Abstract

At the dramatic climax of the book of Job, God answers Job from a whirlwind; but it is notoriously difficult to see how this answer addresses the problem posed by Job's suffering. In this paper, I am especially concerned with the following questions. What underlying problem is the poet wrestling with? How is God's answer to Job supposed to be relevant to this problem? And why is Job satisfied by it? I critically consider what seem to me to be two of the most important interpretations. Neither of them turns out to be completely satisfying. I then conclude by suggesting that the book of Job itself oscillates back and forth between two quite different conceptions of God's relation to the world