:15-41:34) he reveals to Job the mystery of danger within the natural world.34 As Terence Fretheim has noted, as part of God’s creation, these creatures are not evil in themselves. What they reveal, however, is that “God has set creational limits . . . but within those limits there is no sense of divine micromanagement.”35 All creatures have the potential (and freedom) to stray beyond their limits; and when they do they become harm-ful and a threat to the created order. In other words, despite its limits, cre-ation does not operate in a rigidly mechanistic way such that all activities of the creature are fĳixed and predictable. There is enough freedom within creation; and such freedom means that all creatures have the potential to stray and become harmful. God, however, embraces (even celebrates) both the danger and beauty36 as part of the rich fabric of creation.

“The satan,” like all God’s creation, is not evil in himself. But he has the potential to become evil. And when he becomes overzealous for evidence and decides to torment humans in order to produce the evidence he seeks, he has strayed beyond his limit and is on the way to becoming evil. Later Jewish/Christian texts make Satan an evil enemy of God and humanity. To the extent that later Jewish/Christian texts develop the fĳigure of Satan into an evil, hostile enemy of God and humankind, the seeds of this transforma-tion have already been sown in the OT (Book of Job). “The [satan] of Job is certainly no ‘fallen angel,’ ”37 but he is well on his way!

Striking resemblances exist between “the satan” (viewed in light of the creation theology of the Book of Job) and Job’s friends. Later Jewish/Christian texts every so often identifĳied people with the work of Satan.38 The Essene community in the desert caves of the Dead Sea, for example,

34) On Leviathan as a symbol of cosmic evil see C. H. Gordon, “Leviathan: Symbol of Evil,” in Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations (ed. A. Altmann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966) 1-9. 35) Fretheim, 235.36) For a treatment of the beauty of creation in Job, see Newsom, “Book of Job,” 317-634; O’Connor, “Wild, Raging Creativity,” 171-79; Milton Horne, “From Ethics to Aesthetics: The Animals in Job 38:39-39:30,” RevExp 102 (2005) 127-42.37) Forsyth, 114.38) See Elaine Pagel’s studies on the social history of Satan: The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995); idem, “The Social History of Satan, the ‘Intimate Enemy’: A Prelimi-nary Sketch,” HTR 84.2 (1991) 105-28; idem, “The Social History of Satan, Part II: Satan in the New Testament Gospels,” JAAR 52.1 (1994) 201-41.


saw their fellow Jews in Palestine as allies of Satan.39 The apostle Paul also labeled his rival missionaries to the church at Corinth as messengers of Satan.40 These texts have one crucial ingredient germane to our discussion of Job: those claimed to carry forth the work of Satan are all former mem-bers of the same group who, in the view of the authors, have strayed.41 For these authors, the defectors capture the essence of Satan, because Satan is the ultimate member of a group turned adversary; Satan is the trusted com-panion of God turned archenemy of God.

Job’s friends are like “the satan,” for, according to Job, they have become his adversary (19:12).42 Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad—Job’s close circle of intimates—like God’s turned-enemy Satan become hostile toward a mem-ber of their intimate group:

All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me (19:19; cf. 12:1-4; 13:4-7; 16:1-7, 20; 17:1-5).

In their zeal to defend God, Job’s friends accuse Job of being wicked and carry forth the torment began by “the satan” in the prologue. Job laments the pain inflicted by his friends:

How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? (19:2).

39) See the War Scroll (1 QM) and Damascus Document (CD).40) See 2 Cor 11:1-15.41) There are of course some diffferences between these texts’ portrayal of people as ambas-sadors of Satan and that of Job. The biggest diffference is that in these texts these opponents are explicitly identifĳied as such, while in Job, as we shall see, it is implicit. Job sees his own friends as representative of his adversary (19:11-12). But the identity of the adversary is no mystery for the readers of the book; it is only a mystery for Job and the other (human) char-acters in the story. To the extent that the reader has been privy to the events in the prologue, the reader detects the irony in Job’s association of his friends with the adversary: Job’s friends are representative of the one who incites and inflicts woes on him—“the satan.” 42) From Job’s perspective throughout the narrative God is the adversary who affflicts him (6:4, 8-9; 9:17-18; 16:7-14; 27:2; 29:1-5; 30:16-23). But the reader who has been informed of God’s dialogue with “the satan” knows that it is narratively inconsistent that God should be the adversary of one whom he has repeatedly bragged about as blameless and upright (1:8; 2:3; 42:7, 8).


Job’s friends have become as dangerous to him as natural disasters:43

אחי בגדו כמו נחל כאפיק נחלים יעברוMy brethren act as treacherously as the wadis; they are like the riverbeds of seasonal streams that overflow (6:15; my translation).

And, like “the satan,” Job’s friends also inflict bodily harm on Job:

Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfĳied with my flesh (בׂשרי)?19:22) 44; cf. 16:10-11).

Job himself detects that his friends have turned away from their course and, therefore, pleads with them to “turn” (6:18-30). If “the satan’s” tragic mis-take is his assumption that he knows humans fully (a knowledge reserved for God), Job’s friends’ mistake is also that they assume they fully under-stand how God governs the universe (19:28-29).45 The friends assume that God has created a cosmic order that is rigidly fĳixed. In their view, “the world runs like a machine, so God does not act in freedom, but only reacts within a tightly woven creational system.”46 God’s speeches challenge and vehe-mently oppose this view; and in the end God condemns Job’s friends (42:7).

The adversarial role of “the satan” and Job’s companions must be under-stood in light of the book’s overall creation theology, in which God grants creation the risk of freedom. God allows creation the freedom to be and become, and this sometimes results in danger and potential evil within cre-ation.47 It is the kind of world God has created; and in this world it is pos-sible for a member of the divine council to metamorphose into God’s opposing enemy; in this world it is possible for a person’s confĳidants to

43) The attentive reader knows that “the satan” used natural disasters to wipe out Job’s chil-dren and livestock (1:13-19).44) Cf. 2:5: “Stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh (בׂשרו).”45) Cf. Cooper, “Reading and Misreading,” 71: “Satan simply takes causality for granted, as do Job’s friends, who are therefore Satan’s (and most readers’) surrogates in the poems of Job.”46) Fretheim, 228.47) Cf. Fretheim, 228: “ ‘The satan’ fĳigure in the prologue may essentially be emblematic for the way in which God lets the creation work; in efffect, giving ‘the satan’ permission to let moral and natural evil loose on Job is an illustration more generally of God letting the creation be what it has the potential of being and becoming, including the experience of sufffering.”


become his or her tormentors. All these are possible because of “the freedom and contingency of Yahweh’s world, in which human actions co-operate with the divine actions toward re-establishing living order.”48 God remains closely involved with the created order, but not in a manner that prevents the creation from being free to be itself or being free to stray.

Job’s Prayer for his Friends: Will Satan Be Saved?

After the divine encounter with Job, God’s wrath is kindled against Job’s friends, because they “have not spoken of [God] what is right” as Job has (42:7). For these friends, a single animal will not atone for their uninten-tional sin, as the Levitical law prescribes.49 God must, therefore, be quite upset. But why is that? Theories abound, discussions of all which is beyond the confĳines of this paper.50 We note, however, that God’s praise of Job can-not plausibly refer to all of Job’s words. Of this we are prompted by the fĳirst words from the whirlwind to Job:

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (38:2).51

The one who speaks words without knowledge could not possibly have said everything right. It is also worth noting that Job shares with his friends the presupposition that God showers blessings on the righteous and punish-ment on the wicked.52 Job, however, rejects a universal application of this presupposition. He also insists on his innocence. On both these views, his friends vehemently disagree.

For their error God asks Job’s friends to sacrifĳice seven bulls and seven rams. They are asked to go to Job for prayer:

48) Janzen, “Creation and the Human Predicament in Job,” ExAud 3 (1987) 53.49) See Leviticus 4:1-5:13.50) For a list of the various proposals, see O’Brien, 156-57.51) Against Karl G. Wilcox (“ ‘Who is this?’: A Reading of Job 38.2,” JSOT 78 [1998] 85-95), who thinks that God’s question concerns Elihu. Job himself afffĳirms God’s charge by quoting God’s accusing question and claiming to have spoken without knowledge (42:3). See John J. Binson, “Who is ‘this’ in ‘Who is this . . .?’ (Job 38.2)?”, JSOT 87 (2000) 125-128.52) See especially ch. 31.


Go to my servant Job, and offfer up for yourselves a burnt offfering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done (42:8).

Samuel Balentine has argued that in his role as intercessor Job prays for God as much as for his friends.53 Job, as intercessor, stands between God and his friends. Like Abraham, who interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah, Job acquires a new vision that emboldens him to contend with or against God for justice. Job prays for God himself to not act foolishly and deal with his friends according to the conventional standards of retributive justice. We agree with Balentine that Job’s prayer for his friends must be viewed as a call for Job to wrestle with God. However, we propose that Job’s prayer, when viewed in light of the creation theology of the book highlighted in this paper, is a call for Job to contend with God to redeem the fallen aspects of creation. If Job’s friends like all creation can stray from their divinely intended purpose, even becoming adversarial, then Job’s prayer must also be viewed as an intercession to God for the restoration of the strayed aspects of creation.

Although the text provides us with no details concerning the fate of “the satan,” the fact that Job prays for his friends leads us to ask whether or not, like Job’s friends, “the satan” (who is on the way to becoming evil) can be restored. To the extent that “the satan” is originally a legitimate member of the divine council whose blind zeal causes him to wander offf from his divinely appointed duty, the text daringly invites us to ponder the question of whether or not Satan—as an embodiment of the fallen aspect of cre-ation—will be restored. Later ( Jewish) Christian writers pondered the pos-sibility that Satan might be saved. For example, writing to the Colossian church, the apostle Paul notes that in Christ God is reconciling all things to himself, including evil, hostile powers:

For in [Christ] all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invis-ible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together . . . For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:16-20).

53) Samuel E. Balentine, “My Servant Job Shall Pray for You,” ThTo 58.4 (2002) 502-518.


According to this Colossians passage, it is God’s purpose to redeem the evil powers. Such a view is only possible when the evil powers are viewed as part of God’s good creation, which have fallen. The words, “in heaven,” remind us of Job’s depiction of “the satan” as a member of the heavenly council. The early church theologian, Origen, also theorized (inadvertently?)54 the possibility of salvation for Satan.55 On the answer to this question the Book of Job remains silent. Yet if we suppose Satan to be as the Book of Job por-trays him—a member of the divine council on the way to evil and hostil-ity—then dare we surmise that humanity’s hope for God to restore the good aspects of fallen creation might ultimately encompass Satan?

54) See Lisa R. Holliday’s nuanced treatment of Origen’s theory of volition, “Will Satan Be Saved? Reconsidering Origen’s Theory of Volition in Peri Archon,” VC 63 (2009) 1-23. Holliday concludes that Origen’s view of the apokatastasis is neither clear nor consistent. If the apokatastasis is not universal for Origen, then Satan will not be saved. However, if it is uni-versal, then Satan would be restored to God.55) See Origen, Parch 1,8,3; 3,6; also Jerome, Con Ruf 2,6-7; 2,19.

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Robert Moses - 'the Satan' in Light of the Creation Theology of Job