| Job 38–41 contain divine speeches from the whirlwind in response to Job's complaints about the injustice of God. Direct divine discourse appears frequently in prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible. However, it is rare in wisdom literature, to which the book of Job belongs. Whence does the poet of the theophanic speeches draw his material?; Commentators have commonly pointed to the innovative form of the text, yet they have seldom discussed how the divine reply is related to the tradition of wisdom literature. Through four comparative studies, this dissertation discovers that neither ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature nor a dominant Israelite literary tradition plays a major role in the composition of God's response. The Joban poet emerges as both an inheritor and an innovator of Israelite literary traditions. A detailed study on the nature, function, and purpose of the divine discourses, however, demonstrates that they are divine pedagogic lessons intended to bring Job to a sapiential enlightenment.; This dissertation maintains that the poet of the divine speeches in Job 38–41 composed a sapiential teaching of God, armed as he was with knowledge of a wide variety of literary traditions: cultic oracles of divine salvation, legal judgments, prophetic disputations, hymnic praise, and didactic wisdom. Since nothing lay beyond the interests of the wise, the sapiential poet could freely utilize any such traditions. Moreover, the poet appears to be the final editor of the book, who arranged extant materials (prologue-epilogue and dialogues) under the overarching theme of Job's sapiential liberation. This reorientation to the nature of the text enriches interpretations of the relationship between the divine reply and Job's laments. |
