The book of Job contains several significant statements that are ambiguously worded. In some cases, the sentences may be translated in two very different ways, sometimes opposite in meaning, without doing violence to the Hebrew wording. For example, after God meets Job and talks about his creation, does Job repent? The Hebrew word often translated "repent" does not necessarily mean this. It can mean to reject something, to object (in the intransitive case), or even to protest. Repentance and protestation are two opposite states of mind. The resulting interpretations could be many. Did Job repent, relent, lay down his protestations against God, or continue to protest his sufferings? Although the context is helpful (it does seem that Job did not continue to protest his situation), even the statements Job makes that immediately precede his "repentance" can contain ambiguities of meaning.

In other instances in the book of Job, the wording may be clear, but the interpretation is not so straightforward. For example, did God reward Job, restore him, or compensate him? Literally, the pertinent line reads, "Yahweh increased Job double of all that had belonged to him" (Job 42:10b). If we interpret these words to mean that God rewarded Job, then the theology of the three friends is correct, and God does indeed operate on the retributive justice principle in which reward and punishment are the motivations for obedience. If God compensated Job (suggested by God giving Job double what he had before), then Job’s suffering may be seen as unjust, and by giving him double, God seeks to make up for the previous losses.

Other ambiguities in the book of Job bring us to the feature of the lesson—Job and his wife. Although both suffered intensely, it is Job who is highlighted in the story. From the beginning of the narrative, where the integrity of Job is emphasized to the indictments against Job by the Satan, Job is the center of attention. He suffers extensive loss—wealth, servants, children, and, finally, health and reputation. It is at this juncture that his wife first (and last) appears in the text. "Are you still holding fast to your integrity?" she asks.

This would seem to be completely unambiguous, except for one small detail. There is nothing in the Hebrew (including the usual interrogative marker) to indicate that she asks a question. It could just as readily be a statement: "You are still holding fast to your integrity." Of course, it is Job’s response to her—that she speaks as a fool—that leads most translators to assume that Job’s wife questions his holding fast his integrity. Literally, it reads, "Yahweh increased Job double of all that had belonged to him." Wording her first words as a question make them seem more of a complaint.

If her first words seem ambiguous, her next words are even more so. "Bless God," she tells her husband, "and die." Now, that is not what most of us read in the modern versions. Almost all translators render the word bless as "curse." Yet, in Hebrew it is clearly the word bless. Most scholars assume that the opposite meaning was intended. It is, after all, what makes the most sense in the context!

The term bless is also used in the mouth of the Satan in Job 1:11 and 2:5. Different theories have been put forth to explain the presence of this word. But the solution most consistent with the nature of the book is that it was used deliberately to increase the ambiguity of the book. More will be said on this later.

So, with the ambiguities in mind, there are at least two different versions of what Job’s wife said. (1) You are still holding fast your integrity. Bless God and die. (2) Are you still holding fast your integrity? Curse God and die! The one constant element in her words is that she tells Job to die. The question highlighted by the ambiguity of her words (and those of the Satan) is, did Job curse God? Although the divine answer of Job 42:7 seems clear that Job did not curse God, the reader is invited nonetheless to make a choice between the two options.

Job’s response to his wife is usually rendered as "You are speaking as one of the foolish women speak. Should we receive the good from God and not receive the evil?" Once again, due to a minor detail, there is ambiguity. In the Hebrew, there is no interrogative marker indicating a question. Read as an indicative sentence, it would be as follows. "We receive the good from God and do not receive the evil." Which one reflects Job’s theology?

I believe that the ambiguities of the book of Job are deliberately designed to highlight two different views of divine justice in the face of suffering. The first view is that of retributive justice and is held by the three friends. Job is thus suffering what he deserves because he has grievously sinned. In this view of the book, Job at least says some pretty daring things to God (perhaps even curses him) and deserves the blast he gets from the Almighty. Thereupon, he duly repents and is rewarded for repenting.

In the second view, divine justice is cosmological—springing out of creation. In this view, God loves all of his creatures, good and bad, and treats them all the same (the perspective of the divine speeches). Job speaks the truth about God in two ways—first, by his insistence that he does not deserve punishment from God, and second, by stating that God destroys both the innocent and the wicked (Job 9:22–23), thus treating them the same. Though Job’s perspective is more negative than God’s, this is understandable in light of his immense suffering.

Because of the ambiguities in the book of Job, the reader is invited to determine which viewpoint in the conflict over divine justice and human suffering is the right one. But perhaps the ambiguities also serve to highlight the ambivalence that often occurs in an individual faced with suffering. Job does not stay compliant and patient. He pounds on heaven’s door, raises charges against a god who would punish him without cause, and insists on getting a hearing with God. He does not give up, but neither does he stay the same. Suffering changes him.

And Job’s wife? She becomes an echo of God’s words to the Satan ("He is holding fast to his integrity," Job 2:3) and an echo of the Satan’s claim that Job will bless/curse God. After the rebuke by her husband, she disappears from the narrative and only indirectly re-emerges at the end of the book (we assume that she was the one who bore the additional children). But Job’s wife suffers, too. And, like Job with God, in spite of her suffering, she does not leave her husband.

Perhaps that is the practical lesson we can learn from all the ambiguity. Suffering may lead the sufferers to wobble, to say things they would not say under other circumstances. It may lead to wishing it would just end—even in death. But the important thing in suffering is not to leave God. Holding fast to him—while questioning him, while expressing one’s anguish—is the safest state to maintain.

Note: The above reflections are based on my graduate work, "The Book of Job as Hebrew Theodicy: An Ancient Near Eastern Intertextual Conflict Between Law and Cosmology" (Ph.D. diss., University of California and the Graduate Theological Union, 2002).

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