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JOBS WIFE AS HERO: A FEMINIST-FORENSIC READING OF THE BOOK OF JOB

F. RACHEL MAGDALENE
Augustana College (Rock Island)

The infamous words of Jobs wife, in Job 2:9,1 Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die! (NRSV) have created an interpretive conundrum.2 It appears as though Mrs. Job plays right into the Satans hands. What could Mrs. Job have been thinking? Many commentators, both ancient and modern, have strug1 I have presented earlier condensed versions of this paper at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section, Toronto, Canada, 25 November 2002 and at the Christian Theological Seminary, Cheonan University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 24 April 2003. The feedback gained in both these settings has been invaluable, and I thank the participants. I also thank Dr. Bruce Wells, who read all the drafts of this article and improved the work through his suggestions, and Dr. Mitchell Gabhart, who painstakingly copyedited the final draft. Of course, I take full responsibility for any remaining errors. All biblical translations are the authors unless otherwise indicated. Translations include the significant Hebrew in parentheses. When verbs are involved, I note the root alone. This article is dedicated to all torture victims and to Amnesty International whose work provides a voice for the silent tortured. 2 I note the use of &rB for curse or blasphemy. This use of &rB has traditionally been taken as a tiqqun sopherim (see, e.g., E. Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job [trans. H. Knight; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984], pp. 4-5). S.H. Blank argues, alternatively, that the euphemism is attributable to the author, not to a later scribe (The Curse, the Blasphemy, the Spell, the Oath, HUCA 23 [1950-51], pp. 73-95 [83-85]; see also R. Gordis, The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978], p. 13; and N.C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985], p. 88). It is also possible, however, that &rB contains both the meanings curse and blessing in its semantic range (see, e.g., F.I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary [TOTC; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1976], p. 81; M. Buttenwieser, The Book of Job [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922], pp. 155-56; M. Weiss, The Story of Jobs Beginning: Job 1-2, A Literary Analysis [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983], p. 30; and E. van Wolde, The Development of Job: Mrs. Job as Catalyst, in A. Brenner [ed.], Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature [FCB, 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995], pp. 201-21 [203-04]). I follow M. Cheney, whose discussion is the most nuanced and who suggests that &rB has both blessing and blasphemy (as opposed to the more general curse) specifically within its semantic range (Dust, Wind, and Agony: Character, Speech, and Genre in Job [ConBOT, 36; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1994], pp. 62-67). Cf. T. Linafelt, The Undecidability of ^rb in the Prologue to Job and Beyond, Bib Int 4 (1996), pp. 154-72.

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Biblical Interpretation 14, 3

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gled with this question. I intend to offer here a new answer, using the methods of feminist hermeneutics, legal hermeneutics, and legal comparative history. I believe that this solution will be more sensitive than prior work has been to the cultural position of Mrs. Job, to Mrs. Jobs pain and suffering, and to the legal material of the book of Job. First, I address the state of the scholarship and what motivates this study. Then, I address what motivates Jobs wife. The State of the Scholarship on Jobs Wife Prior scholarship has not been generally kind to Mrs. Job.3 The vitriolic, anti-female readings of this literary event are almost as legendary as her words. Augustine considered her the second Eve, one of Satans handmaidens.4 He was not alone among ancient commentators.5 Many modern interpreters do no better. For example, N. Habel agrees with Augustine that Mrs. Job is Satans handmaiden, saying that she serves as the earthly mouthpiece for a hidden Satan.6 M.D. Coogan maintains: She is a stock figure,
3 G. West states: [T]here is a long history of interpretation in which Jobs wife has been severely battered (Hearing Jobs Wife: Towards a Feminist Reading of Job, Old Testament Essays 4 [1991], pp. 107-31 [107]). 4 Cited, among many others, by Habel, Book of Job, p. 96; and I. Pardes, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 150-51. 5 John Chrysostom, John Calvin, and many others also took this view (C. Newsom, The Book of Job, in L.E. Keck et al. [eds.], New Interpreters Bible [Nashville: Abingdon, 1994-2002], vol. 4, pp. 319-637 [32834]; and Andersen, Job, pp. 92-93). C.M. McGinnis has an excellent review of several of the negative portrayals of Jobs wife, including those of the Septuagint, John Chrysostom, The Testament of Job, and Thomas Aquinas (Playing the Devils Advocate in Job, in S.L Cook, C.L. Patton, and J.W. Watts [eds.], The Whirlwind: Essays on Job, Hermeneutics and Theology in Memory of Jane Morse [JSOTSup, 336; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001], pp. 128-33). 6 Habel, Book of Job, p. 96. See also, e.g., J.A. Wharton, who argues: She isplanting in Jobs mind a delicious seduction to take the course predicted by hassatan: When relationship with God no longer pays off, end it! Job rejects this exquisite temptation as foolishness ( Job [WBC; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1999], p. 22). N. Whybray uses similar language: Her advice, Curse God and die, is a deliberate echo of the Satans predictions in 1:11 and 2:5; and though its intention was probably to bring an end to her husbands suffering, it was a temptation to him to sin (Job [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], p. 34). See also D. Penchansky, Jobs Wife: The Satans Handmaid, in D. Penchansky and P.L. Redditt (eds.), Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Right?: Studies on the Nature of God in Tribute to James L. Crenshaw (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2000), pp. 223-28.

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whose only part is a nag brusquely reproaching her husband for his piety; of the fate of their ten children she has nothing to say.7 Many commentators simply ignore Mrs. Job.8 Fortunately, a number of contemporary scholars have been more sympathetic. R.L. Alden, although offering a more traditional reading, acknowledges Mrs. Jobs pain and suggests that we readers should not be too hard on her.9 A. Brenner suggests that Jobs wife, although cast as one of the storys fools, is part of a great satire on the religious conventions of the day: Job the pious of the frame narrative (chs. 1-2; 42:7-17) is ironically presented as a parody/satire on the true believer figure.10 According to Brenner, the role of Mrs. Job is to help rework the Garden of Eden story, which is an important aspect of the authors challenge of traditional religion.11 Although I agree with Brenner that the book of Job has strong comic elements that challenged the religious conventions of its day, I think that Mrs. Job is a more important figure than Brenner allows.12 Both Aldens and Bren-

7 M.D. Coogan, Jobs Children, in T. Abusch, J. Huehnergard, and P. Steinkkeller (eds.), Lingering Over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran (HSS Series, 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 135-47 (135). 8 See, e.g., E. Good, In Turns of Tempest: A Reading of Job (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 200. 9 R.L. Alden, Job (New American Commentary, 11; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993), p. 66. 10 A. Brenner, Some Observations on the Figurations of Women in Wisdom Literature, in A. Brenner (ed.), Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature, pp. 5066 (58). 11 She explains that Jobs wife is given the unfortunate task of suggesting that he end his misfortune by cursing (or blessing) God and then dying. Jobs retort is aggressively vehement: he rejects her suggestion on ideo-religious grounds. She appears, therefore, a foolish and negative foil to her husband in his total trust in God. Her earthly, materialistic, commonsense attitude is diametrically opposed to Jobs spirituality. She emblematizes impatience and emotion; he is an embodiment of pure idealism. In that sense, their confrontation is a repeat performance of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2-3) with a therapeutic twist introduced into it. Contrary to the original scene, here the male is not convinced by the females initiative (Brenner, Some Observations, pp. 56-57). 12 Other proposals also exist. Linafelt, after acknowledging the double meaning of &rB, argues that Jobs wife says in 2:9, Still you hold fast to your integrity; continue to bless God, though you die (Undecidability, p. 167). McGinnis points out the obvious difficulty with this translation: it would then be nearly impossible to make sense of Jobs response to her (Playing the Devils Advocate, p. 127). Consequently, McGinnis argues that Linafelt needs to understand that such a translation is possible only if Jobs wife is being sarcastic in saying that Job should continue to bless God (Playing the Devils Advocate, p. 128).

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ners positions continue to cast her as the fool. Quite a few scholars now suggest that Mrs. Job simply takes pity on him.13 D.J.A. Clines, relying on the work of S. Terrien, declares: It is an impious suggestion she makes, but it does not arise out of impiety; it is human and entirely for Jobs benefit, this theological method of committing euthanasia.14 Two difficulties exist with this interpretation. First, Mrs. Jobs actions do not amount to euthanasia.15 It is not clear that Job is suffering from an ultimately fatal condition; that depends on the outcome of his trial. Additionally, Job has not asked his wife to kill him, nor is she offering that to him. The best argument that one could make regarding whether this is euthanasia is that she is encouraging him to end his own life through a type of God-assisted suicide.16 I will
McGinnis, therefore, goes on to suggest that Jobs wife, indeed, encourages Job to curse God, but does so with the intent of being a devils advocate, that he might not do the terrible act that is on his mind (Playing the Devils Advocate, pp. 136-39). Unfortunately, as she recognizes, whatever Mrs. Job accomplishes in this regard is short-lived (Playing the Devils Advocate, p. 140). Although McGinniss solution is both plausible and supportive of Mrs. Job, I think it has two fundamental difficulties. First, it assigns a role to Mrs. Job that has only temporary effect. Second, it does not address sufficiently the changes that take place in Job himself between the prologue and chapter 3. See the textual material at nn. 116-18, infra. 13 See, e.g., M. Weiss, Story of Jobs Beginning, p. 70. 14 D.J.A. Clines, Job 1-20 (WBC, 17; Dallas: Word, 1989), p. 51, translating S. Terrien, Job (CAT, 13; Neuchatel: Delachauz et Niestl, 1963), p. 60. Terrien writes in English: She [Jobs wife] was proposing in effect a theological method of euthanasia (Job: Poet of Existence [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957], p. 42). Andersen takes a similar position (Job, p. 93). See also Wharton, Job, p. 22. 15 Additionally, euthanasia within the Hebrew Bible is requested in very specific instances and is not generally regarded as appropriate. We see Abimelech request euthanasia, in Judg. 9:54, when a woman in battle mortally wounds him, which his attendant carries out. King Saul also requests that his armor-bearer kill him when the Philistines at Mt. Gilboa mortally wound him (1 Sam. 31:4-5; cf. 1 Chron. 10:4-5). In his case, however, his armor-bearer will not do it, which requires that Saul fall upon his own sword. I do not believe that euthanasia is generally consistent with the usual understanding of life and death in the Hebrew Bible. Each of the recorded cases involves a warrior who is already fatally wounded and wishes to control only certain details of his death. Further, God does not favor either Abimelech or Saul. Jobs circumstances are not parallel to those of Abimelech and Saul. For more detailed discussions of the view of death in the Hebrew Bible, see L.R. Bailey, Biblical Perspectives on Death (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979); K.H. Richards, Death: Old Testament, in D.N. Freedman (ed.), Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 108-10; and B. Vawter, Intimations of Immortality and the OT, JBL 91 (1972), pp. 158-71 (170-71). 16 For additional discussions on suicide in the Hebrew Bible, see D. Daube, Death as Release in the Bible, NovT 5 (1962), pp. 82-104; A. J. Droge, Sui-

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soon demonstrate, however, that, in the story, God is not an agent of mercy in the minds of these people; rather, he is an abuse perpetrator. Mrs. Job is actually exhorting Job to provoke his abuser to the point of death. This is a very different dynamic than, for example, requesting physician-assisted suicide in the face of terminal cancer. Second, pity does not explain why a woman, suffering the losses she has, would now want to give up all hope for a stable future by encouraging her husband to commit suicide in the most reprehensible way imaginable.17 By doing such, in all likelihood, he would leave her ostracized and destitute because widows without male relatives or substantial financial resources could be in precarious circumstances in the ancient Near East.18 Her instruction to Job, therefore, becomes her own slow, painful suicide. One must acknowledge that Mrs. Job is suffering, too. She has lost her children, the property that she used, and her financial security. Her husband is ill and depressed. She might, indeed, want to commit suicide. Nonetheless, if she wants to die, why does she not just curse God and die? Readings that see her as taking pity on Job are, therefore, insensitive to womens cultural reality at the time and to some of the literary attributes of the text. This incitement of her husband to verbal violence and death

cide, in Freedman (ed.), Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6, pp. 225-31; and F. Rosner, Suicide in Biblical, Talmudic, and Rabbinic Writings, Trad 11, no. 2 (1970), pp. 25-40. 17 For one of the best discussions of Mrs. Jobs own losses, see Z. Gitay, The Portrayal of Jobs Wife and Her Representations in the Visual Arts, in A.B. Beck, A.H. Bartelt, P.R. Raabe, et al (eds.), Fortunate the Eyes that See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of his Seventieth Birthday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 516-23 (516-19). See also Wests words in the text at n. 22, infra. 18 See P.S. Hiebert, Whence Shall Help Come to Me?: The Biblical Widow, in P.L. Day (ed.), Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 125-41; and K. van der Toorn, From Her Cradle to Her Grave: The Role of Religion in the Life of the Israelite and the Babylonian Woman (trans. S.J. Denning-Bolle; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 134-35; cf. A. Kuhrt, Non Royal Women in the Late Babylonian Period, in B. Lesko, (ed.), Womens Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia (BJS Series, 116; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), p. 234. F.S. Fricks study of the widow in the biblical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods of Israelite history indicates, however, that widows were often in a significantly better economic and legal position than is commonly thought (Widows in the Hebrew Bible: A Transactional Approach, in A. Brenner [ed.], A Feminist Companion to Exodus to Deuteronomy [FCB, 6; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995], pp. 139-51). Nonetheless, conditions for many were inauspicious.

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jars us. It presents questions. We want to understand her literary function. Whybray asks simply: What was the purpose of the insertion of this incident into the story?19 C.M. McGinnis expands:
If the narrative could have as easily proceeded without the intervention of Jobs wife, what then is her role in the story? Is her anomalous appearance in episode two simply to elicit a response or to heighten the readers sense of suspense, or is her role a more significant one? Why, given the loss of the rest of Jobs family, has his wifes life been preserved? And why is it Jobs wife who utters these words, and not some other character, such as an impious friend?20

Certainly, the answer to such excellent questions cannot be a mere demonstration of pity. That alone makes no sense. I. Pardes and E. van Wolde have offered readings of Mrs. Job that are both straightforward and consistent in their sympathy.21 They assign her a significant role in moving Job from passivity to assertiveness in his relationship with God. I agree that Mrs. Job, indeed, effects this change, but for reasons deeper and still more important than either of these authors suggests. G. West, who is another sympathetic reader but one without a solution to the problem, lays down the gauntlet regarding Mrs. Job. He issues a challenge to Joban scholars, demanding that we offer readings that hear completely and sensitively Mrs. Jobs experience of suffering. He avows:
Such a reading might begin to try to hear the cry of despair of a woman who has toiled to provide food and a home for her family and who has seen these destroyed. It might begin to articulate the cry of agony of a woman who has labored to give birth to ten children and who has seen them murdered. Such a reading might begin to uncover the cry of pain of a woman who has been a faithful companion to her husband but who is debased by him. It might begin to understand the cry of frustration of a woman who fully understands the intellectual issues involved but who is not taken seriously. Such a reading might begin to feel the cry of rejection of a woman who is made in the image of God but who remains unanswered by God. It might begin to recognize the cry of confusion of a woman who is expected to rebuild her home and to produce more children with no hope of a future for them. Such a reading might begin to speak forth the cry of outrage of a woman who sees her daughters treated

Whybray, Job, p. 34. McGinnis, Playing the Devils Advocate, p. 125. 21 Pardes, Countertraditions, pp. 145-54; and van Wolde, Development of Job, pp. 201-21. D. Schweitzer also has a sympathetic reading of Mrs. Job, although it is not quite as strong as those of Pardes and van Wolde (Curse God and Die: Was Jobs Wife Completely Wrong? Touchstone 14 [September 1996], pp. 32-38).
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in a different way to her sons. Such a reading would begin to embrace this womans untold story.22

This article seeks to offer such a reading, one that explains more fully what Pardes and Van Wolde have noticed. I use the method of feminist hermeneutics in pursuit of such a reading. Feminist hermeneutics is not, however, the articles only method. This reading will also draw from the world of law. The book of Job is replete with legal metaphor, which many investigators ignore in their analyses of Jobs wife.23 It is my view that any reading of Mrs. Jobs role in the book must be cognizant of the vast legal material contained in the book. In order to understand these legal metaphors and Mrs. Jobs possible legal role, I must also use the methods of comparative legal history and legal hermeneutics.24 Thus, I rely on a prior legal comparative historical study I have completed on the book of Job, wherein I researched how approximately 250 Neo-Babylonian litigation texts might inform our reading of the book.25 This article also utilizes that area of legal
West, Hearing Jobs Wife, p. 119. We have known this fact since C.H. Gordon first recognized, in his 1928 masters thesis, The Legal Background of Hebrew Thought and Literature, that the book of Job contains much litigation metaphor (M.A. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1928, unpublished). Others have followed his lead in their work. See, e.g., L. Khler, Justice in the Gate, in Hebrew Man (London: SCM, 1956), pp. 149-75 (136); M.H. Pope, Job (AB, 15; Garden City: Doubleday, 3rd edn, 1979), passim; and J.J. Stamm, Die Theodize in Babylon und Israel, JEOL 9 (1944), pp. 99107. S.H. Scholnick suggested that early investigators had tended to see Jobs legal vocabulary as part of his characterization as an elder, who served a judicial role at the gate (Job 27:78, 16) (Lawsuit Drama in the Book of Job [PhD dissertation, Brandeis University, 1975, unpublished], p. vi). In other words, the characterization of Job as a judge demands that Jobs conversations on the topic of justice reflect his legal knowledge. Such scholars did not go much deeper in their analyses. Scholnick demonstrated convincingly, however, that, through the books use of legal metaphor, it sets out a legal altercation between God and Job. While a number of researchers before her had said similar things, Scholnick finally persuaded most scholars of this position. In fact, many scholars now maintain that litigation metaphors structure the books articulation of theological ideas. For further discussion of the pre-1975 views regarding the legal materials in the book of Job, see Scholnick, Lawsuit Drama, pp. vixii. For a survey of the post-1975 literature, see F.R. Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness: Law and Story in the Book of Job, (PhD dissertation, Iliff School of Theology and University of Denver [Colorado Seminary], 2003, unpublished), p. 2, n. 5. 24 For a full discussion of this concept, see Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness, pp. 95-101. 25 Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness. A slight revision of this work is to be published soon as On the Scales of Righteousness: Neo-Babylonian Trial Law and the Book of Job (Brown Judaic Study Series; Atlanta: Society of Bible Litera23 22

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hermeneutics that studies the laws violence because I seek to understand how the violence of Gods law, which apparently undergirds the suffering of both Mr. and Mrs. Job, affects their actions. Hence, I will offer a feminist-forensic examination of the role that Jobs wife plays in Jobs challenge of God regarding the problem of suffering. To this end, I will explore four areas: 1) the violence of Gods law; 2) Jobs suffering under divine violence; 3) Mrs. Jobs response to the violence; and 4) Jobs response to God in light of his wifes remark. I turn to the problem of divine legal violence first.

The Violence of Gods Law All law is violent, even Gods law. Divine justice necessitates violence and produces suffering. I suggest that the violence of Gods law is one of the key problems discussed in the book of Job. I, therefore, wish to explore in detail the concept of the laws violence and how that relates to divine justice. R.M. Cover, a legal hermeneuticist and constitutional law scholar, has explained better than anyone to date that the law is violent.26 Modern criminal law defines what behavior will be considered to be violent toward another person or to the society itself and, therefore, criminal.27 Paradoxically, however, criminal law

ture, forthcoming). Some aspects of that work have also been summarized in Magdalene, Who Is Jobs Redeemer? Job 19:25 in Light of Neo-Babylonian Law, ZABR 10 (2004), forthcoming. Material from both of these sources is occasionally duplicated here for clarity. 26 For R.M. Covers most important works, see Violence and the Word, Yale Law Journal 95 (1986), pp. 1601-29; The Bonds of Constitutional Interpretation: On the Word, Deed, and the Role, Georgia Law Journal 20 (1986), pp. 815-33; and The Supreme Court Term, Forward: Nomos and Narrative, Harvard Law Review 97 (1983), pp. 4-68. See also the series of articles in A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns (eds.), Laws Violence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992). 27 Many definitions of violence and violent crime exist, which are the subject of criminology. For a range of views, see, e.g., M.J. Jones, Christian Ethics for Black Theology: The Politics of Liberation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1974), pp. 124-25; C.A. Hartjen, Crime and Criminalization (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston/Praeger, 2nd edn, 1978), pp. 1-18, esp. p. 2; and D.P. Farrington, Longitudinal Analyses of Criminal Violence, in M.E. Wolfgang and N.A. Weiner (eds.), Criminal Violence (London: Sage Publications, 1982), pp. 171-73. For a brief summary of the various theories of criminality, see M.R. Gottfredson and T. Hirschi,

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also harnesses violence in order to control the violence of the sodefined perpetrator.28 The law uses various forms of violence to punish any individual that the society considers an offender. Here, I am not just speaking of capital punishment but also of the whole range of punishments that have been used throughout history.29 These include obvious forms of physical violence, such as beatings, torture, trial by fire and by water, and other physical means. The violence of the law also includes more moderate forms of violence, such as forced imprisonment and the suspension or withdrawal of certain civil rights.30 Any repercussions that fall upon an offender that do not ultimately serve to reconcile the offender with, and reintegrate the offender into, society contain some degree of violence.31 The laws violence extends even into the realm of civil law.32 Many besides Cover acknowledge that violence underA General Theory of Crime (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 1-44; and R. Quinney, A Critical Theory of Criminal Law, in Criminal Justice in America: A Critical Understanding (Boston: Little Brown, 1974), pp. 1-25. 28 The coercive power of the state has also been the subject of much discussion, and various theories regarding it abound. For just a few examples, see M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon, 1977), p. 23; D. Hay, Property, Authority and the Criminal Law, in D. Hay, R. Linebaugh et al (eds.), Albions Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Pantheon, 1975), pp. 17-63 (62-63); R. Pound, Social Control through Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942), p. 18; and Quinney, Critical Theory of Criminal Law, pp. 3, 18. 29 For a history of corporal punishment until the early twentieth century, see F.H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation: A Study of the Penitentiary System (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 2nd edn, 1910), pp. 48-102. 30 Foucault argues that there remains, even in non-corporal punishment, a trace of torture (Discipline and Punish, p. 16). He maintains that, although punishment in its less violent forms is not inflicted on the body, it acts upon the soul. 31 K. Menninger, The Crime of Punishment (New York: Viking, 1966); cf. D. Hay, Time, Inequality, and Laws Violence, in Sarat and Kearns (eds.), Laws Violence, pp. 141-73 (160-61). 32 As Hay states: And we could argue that even more important are the ways in which (both in the past and now) laws violence has been enacted in the doctrines and legislation of civil law that sustained authority, hierarchy, and inequality [that ultimately do violence to persons] (Hay, Time, Inequality, and Laws Violence, p. 144). See also P.M. Wald, Violence under the Law: A Judges Perspective, in Sarat and Kearns (eds.), Laws Violence, pp. 77-103. We might also examine structural violence, which, according to R.M. Brown, is that which occurs when the very structures of society perpetuate the violation of personhood (Religion and Violence [Philadelphia: Westminster, 2nd edn, 1987], p. 34). In sketching such violence, Brown quotes E. Mounier: People think too much about acts of violence, which prevents them from seeing that more often there are states of violenceas when there are millions of men out of work, and dying

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girds the enforcement provisions of the law.33 Cover has focused, however, particularly sharp attention on the violence of the law.34 He has made the laws violence plain and explained how the law uses judicial interpretation in the service of its violent ends. Since Covers sudden and untimely death in the 1980s, several other legal commentators have been grappling with the problem as he outlined it. D. Hay, in discussing Covers work, articulates the latters view simply:
[L]aws power and laws legitimacy both rely on that articulated hierarchy of violent domination, obedience to command. On it depends the curtailment of popular violence, the subordination of private revenge to the ordered and justified violence of the state; on it depends the rationality of that violence. [T]o ignore the violence is to ignore a central (the central?) fact about law.35

A. McThenia, Jr. puts it succinctly: the law is in bondage to violence.36 P.M. Wald agrees that, while the law sanitizes even the most controversial and violence-fraught disputes, the law is itself violent.37 As a consequence, judges become the gatekeepers of societys violence:
and being dehumanized, without visible barricades and within the established order todayand that just as the tyrant is the real subversive, so real violence, in the hateful sense of the word, is perpetuated by such a system (Brown, Religion and Violence, quoting Lengagement de la foi [Livre de vie, 87-88; Paris: Editions du Seuill, 1967], vol. 1, p. 388, not available to this author). 33 In addition to those commentators already named above, see, e.g. C.J. Greenhouse, Reading Violence, in Sarat and Kearns (eds.), Laws Violence, pp. 105-39; M.S. Milner, The Word and The Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 136-64, 204-10; and D. Bonhoeffer, Ethics (ed. E. Bethge; New York: Macmillan, 1949), p. 335; cf. J. Ellul, Political Illusion (New York: Alfred G. Knopf, 1967). R. Niebuhr, in addressing state power, asserts that the violence of the state fuels its temptation to idolatry: The egotism of racial, national and socio-economic groups is most consistently expressed by the national state because the state gives the collective impulses of the nation such instruments of power and presents the imagination of individuals with such obvious symbols of its discrete collective identity that the national state is most able to make absolute claims for itself, to enforce those claims by power and to give them plausibility and credibility by the majesty and panoply of its apparatus.... The temptation to idolatry is implicit in the states majesty (The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation [New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1943], p. 208). 34 Cover, Violence and the Word, pp. 1601-29. 35 Hay, Time, Inequality, and Laws Violence, p. 141. 36 A. McThenia, Jr., The Law and the Resurrection, Witness 75 (April 1992), pp. 12-13 (13), condensing a longer version, Civil Resistance or Holy Obedience? Reflections from Within a Community of Resistance, Washington and Lee Law Review 48 (1991), pp. 15-39 (37). 37 Wald, Violence under the Law, pp. 77-103.

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[A] society is defined by its ability to enforce communal decisionsby force, if necessary. And the judge in our society is often the one who decides when, how, and whether to apply that communal force in the name of the law, when to let violence out into the open, when to suppress it, against whom it may be directed, where and how it can take place. Judges live in a paradoxical proximity to violence. The courts are generally regarded as the alternative to fighting in the streets, yet, inherent in many of our decisions is the probability, even the certainty, of violence; we affirmatively sanction yet try to control and channel that violence to attain the laws end.38

Judges wield tremendous power through their access to statecontrolled violence. The ancient Near East had its own law enforcement systems, which were equally as violent.39 Ancient courts had a large range of sanctions that it could impose on a guilty defendant. In my prior work on Neo-Babylonian law, I have demonstrated that pretrial incarceration was common.40 Furthermore, post-judgment relief to plaintiffs could include traditional punishments, such as:
compensation in silver or goods, specific performance, orders of eviction, and injunctions, depending on the nature of the harm, the level of culpability, and the specifics of the matter at hand. In the case of compensation to the victim, we find damage multiples of one, two, three, ten, and thirty. The thirty-fold penalty is clearly used only in the case of theft of, or damage to, temple property.41

Corporal or capital punishment was also available to the court.42 Although the evidence for corporal punishment is limited in the Neo-Babylonian corpus of trial records because of the small range of offenses documented, it does exist. One such use of corporal
38 Wald, Violence under the Law, pp. 77-78. This discussion of Wald is also set forth in Magdalene, Jobs Redeemer. 39 I accept as valid J. Rengers view that the modern distinction between civil and criminal law is unhelpful in considering ancient Near Eastern law and the procedures that govern its enforcement (Wrongdoing and Its Sanctions: On Criminal and Civil Law in the Old Babylonian Period, in J. Sasson [ed.], The Treatment of Criminals in the Ancient Near East [Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 20; Leiden: Brill, 1977), pp. 65-77 [7172]; see also R. Westbrook, Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Law [Paris: Gabalda Press, 1988], p. 8; and Westbrook, Punishments and Crimes, in Freedman [ed.], Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 5, pp. 546-56 [548]; disagreeing with A. Phillips, Ancient Israels Criminal Law: A New Approach to the Decalogue [Oxford: Blackwell, 1970]). See further Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 42-43. 40 Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 69. 41 Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 87. The specific justification for selecting one of the other multiples remains obscure. 42 For a more detailed discussion of all sanctions available to the Neo-Babylonian courts, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 86-89.

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punishment involved cases in which a woman violated a courts injunction against seeing a given man. The court could brand her with a slave mark, maiming her and reducing her social status simultaneously. Defendants were also subject to criminal forfeiture of their property. Ancient courts used violence no less than modern courts do in enforcing their societys law. In the ancient Near East, divine law was also considered violent, and suffering was the best evidence of this. Those suffering some adverse condition, such as illness or crop failure, typically interpreted it as some form of divine legal investigation or trial punishment. M.B. Dick observes: [T]here are Mesopotamian texts which describe in the language of the court mans suffering as a legal judgment of guilt....43 He quotes a passage from KAR 184: In the (legal) cause of the illness which has seized me, I am lying on my knees for judgment. Judge my cause, give a decision for me.44 The understanding of suffering as divine legal punishment is best attested by the ritual incantations of Mesopotamia, which date from approximately 2500-1500 bce:45
The sufferer was usually ignorant as to what he or she had done to bring on the judgment that resulted in his or her suffering. The urpu incantations reveal that the bewildered person could approach a priest for assistance. The priest would recite an exhaustive list of 95 possible personal misdemeanours, presumably hoping to include the relevant sin. The sufferer might also have requested from his divine judge some omen or sign confirming his guilt, or identifying his exact sin. Once the sufferer knew the source of his problem, he could make confession, receive his pardon, and, hopefully, be healed.46

43 M.B. Dick, Legal Metaphor in Job 31, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 41 (1979), pp. 37-50 (39). 44 Dick, Legal Metaphor, p. 40. Dick takes his translation from B. Gemser, The rbor Controversy-Pattern in Hebrew Mentality, in M. Noth and D.W. Thomas (eds.), Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East Presented to Professor Harold Henry Rowley (VTSup Series, 3; Leiden: Brill, 1955), pp. 120-37 (127, n. 1). This work should also be consulted on this point. 45 See G. Cunningham, Deliver Me from Evil: Mesopotamian Incantations 25001500 BC (Studia Pohl Series Maior, 17; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1997); M.J. Geller, The urpu Incantations and Lev. V.1-5, Journal of Semitic Studies 25 (1980), pp. 181-92; and E. Reiner, urpuA Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations (AfO Beiheft, 11; Graz: Ernest F. Weidner, 1958). See also Dick, Legal Metaphor, pp. 38-40. For other related ancient Near Eastern texts, see J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (AB, 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 361-63. 46 Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 201, quoting Geller, urpu Incantations, p. 182, and also relying upon Reiner, urpu, pp. 2-3; B. Wells, The Law of Testimony in the Pentateuchal Codes (PhD dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 2002), p. 91; and Westbrook, Studies, p. 27.

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The worldview of the ritual incantations lies behind much of the legal material of Job.47 The brutal violence of Gods law, as made manifest by Jobs suffering, is precisely one of the problems that the author is critiquing within the book of Job. This critique is established in the legal proceedings of the prologue, which give us the details of the heavenly trial that results in Jobs suffering.

Job under the Violence of Gods Law The Neo-Babylonian litigation records help to demonstrate that the heavenly trial of Job is very sophisticated.48 Although few commentators have taken this view, I argue that the Satan, as a private third-party prosecutor, brings a formal legal indictment against Job for having the guilty mind of a blasphemer.49 He does so by using the common abbreviated, weakened oath formula found in the Neo-Babylonian period: If he has not done X [the content of the accusation].50 Here, the apodosis, which would reveal the provisions of the curse, is implied.51 In 1:11, the Satan states: Oh,

Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 127-29, 201-03, 208-09, 226, 228, 239-241, 260-61, 265, 279, 314. 48 Details of my comparative analysis of the Neo-Babylonian documents with the metaphors related to the trial between Job, the Satan, and God can be found in Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 95-311. Much of the summary of my understanding of the trial of Job presented here is a repetition of the summary found in Magdalene, Jobs Redeemer. 49 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 105-09. 50 F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp remarks that it is often difficult to determine when alA!a represents the oath formula and when it is asseverative (The Genre of the Mead ashavyahu Ostracon, BASOR 295 [1994], pp. 49-55 [53], relying on W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986], p. 454). We believe that the oath formula is in use here. This is recognized by Andersen (Job, p. 85); Clines (Job 1-20, p. 26); Good (In Turns of Tempest, p. 195); and S. Peake (Job [NCB; London: T.C.&E.C. Jack, 1904], p. 61); among others. One of the reasons this oath is not often recognized is that many believe that all oaths in the context of ancient Near Eastern litigation were formal oaths that disposed of cases, that is, dispositive oaths. Another form of oath existed as early as the Old Babylonian period, that is, the weakened oath, which did not dispose of cases. Weakened oaths became much more important than the dispositive oath in the Neo-Babylonian period. Only weakened oaths appear within the book of Job. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 72-80, 209-13; Magdalene, Jobs Redeemer. 51 The apodosis was often deleted when convention or context could furnish the imprecation. Dobbs-Allsopp, Genre, p. 295, citing J. Lyons, Semantics 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 589.

47

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but stretch out your hand and strike all that is his! If he does not blaspheme (&rB) you to your face! Later, he expands his denunciation: Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give up for his life. Oh, but stretch out your hand and strike his bones and his flesh! If he does not blaspheme (&rB) you to your face! (2:4-5). One of the reasons that interpreters reject the idea that the Satan brings a lawsuit is that one cannot be charged criminally, in a human court of law, for a possible future crime. The Satan does not assert that Job has blasphemed, only that he will blaspheme because he has the guilty mind, or guilty intention (mens rea), of a blasphemer. Even though having a guilty mind alone is typically insufficient for a finding of guilt in a human court, and the court must also find that some guilty act (actus reus) was committed, having a guilty intention is grounds for criminal sanctions in the divine court.52 In the Hebrew Bible, God repeatedly tests the human heart, which constitutes a cosmic investigation of possible faulty, or even criminal, intention (e.g., Jer. 11:20; 20:12; Pss. 7:912; 44:22).53 A finding of guilt can result in severe consequences (e.g., Deut. 29:17-19a). Job faces a very serious charge, in a real trial, which can result in a terrible outcome for him if he should be convicted. This is not a mere test of faith. The Satan also accuses God of unfairly favoring Job, maybe even aiding and abetting the accused. God has disrupted, according to the Satan, the moral economy by bringing good to Job before it was deserved. Obedience and faith beget blessings, not vice versa. The point of the Satans maneuver may be to subvert Gods authority in the Council and possibly to take over its leadership.54 The Satan is shrewd because, once a formal charge is brought, the legal process must begin. If God attempts to stop the proceedings, he will be showing Job further favoritism, thereby falling further into the Satans trap.55 Consequently, God must cooperate with the courtas all ancient Near Eastern defendants and witnesses had to cooperate. This legal system was not like Common Law adversarial systems, based on British law, wherein the defendant does not have to testify against him- or herself. Rather,
52 53 54 55

For a fuller discussion, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 109-19. Cf. Jer. 17:10. Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 120-25. Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 125-27.

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ancient Near Eastern legal systems were inquisitive systems, like the Continental systems of Europe, wherein the defendant is expected to testify.56 Hence, once the Satan brings a formal accusation, the legal process moves into action, and every being connected to the case must cooperate with it, including Job and God. In the Neo-Babylonian legal system, as soon as an accusation was leveled, an investigation ensued.57 Several scholars argue that suspects in the ancient Near East were often tortured in the investigative process in order to get the truth out of them.58 The Hebrew Bible reports similar occurrences. For example, Jeremiah was flogged when he was suspected of defecting to the Chaldeans (Jer. 37:15). In Jer. 20:2, he was imprisoned and beaten as a means to silence him by Pashhur, who clearly had the authority to do so to those suspected of crimes. Such state-sanctioned torture is one of the most violent and painful aspects of ancient Near Eastern law. As I have noted in my prior work, Job, too, is being tortured during his investigation.59 C. Newsom also observes this.60 Terrien agrees.61 Wharton calls what Job is enduring inquisitorial terror.62 To name just a few of Jobs indices of torture: he loses his
Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 72-73; cf. p. 56, n. 33. Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 70. 58 F. Joanns, Une chronique judiciaire dpoque hellnistique et le chtiment des sacrileges Babylone, in J. Marzahn and H. Neumann (eds.), Assyriologica et Semitica: Festschrift fr Joachim Oelsner anllich seines 65. Geburtstages am 18. Februar 1997 (AOAT, 252; Mnster: Ugarit, 2000), pp. 193-212 (206); M. Jursa, Akkad, das Eulma und Gubru, WZKM 86 (1996), pp. 199-210 (199, 210); and M. San Nicol, Parerga Babylonica IX: Der Monstre-proze des Gimillu, eines irku von Eanna, Archiv Orientln 5 (1933), pp. 61-77 (72); cf. M. San Nicol, Parerga Babylonica XI: Die maaltu-Urkunden im neubabylonischen Strafverfahren, Archiv Orientln 5 (1933), pp. 287-302 (30102). 59 See Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 131-33. 60 C. Newsom, The Character of Pain: Job in Light of Elaine Scarrys The Body in Pain (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Orlando, Florida, 23 November 1998). Newsoms insights within this paper are important, especially those regarding how Jobs torture fits E. Scarrys theoretical construct (The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985]). Although my reading is quite different from Newsoms, I owe her my gratitude. Although I was familiar with Scarrys and Covers work before Newsom presented, I did not think to apply their constructs to the book of Job until I heard Newsoms paper. It transformed my dissertation and gave rise to this article. Furthermore, Newsom most eagerly supplied me with a copy of her work long after the presentation when I turned to the task of documenting my analysis. 61 Terrien, Job: Poet of Existence, p. 25. 62 Wharton, Job, p. 60.
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health (2:7; 7:5; 16:8b; 17:7b; 19:20a; 21:6b; 30:30) and must endure the horrible emotional effects of the death of his children and servants, as well as the loss of his wealth.63 He grieves and weeps much (1:20a; 2:8; 16:15-16a; 20a; 17:7a; 30:31). In fact, he looks so bad under the suffering that his friends no longer recognize him, and they weep and mourn when it finally dawns on them that the stranger they approach is Job (2:12). At first, Job speaks little and, finally, not at all (2:10-3:1).64 When he regains his ability to speak after seven days of silence, he describes what is happening to him in very vivid terms. He sees himself as the victim of divine violence and reports receiving many wounds (6:4; 7:20b; 9:17; 16:9b-c, 12-14; 19:10-12, 22; 30:18).65 He suffers relentless pain, anguish, and misery (2:13; 6:2-3, 10; 9:28a; 11:16a; 16:6a; 30:16b, 27b). He groans under the pain (3:24; 23:2). He states that he cannot catch his breath and what little air does come into his chest feels bitter to him (9:18). He speaks wildly at times (6:3b). His sleep is disturbed (3:26; 7:3b-4a, 13; 30:17; cf. 11:18b19a). In those few moments of respite, God sends him night terrors (7:14). He has lost his appetite and cannot eat (6:5-7). His bowels churn (30:27). He expresses how overwhelmed he feels (3:24-26). He bemoans the fact that he has no peace, no quiet, no rest, but only anxiety and fear (3:25-26; 21:6a; 30:15; cf. 11: 15b). He has developed a specific fear of God (6:4c; 9:35a; 23:1516). He has lost his success (30:22) and his dignity (19:9; 30:15c, 29). Those of his community revile and abuse him (16:10; 17:6; 19:18); even the despised disrespect him (30:1-14). His friends, family, and servants are all alienated from him (19:13b-17, 19), and he believes that God has tendered him to the wicked (16:11). He suffers terrible shame (10:15). He has lost all trust and much hope (7:6b, 7b; 9:25b; 11:18a; 17:15-16; 19:10b). His spirit is broken (17:1a; and 27:2b), and his life now feels empty and dark (7:3a; 30:28a; cf. 11:17; 17:12). He alleges that his friends make his words out to be no more than wind (6:26b), and God has turned his very life into mere wind (7:7a). He says he has not the strength to go on (6:11-13; 16:17a). He is sure he is dying (16:16b; 17:1b, c, 11-14; 30:16a, 19b, 23). These physical and emotional

63 64 65

Cf. Newsom, The Character of Pain, p. 4. Cf. Lam. 2:10-11, where the same process occurs. Verse 6:4 expresses the same sentiments as Lam. 3:12.

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experiences, which are so common to torture victims,66 are the very reason he articulates repeatedly that he hates his life (9:21c; 10:1), comes to rue the day he was born and curses it (3:3-22),67 and waits for death longingly (6:8-10a; 7:15-16; 10:18-19). Wharton calls the soliloquy in chapter 3 Jobs primal scream.68 The similarities between Jobs sufferings and the torture of real suspects in ancient Near Eastern criminal investigations are quite striking. Job is experiencing a cruel investigative process. His suffering is intimately connected to the fact that he is now subject to the violence of Gods law. This raises the question: Are Jobs actions in the story in anyway connected to the fact that he is being tortured? This inquiry, in turn, requires us to ask: What happens to torture victims? How do they respond? How is Job similar to, or different from, other torture victims? The answers to these questions demand that we explore the dynamics of torture. The common conception regarding the purpose of torture in criminal investigations is that it is the best means by which to extract a confession. The thinking is that, under such pain, the victim must tell the truth. Lying, which is a complicated intellectual act, will be too difficult to maintain. The torturer, therefore, has both the right and the duty to break the will of the suspect so that lies are impossible.69 Yet, the idea that torture will elicit the truth is a falsehood because the tortured are just as likely, if not more likely, to lie as the non-tortured, but for different reasons. The tortured lie to stop the torture. The assumption that torturers must torture to ascertain the truth camouflages the real reason that torturers torture, which is to realign the thinking of the tortured with that of his or her torturer. E. Scarry explains this phenomenon in her foundational work on torture.70 Torture, on its way to producing the desired confes-

66 See Scarry, Body in Pain; and E. Stover and E. Nightingale, The Breaking of Minds and Bodies (New York: Freeman Press, 1985). 67 The roots rra, &rB, llh, m[z, mrj, bbq/bqn, and llq can all mean curse. See further Magdalene, Curse, in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 301. Although, as stated previously, I believe that &rB has only the sense of blasphemy (n. 2, above). The root llq is used in 3:1 and both rra and bbq are used in 3:8. 68 Wharton, Job, p. 25. 69 Cf. Stover and Nightingale, Breaking of Minds and Bodies, p. 5. 70 For the complete citation, see n. 60, supra.

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sion, first reduces one to silence and then to screams. Silence and screams are, in fact, critical components of the effectiveness of torture: Prolonged pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and cries a human being makes before language is learned.71 The pain becomes all-encompassing. All of reality is boiled down to a body writhing in pain. Through the pain of torture, the victim becomes alienated from his or her body because the victim blames the body for the pain: it is the betrayer.72 The victims capacity for language is eventually reduced, by both the intensity of the pain and the alienation from the body, to the wailing cries of an infant. In this neo-natal state, the tortured individual loses his or her adulthood and mature identity. On this newly created blank slate, the torturer can fashion a new identity in alignment with his or hers.73 Cover, relying on Scarry, states that the torturer and the tortured now share realities. The creation of these shared realities is one of the important goals of a torturer:
[P]ain and death destroy the world that interpretation calls up. That ones ability to construct interpersonal realities is destroyed by death is obvious, but in this case, what is true of death is true of pain also, for pain destroys, among other things, language itself. The deliberate infliction of pain in order to destroy the victims normative world and capacity to create shared realities[,] we call torture. The interrogation that is part of the torture, Scarry points out, is rarely designed to elicit information. More commonly, the torturers interrogation is designed to demonstrate the end of the normative world of the victim.74

The torturers destruction of the victims voice leads to the destruction of the victims identity and his or her world. The victim, in seeking to fill the resultant void, adopts the voice, identity, and world of his or her perpetrator. The victim, thereby, becomes the torturer, willing to do anything or say anything that he or she believes the torturer wants so that the torture will stop. At first, no other reality exists but the awful pain. Soon, however, that reality shifts to that of the worldview of the torturer. The reality of the torturer replaces the reality of the tortured. The tortured

Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 4; cf. pp. 6, 19-20. Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 47. 73 Scarry, Body in Pain, pp. 18-20, 35. See also M.M. Tillie, Ascetic Body and the (Un)Making of the World of the Martyr, JAAR 59 (1991), pp. 467-79 (469). 74 Cover, Violence and Word, pp. 1602-03, citing Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 4.
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will then give voice to the torturers point of view rather than to his or her point of view.75 Consequently, torture used to extract a confession does not elicit the truth. Instead, it replaces the victims view of his or her guilt or innocence with that of the torturer. If the torturer believes that the tortured committed the crime, the tortured will believe that he or she committed the crime. Torturers typically know that they are not attempting to extract the truth during torture. This is laid bare through two slogans of South Vietnamese torturers, who acted during the Vietnamese War. The first is: If they are not guilty, beat them until they are.76 The second is: If you are not a Vietcong, we will beat you until you admit you are; and if you admit you are, we will beat you until you no longer dare to be one.77 If Job is a torture victim, then we might expect him to be losing his rational voice under the pain. The text contains three indices that this is true. First, Job speaks very little during the prologue. Second, at its end, he apparently falls completely silent for seven days with his friends (2:13). Third, Job reports that he speaks wildly at times (6:3b). Thus, he manifests one of the classic signs of torture. Comprehending that Job is suffering under torture in this way, then, leads us to be suspicious of his words in the prologue. We might ask the questions: Whose voice is Job expressing? Whose attitude is he manifesting? I suggest that the torture has created shared realities between God and Job. To whatever extent Job and God may have shared realities before the torture began, it is absolutely clear that they share realities now. Newsom argues that the God-inflicted pain has the power to ventriloquize his voice.78 Job has become Gods puppet. Job does as God wishes him to do: he accepts his punishment (1:21a). The pinnacle of Jobs submission is that he actually blesses Yahweh (1:21b). He does not lash out verbally at his torturer. Instead, he lashes out at his wife (2:10a-

Scarry, Body in Pain, pp. 45-51. Amnesty International, Political Prisoners in South Vietnam (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1973), pp. 27, 28 (unavailable to this author), cited by Scarry, Body in Pain, pp. 41-42. 77 Amnesty International, Political Prisoners , cited by Scarry, Body in Pain , pp. 41-42. 78 Newsome, The Character of Pain, p. 7. Cf. C.R. Fontaine, Arrows of the Almighty (Job 6:4): Perspectives on Pain, Anglican Theological Review 66 (1984), pp. 243-48 (244).
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b). Job declares: Indeed, shall we receive good from God, but not evil? (2:10b); and the narrator reports that in all this, Job did not sin with his lips (2:10c). Job then falls silent. Jobs almost total silence, cooperation with God, and verbal lashing of his wife are the direct result of the torture he is undergoing. Jobs words in the prologue express Gods point of view, not that of Job. Torture is not, however, simply about thought re-alignment. As Cover indicates above, the more important aim of torture is to destroy the victims world so that a new world can be forged. The broader goals of torture are law-making and state-building. Both Scarry and Cover address this point. Let us first investigate exactly how the victims world shatters under torture and how the torturers world is substituted for it. Scarry instructs:
[T]o say the torturer inflicts pain in order to produce a confession is to say the torturer uses the prisoners sentience to obliterate the objects of the prisoners sentience or the torturer uses the prisoners aliveness to crush the things that he lives for. [T]he entire process is self-amplifying, for as the prisoners sentience destroys his world, so now his absence of worlddestroys the claims of sentience: the confession which displays the fact that he has nothing he lives for now obscures the fact that he is violently alive. Over and over, in each stage and step, the torturers mime of expanding world-ground depends on a demonstration of the prisoners absence of world. The confession is one crucial demonstration of this absent world, but there are others.79

Torture accomplishes the slow substitution of the world of the tortured by that of the torturer. As the torture victim loses power, voice, and world, his or her torturer gains power, voice, and world. Consequently, Scarry observes: the obsessive display of [the torturers] agencypermits one persons body to be translated into anothers voice,[which in turn] allows real human pain to be converted into a regimes fictive power.80 That power undergirds

Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 38. Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 18, cf. pp. 27-59. M.M. Tillie reiterates the importance of the body in this substitution process in her work on the early Christian martyrologies (Ascetic Body, pp. 467-79). Tillie begins by asserting that the goal of the torturer is to control people who hold as true a vision of reality contrary to that of the torturers (Ascetic Body, p. 468). She continues: Indoctrination consists in the substitution of one mental construct for another, one world for another. The construction of reality involves not only a conceptual world, but also a physical world that contains the body of the martyr. The victim has no other way to encounter the world but through the body, through the senses of the body and the brain that coordinates them. The body provides the focal point
80

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the states assertion of its legitimacy.81 Covers work explores the mechanism that drives this process. He attempts to explain how the crushing of someones normative world results in the founding and maintenance of corrupt governments and legal systems. He begins by noting that a profound connection exists between law and our normative world. He represents this phenomenon by the word nomos and contends: We inhabit a nomosa normative universe. We constantly create and maintain a world of right and wrong, of lawful and unlawful, of valid and void.82 This nomos is our lived experience. It embraces a legal philosophy and establishes legal rules. It also links the present to the future. Cover elucidates:
Law may be viewed as a system of tension or a bridge linking a concept of reality to an imagined alternativethat is, as a connective between two states of affairs, both of which can be represented in their normative significance only through the devices of narrative. A nomos, as a world of law, entails the application of human will to an extant state of affairs as well as toward our visions of alternative futures. A nomos is a present world constituted by a system of tensions in between reality and vision.83

In other words, we live by legal principles that strive to be both descriptive and prescriptive, by principles that both reflect the current realities of our world and call us to better ones. It is, however, not just these legal principles, however articulated, that shape our world but also our give and take, our interactions, with these principles. Thus, the narrative of law is a complex machine that embraces and links current realities and future hopes and that also drives action and counter-action. In this way, the narrative of law both germinates from and generates our lived experience in a spiraling fashion. Once law is understood both in the context of the narratives that give it existence and in the context of the way we live out those narratives, law becomes, not merely a system of rules to be observed, but a world in which we live. According to Cover, torturers employ this intimate connection be-

for what is known about the world as well as the means for expressing what is known. Thus, the torturers most effective way to deconstruct the victims world is through the bodys sensing, integrative, and expressive abilities (Ascetic Body, p. 469). If one controls the body through pain, one can control the mind. If one controls the mind, one can construct a new world. 81 See the material of R. Niebuhr, n. 33, supra. 82 Cover, Nomos and Narrative, p. 45. 83 Cover, Nomos and Narrative, p. 9.

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tween law and world to create corrupt states. By destroying the nomos of the tortured and replacing it with its own, the state can construct and maintain an administration and judiciary in line with, as R. Niebuhr states, its idolatrous self-concept and ends.84 The torturing state has a vision of current and future realities that sustains its ends. It makes that vision manifest through its executive and judicial structures. It achieves the support of the people by eliminating, through torture, the voice, the adulthood, the vision of reality, and, ultimately, the world of every resister. Once a resister is broken such that he or she no longer holds his or her original view of future reality, his or her hope is annihilated. No more resistance will be forthcoming. The dominant law and government will stand unopposed. I have no reason to believe that the torture involved in ancient Near Eastern trial investigations had an effect different from that of the modern versions of torture described by Scarry and Cover. The torture used to extract confessions probably did not elicit the truth but, rather, the desired answeranswers that would support and validate the royal legal system. This process is evident in Jobs trial. L.A. Schkel recognizes that Job is under pressure to give a confession.85 He does not focus, however, on the pressure that the Divine Council is exerting on Job in this regard. Instead, he concentrates on the friends independent efforts to extract from Job a verbal confession of guilt for some yet unnamed sin. They are convinced that, because Job is suffering, he must have done some wrong that resulted in a divine conviction with punishment. Having fully embraced the view of the ritual incantation texts of the ancient Near East, they believe that Job needs to confess his guilt and request a pardon from God.86 They go to great lengths to get Jobs confession, further torturing him in the process. Schkel explicates:
The friends have attempted to extract a confession from Job[,] the confession of his own guilt. A confession extracted in the midst of torture, with an assault alternating between promises and threats. If Job signs the confession, God will pardon him, reinstate him, and all will turn out well; if he refuses to confess, a terrible end awaits him. In order to force this

84 85

See n. 33, supra. L.A. Schkel, Toward a Dramatic Reading of Job, Semeia 7 (1977), pp. See further Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 228-61.

45-59.
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confession, they have sung hymns to God, they have exalted his justice, untiringly they have repeated the old doctrine of retribution; they have been kind and cruel, they have endured the scandalous words of Job. All this in order to extract a confession from Job: when Job signs it, a theological doctrine will triumph together with its representatives, and Job will be reinstated and admitted new into the illustrious company of the wise. One thing shall have suffered defeat in such a confession: the truth, sincerity.87

The torture that Job endures is theocratic violence of the greatest magnitude. The friends are Gods police force. Schkel demonstrates that the point of the friends activity is not Jobs well-being. The point is, instead, the triumph of a theological doctrine that supports a specific divine legal system. It appears, at the end of the prologue, that this torturing theocracy has won the day. Jobs mind seems in complete alignment with that of his torturers. He is happy to support Gods law. Torturers torture because torture works. Fortunately, this is not the end of the story.

Jobs Wife and Resistance to the Violence of Gods Law Because the book of Job is a piece of wisdom literature, we might expect the story to have characters that are either wise or foolish. Most commentators have understood Job as among the wise (1:3) and his wife as among the foolish (2:10).88 I maintain, however, that Mrs. Job might be, instead, among the wise. This is not inconceivable. According to C. Camp, C.R. Fontaine, and S. Schroer, Israelite wisdom recognizes the importance of women as participants in and dispensers of wisdom.89 Fontaine contends, for example: Part of the mothers teaching tasks no doubt found
Schkel, Toward a Dramatic Reading, pp. 54-55. In 1:3, the narrator relates that Job was the greatest man in the East. While most interpreters relate this greatness to Jobs wealth, several suggest that it refers to the greatness of his wisdom (see, e.g., Weiss, Story of Jobs Beginning, pp. 26-27). I believe it carries both meanings. Habel acknowledges this possibility: This summative statement refers to Jobs renowned wisdom, wealth, piety, and integrity (Book of Job, p. 87). 89 See generally C. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985); C.R. Fontaine, The Social Roles of Women in the World of Wisdom, in Brenner (ed.), Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature, pp. 24-49; and S. Schroer, Wise and Counselling Women in Ancient Israel: Literary and Historical Ideals of the Personified okm, in Brenner (ed.), Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature, pp. 67-84.
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further expression in counseling and conflict resolution, as she modeled effective ways of settling disputes and managing men of the extended family.90 G. West argues that, if we look at the social configurations of ancient Israel, we might expect Mrs. Job to be theologically sophisticated and forward in her assertions.91 I believe that Mrs. Job is extremely wise with regard to Jobs circumstances. She understands that Job is suffering from theocratic violence that is educing the torturers worldview rather than his own. Consequently, she invites Job to resist the violence of Gods law in a radical manner. Our awareness of the fact that this is a trial involving blasphemy helps us to understand just how wise Mrs. Job is. When she says: &rB God and die! shenot Job, not his friendsbecomes the first human to voice what is transpiring. She is the first human to identify the issue in the Divine Council. Mrs. Job knows what is afoot there: questions regarding blessings and blasphemies.92 Moreover, by encouraging her husband to hold fast to his integrity and then goading him to blasphemy in contradiction to their own best interests, Jobs wife advocates for him in a shocking and forceful manner. In this way, she just might get the attention of the heavenly court in order to insist that he is, indeed, a man of deep integrity. Jobs wife stands outside of this corrupt legal system. She does not speak during the rest of the legal maneuverings of this trial. She is the only character who does not have formulaic testimony markers associated with her words.93 As a result, she cannot advocate for him in the traditional manner. She has just one chance to say her piece, and she must use indirect methods, which are often the best, or only, methods available to those who are marginalized.94 Such a brazen act might well get the attention of the Divine Council. D. Schweitzer agrees, assertFontaine, Social Roles of Women, p. 31. West, Hearing Jobs Wife, pp. 111-12. 92 See the work of M. Cheney, n. 2, supra. 93 Jobs wife is the only human character who does not answer (hn[) in the book of Job. Answer (hn[) is one of the most important testimony markers in the book. The other testimony markers include, Hear, I pray! (hn[mv, anA[mv, or anAw[mv), the qal imperative of [mv (Hear!), and the hiphil imperative of @za (Listen!). These, too, are not associated with Mrs. Job. For a more detailed discussion of these testimony markers in the Hebrew Bible, generally, and in the book of Job, specifically, see further Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 149-50, 21923. 94 Fontaine clarifies this point (Social Roles of Women, p. 31).
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ing that because retributive justice undergirds the faith of ancient Israel, Mrs. Jobs response is understandable and necessary.95 He states: As Job has been faithful, God should bless him. If God rewards Jobs faithfulness with suffering, then Job should curse God and die. It is important to note that this advice affirms Jobs innocence, and protests his treatment by God.96 That is the meaning of the words: You must still hold onto your integrity! &rB God and die! The first colon of this verse is not a question, but a statementone to both Job and the court.97 Mrs. Job just might save Job from condemnation by this tactic. Additionally, Jobs wife is responding in a most profound manner to the tortures intense strain on Job. Her statement accomplishes more than simply declaring Jobs integrity to the court. She also offers Job a means by which to perform the ultimate act of resistance to the violence of oppressive legal systems: martyrdom. E. van Wolde contends that, because the root &rB means both to bless and to curse, Jobs wife sends a double message to Job.98 She forces him to choose whether he will bless God or blaspheme God. She forces him either to accept or reject passivity. She forces him to confront the possibility of death.99 It is true that the verb allows ambiguity. I do not think, however, that Jobs wife is calling for him to bless God. She is exhorting Job to provoke his perpetrator, through blasphemy, into bringing his whole
Schweitzer, Was Jobs Wife Completely Wrong?, pp. 32-38. Schweitzer, Was Jobs Wife Completely Wrong?, p. 33. 97 As Good makes plain, there is no interrogative he in 2:9, although Good agrees with most other scholars that this statement has the feel of a question (In Turns of Tempest, p. 52). I disagree with this assertion, as does Penchansky (Jobs Wife, p. 228). Penchansky proposes that Mrs. Jobs words should be translated as You still keep your integrity! Blaspheme God and die! Cf. Linafelt, Undecidability, p. 167. 98 Van Wolde, Development of Job, pp. 203-04. Newsom also suggests that Mrs. Jobs words are ambiguous (Job, in C. Newsom and S. H. Ringe [eds.], The Womens Bible Commentary, [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2nd edn, 1998], pp. 138-44 [139]). Newsom asserts, however, that Mrs. Job may be saying to Job that he ought to stop trying to maintain his integrity and go ahead and blaspheme God, as traditional interpreters suggest, or she may be saying to him that if he still wishes to maintain his integrity he must say what is truly in[his] heart (Newsom, Job, p. 140). She continues that this possibility has been lost on later interpreters: However Job has understood her words, his reply, criticizing her in the strongest termshas generally set the tone for her evaluation by commentators from ancient times to the present (Newsome, Job, p. 140). See also Newsom, Book of Job, vol. 4, p. 356. 99 Van Wolde, Development of Job, p. 204.
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force upon Job. This is the way of the martyr.100 In presenting that option, Mrs. Job invites him to confront the possibility of death and accept or reject passivity. Her challenge to him to stand up to God and martyr himself through blasphemy is what frees him to accept or reject passivity. Covers analysis of how torturers impose their legal systems is once again helpful for us in comprehending how Mrs. Jobs challenge is effective against Gods legal system. Cover maintains that martyrdom is a highly valuable means by which to disrupt a torturers corrupt law:
Martyrs insist in the face of overwhelming force that if there is to be continuing life, it will not be on the terms of the tyrants law. Law is the projection of an imagined future upon reality. Martyrs require that any future they possess will be on the terms of the law to which they are committed (Gods law). And the miracle of the suffering of the martyrs is their insistence on the law to which they are committed, even in the face of world-destroying pain. Their triumphwhich may well be partly imaginary is the imagined triumph of the normative universeof Torah, Nomosover the material world of death and pain. Martyrdom is an extreme form of resistance to domination. As such it reminds us that the normative world-building which constitutes Law is never just a mental or spiritual act.101

When a martyr clings tenaciously to his or her normative world and law, he or she clings to the current realities and envisioned future that undergirds that normative world and law. The reverse is also true. By refusing to surrender ones vision of reality, current and future, one refuses to live in another normative world

100 One question that Jobs situation raises is whether provoking God in this way is not the voluntary taking of his own life and, therefore, fails to constitute true martyrdom. Does one have to be killed by the perpetrators hand without provocation for the sacrifice to be martyrdom? Records exist in Second Temple literature that demonstrate that threats and actual commissions of voluntary suicide occurred in order to avoid having to submit to conditions or institutions that were religiously or politically intolerable (e.g., 2 Macc. 14:37-46; Philo, Gaium 236; Josephus, Jewish War 3.362-82; and Abod. Zar. 18a). Voluntary suicide under certain conditions is considered a form of heroic martyrdom. See Droge, Suicide, pp. 229-30. 101 Cover, Violence and the Word, pp. 1603-04. For additional support, see M.A. Ball, The Word and the Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 134, citing P. Vallire, from P. Lehmann, The Transfiguration of Politics (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 286; M.J. Hostetler, The Rhetoric of Christian Martyrdom: An Exploration of the Homiletical Uses of Ultimate Terms (PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, 1993); D.W. Riddle, The Martyrs: A Study in Social Control (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931); and Tillie, Ascetic Body, pp. 47273.

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and under any other law. Thus, martyrdom is an important act of resistance to state-domination and empire-building. Cover maintains that it is critical for any resistance movement to put bodies on the line. Our normative universe is, according to Cover, held together by the force of interpretive commitments, whether large or small, public or private.102 Cover recognizes that the law, as a lived commitment, puts real people at risk. The interpretive commitments of an oppressive legal system are tied to the violence that enforces its worldview and power. The torturer will make certain that bodiesothers bodiesare at stake in their political commitments. The martyr responds in kind by offering up his or her body toward a different political commitment. Cover asserts:
A legal world is built only to the extent that there are commitments that place bodies on the line. The torture of the martyr is an extreme and repulsive form of the organized violence of institutions. It reminds me that the interpretive commitments of officials are realized, indeed, in the flesh. As long as that is so, the interpretive commitments of a community which resists official law must also be realized in the flesh, even if it be the flesh of its own adherents.103

The martyr, through his or her death, states loudly and clearly that he or she will not live on the torturers termswith the torturers worldview and under the torturers abusive legal system. Mrs. Jobs words put both of their bodies on the line. She demands that Job be certain about where he is going to place his commitments. Ancient Israelites knew of the concept of martyrdom as resistance. We see this reflected in two texts of the Hebrew Bible. First, Samson offers himself up to death rather than continue to be used and abused by his Philistine torturers, killing many of his torturers in the process (Judg. 16:23-31).104 Second, in Daniel 3, ShadScarry, Body in Pain, pp. 4-18, quote at p. 7. Cover, Violence and the Word, p. 1604. 104 I should acknowledge that Samson is not a martyr in the traditional sense for three reasons. Although he was in enemy hands and they were torturing him by putting out his eyes and putting him on display (Judg. 16:21), the text does not report that he was under threat of death; that is only the implied eventual outcome. Second, Samson took his own life in voluntary suicide and did not wait for his abusers to do it. Third and most importantly, Samsons actions were also motivated, at least in part, by revenge, which does not motivate the traditional martyr (Judg. 16:28). Samson, in bringing down the Philistine temple at Gaza on top of so many people, acted more in the fashion of a modern suicide bomber. This is considered a form of martyrdom by many, but it does not fulfill the more
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rach, Meshach, and Abednego choose to be thrown into the fiery furnace of King Nebuchadnezzar rather than worship a golden idol. The story reports that they bravely confront the king with the words: If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver [us] from your hand, O King. But, if [he does] not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up (Dan. 3:17-18). In discussing this passage, J.D. Tabor states: The key element [in martyrdom] here is the absolute and stubborn refusal to compromise, even if threatened with death.105 In the end, Yahweh spares their lives. Thus, this text is not a true martyrology, although it does testify to the existence and importance of martyrdom as resistance to the violence of empire in Hellenistic Judah.106 Nowhere, however, is the language of Jewish resistance to empire in the Second Temple period so well articulated as in 2 Macc. 7:1-42. This pericope explicates both the brutality of an abhorrent legal system and how martyrs can successfully resist it. Here, a child is facing death for his obedience to the law of Moses. His mothers last words to the young man, who will be her seventh child slain at the cruel hands of Antiochus IV, are: Do not fear
common image of martyrdom, where the victim is entirely innocent of any crime except that of holding to a different political or religious belief system. 105 J.D. Tabor, Martyr, Martyrdom, in Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, pp. 574-79 (575). See also Droge, Suicide, pp. 225-31; and S.M. Paul, Daniel 3:29A Case of Neglected Blasphemy, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42 (1983), pp. 291-94 (291). For exemplars of martyrologies from the intertestamental period, see Tabor, Martyr, Martyrdom, vol. 4, pp. 575-77. Josephus also reported numerous instances of martyrdom (Tabor, Martyr, Martyrdom, pp. 577-78). For a fuller investigation of martyrdom in the ancient world, see A. Droge and J.D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians in the Ancient World (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992). 106 Some scholars have argued that the tale of the three in the fiery furnace is a martyr legend. See W. Baumgartner, Das Buch Daniel (Giessen: A. Tppelmann, 1926), p. 7; G. Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1965), p. 474; and C. Kuhl, Die drei Mnner im feuer (Giessen: A. Tppelmann, 1930), p. 72. According to M.A. Beek, however, this is a problematic designation because the three do not actually die: Eine Mrtyrergeschichte mit gutem Ausgang ist eben keine Mrtyreregeschichte mehr (A martyr story with a happy ending is no longer a martyr story) (Das Danielbuch: Sein historischer Hintergrund und seine literarische Entwicklung [Leiden: Ginsberg, 1935], p. 73, quote translated by J.J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993], p. 46, n. 396). See also L.M. Wills, The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 45.

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this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in Gods mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers (2 Macc. 7:30, NRSV). His response to his torturermurderers is:
What are you waiting for? I will not obey the kings command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our ancestors, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by trials and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God, and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation (2 Macc. 7:31, 37-38, NRSV).

In the end, the narrator reports: So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord (2 Macc. 7:40, NRSV). The writer of 4 Maccabees elucidates further the ancient view that bodies must be offered up in support of the law of Moses as against the tyrants law. He says of the seven brothers of 2 Maccabees: Each of them and all of them together looking at one another, cheerful and undaunted, said, Let us with all our hearts consecrate ourselves to God, who gave us our lives, and let us use our bodies as a bulwark for the law (4 Macc. 13:13, NRSV). The author also acknowledges that martyrdom has profound political ramifications. He claims regarding the torture victims in 2 Maccabees: All people, even their torturers, marveled at their courage and endurance, and they became the cause of the downfall of tyranny over their nation. By their endurance they conquered the tyrant, and thus their native land was purified through them (4 Macc. 1:11, NRSV). Second Temple Judaism recognized both the import of torture in empire-building and the import of martyrdom in resistance to that empire-building.107 Just as the seventh son in 2 Maccabees was able to die in his integrity, so, too, Mrs. Job wants Job to die in his integrity. This is why she shouts boldly: You must still hold onto your integrity! Blaspheme God and die! In this instance, Jobs integrity cannot be gained by following Gods law to the letter because Gods law
107 N.W. Porteous observes this use of martyrdom by faithful Jews as resistance to violence and capricious legal authority in the Hellenistic period: The author of the Book of Daniel may have recognized that Israel might have continued to serve the world in the midst of which it lived, if the fanaticism and megalomania of Antiochus Epiphanes, nicknamed Epimanes, the madman, had not forced the issues to a point where the ultimate choice for or against God was set and for a loyal Jew there was no alternative to resistance to the death (Daniel: A Commentary [OLT; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965], p. 20).

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as applied here is barbarically violent and unjust. Pardes acknowledges this:

To cling to a model of perfect devotion to a supposedly perfect God when reality is so far from perfection seems to Jobs wife not exemplary strength but an act of cowardice. Such integrity, she seems to be saying, lacks a deeper value. What Job must do is to challenge the God who has afflicted him so, even if the consequences are death.108

Mrs. Job suggests that an alternative course of action must be taken to lodge the objection to Gods brutal deeds. Jobs wife offers Job this alternative. She gives him the option of dying proudly in resistance to the violence of Gods law. Now, such a course may seem nothing short of dishonorable from the perspective of those of us who have been party to the proceedings in the Divine Council. It appears to further the Satans cause. Job is, at first, horrified by the possibility, and he snaps at his wife. Yet, the death of the martyr always appears to be an ignoble one from the torturers point of viewwhich Job is uttering. From the point of view of the martyr, however, it is a heroic death. Jobs wife knows that, no matter how appalling it might seem to the outside world, such a death would be highly principled. Such a death, if it must happen because there is no other way to resist, would be worth the dreadful sacrifices of both of them. It would have deep meaning. This is why Mrs. Job proposes martyrdom. Job neither understands his wifes motives nor takes her words to heart immediately. Instead, he continues to cooperate with his perpetrator, seeing the situation from his torturers perspective. He shames his wife into silence; not because he is innocent, blameless, or right; not because he is cruel or shameless; and not because she is a fool; but simply because he now shares realities with his perpetrator. Furthermore, to whatever extent Job might still be able to assert any independent will, he would put pressure on his wife to be silent because it is the safest course for both of them. Torture terrifies its victims and makes them cower. Job wants it to stop, and compliance often stops it. He may want his wife silenced so that she will not bring further abuse upon them. Additionally, torture is capable of turning people against those whom they love and to whom they are loyal. The tortured betray their family and
108 Pardes, Countertraditions, p. 148. See also Pardes, Wife of Job, in C. Meyers et al (eds.), Women in Scripture (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), p. 293.

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friends. Torturers often use this dynamic in the maintenance of their corrupt legal systems. Job turns on his wife rather than his perpetrator because he is being tortured. Pardes suggests that another factor is operating in Jobs verbal lashing of his wife. Pardes maintains that Job loses his temper because: his wife dares to say something which is on the verge of bursting through his own mouth.109 Pardes is correct. Mrs. Jobs words are powerful and live beyond their moment because they hit home. Scarrys research explains why Mrs. Jobs words are particularly valuable in this regard. Scarry reveals that the first step in resisting torture is to give the pain an image, to put it to words.110 One resists the awful silence, then the cries and screams, and, ultimately, the torturers success, by clinging tenaciously to ones voiceeven if in very short bursts of words or by repetition of the same words again and again. This is one of the reasons that military personnel are taught to repeat incessantly their name, rank, and serial number while experiencing torture, and why the early Christian martyrs were trained in short, stock prayers to help them endure the horror.111 Maintaining even this level of speech is, however, extremely difficult because pain typically renders one speechless. Verbalizing the pain and giving it image is still more difficult because pain has no referential context, no object.112 Consequently, survival often depends on others supplying a voice for the tortured. Scarry notes:
In this closed world where conversation is displaced by interrogation, where human speech is broken off in confession and disintegrates into human cries, where even those cries can be broken off to become one more weapon against the person himself or against a friend, in this world of broken and severed voices, it is not surprising that the most powerful and healing moment is often that in which a human voice, though still sev-

Pardes, Countertraditions, pp. 148-49. Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 9. 111 For the precise mechanism that the Christian martyrs used to maintain their voices, albeit much-reduced ones, in the face of torture, see Tillie, Ascetic Body, pp. 467-79. 112 Whatever pain achieves, it achieves in part through its unsharability, and it ensures this unsharability through its resistance to language... [F]or physical painunlike any other state of consciousnesshas no referential content. It is not of or for anything. It is precisely because it takes no object that it, more than any other phenomenon, resists objectification in language (Scarry, Body in Pain, pp. 4-5).
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ered, floating free, somehow reaches the power whose sole reality had become his own unthinkable isolation, his deep corporal engulfment.113

The voices of groups such as Amnesty International attempt, according to Scarry, to restore to each tortured person:
his or her voice, to use language to let pain give an accurate account of itself, to present regimes that torture with a deluge of letters and telegrams, a deluge of voices speaking on behalf of, voices speaking in the voice of, the person silenced, these acts that return to the prisoner his most elemental political ground as well as his psychic content and density are finally almost physiological in their power of alteration An act of human contact and concern, whether occurring here or in private contexts of sympathy, provides the hurt person with worldly self-extension: in acknowledging and expressing another persons pain, or in articulating one of his nonbodily concerns while he is unable to, one human being who is well and free willingly turns himself into an image of the others psychic or sentient claims, an image existing in the space outside the sufferers body, projected out into the world and held there intact by that persons power until the sufferer himself regains his own power of self extension.114

Mrs. Job, in spite of her own intense suffering, still clings to her voice and her worldview. Mrs. Job cannot say much because she, too, is tortured and can manage to speak only a few words under the pain. Mrs. Job has few words for another reason, as well. She is a marginalized person in this ancient society. She is even marginalized in her suffering. Her suffering did not receive the attention of the author, and it does not usually receive the attention of commentators. Nonetheless, Jobs wife offers what little voice she has to Job in her concern for him, and her words are effective. As M.A. Oduyoye declares, as a representative of all marginalized women: I do not speak much, but I am not without a voice.115 Mrs. Jobs words break through the false voice and ultimate silence that Gods judicial violence has imposed on Job. They shake Job loose from words that support his torturer. An internal shift begins to take place. Several investigators have noticed this. Van Woldes analysis of Jobs speeches in the prologue reveals that Jobs language about God begins to change upon his wifes confrontation.116 His words
Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 50. Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 50. 115 M.A. Oduyoye, Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995), p. vii; cited in N. King, Whispers of Liberation: Feminist Perspectives on the New Testament (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), p. 48. 116 Van Wolde, Development of Job, pp. 204-06.
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become more considered and distant from God. He falls silent. As time wears on and Job receives the support of his friends (2:13), another shift occurs. He begins to speak again. The narrator relates: He opened his mouth (3:1a). His once stilled lips move again. This is where things begin to change profoundly.117 He becomes strong enough to cast off the cooperation with the torturer that torture demands. He rebels. Job is now unwilling to tolerate the violence of Gods law without acts of resistance. Job echoes and rejects his former thinking. R.D. Moore has carefully charted the reversal of Jobs thinking in 1:21 as it is expressed in Chapter 3, particularly in vv. 1, 8, 10-11, 17, 19, and 20.118 The change is nothing short of spectacular and initiates a lengthy contest with God. From Chapters 3-31, Job gives voice and image to his pain and resists. Jobs once cooperative and highly limited voice, the voice that had once deteriorated into complete silence, now becomes a provoked and greatly enlarged voice. This voice demands that its story of pain and brutal unfairness be told. Mrs. Jobs words are, therefore, not in vain, even if Jobs response is delayed. As Clines acknowledges: She has immediately, or (shall we say?) instinctively, seen what Job will take some time to realize, that he cannot both hold fast his integrity and bless God; either Job or God is guilty Though he does not follow his wifes advice to the letter, he is from this point entirely infused by its spirit.119 Schweitzer concurs:
Beverly Harrison claims that anger is often a feeling-signal, arising out of love, expressing moral outrage over sin or evil. The advice of Jobs wife expresses this kind of anger; it signals that something is wrong with the understanding of suffering as a deserved punishment. In light of Gods capacity to save, Jobs suffering is a failure on Gods part. Job should affirm his innocence and protest Gods injustice. If God is to heal this ruptured relationship, God must deliver Job from his plight. Previous to his wifes outburst, Job received the news of his sons and daughters deaths without question. It is only after her angry words that he expresses his own anger, and asserts the injustice of his suffering. The anger of Jobs

117 Jobs seven days of silence is significant. Habel notes that seven days is a complete cycle of suffering (Ezek. 3:15) and grieving (Gen. 50:10; 1 Sam. 31:13; 1 Chr. 10:12) and that profound changes may occur immediately following this period, as they did for David (2 Sam. 12:15-23; cf. Ezek. 3:16) (Book of Job, p. 98). God also heals at the end of seven days (Isa. 30:26). 118 R.D. Moore, The Integrity of Job, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45 (1983), pp. 17-31, discussed in Habel, Book of Job, p. 84. 119 Clines, Job 1-20, p. 52.

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wife seems to empower him in his search for a truer understanding of God.120

Pardes also notes the effect of Mrs. Jobs voice on Job: Much like Eve, Jobs wife spurs her husband to doubt Gods use of divine powers. In doing so she does him much good, for this turns out to be the royal road to deepening ones knowledge, to open ones eyes.121 His wife has made her point. She is, indeed, a catalyst in his development, as van Wolde asserts.122 The word catalyst may not fully encompass, however, all that Mrs. Job accomplishes for him: she actually offers him rebirth from the violent extinguishing of his identity. Scarry acknowledges that to be present when the person in pain rediscovers speech and so regains his powers of self-objectification is almost to be present at the birth, or rebirth, of language.123 To the degree that the death of language becomes the death of the self for the tortured, the rebirth of language becomes the rebirth of the self. Jobs identity is reborn. He, therefore, wants to tell his story. He wants to resist. Hence, the woman, who once bore 10 children who died because of the violence of Gods law, and who will bear yet another 10 children in recompense for that loss, is also the vehicle of Jobs rebirth.124 Job is a changed man. He is ready to fight.

Jobs Resistance to the Violence of Gods Law In the end, Job does not commit the guilty act by speaking blasphemy. The sadistic investigation, as bad as it was, does not finally provoke the act that would have served as Jobs confession and Gods undoing. This is evidenced by the fact that God proclaims that Job is in the right, not his friends (42:7). Neither does Job tread the martyrs path. He does not do that which would pro-

120 Schweitzer, Curse God, p. 33, citing B.W. Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics (ed. C. Robb; Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), pp. 14-15. 121 Pardes, Wife of Job, p. 293. See a slightly expanded version of this quote in Pardes, Countertraditions, p. 151. 122 Van Wolde, Development of Job, pp. 206-21. 123 Scarry, Body in Pain, p. 172. 124 One tradition maintains, however, that Mrs. Job died and another woman married Job and bore his new children. See further Gitay, Portrayal of Jobs Wife, p. 519.

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voke his death. He chooses another path, electing to confront God on terms parallel to those God imposes on him. He meets fire with fire, lawsuit with lawsuit. Does that mean that Job has ignored his wife? I think not. Again, I rely on Covers work for my position. Cover maintains that martyrdom is not the only course of action that those faced with a brutal legal system may have. In some cases, one may also exercise violence against the regime. He states:
If the officials of the state realize their vision in blood, the dissenter must also either suffer or impose a parallel form of violence In law to be an interpreter is to be a force, an actor who creates effects even through or in the face of violence. To stop short of suffering or imposing violence is to give law up to those who are willing to so act. The state is organized to overcome scruple and fear. Its officials will so act. All others are merely petitioners if they will not fight back.125

Job, therefore, has two alternative strategies available to him in order to be the force of which Cover speaks. He can suffer and die in martyrdom, or he can impose a corresponding form of violence on God. Job cannot, of course, inflict on God the physical and emotional suffering that Job is now bearing. This is impossible. He can, however, give God a slightly different taste of his own medicine. He can meet a legal claim with a legal claim by instigating a counterclaim in the suit.126 I maintain that Job desires to initiate a claim of abuse of judicial authority against God because it is the charge most suited to Gods crime against Job. I, therefore, will now turn to the legal wrong of abuse of judicial authority in the ancient Near East and Jobs use of it. Walds insight that judges are the gatekeepers of a societys violence helps us to comprehend the critical need for every society to have some mechanism for curbing instances of judicial abuse and compensating its victims.127 Those in power can stretch, at times, the limits of their authority to the point of abuse. An improper action may even fall within the strict letter of the law, but the result is nevertheless unreasonable or unconscionable. A legal claim of abuse of authority stands whenever those with superior economic, political, or legal power use their influence to an unfair advantage and cause harm to a less well-positioned indiCover, Bonds of Constitutional Interpretation, pp. 832-33. For more on counterclaims in the lawsuits of the ancient Near East, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 62-63. 127 See the textual material at nn. 37-38, supra.
126 125

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vidual. R. Westbrook notes that this held true in the ancient Near East.128 Ancient Israel, like its neighbors, had a legal remedy for these types of claims. According to Westbrook, the Hebrew Bible employs two primary roots to express these abuses: lzG and qv[. They occur multiple times in the Hebrew Bible.129 Furthermore, both Westbrook and F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp assert that the actions of Nathan in 2 Sam. 12:1-14 and of the wise woman of Tekoa in 2 Sam. 14:2-22 before King David involve challenges based on the legal claim of abuse of authority.130 Even a king could be held accountable for abuse of legal authority. Whenever this system of earthly justice failed, Israel believed that God would rectify the situation and punish the offender. God could initiate his own lawsuits (byr) against offending persons, institutions, and nations.131 An important example of Gods en128 Westbrook, Studies, pp. 9-38, especially pp. 9-11. See also Westbrook, Social Justice in the Ancient Near East, in K. Irani and M. Silver (eds.), Social Justice in the Ancient World (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1995), pp. 149-63; and his very brief summary of offenses against the legal system in Punishments and Crimes, vol. 5, p. 555. My discussion derives almost entirely from his work. P. Bovati, additionally, has a discussion of abuse of authority in Re-Establishing Justice: Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in the Hebrew Bible (trans. M.J. Smith; JSOTSup, 105; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 306-28. His focus is, however, on the legal procedure associated with the claim and not on the substantive law of abuse of authority itself. For significantly more detail concerning the concept of abuse of authority, in the ancient Near East and as applied in the book of Job, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 142-97. Much of the summary of these concepts presented here is a repetition of the summary found in Magdalene, Jobs Redeemer. 129 For a full discussion of lzG, see Westbrook, Studies, pp. 15-38, especially p. 36. For a few biblical examples, see Gen. 31:31; Lev. 5:21; 19:13; Deut. 28:29; Isa. 3:14; 10:2; 61:8; Jer. 21:12; 22:3, 17; Ezek. 18:18; 22:29; 33:15; Mic. 2:2; 3:2-3; Pss. 35:10; 62:11; 69:5; Prov. 22:22; Eccl. 5:7. For a full discussion of qv[, see Westbrook, Studies, pp. 35-38, especially p 36. For a few biblical examples, see Lev. 5:21; 19:13; Deut. 24:14; 28:29, 33; 1 Sam. 12:3-4; Jer. 7:6; 21:12; 22:3; Ezek. 18:18; 22:7, 12, 29; Hos. 5:11; Amos 4:1; Mic. 2:2; Zech. 7:10; Mal. 3:5; Pss. 62:11; 72:4; 73:8; 103:6; 146:7; Prov. 14:31; 22:16; 28:3; Eccl. 4:1; 5:7. 130 Westbrook, Studies, p. 35, n. 128; and Dobbs-Allsopp, Genre, pp. 49-55. 131 God in his capacity as divine king is also regarded as judge (Jer. 11:20). He may be petitioned directly, through prayer (e.g. Lam. 3:59) or on behalf of others (Gen. 18:25) (R. Westbrook, Biblical Law, in N. S. Hecht et al [eds.], An Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law [Oxford: Clarendon, 1996], pp. 1-17 [8]). There are numerous important writings on Gods legal enforcement powers and his ability to bring lawsuits as a part of those powers. See, e.g., R.V. Bergren, Prophets and the Law (HUCM, 4; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1974); Gemser, Rb-Pattern, pp. 120-37; J. Harvey, Le rb-Pattern, Requisitoire Prophetique sur la Rupture de LAlliance, Bib 43 (1962), pp. 172-

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forcement powers in the area of abuse of judicial authority is found in 1 Kgs. 21:1-29, where God punishes Ahab and Jezebel for abuse of legal authority based on a false suit.132 That case also involves an accusation of blasphemy. There, Queen Jezebel instigates a false suit against Naboth on a charge of blasphemy in order to secure his death and obtain his vineyard for King Ahab. Naboth and his sons are executed in accord with the rule that both the blasphemer and his line are subject to capital punishment.133 Ahab acquires the vineyard through legal forfeiture of the executed defendants property. This is a terrible instance of abuse of legal authority. God, through the prophet Elijah, confronts Ahab on his complicity in the murder. Although he is not confronted directly on the means used in the murder, that is, the abuse of his authority via the false suit, Ahab suffers the consequences of participating in the false suit, namely, punishment equal to that which the defendant suffered.134 He and Jezebel were subject to both death and the destruction of their line (1 Kgs. 21:19-24; and 2 Kgs. 9:1-10:17). Just as the dogs licked up Naboths blood, so the dogs must lick up the blood of Ahab, Jezebel, and their line (1 Kgs. 21:19, 23-24; and 2 Kgs. 9:36-37; cf. 2 Kgs. 9:26). Only Ahabs repentance mitigated and delayed the actual punishment levied against him (1 Kgs. 21:27-29).135
96; D.R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), pp. 124-31; H.B. Huffmon, The Covenant Lawsuit in the Prophets, JBL 78 (1959), pp. 285-95; J. Limburg, The Lawsuit of God in the Eighth Century Prophets (ThD dissertation, Union Theological Seminary [Virginia], 1969); Limburg, The Root byr and the Prophetic Lawsuit Speeches, JBL 88 (1969), pp. 291-304; G.E. Mendenhall, Samuels Broken Rb: Deuteronomy 32, in J.W. Flanagan and A.W. Robinson (eds.), No Famine in the Land: Studies in Honor of John L. McKenzie (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975), pp. 63-74; K. Nielsen, Yahweh as Prosecutor and Judge: An Investigation of the Prophetic Lawsuit (RibPattern) (JSOTSup, 9; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978); H.E. von Waldow, Der Traditiongeschichtliche Hintergrund der prophetischen Gerichtsreden (BZAW, 85; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983); C. Westermann, Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech (trans. H.C. White; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967); E.B. Wilson, Rb in Israels Historical and Legal Traditions: A Study of the Israelite Setting of Rb-Form (PhD dissertation, Drew University, 1970); and G.E. Wright, The Lawsuit of God: A Form-Critical Study of Deuteronomy 32, in B.W. Anderson and W. Harrelson (eds.), Israels Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), pp. 26-67. 132 For further development of this idea, see Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 155. 133 1 Sam. 3:1-4:22. The sons deaths are revealed in 2 Kgs. 9:25-26. 134 The talionic punishment provision related to false suit is set forth in Deut. 19:16-21. 135 For mitigation of punishment based on confession, see Lev. 26:14-42; 2

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In Jobs case, however, God is seemingly not the protector of the innocent; rather, God is the perpetrator of violence against the innocent. God is now playing the role of King Ahab by bringing a false suit based on blasphemous intent. Consequently, Job believes that he has a legitimate counter-suit against God for abuse of divine judicial authority because God has, in fact, no reasonable basis for his suit against Job.136 Job manifests this understanding clearly in 10:2-3 when he asserts:
Let me say to God, Do not condemn ([vr) me; make known to me why you bring suit (byr) against me. Does it seem good to you to oppress by abuse of authority (qv[), that you reject the work of your hands, but the designs of the wicked you favor?

Consequently, Job prepares to defend the suit and threatens to bring his counterclaim. Interestingly, in preparing to charge God with wrongdoing, Job negates his prior refusal to do so in 1:22. Even though Job seems to reject his wifes advice by countersuing instead of blaspheming God, he actually has not. We can observe this in two ways. First, as a wise woman, this alternative may have been on her mind. Schroer observes that there are many wise women, who in decisive situations, diplomatically interfere in politics and authoritatively influence the way of the world by
Sam. 24:1-25; Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 138, n. 129; and Westbrook, Studies, p. 28. 136 Cf. Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice, p. 115. I do not believe that God has a type of sovereign or official immunity from suit as human governments and their officials sometimes have from damage suits. For further on the immunity of governments from damage suits (sovereign immunity), see H.C. Black et al., Immunity: Governmental Tort Immunity, in Blacks Law Dictionary (St. Paul: West, 6th edn, 1990), p. 751; and Sovereign Immunity, Blacks Law Dictionary, p. 1396. For further on the immunity of government officials from suits against certain types of their acts (official immunity), see Immunity: Qualified Immunity, Blacks Law Dictionary, p. 752; and Official Immunity Doctrine, Blacks Law Dictionary, p. 1084. Jer. 12:1 is the best evidence that Yahweh does not have such immunity. In discussing this verse, W. L. Holladay says: Since Jeremiah felt that Yahweh was not properly supporting him in his prophetic activity, the possibility dawned on Jeremiah that Yahweh was not remaining faithful to his part of the bargain, and that if Yahweh could sue Israel for breach of contract, Jeremiah could turn and sue Yahweh for breach of contract as well (Jeremiahs Lawsuit with God, Int 17 [1963], pp. 280-87 [283]). Jeremiah does not believe that God has sovereign or official immunity; he is just not sure, however, that he can win against such an adversary at law. Although Jeremiah is not on trial before God and, therefore, has to initiate a suit for breach of contract against him, Job is already on trial for a blasphemous intent. Thus, Job must use the counter-accusation to raise his claims against God. See further Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 146-47.

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their counsel.137 Schroer uses, by way of example, the case of the wise woman of Tekoa and states: She proceeds in a manner similar to that exercised by the prophet Nathan who, with the help of a parable, convinces David that he has committed an injustice (2 Sam. 12.1-14).138 According to both Westbrook and Dobbs-Allsopp, the wise womans and Nathans indirect maneuvers to authoritatively influence the way of the world employ the important legal claim of abuse of authority to stir the king to a different course of action. I think it significant that Job chooses this route after his wife speaks of martyrdom. Something in her words seems to move him in this direction. Although Mrs. Job does not refer explicitly to this possibility, she must be aware of it. She understandsunlike everyone elsethat the issue in the Divine Council is blasphemy. She understands that her husband is innocent. She understands that Job suffers unjustly under a violent legal system that she opposes. She probably knows that judges and kings can be challenged. By her words, she offers Job the strongest possible type of resistance to this corrupt legal system. It is quite plausible to think that litigation-based resistance is also within her understanding. In light of this, we can now see that Jobs wife is very wiseas wise as the woman of Tekoa. Second, Job holds the martyrdom card like an ace up the sleeve. Job uses his wifes thinking to put pressure on God in the lawsuit. We see this in several different pericopes where Job confronts the possibility of death. One such instance begins when Job, in chapter 6, demands that his anxiety be weighed and his calamities be put on scales before the court (6:2). Job does not much care for Eliphaz assertion, in 5:2, that his anguish is foolish. Thus, Job, instead of conceding this point, declares the enormity of his anguish and insists on divine attention. He knows that his anxiety (and his torture) may cause him to speak wildly, but he has earned that right through his pain (6:3). Terrien explains:
the wildness of his language is to be weighed against the burden of his pain. A tragic hero, by the enormity of his fate, may be allowed an impetuosity of speech which reasonably contented men would never dream of

Schroer, Wise and Counselling Women, pp. 71-72. Schroer, Wise and Counselling Women, p. 71. C.V. Camp also studies the woman of Tekoa as a wise woman (The Wise Women of 2 Samuel: A Role Model for Women in Early Israel? in A. Bach [ed.], Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader [New York: Routledge, 1999], pp. 195-207 [98-99], reprinted from CBQ 43 (1981), pp. 14-29.
138

137

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uttering. A man about to die has earned a privilege of temerity which should be denied a bourgeois seated in comfort. Suffering is a spur to thinking boldly. Conventional disguise is a luxury in the last hour. Death is the moment of truth.139

The prospect of death and idea of martyrdom embolden Job to speak his mind, even if the anxiety and torture may cause him to be less than precise. Consequently, Job continues to testify about the pain that this investigation has caused him (6:4-7) and goes so far as to express a longing for death:
Would that my request find fulfillment, that God grant my desire, that God would determine to crush (akD) me, that he would let loose his hand and ruin ([xB) me. Then this consolation could still be mine (even while I recoiled in unrelenting pain): that I have not denied the words of the Holy One (6:8-10).140

More is going on here, however, than first meets the eye. These are not just bold or crazy words said by one undergoing torture and facing death, Job employs these words in a three-pronged legal attack against God. I have demonstrated in my prior work that the roots akD and [xB, used in this pericope, are also related to the claim of abuse of authority.141 The root akD signifies a defeat dispensed unfairly by an individual using the legal system in an inappropriate, fraudulent, or abusive manner.142 The verb [xB usually represents the making of illicit financial gain, the taking of which serves to ruin the victim.143 In its nominal forms, [xB may describe the fraud, violence, or abusive process by which one ruins another or the state of being greedy for such gain.144 Its second meaning is to cut, to wound, or to cut down, as revealed by Isa. 38:12; Joel 2:8; and Amos 9:1. Although [xB is found in situations beyond those involving abuse of authority, several verses bear witness to its use in these contexts.145 The association of these two roots with
Terrien, Poet of Existence, p. 54. The translation of 6:10 is based on that of Clines (Job 1-20, p. 156). 141 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 160-68. 142 See most importantly Prov. 22:22-23; and Isa. 3:14-15. See also Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 165. 143 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 167-68. 144 See, e.g., Jer. 6:13; 8:10; Ezek. 22:12, 27; Hab. 2:9; Prov. 1:19; 15:27. 145 See, e.g., Gen. 37:26; Exod. 18:21; 1 Sam. 8:13; Isa. 33:15; 57:17; Jer. 6:13; 8:10; 22:17; Ezek. 22:13, 27; 33:31; Hab. 2:9; Pss. 10:3; 119:36; Prov. 1:19; 28:16; cf. Isa. 56:11.
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abuse of legal authority and the polysemy of [xB form the basis of an interesting and complex legal maneuver on Jobs part. First, because he now has a complicated relationship with death, longing for it even more than he fears it (3:20-26), Job can invite God to go the distance in the dispute over divine abuse of power (akD) so that he might die (6:9a). This concept is emphasized by the pun associated with [xB. Job maintains that Gods complete financial ruin of him will also be his cutting down, his death (6:9b). Job makes it quite apparent that he believes himself to be the victim of abuse of divine legal authority. Second, in 6:8-9, Job begins here to draw upon the martyrdom ace that he has held in reserve. He is unmistakably provoking God to kill him, not by blaspheming as his wife suggests, but by saying he desires it. P. Bovati says of these verses and many similar ones that follow throughout Jobs speeches:
Job feels crushed by the absurd situation in which he finds himself; he earnestly desires that the rb against him come to an end, but he equally earnestly desires that it should not end in the manner suggested to him by his friends; and faced with a lack of other options, he is prepared to accept his own death (6:8-11; 7:21; 10:18-22), not as the real end of the dispute but as a disclosure of the radical problem of this experience and as a final appeal for the utterance of a truth that he cannot otherwise obtain.146

This describes martyrdom. Third, in 6:10, Job maintains that, even while he twists in the awful pain, even though he might die under it, he knows that he has not broken Gods law. Job, thereby, offers an important defensive statement in response to the still unspecified charges against him. He has reclaimed his voice to speak his truth. He is an innocent man. This three-fold verbal assault on Gods actions stresses that it is God, not Job, who abuses people. It is God, not Job, who breaks the law to his gain (cf. Mal. 3:14). In one small pericope, Job confronts Gods unfairness and violence in a most powerful manner, using his wifes suggestion. Again, in 7:15-16, Job avows that he would rather die than continue in his tortured state:
I would choose strangling, my soul, death,

146

Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice, p. 120.

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rather than this body. I reject (sam) my life! I will not live forever! Let me alone, for my days are but a breath! (7:15-16)

If his days must be both miserable and short, then let them be shorter still. Job cannot stand the misery. This is, of course, a profound cry of pain stemming from the tortures effects. It is also a key act of resistance to that torture because Job is here declaring that, after all is said and done, he is, indeed, prepared to take the martyrs path to stand against this insanity: he will choose strangling and death over remaining in his body (7:15). He will put his body on the line in his commitment to a just legal system.147 The warning is issued. He takes comfort in the fact that he will die one day in any case (7:16b). Understanding 7:15-16 in this manner renders 7:7-11 even more meaningful:
Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. The eye that beholds me will see me no more. While your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone. As the cloud fades and vanishes, so those who go down to Sheol do not come up. They return no more to their houses, nor do their places know them any more. Therefore I will not restrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain (jyc) in the bitterness of my soul.

Jobs willingness to martyr himself gives him the fortitude to complain against God. This complaint is not, for Job, a mere verbal protest, but a legal complaint, as is apparent from 9:27-29a.148 Jobs threat of martyrdom in 7:7-11, 15-16b has a very specific legal purpose. It sets up Jobs demands that God should leave him be in 7:16c. Some scholars have argued that this colon constitutes the whimpering plea of a weak, defeated man, but I disagree.149 The request to be left alone is a settlement demand, as existed in the Neo-Babylonian period.150 In the ancient world, the parties to
147 Pardes maintains that Job first presents his willingness to die, rather than surrender, in chapter 3 when he curses the day of his birth (Countertraditions, p. 150). I concur, but Job does not express his willingness to martyr himself directly and forthrightly until chapter 7. 148 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 147-48. See also Pss. 55:3, 18; 64:2. 149 See, e.g., Clines, Job 1-20, pp. 251-52. 150 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 213-15.

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a dispute could settle at any time during the course of litigation, just as is true today.151 In 7:16c, Job is making a mid-trial settlement demand that God cease and desist from his abusive actions. He is attempting to force God into settlement negotiations with the power of martyrdom behind his effort.152 Verses 7:20-21 support this assertion and conclude this part of Jobs argument:
[If] I have sinned (afj), what have I done to you, watcher of humanity?153 Why do you make me your target? Why have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon (acn) my transgression ([vP) and forgive (rb[) my iniquity (@wo[)? For soon I shall lie in the ground; you will search diligently (rjv) for me, but I shall not be.

Job accuses God of being overly demanding in terms of compliance with his law, leaving no wiggle room (7:20-21a). God ought to be more forgiving of apparently minor infractions. According to Job, Gods failure here will only bring on Jobs death. It will not get God what he wants: Jobs further cooperation (7:21b). That is precisely why martyrs choose death. They prefer to offer their corpses, rather than their obedience, to their torturers. The sentiments of Psalms 6 and 30 lie behind Jobs threat and help us to comprehend better what exactly Job means to imply when he says that he will not exist when God searches for him. I take up Psalm 30 first. There, the Psalmist cries out:
To you O Yahweh, I called (arq); to my lord I made appeal (@nh): What profit ([xB)is in my death,154
151 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 91, 214. The existence of such demands in ancient Israel is implied in Judg. 20:22. Additionally, an implied demand for a settlement of the claim exists when Abraham lodges an accusation (jky) against Abimelech about his servants improper taking (lzG) of Abrahams well (Gen. 21:25-27). Abimelech responds that he had no knowledge of this. As a result, Abraham and Abimelech enter into a settlement covenant. 152 For a full discussion of Jobs desire for, and efforts in furtherance of, settlement, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 213-26. 153 Bovati claims that this is, once again, a protestation of Jobs legal innocence (Re-Establishing Justice, p. 111). For other biblical references to God as watcher, see Zech. 12:4; Prov. 22:12; cf. Pss. 11:4; 91:8; Prov. 15:3. Ps. 11:4a-5b is particularly important in this context because it says that Yahwehs eyes behold, his eyelids investigate (@jB) the children of humanity. Yahweh investigates (@jB) the righteous and the wicked. On the importance of the root @jB as a term signifying a divine legal investigation, see Magdalene On the Scales, pp. 111-12. 154 This is one of the few instances where [xB refers to all types of profit and not exclusively to illicit gain. See also Mic. 4:13; Mal. 3:14.

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from my descent into the Pit? Can dust praise you? Can it declare your faithfulness? Hear, O Yahweh, and have mercy on me; O Yahweh, be my help! (30:9-11)

Both arq and @nh are words that have meaning in both the legal and theological worlds of ancient Israel.155 Consequently, the Psalmist is suggesting that there is no gain ([xB), legitimate or not, to God in his death. Whether God uses his legal system or other means to kill Job, God will not benefit from it. Psalm 6 expresses an analogous stance. There, the Psalmist vividly describes having pain that is as overwhelming as is Jobs and asks God to deliver him. In the course of that request, he sings:
For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise? (6:6)

The Psalmist declares that death actually defeats rather than sustains Gods purposes.156 The better course for God is to give his life-saving power to the Psalmist. Job makes use of an intertextual play on Pss. 6 and 30 in both 7:8b-10 and 7:21b to declare to God that settlement is to be preferred over a fight to the death. Job is prepared to martyr himself, but it will defeat Gods purposes. Settlement is the better course for both of them. Job solidifies his legal contentions throughout chapters 9-10. This section of the book is critical to both Jobs defense and counter-accusation. Martyrdom is also at play in this speech. Job is wrestling with the consequences of challenging God legally. He is, naturally, afraid. In spite of his fears, however, he makes the decision to go forward. He understands the possible cost to himself. If martyrdom is the result, so be it.157 Incorporating his cry of 7:15b-16a with slight modification, he exclaims:
I am in integrity (!T)! I will not consider my soul!158 I will reject (sam) my life! (9:21)

His integrity demands this very choice, as 2 Macc. 7:40 makes

155 Job uses them frequently in their legal context. For a discussion of the legal import of arq in the book of Job, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 14951. For a similar discussion of @nh, see Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 216-18. 156 See also Isa. 38:16-20. 157 In accord D. Patrick, Arguing with God: The Angry Prayers of God (St. Louis: Bethany, 1977), p. 68. 158 Translating [dy as in Deut. 4:39; 8:5; Judg. 18:14; 2 Sam. 24:13; 1 Kgs. 20:7, 22.

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explicit. Jobs wife knows this. Job now also knows this. Terrien observes regarding Jobs thinking: Death isthe ultimate risk one takes in order to prove ones worth.159 In chapter 10, Job reiterates a number of the ideas that he has already expressed. First, he returns to his willingness to give up his life in order to express his grievance. He repeats the themes that he expressed in 7:11, 15-16, and 9:21:
My soul loathes (fWq) my life. Let me loose my complaint (jyc)! Let me speak in the bitterness of my soul! (10:1)

With that pronouncement, Job immediately turns to the substance of Gods claim and his counterclaim (10:2-17). He ends this portion of his speech with a final demand upon God that is backed up by his willingness to end his days on earth. He again reaffirms, clarifies, and strengthens the demand he made in 7:16c:
Are not few my days? Cease! Direct your attention away from me! Let me smile a little, before I departnever to return to the land of gloom and deaths shadow, [to] a morbid land, like the darkness of deaths shadow, [to a land] without order, where light shines like darkness! (10:20-22)

Job is making it perfectly clear that God is not bringing him a mouth filled with laughter easily, as Bildad contends should happen in 8:20-21. Moreover, Job is not simply going to abandon his claim, put on a happy face, and tow the party line (9:27). He can no longer accept Gods law happily as he did in the prologue. No, Job will smile again only when God settles this affair. The force of Jobs demand becomes patent when we compare 10:20-22 to material from Psalm 39:
Remove your stroke from me. I am worn down by the blows of your hand. You chastise mortals in punishment for sin, consuming like a moth what is dear to them. Surely everyone is a mere breath. Selah Hear my prayer (ytLpt h[mv), Yahweh, and give ear to my cry (hnyzah yt[wvw). Do not hold your peace at my tears for I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears. Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more (39:11-14).

159

Terrien, Poet of Existence, p. 41.

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The Psalmist is in such great pain here that he is brought to tears (v. 13a), and it is Gods fault (vv. 11b-12b). These remarks are similar to many of Jobs statements. The Psalmist reports at the start of the psalm that he does not wish to sin with his tongue and so has muzzled his mouth against his enemies (vv. 2-3). Unfortunately, his silent distress began to burn like a fire in him and, consequently, he had to release it (v. 4). This may also be Jobs experience of his silence at the end of the prologue. The Psalmist begs God to deliver him, and he returns to silence because God is his taskmaster and chastiser (vv. 9-12a). He acknowledges that God, in such an exercise of his power, can consume a human, one who is dear to him, like a moth (v. 12). This, too, sounds very much like Job. The Psalmist petitions for relief, using theological language that also has legal connotations (v. 13). Job, too, uses this same language to legal effect.160 Throughout his plea, the Psalmist refers to the shortness of his days (vv. 5-7, 12b). In the end, the Psalmists relief can come only when God looks away from him so that he can smile before he departs and is no more (v. 14). The Psalmist accepts that he will die under Gods hand if his chastisement continues. His only hope is that God might leave him for just a bit so that he may know joy again before he reaches his natural, but still all-too-early, death. Job suffers the same experience and uses the same vocabulary. Only Job has not fallen silent again, and he puts more legal force behind his petition than does
160 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 180, 220-22. Z.W. Falk indicates that: Some forms of biblical prayer were clearly influenced by legal procedure. Hebrew thoughtdescribed the relations between God and man under the rule of law, and from there resulted some specific patterns of worship. The usual term for prayer, tefilah, was derived from the root palal, meaning to judge, to assess, to estimate, and to intervene. Originally a person praying to God asserted his righteousness and asked God to do justice (Hebrew Law in Biblical Times [Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1964], p. 52, citing Gemser, Rb-Pattern, p. 126; E.A. Speiser, The Root pll in Hebrew, JBL 82 [1963], pp. 301-06; and D.R. Ap-Thomas, Notes on Some Terms Relating to Prayer, VT 6 [1956], pp. 230-31). The relationship between law and prayer in the lawsuit genres is more fully developed by S.H. Blank, The Confessions of Jeremiah and the Meaning of Prayer, HUCA 21 (1948), pp. 331-54 (337-38); and A. Laytner, Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1990), pp. xvii-xviii, 1-39. Bovati explains that hLpt is typically connected to supplication for a pardon (Re-Establishing Justice, pp. 126, 154, 311). He continues, however: The prayer that asks for amnesty can be transformed into a complaint against the executor of justice (Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice, pp. 311-12, n. 128). This would hold true in cases of abuse of authority, as in Jobs situation. See further Magdalene, On the Scales, p. 180.

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the Psalmist. Job is prepared to die, not as victim, but rather, as martyr. He uses the language of this psalm to put legal pressure on God. Job declares his integrity to the last:
Far be it from me to say you are right (qdx)! Until I die, I will not put away my integrity (!T) (27:5).

He also declares his innocence to the last with his oath in chapter 31. Job holds fast to his integrity and blamelessness just as God asserted to the Divine Council in 2:3. Job would rather die than give them up. This is the martyrs way. The comparative legal analysis in my prior work on the book of Job reveals that the pressure generated by Jobs various settlement demands, backed up with the threat of martyrdom, forces the case into a lengthy mid-trial settlement negotiation, in which the parties and their supporters jockey for position.161 In his settlement speeches, Job threatens to accuse God formally of abuse of judicial authority, not only for bringing a false suit, but also for failing to maintain proper social justice and for creating a disorganized, unfair cosmos that does not have the capacity to maintain such justice.162 Job and his friends state their views. In so doing, they reveal their legal strategies, what their testimony will be if the trial should proceed, advocate for their position, and seek reconciliation between the parties in a manner consistent with settlement negotiations.163 Although there are many twists and turns, it appears to Job, in chapter 42, that his case is lost, and he surrenders his cause in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming case against him (42:2-6).164 He is ready to die. This marks one of the great ironies of the book: when Job surrenders, the Satans attacks on both Job and God fail. The investigation is over without a curse upon God and without Gods intervention on Jobs behalf. Now, Job must be restored to wholeness under the terms of the legal system. Consequently, God admits the rightness of Jobs position in a speech to Eliphaz (42:7) and settles the case by returning Jobs children, property, and honor (42:10-17). The property is restored in double, a common
Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 213-16. Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 143-97. 163 Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 213-26. 164 Job does not surrender the case in a happy or wizened way; rather, he gives up the case because he must (Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 307-08).
162 161

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penalty figure in the ancient Near East.165 God settles the case fairly, and Job and God are reconciled. All this was made possible because Mrs. Job spoke her infamous words. Mrs. Job is not just a wife, but also a great and wise mother, without whom Israelite wisdom would have been so much the less. Even though the book seems to denigrate her role as a mother by not recognizing that she is the one who brought forth all twenty of the children mentioned in the book,166 her great fertility, her salient role in moving Job from passivity to resistance, and her heretofore unacknowledged, but essential, role in rebirthing Job, all indicate that she is a most important mother figure. She has, however, still another function, adding to her importance. The naming of Jobs three new daughters in the epilogue, in stark contrast to the unnamed status of his wife and other 17 children, and the gift of an inheritance to those daughters (42:1415) may actually reflect that Mrs. Jobs actions have generated a newfound respect for women in both Job and God. Although Job had once rued the day his mothers womb brought him forth (3:10; cf. 3:11; 10:18-19), he may now be celebrating his wifes womb because it has brought the children who replace those that he had lost. Jobs wife also brought forth the wisdom that gave him rebirth. S. Mitchell suggests that the presence of the daughters in the epilogue indicates a shift in male-female relations within the book:
There is something enormously satisfying about this prominence of the feminine at the end of Job. The whole yin side of humanity, denigrated in the figure of Jobs wife, and in Jobs great oath looked upon as a seducer of danger, has finally been acknowledged and honored here. It is as if, once Job has learned to surrender, his world too gives up the male compulsion to control. The daughters have almost the last word. They appear with the luminous power of figures in a dream: we cant quite figure out why they are so important, but we know they are.167

Mrs. Job seems to have had a profound effect on Job. God, too, seems moved by Mrs. Job. First, God comes to describe Gods self in feminine terms in his defensive statement:
Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?

Magdalene, On the Scales, pp. 307-11. West, Hearing Jobs Wife, p. 113. 167 S. Mitchell, The Book of Job (New York: HarperCollins, 2nd edn, 1987), p. xxx.
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From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven? (38:28-29)168

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Second, Schweitzer believes that God affirms the value of Mrs. Jobs efforts when God declares that the friends were in the wrong.169 Third, the daughters beauty, we can only assume, is Gods remuneration for female suffering. Mrs. Job is a most significant figure in the book even if she speaks in only one verse.

Conclusion I have now answered the question: Why is Mrs. Jobs pericope included in the book of Job? It is to move Job from compliance to resistance. It is to rebirth Jobs identity. She does not offer many words, but their effect is great. Mrs. Jobs voice moves Jobs voice. Her words make the rest of the story possible. Additionally, she serves as a counterbalance to Queen Jezebel because, through an abuse of the legal process, Jezebel had gained an illegal victory for the king in a false suit involving blasphemy. Jobs wife, on the other hand, seeks to defeat one. Through this act, she heals the wound left by this female treachery. Jobs wife is, indeed, wise and powerful. She is not the Satans handmaiden, she is not a foolish woman, she is not offering Job theological euthanasia, and she is not one to be ignored. Rather, she is attempting to maintain her husbands integrity, nay his very humanity and his normative-legal world, in the face of a God who appears to be torturously violent and unjust, and she succeeds. She moves both Job and God. In the process, she becomes a quiet hero, both in the story and beyond. Jobs wife serves as a model of resistance for all those whose suffering is both terrible and unacknowledged. She teaches us all the lesson that compassion, generosity, generativity, and edification are still possible even under the worst of conditions. Jobs wife, with just two painfully uttered sentences, joins the ranks of the wise.

168 See further P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 68. 169 Schweitzer, Curse God, p. 33.

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f. rachel magdalene Abstract

This article offers a new reading of the role of Jobs wife in the trial of Job, based on feminist hermeneutics, legal hermeneutics, and comparative legal historical analysis. The article proposes that the book of Job explores the problem of the violence and oppression of Gods law as manifested through human suffering. Mrs. Job offers Job the best means available for resisting a violent, oppressive legal system, that is, martyrdom. Although Job does not use that strategy directly, he does employ it in an indirect fashion to exercise another form of legal resistance against Gods violence in order that the case might be resolved. Consequently, God settles the matter with Job. The article demonstrates that Mrs. Job is a more important and more powerful figure in the book than prior readings have allowed. She is both heroic and wise.