This book is critical to Scripture because it deals with one of the hardest realities of life: God often seems silent when we are doing our best to please him and yet experience suffering. The question of why comes up again and again in life, even as it did for Job, one of the godliest people in the Bible who had no explanation for why he was suffering so terribly.
In Job, God is engaged in a dialogue with the devil over Job and the pain God allows to come into Job’s life. Ultimately, the book reveals God’s kingdom authority over life circumstances because not even the devil can do his dirty work without divine permission. As the book unfolds, God reveals things about himself that overwhelm Job. By the end, Job has
to repent and bow before God’s wisdom—a wisdom that he cannot understand, but that he knows is best because he trusts God.
One of the key truths to grasp from the book of Job is that we must trust God even when we cannot understand him, even when he is thoroughly confusing to us. The central statement in the book is one of Job’s closing
comments to God: “I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you” (42:5).
