Job: From Lament to Penitence. By Alexander Breitkopf

Abstract

The aspect of this book that I found really compelling was the eco-anthropological approach taken to Job, notably looking at nature metaphors used in a human context in the speeches of Job and the friends and at the same metaphors reversed as used in the God speeches. It surprised me that this aspect of the book did not get into the title! Of course lament and penitence feature strongly in the book too, but in a sense this book is working on two different levels, and two different streams of argument are going on. Breitkopf opens with questions of genre classification of Job, pointing out that lament is by far the more dominant suggestion over penitential prayer, the latter only truly featuring in 42:1–6, and even then, only on a particular reading of that passage. His argument is that there is a shift in outlook on life that leads towards penitential prayer and this is where the second theme comes in—this shift is found in the book’s creation language. References to creation and nature help us to understand human identity, and it is this that Brietkopf wishes to stress. However, he does show that in the Prologue, Job does indulge in some penitential acts of turning from evil, offering sacrifice, and mourning the deaths of his children, and indeed in the dialogue he demonstrates that the friends keep urging Job towards penitence, culminating in the mediating angel in the speeches of Elihu. It seems to me then that penitence is a theme running throughout the book, brought to a climax in 42:6, but not necessarily simply a genre classification along the same lines as lament. Whether the change that occurs in creation language from the God speeches onwards, which is Brietkopf’s argument, is coterminous with the penitential argument is less convincing to me.