📖 The Book of Job

Start reading →

Old Testament · 42 chapters · Wisdom

Innocent suffering and the sovereignty of God.

Who wrote Job?

Author
Anonymous
Written
c. 700 BC
Genre
Wisdom

Setting is patriarchal but composition date is debated — most modern scholars place the final form between the late monarchy and the post-exilic period.

Why Job was written

To wrestle with the question of why the righteous suffer, challenging the simple equation of suffering with sin, and revealing that God's purposes in suffering are beyond human comprehension — yet he is present in it.

Outline of Job

  1. 11–2: The heavenly prologue — Job's testing
  2. 23–37: Job and his three friends debate the cause of his suffering; Elihu speaks
  3. 338–41: God speaks from the whirlwind
  4. 442: Job's restoration

Key verses

Job 1:21Job 19:25-26Job 38:4Job 42:5

How Job points to Christ

Job's longing for a mediator (9:33) and a Redeemer who will vindicate him (19:25) finds its answer in Christ. Job's innocent suffering and ultimate vindication mirror Christ's passion and resurrection.

How Job begins

1There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

Read Job 1 →

All 42 chapters of Job

Keep exploring