Job 21


Job 21 is the 21st chapter of the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is anonymous; most scholars believe it was written around the 6th century BCE. This chapter records the speech of Job, which belongs to the Dialogue section of the book, comprising Job 3:1–31:40.

Text

The original text is written in Biblical Hebrew, and the chapter is divided into 34 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, which includes the Aleppo Codex and Codex Leningradensis.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, which was made in the final few centuries BCE; some extant ancient manuscripts of this version include Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

The structure of the book is as follows:
  • The Prologue
  • The Dialogue
  • The Verdicts
  • The Epilogue
Within the structure, chapter 21 is grouped into the Dialogue section with the following outline:
  • Job's Self-Curse and Self-Lament
  • Round One
  • Round Two
  • *Eliphaz
  • *Job
  • *Bildad
  • *Job
  • *Zophar
  • *Job
  • **Change Your Attitude to Me
  • **The Prospering of the Wicked
  • **Why Are the Wicked Not Punished?
  • **The Failure of the Friends
  • Round Three
  • Interlude – A Poem on Wisdom
  • Job's Summing Up
The Dialogue section is composed and formatted as poetry with distinctive syntax and grammar.
Chapter 21 contains Job's last speech in the second cycle of debates with his friends, notably the only speech in which "Job confines his remarks to his friends". The chapter can be divided into the following parts:
  • Job's plea to the friends to change their attitude
  • Job questions why the wicked prosper
  • Job asks how often the wicked are punished
  • Job remarks on the failure of the friends' rebuttals

Job's plea to the friends to change their attitude (21:1–6)

Job opens his speech with a plea for his friends to actually listen his words because if they were doing that, it would bring real comfort to him. Job's issue is that the friends are interfering with his complaint with God with their inaccurate presumption or silence toward his defense. The task of laying a complaint before an almighty God is dangerous. Hence, Job approaches this with trembling.

Verse 4

  • "Why should I not be impatient": literally in Hebrew: "Why should my spirit/breath not be short". Job knows that his complaint is with God, not with any human beings, therefore he hopes that his friends would be his allies, but they instead add to Job's trauma by accusing him.

Job explores why the wicked are not always punished as the friends insisted (21:7–26)

This section has two main parts in which Job explores the apparent anomalies of what the friends stated about the fate of the wicked:
  1. Why the wicked can prosper despite their attitude toward God
  2. How often the wicked are punished
Job is suspicious of any attempt to trim the facts to fit into a 'tidy theological system', and he confronts the friends to match their neat imaginary world with the reality.
Verse 7 contains the statement of the general problem for the first topic: "why the wicked not only exist but also live a long life and grow mighty in power and wealth". The second topic is framed by the 'reality of death' as Job asks "how often do the wicked die prematurely" in a series of rhetorical questions with the expected answer: "hardly ever". The implication of both topics is the arbitrariness between 'a person's righteousness and the fullness of that person's life', thus the divine retribution is not actually reflected in the world.

Verse 16

  • "Is not in their hand": implying that one's well-being is from God, although the wicked may enjoy prosperity as if it is their right.
  • "The counsel of the wicked is far from me" or "far be from me their counsel'; an echo of Psalm 1:1 to prove that Job is not in the company of the wicked.

Job remarks on the failure of the friends' rebuttals (21:27–34)

After challenging the friends' thinking process, Job criticizes them for being blind and deaf to reality because of their rigid theological systems.. Job closes the second round of debate by pointing out the insubstantiality of his friends' comfort until now and the faithlessness or treachery of what is left standing in their speeches.

Verse 29

  • "Know their signs" refers to the custom of ancient merchants and travelers to write their names and thoughts somewhere at the main cross-roads; for example, the main roads of Sinai are 'dotted with these scribblings made by such passers of a day.'
The Greek Septuagint version renders the verse as: “Ask those who go by the way, and do not disown their signs.”