Job: Repentant or Rebellious?

ALTHOUGH differing in their views about a number of issues with regard to the Book of Job, m general scholars have agreed that Job's replies to Yahweh in 40:4-5 and 42:2-6 indicate that Job repented, or at least relented and changed his attitude. Even scholars such as K. Fullerton, C. G. Jung, and D. A. Robertson, who reject the possibility that Job could have repented, never. theless agree that 42:2-6 in particular indicates that he did. K. Fullerton maintains that 42:2-6 is absolutely opposed to the content of the dialogues and could not have been written by the author of that section, hence he rejects the whole of 40:6-42:17 as a gloss. C. G. Jung and D. A. Robertson see Job's replies as hypocritical. C. G. Jung says that most probably Job prostrated himself before God as if he were a defeated antagonist, realizing that God was a being who could not be judged morally. D. A. Robertson says it. is .only a "tongue-in-cheek" confession, made to calm God's whirlwinds. A few scholars do not believe that Job is expressing remorse or regret m any sense m his final reply. For example, M. Tsevat says that Job only acknowledges in 42:2-6 that he now knows, from the content of God's speeches, that justice is not an integral part of the universe and that one cannot, and should not, expect anything for one's behavior. Freed from that misconception, Job is then prepared to live a truly pious and moral life with no such