Job: The Faith to Challenge God; A New Translation and Commentary
Overview
Just as there was no man on earth like Job, there is no book on earth like the book of Job. In this new commentary, biblical scholar Michael Brown brings Job to life for the twenty-first-century reader, exploring the raw spirituality of Job, his extraordinary faith, his friends’ theological errors, the mysteries of God’s speeches, and the unique answers to the problem of suffering offered in the book of Job. Undergirded by solid Hebrew scholarship but written with clarity for all serious students of Scripture, the commentary provides an important introduction to the study of Job, a new translation, a series of theological reflections, and additional exegetical essays providing in-depth discussion of key passages.
Additional topics covered in the theological reflections include:
- Challenging God as an Act of Faith
- How Would Job Comfort a Sufferer?
- Who Was the Satan?
- Job and Jesus
- Job and the New Atheists
- Explores the emotional and theological dimensions of Job
- Highlights the book’s probing questions, wrestling with its assaults on the goodness and justice of God
- Gives special attention to a straightforward, verse-by-verse exegesis of the Hebrew text, focusing on the use of key terms and concepts
- Introduction
- Job: Translation and Commentary
- Theological Reflections
- Who Was the Adversary?
- Job and the New Atheists
- Challenging God as an Act of Faith
- Job and Jesus
- Is Suffering a Reward for Righteousness?
- The Danger of Holding to a Too-Rigid Orthodoxy
- Job and the Problem of Suffering
- How Would Job Comfort a Godly Sufferer?
- The Happy Ending of Job
- Exegetical Essays
- The Meaning of “In All This Job Did Not Sin with His Lips”
- The Chaos Monsters in Job
- The Meaning of hofaʿta in Job 10:3
- Job 13:15
- Job 19:25-27
- Job 24:18-25
- Job 42:6
The book of Job raises the question on the lips of every believer seized by pain and suffering: Why does God allow the righteous to suffer? Consequently, the book has become essential reading for comfort. But anyone who has spent time in the book of Job quickly learns that it’s a difficult read, both in terms of structure and content. Lay-level commentaries avoid the difficulties in favor of devotional themes. Scholarly commentaries get lost in the minutiae in the attempt to produce an exhaustive guide for the perplexed. It’s a noteworthy occasion, then, when a commentary on Job comes along that engages its oddities with both academic and pastoral skill, never losing sight of how Job’s plight applies to our own lives while tackling its challenges. Dr. Michael L. Brown has produced such a commentary. Dr. Brown wisely partitions his work into sections that, respectively, help the reader to navigate Job’s series of literary cycles, to discern the book’s theological pay-offs, and to drill down into interpretive sidebars. The essay on how Job is mishandled by the new atheism is especially important. There’s something for everyone here—scholar, pastor, and lay Bible student alike.
—Dr. Michael S. Heiser, Executive Director and Professor at Awakening School of Theology, host of the Naked Bible Podcast
- Title: Job: The Faith to Challenge God; A New Translation and Commentary
- Author: Michael L. Brown
- Publisher: Hendrickson
- Publication Date: 2019
- Pages: 450
- Resource Type: Commentary
- Topic: Job
Michael L. Brown holds a PhD in Near Eastern languages and literature from New York University. He has taught at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, the King’s Seminary, and Regent University School of Divinity. Brown is the author of 25 books and a leading Messianic Jewish apologist, the founder and president of the FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, NC, and the director of the Coalition of Conscience. He is also the host of The Line of Fire, a nationally syndicated, daily talk show.
