(Background – from ESV Study Bible) The story of Job has its
setting outside Israel to the east and south (Uz is related to Edom, which may
be the setting of the book), the author of Job is a Hebrew, thoroughly immersed
in the Hebrew Scriptures. The time in which the account of Job is set is not
known with precision – many consider the context of Job’s culture and put him
in the time of Abraham.
The earliest reference to Job outside the book itself is in
Ezekiel. The prophet names three paragons of virtue (chap 14:12 – 14): And
the word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, when a land sins against me
by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its
supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast,
even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver
but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord GOD.” It is
not certain whether Ezekiel knew of these men from the biblical narrative or if
his knowledge was from God. If Ezekiel knew of Job through the biblical book,
then Job would have lived prior to the Babylonian exile.
The author of Job makes direct allusion to the Hebrew
Scriptures (e.g., Ps. 8:4; cf. Job 7:17–18), and at times quotes lines directly
(Ps. 107:40; Isa. 41:20; cf. Job 12:21, 24). Such precise repetition of phrases
and reapplication of biblical thought indicates that Job had access to these
writings, though again it cannot be certain in what form they existed. The
author uses a lot of vocabulary with meanings known in later Hebrew. This does
not confirm a more precise dating but may favor a date that is during or after
the Babylonian exile (538 BC). It would appear that this book may have been
written as many as 600 years after Job lived – not without precedent in
Scripture, as Moses wrote Genesis some 2,700 years after Creation. None of this
is cause for worry, as it is God Who is the primary author of all Scripture.
The book of Job asks the question – “Can God be trusted?” It
is fair to say that most of our attention is on Job and his loss and the rough
treatment received at the hands of his friends and wife. But the lesson we are
to gain from this book is found in the reply from God; that He alone can be
trusted, that He alone is creator and sovereign – He is God and He is not
obligated to answer His creatures! This maddens those who deny His existence or
sovereignty, but ought to comfort us who are redeemed by Christ. If God is not
sovereign over all things, He cannot be trusted in anything.
