Thus far, we have distinguished clearly between the reader’s point of view and that of the characters in the Book of Job. We identified the author’s use of double-edged words, particularly when the readings are theologically
68 Regarding the status of thisetnaḥinת"מא(in a verse where anדרויוהלועis not present) and the pausal form it would normally entail, see Ben-David, Israel.Tsurot heḳsher ṿe-tsurot hefseḳ ba-ʻIvrit sheba-Miḳra : taḥbir ṿe-ṭaʻame ha-Miḳra. Yerushalayim: Hotsaʼat sefarim ʻa. sh.
Y. L. Magnes, ha-Universiṭah ha-ʻIvrit, 1995, 14 (admittedly, there are exceptions to the general rule, and Ben-David has found ten such exceptions). Moreover, one cannot simply speak of intentionality on the part of the masoretes in this case: on the one hand, they might have been simply recording what they heard (in which case one might attribute the retention of the ambiguity to the reciters, which is possible but more difficult to demonstrate); on the other hand, they might have been recording two different contingent traditions at two different sta-ges – without trying to conform the cantillation marks with the vowel system (see E. J. Revell,
“Pausal Forms and the Structure of Biblical Poetry,” in:Vetus Testamentum31 (1981): 186–199).
At any rate, the form as it stands – with apataḥon the pausal form – is not standard and retains the ambiguity. On an additional ambiguity involved in this form, see Ben-David,Tsurot heḳsher, 4 and the internal references there.
Whose Job Is This? Dramatic Irony anddouble entendrein the Book of Job 71 charged – offering conflicting views of the ideal of righteousness and divine retribution; and, in the last case discussed here, portraying an evil, conniving aspect of Yhwh. Let us now consider the protagonist, rather than the author, as the intentional formulator of double-edged words. In other words, while the use of the technique is ultimately the author’s, we must entertain the possibili-ty that the author has endowed a character with the abilipossibili-ty to speak with a split tongue. In the last case, in particular, one must consider the possibility that Job, at some level of consciousness, wishes to bless and “bless” Yhwh at one and the same time.
For the purpose of contrast and clarification, let us examine a case of dou-ble entendrewhere the subversive, alternative reading is available to the char-acter speaking. The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, a medieval Sanskrit narrative, tells of Hariścandra (sometimes termed, problematically, “the Indian Job”), the right-eous and prosperous king of Ayodhyā, who was forced to forfeit his kingdom to the sage Viśvāmitra, to sell his wife and young son into servitude in order to pay off a debt to him, and finally to become slave to a lowly and harsh corpse-handler. One day, while the former king, in his devotion to truth, is working dutifully at the cremation grounds to serve his master, his wife sud-denly arrives, carrying the corpse of their young boy in her arms. Although Hariścandra is covered in ashes from head to toe, his wife recognizes him and the two, overcome with grief, prepare to jump into the pyre together – but at this point the gods appear. Indra reveals that Hariścandra’s devotion to truth has proven to be supreme; also, the lowly corpse-handler who had been Hariś-candra’s cruel master turns out to have been none other than Dharma, Law and Justice personified, in disguise. The boy is brought back to life and Indra announces to Hariścandra that he may now ascend to Heaven, having proven his devotion to truth.
At this point, the righteous king responds that it would be a grave crime for him to abandon his subjects in Ayodhya:
brahmahatyā gurorghāto govadhaḥ strīvadhastathā tulyamebhirmahāpāpaṃ bhaktatyāge ‘pyudāhṛtam bhajantaṃ bhaktamatyājyamaduṣṭaṃ tyajataḥ sukham neha nāmutra paśyāmi … (MP 8.250–251)
Brahmin-killing, guru-slaying, woman-slaughter cattle-murder;
Evil on a par with these commits a devotee-deserter.
One deserting an underserving loyal, pious, devotee –
Nothing in this world or the next for [such a scoundrel] do I see.
Thus, Hariścandra refuses to accept the offer to ascend to heaven, suggesting instead, somewhat irreverently, that Indra ascend there himself. “If they [my
subjects] go up to heaven with me,” he explains, “then I, too, shall go;” but if they do not, he insists that he would rather descend to Hell than abandon them.
This speech, which echoes the words of Yudhiṣṭhira in the final passages of the seventeenth book of theMahābhārata,69contains veiled criticism of Viś-vāmitra and the deities who were cognizant of Hariścandra’s trial. The term bhakta, or “devotee” (ll. 251 and 252), while denoting the relation of a subject to the king (the meaning of the king’s words at face value), also denotes the relation of a devotee – in this case, Hariścandra – to a deity. Hariścandra, who now recognizes that the agony he was subjected to was merely the test of his devotion to truth, is able to hurl – somewhat like Job in 42:2–6 – double-edged words at the gods, accusing them of the heinous crime of abandoning a pious and blameless devotee such as himself.
In the case of Job 42:2–6, the attribution of double-edged wording to the character is less likely, since Job never learns that his suffering was the result of a wager. However, such attribution is not impossible, since Yhwh’s harsh-ness is plainly evident from His response from the whirlwind even if He does not reveal the wager to His devotee. Moreover, it may be argued that Yhwh, in speaking of the sea monster Leviathan – who, in the Book of Job, is no more than Yhwh’s rubber ducky (e.g., 40:29), but is elsewhere associated with pri-mordial antagonistic powers (Isa 27:1, Ps 74:14) – indicates that monstrous for-ces are inherent in creation – thus vaguely hinting to Job that satanic powers are involved in his present predicament.70
Thus, whether one may attribute the double-edged wording to Job (the character) depends on whether he is considered subliminally aware of the reading technically available only to the reader. The degree to which readers are willing to concede that the characters are subliminally aware of the irony they themselves generate stands in direct relation to the degree to which the readers are willing to forego flattering their own intelligence at the expense of the characters, and thus in reverse relation to a fundamental principle of iro-ny.71However, the artful craftsmanship of the Israelite Wisdom authors is
evi-69 Mahāprasthānika, 3.
70 SeeThe New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: New Re-vised Standard Version, eds. Michael David Coogan et al., Oxford University Press, New York 2010, 771–772. The identification of Satan and the serpentine Sea Monster, however, is the product of a later process of thought (see Elaine Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, the
‘Intimate Enemy’: A Preliminary Sketch,” in:The Harvard Theological Review84. 2 (April 1991):
105–128); it is found in the Greek Testament of Job 43:8.
71 See Baldack,The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms; and William Empson,Seven Types of Ambiguity,New Directions, New York 1947, 38–47.
Whose Job Is This? Dramatic Irony anddouble entendrein the Book of Job 73 dent in these verses either way. Examples of double-edged wording in the Book of Job could be extensively multiplied: sifting through the ancient and recent scholarship on the Book of Job reveals many more cases of the coupling of irony and double-edged wording, and a careful reading of certain chapters (e.g., Chapters 9–10) reveals other cases which were not noted in the past.
I have chosen to focus here on three strategically located speeches – the opening and closing speeches of Eliphaz, the most prominent and outspoken of the friends (quantitatively and qualitatively, see also Job 42:7); and Job’s strategically located final response to Yhwh, in Chapter 42 – in order to argue that dramatic irony encapsulated in double-edged wording is an organizing principle in the Book of Job. These two techniques are employed in such a way that they converge to create two systematically opposite readings that stretch over extended passages, and, substantially, throughout the entire dialogue.
While it might suffice to center on this organizing principle as a purely literary property of the text, irrespective of the literary conventions available in ancient Israelite Wisdom circles, I have aimed to demonstrate that on rare occasions – specifically when the “crime” is the least perfect – the artists’ compromise on rough grammar discloses what is otherwise hidden from the reader.
The authors’ choice of double-edged irony as an organizing principle in the Book of Job can be explained in more than one way. It could be viewed as an art of subversive writing in the face of intellectual persecution, or it could be viewed as reflecting the authors’ fundamental doubt with regard to the na-ture of the divine. Alternatively, it may be viewed more generously as reflecting a religious experience that encapsulates the tension between diametrically op-posite understandings of the workings of Yhwh.
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