Job, His Wife, His Friends and His God (Maynooth Bicentenary S.) - Tapa blanda

The Book of Job reflects very much a man's world. Only one woman speaks - the wife of Job - and she has only one sentence in the whole book, and that sentence is nearly always translated to give a blasphemous intent: 'Curse God and die' (2:9).
But inevitably the central question of the innocent sufferer, Job, has to be faced. Job's view of God is not something fixed and static throughout. At first he accepts all his sufferings with patience, but later he turns against God. His three friends come to comfort him but fail in their endeavour. Finally the Lord speaks to him from the whirlwind. What is the importance of the Lord's words? Have they anything to say to the anguish and perplexity of the millions of innocent sufferers in holocausts ancient and modern?

Donal O'Connor, Parish Priest of Ardmore, Co Waterford, is former Professor of Old Testament at St Patrick's College, Maynooth.