The Book of Job (Vintage Spiritual Classics)

Rating:
Summary: On Difficulty and Restoration
Review: The Book of Job represents a serious challenge to a person's delicate sensibilities. The premise of the text shows that Job, at the start, finds favor in the mind and heart of the Hebrew divinity. It is perhaps an assumption of the Book of Job that such favor is linked with good fortune and a fine reputation for Job.

Sadly, ill fortune is the real major theme of the work. Job suffers radical hardship throughout. The consolation offered by his associates is insufficient, for Job, in explaining his predicament. Since Job is linked to the Bible, the story moves to answer his trauma, with a vision from Yahweh that is at least equal in magnitude to his radical suffering. This vision 'From the Whirlwind' works to shape Job through the effects of awe and assurance.

The work closes by Job receiving twice the value of what he had initially lost, as a restoration gesture. Indeed, it is difficult for a delicate sensibility to reflect further on the significance and suggested meanings portrayed by such a work. For what effect does such radical trauma have on the psyche's sense of security or the validity and reality of shared tenderness?

Can merely having 'more good' than what we have had before repair what was lost, to our disposition, by the experience?