The Physicality of Virtue in Job 31: The Use of Bodily Terms in Job’s Depiction of Moral Integrity

Abstract

Abstract Job’s appeal of innocence in Job 31 may be the most comprehensive depiction of moral goodness found in the Hebrew Bible. In these verses, Job professes his innocence with respect to his relationships in both private and public realms, to God, and to the land. This essay assesses Job’s vision of moral integrity in Job 31:1–12, focusing on Job’s use of bodily language, including the terms ‘heart’, ‘eyes’, ‘feet’, and ‘hands’. The use of such language in Job 31 suggests that moral integrity, for Job, includes both ‘interior’ (unseen) and ‘exterior’ (visible) components of his being. This essay brings Job’s depiction of moral goodness in conversation with an Aristotelian virtue ethics and demonstrates that, while biblical Hebrew does not contain terms for ‘virtue’ or ‘character’, similar notions are present in the biblical text’s use of bodily language. Unlike some modern conceptions of virtue or character, however, the biblical text does not depict these concepts as abstract or intangible but as physical and inseparable from the environment of which the moral agent is a part.