Copyright © 1978 by
Westminster Theological Seminary, cited with permission.
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE MYTHOLOGICAL
ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JOB
ELMER
SMICK
THE
book of Job, like a microcosm of the Old Testament
bears witness to the will and purpose of the God who
created
Iand rules over nature and all creatures, especially
his crowning
creature man. In Genesis 3 as a result of the
work of the Temp-
ter God must put in effect
the death penalty of Genesis 2:17.
But
only the Tempter, the Serpent, is cursed. Man gets a some-
what suspended sentence as far as the death penalty
goes but
with immediate punitive effects. The book of Job
brings us a
step closer to the mystery of godliness by adding a
new dimen-
sion to the concept of
punitive suffering. The ancient Near
Eastern
documents from Babylonia and
punitive aspect of suffering but are shallow in
the way they deal
with the problem.l
Man as a sinner must humble himself before
the gods who are often perverse or not interested
or they are
incapacitated. But attention to both
the continuities and discon-
tinuities between the worship of
Yahweh and the paganisms of
the Old Testament world is an important feature of
O.T.
hermeneneutics.
H. W. Wolff in his chapter entitled "The
Hermeneutics of
the Old Testament" in the series of essays on
that subject edited
by Claus Westermann
says:
The more distinctly the old Oriental religions
are recon-
structed before our eyes, the
more clearly we see that the O. T.
actively resists the attempt to
understand it in analogy to the
cults of its environment.
This is all the more surprising since
the connection of
general world view, of profane
and sacral usage, of Cu1tic
institutions, yes even of prophetic
phenomena, is constantly
becoming clearer" (p. 167).
1 Marvin H. Pope in the Anchor Bible 15 ( LVI-LXXIII) has a good
summary of the parallel literature.
213
214
To this may be added the observation that the
mythological
elements in Job conform remarkably well with the
religious
expressions from contemporary sources. But careful
attention to
certain features in context will show that any
special problem
these allusions may appear to pose for the
monotheistic outlook
of the author of this book is superficial. Our
present pur-
pose is to defend this last statement. Here we use
the term myth
in its traditional sense -not as another way of
expressing the
truth2 but as the way a
polytheistic people understood deity.
In
this sense, to see wide mythological commitment, as some
have been prone to do3, results in as much
misinterpretation as
does the attempt to ignore mythological expression
to protect the
scriptures from such "contamination."
ing into a piece of
monotheistic literature because the language a
is infused with the idiom of a primitive substratum
is poor meth-
odology. It is true that sometimes
it is impossible to tell when
the terms are mere figures and when they represent
the view of
the speaker.4 We must be guided by the
thrust of the context.
The language of mythology is inherent in every
language from
every age and is often used in religious contexts
that are strongly
monotheistic.5 The Jews in Bablyon borrowed pagan festival
names for their religious calendar. Fanatically
monotheistic Jews
embellished their synagogues with zodiacal mosaics
borrowed
from Roman art depicting the sun god riding his
chariot.6 Mat-
thew
for Satan simply as an idiom without a thought
given to its
origin. Isaiah and Ezekiel, both monotheists, were prone
to using
mythological allusion as a vehicle
through which they communi-
cated their messages.7
Nature is a theme which frequently evoked
mythological lan-
guage: the storm, fire, the
sea, the heavens and the earth and
2 John L. McKenzie in his article "Myth
and the Old Testament" (CBQ
XXI,
265-282) following Cassirer defines myth in this way
but it assumes
a unique set of presuppositions.
3 Pope seems to take this position. He takes
issue with R. Gordis's
statement that Job takes monotheism for granted
(AB 15, XXXIX).
4 See the quotation from T. H. Gaster below.
5 John Milton drew heavily on Greek mythology to
enrich his poetic
imagery even in his picture of creation.
6 BASOR 228, 61 fl. i
7 Isaiah 14 and 27, Ezekiel
28.
MYTHOLOGICAL
ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JOB 215
creatures in both spheres. Job 3:8 begins with a
reference to
an occult practice involving the celebrated
Leviathan. Regarding
the day of his birth Job says:
May those who curse days curse that day,
those who are ready to arouse
Leviathan (NIV).
Dhorme says "those who
curse days" may refer to other suf-
ferers like Job who also
cursed the day of their birth. But in light
of the parallelism the expression more likely
refers to profes-
sional cursers like Balaam.
Job appears to be making a play on
the similar sound of the words yam, "sea," and yom, "day," and
the parallel between Leviathan, the sea monster and
the Yamm
as a deity in Canaanite mythology.
Job, in a cursing mood, employs the most vivid
and forceful
proverbial language available to call for the
obliteration of that
day.8 The figure then is of
an awakened monster of chaos who
could ,swallow that day. According to some
mythological notions
such swallowing of the sun and moon brought about an
eclipse!
There
is no way of knowing how valid Job considered the work
of such cursers but in his negative confession Job
presents him-
self as a monotheist who rejected current mythological
concep-
tions of the sun (31:26-28).
Job s error, for which he can
scarcely be excused, was in damning the day of
his birth, ques-
tioning the sovereign purpose
of God. Job in his attempt to
understand his theology in the light of his
immediate experi-
ence, while constrained to
speak only the truth before God, came
perilously close to cursing God to his face as the
Satan had pre-
dicted. His friends on the
other hand uttered many perceptive
truths. Paul could quote Eliphaz
in I Corinthians 3:19.9 What
they said, however, did not necessarily apply to
Job. It becomes
increasingly clear that they had no
concern for Job and as he
said were only mouthing words to curry God's favor.
Their
original conciliatory attitudes quickly become
harsh and vin-
dictive. The words of the dialogue
then are not normative and
so we must consider the mythological allusions in
that light.
8 Although NEB renders
8b. "those whose magic binds even the
monster. . . ," the same stem of the verb '
dead in Sheol in Isaiah
14:9.
9 Job
216
Even so, it is difficult to tell when a speaker
uses mythic terms
metaphorically. Demythologizing was a
process that was prac-
ticed in Israel.10
But there are continuities as well as discon-
tinuities between the normative
theology of
rounding nations. Our procedure will be to
examine some pas-
sages in which mythological. expression
uniquely serves the pur-
pose of the book. In some cases this reverses the
effect of poly-
theism and shows Job's God is Sovereign Lord over all
creation.
Also
mythopoeic language may provide a "sensus plenior" to the
Divine speeches which implies Yahweh's victory
over the Satan.
This
is more tenuous but if valid it helps us understand better
the enigmatic words of Yahweh which are so
important as a key
to understanding the book.
Perhaps a distinction should be made between conscious de-
mythologizing and simple metaphor.
For example, Psalm 121
appears to be a conscious demythologizing, a
polemic against
the cosmic mountain motif and the notion of many
patron deities.
Since
the pagan deities are no-gods (Ps. 5: 4) where can one
turn for help? The psalmist says:
When I lift up my eyes to the mountains
where does my help come from?
My help comes from Yahweh,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
The
psalmist conceives of Yahweh as the patron deity:
He will not let your foot slip. . . .
Yahweh watches over you. . .
Yahweh will keep you from all harm. . .
We
think immediately of Eliphaz's taunt of Job in 5:1
"Call
now, is there any who will answer you, and to which of
the Holy Ones will you turn ?"
These "holy ones" are the bene ha 'elohim of
the prologue.
The
divine council motif may be considered an ideological con-
tinuity but the authors of Job
and Psalms 82 and 89 have intro-
duced a discontinuity in the
way they handle the concept. The dis-
10 See Albright's development of this idea
in Yahweh and the Gods of
MYTHOLOGICAL
ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JOB 217
continuity can be appreciated in terms of the
Hebrew hierarchy of
'elohim. There is only one creator--all the qehal qedosim
fear
him and none can be compared with him (89:7, 8).
Men are
'elohim to the animals, rulers and judges are 'elohim to
ordinary
men and the heavenly beings to men. In the
mythology there
were lesser divine beings created by the cosmic gods
to serve
them. They are sometimes available at patron deities
or personal
intercessors and were general
lackeys in the divine assembly.
In
Job 33 Eliphaz speaks of such an intercessor calling
him a
mal'ak11 (messenger) and a melis (interpreter).
Both Job and
his friends believe that among such "holy
ones" a man might
find a defender. Three times Job mentions such a
one, feeling
the need for an arbiter (
vindicator (
the ideological preparation for the mediatorial work of the
Christ
who could stand between God and man, sharing the nature
of each, as Job says in
the two of us."
The book of Job is replete with vivid imagery
based on the
mythic literature deeply engrained in the language and
passed
on through generations. There are too many
examples to do more
than sample a few themes. A widely used theme is the
quelling
lof Chaos known in west
Semitic literature as Yamm (Sea) and
in
called Rahab (the
boisterous), Tannin (the dragon) and Levi-
athan (the serpent) also
playa part.
In
ment by God and says:
Am I Yamm
(Sea) or Tannin
that you set a guard over me?
The
tales of the conquest of Yamm, Tannin, and Lotan by Baal
and Anat are well known.
The Babylonian Tiamat is killed by
hero gods who then proceed to create the land and
sea from the
pieces. The west Semitic literature provides no
creation account
but stresses the control of the sea by the weather
God, Baal
11 The same term is used in Ugaritic for the lackey gods. Cf. A. Herd-
ner, Corpus des tablettes en Cuneiformes alphabetiques, 1.3.17-21; 3.4.76-
80, etc.
218
(Ugaritic texts 68,
129, 137).
Job and his friends knew well
the west Semitic myths. But were they committed to
them as
part of their view of deity? The only way we can
know is from
the total thrust of their words.
A look at the chaos terminology in the first
part of chapter 9
will help us capture the thrust of Job's concept of
deity. Accord-
ing to Job, El is indeed a
God of profound wisdom and cosmic
force and as such is too much for mere man. In verses
5-13 he
moves mountains and shakes the earth off its
foundations--the
earthquake. He speaks and the sun doesn't rise -the eclipse.
He
seals up the stars from sight--movement of the stars and
planets. He stretched out the heavens and
trampled on the back
of Yamm (bomote yam)--creation and overcoming of Chaos.
He
made the Bear, Orion, Pleiades, and the southern chambers
and when angry even the cohorts of Rahab cower at his feet. Job
here describes a deity who is unique when compared
with what
we know of any single contemporary god. The Ugaritic El is a
character variously represented. Sometimes he is a
forceful lone
patriarch living in a tent, at other times a
frightened deity who
is forced to give up the young Baal to the
messengers of Yamm.
Baal
can take things in his own hands and destroy Yamm
with
the weapons supplied by Kothar
wa-Hasis.12 But then Baal is
killed by Mot. The issue is always sovereignty. E1 and the divine
assembly are faced with the question of ascribing
kingship to
Yamm. Baal asserts kingship
not only by eliminating Yamm but
by demonstrating his power in the storm. This west
semitic
story was imported to the east where Marduk, chosen as king by
the gods, asserts kingship by slaying Tiamat.13
The point is that Job's God asumes
all the functions of the
gods whether Baal, El, or Yamm.
Job's El is never subordinated
to any of the bene ha'elohim. In 9:8 he exercises his
creative
power all by himself (lebaddo). The line is the same as
in Isaiah
44:24.
He is not only a deity who does not share his power and
12 See H. L. Ginsberg's
translation of the Baal-Yamm Cycle in ANET,
p. 131.
13 Yahweh's lordship over Chaos is the
theme of Psalm 29. There the
bene 'elim are called to honor and
worship the one who controls and sits
enthroned forever over the flood (29:10).
MYTHOLOGICAL
ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JOB 219
authority but he performs his numberless wonders
while being
invisible (verse 11).
When he passes me I can't see him.
When
he goes by I can't perceive him.
The psalmist expresses a similar discontinuity
in Psalm
89:5-8.
The heavens praise your wonders, O Yahweh,
your faithfulness also, in the assembly of the holy ones.
For who in the skies above can compare with
Yahweh?
Who is
like Yahweh among the heavenly beings?
In the council of the holy ones God is greatly
feared;
he is more awesome than all who surround him.
O Yahweh, God of hosts,
who is like you?
You
are mighty, O Yahweh, and your faithfulness surrounds
you.
As
in Job and Isaiah this theme is linked to God as Creator for
it is precisely at this point the psalmist
describes Yahweh as
Creator
of the heavens and earth and the One who rules over
the surging sea, crushing Rahab
and all his enemies. In his
creating and saving power he is unique and
incomparable. The
psalmist's God also had that mysterious quality of
invisibility.
Was
it not this quality that disturbed his idolatrous contem-
poraries when they chided. "Where
is your God?" (42:3, 10;
79. 10). Psalm 115.2 reads.
Why do the nations say,
'Where is their God?'
Our God is in heaven;
he does whatever
pleases him
But their idols are silver
and gold,
made by the hands
of men.
B.D.B. notes that when 'ayyeh is so used, the answer
nowhere is expected. Even though ineffectiveness
may be the
point of Psalm terminology invisibility is in mind in
Job. Job is
asserting that his God is both invisible and
all-powerful.
Turning now to another theme in Job 5:7 where
the KJV
and RSV read:
But man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward,
it is better to translate:
220
Man is born to trouble
as sure as Resheph's sons soar
aloft.
Who
are "Resheph's sons"? Is this a metaphor
for flames,
sparks or lightning? Resheph
is equated with Nergal, the Meso-
potamian god of pestilence and the
netherworld. In Deut 32:24
the word is parallel with qeteb (destruction) and in Hab 3:5
with deber (pestilence), and the plural is used of lightning in
Ps
78:48. In Ps 76:4, however, "the reshephs"
(arrows) of the
bow are in apposition to the shield, the sword and
the battle.
In
Ugaritic Resheph is called
"Lord of the arrow," either refer-
ing to his skillful use of
lightning or his attendance upon arrows
in flight. Just as Death's firstborn (Job
bodies of wicked men, so here the sons of Resheph are active
trouble makers. On Resheph
T. M. Gaster observes:
When Resheph is said (Hab 3:5) to attend upon Yahweh, or
when the pangs of love are
described as "fiery reshephs"
(Song of Songs 8:6), do the writers really have
in mind the
figures of the Canaanite
plague-god of that name, or is this
simply a case of metonymy? This
is a problem which I will
not even attempt to
resolve, but it must at least be mentioned.14
From my point of view Gaster
is asking the wrong question.
It
makes little difference whether the figure of the plague god
is in mind or not. Habakkuk is using a highly
anthropomorphic
figure of Yahweh. The real question is, did Habakkuk
believe
Yahweh
existed in the form of a warrior and did Job and Habak-
kuk believe Resheph or Resheph's sons really
existed as gods?
That
must be answered in the light of other things these writers
say.
Job 26 is replete with mythological allusions--the
denizens
of Sheol, Zaphon othe cosmic mountain: Yamm and Rahab, all in
a cosmography with some rather sophisticated
observations.
Verses 5-14 may be rendered:
The spirits of the dead writhe,
the Waters below and their denizens.
Sheol is naked in God’s
presence,
Abaddon is uncovered.
14 Myth,
Legend and Custom in the Old Testament, p. xxxvi, as quoted
in W. Michel's Mythological
Expressions in the Book of Job, p. 8.
MYTHOLOGICAL
ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JOB 221
He spreads out Zaphon
over emptiness;
he hangs the earth on nothing.
He wraps up the waters in his clouds;
yet the clouds do not burst under the weight.
He covers the face of the full moon
spreading his clouds over it.
He marks out the horizon on the face of the
waters
for a boundary between light and darkness.
The pillars of the heavens quake
stunned at his rebuke
By his power he churns up the sea,
by his skill he pierces Rahab.
By his breath the heavens become fair;
his hand pierces the gliding serpent.
And these are only the outer fringes of his
power;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his
might?
Buttenweiser in his famous comment
on verse 7 said: "Our
author, though naturally ignorant of the law of
gravitation, had
outgrown the naive view of his age about the
universe, and con-
ceived of the earth as a
heavenly body floating in space, like the
sun, moon, and stars. It is not surprising to meet
with such a
view in the book of Job when one considers the
advance astron-
(omy in
Pythagoras
of Samos, in his travels in
acquired the knowledge of the obliquity of the
ecliptic and of
the earth's being a sphere freely poised in space.
. . Job 38:6
bears out rat he: than contradicts the conclusion tha: the writer
of Job had attained a more advanced view of the
universe, since
the question, 'Whereon were its foundations set?'
shows that
he no longer shared the primitive notion that the
earth was
resting on pillars erected In the sea.15
Both Buttenweiser and Dhorme contend "the north" (saphon)
is the celestial pole formed by the seven stars of
Ursa Minor
from which the movement of the universe was believed
to pro-
ceed. Two observations are
needed. First--the cosmography is
not in itself the purpose of the passage. Again
God's power is in
focus. Secondly--we cannot ignore what Ugaritic literature
tells about
15 M. Buttenweiser,
The Book of Job, 1922, in loco
16 Actually Mons Casius due north of
222
The cosmic mountain concept is related to Sinai
as the place
from which God reveals himself and
place.17
Psalm 48: 1 & 2 says:
Great is the LORD and
most worthy of praise,
in the city of our
God, his holy mountain.
It is beautiful in
elevation,
the joy of the whole earth.
Like the utmost heights
of Zaphon is
the city of the
Great King.
Eschatological
LORD's house is established at the head of the
mountains with
all the nations flowing to it, where the LORD is
enthroned and
rules over a world of universal peace (cf. Isaiah
24:23).
The passage which most closely approximates Job
26:7 is
Isaiah
14:13, 14. Here the King of Babylon desires to place
himself where the Most High dwells.
You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven:
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I
will sit on the mount of assembly.
On the slopes of Zaphon
I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
There is a difference in the way the two
passages use Zaphon.
In
the mouth of the pagan king it is used quite literally to mean
the mount of assembly which, indeed, reaches into
the heavens
and is the divine abode. But in Job the choice of
words points to
metonymy. I came to this conclusion before I
noticed that Clif-
ford makes a similar observation in a footnote.
Clifford
states:
Zaphon's meaning seems to be
practically "heavens." N6tek
elsewhere is used of
"heavens" in the Old Testament and it
forms a reasonable merism with ‘eres in the passage from Job.
It is easy to imagine the development of the
meaning of
his marvelous dwelling built. This explains why the
Hebrew word
sapon means north. Compare
17 See The Cosmic Mountain in
ard Clifford.
MYTHOLOGICAL
ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK OF JOB 223
Zaphon, under Israelite impulse, from "mountain
(dwelling
of God)" to "heavens (dwelling of
God)."18
It may also be that the heaven being like a
dome-shaped
canopy which may be stretched out was associated with
the
similarly shaped mountains as represented in the
glyptic art.19
So
the mountain of all mountains is the mountain which God
stretched out like a canopy which is his dwelling
place -the
heavens.
Even though mythopoeic
language is used there is a hint that
the author is demythologizing. In contrast to 7:12
where he
said "Am I Yamm. that you set a guard over me" here in 26:12
the definite article is used with yam which shows the writer did
not consider it a proper name.
So I would not agree with Fohrer
who over-literalizes the
cosmic picture and suggests pillars must be supporting
the
heavens nor would I agree with Buttenweiser who moves in the
opposite direction. Buttenweiser
may not be wrong in 38:5,
where Yahweh uses the figure of the earth as a
building with
foundations and a cornerstone and asks Job "On
what were its
footings set?"--an
indication that this was considered a mystery.
The
purpose of the writer is not to tell us how much he knew of
the cosmos but to tell how powerful God is. Job is
saying El is
the God of the heavens and the God of the
earth--the God of
nature. Stretching out the heavens over emptiness and
hang-
ing up the earth on nothing
are bold figures both derived from
actions common to man. The marvel is that he can
do these
things with nothing for support. Other marvels of
nature are
also attributed to his vast power and dominion. He
fills the
clouds with water and they do not burst. He uses the
clouds as
a drape over the face of the full moon.20
He marks out the
circle of the horizon as with cosmic calipers. By a
mere word he
makes the mountains shake and by his power he controls
the
raging sea and its monstrous creatures. And all this is
only a
whisper of his power, only the fringe of his
dominion.21
18Ibid., 162, fn. 85.
19 Ibid., 96, top.
20 In verse 9 kisse’ (throne) should be read kese' (full moon) on the
basis of Psalm 81: 4 and Proverbs 7:20.
21 As early as 1957 Dahood
suggested derek sometimes means "power"
224
Understanding the mythological background
sometimes ac-
complishes just the opposite of
what is assumed. Rather than
show ideological commitment to the pagan way of
handling the
mysteries of nature it throws the discontinuity
into relief and
helps us appreciate how monotheistic the writer was.
For ex-
ample: Sheol, the realm of
Mot in Ugaritic where Baal enters
and is powerless, is open before God so that its
denizens tremble
--a uniquely biblical concept that fits only
monotheism.
Generally
the mythology allots to the gods their separate
domains. There are the gods of the heavens and
the gods of the
earth. With Baal dead Ashtar,
the Rebel god, is permitted by
El
to attempt to sit on Baal's throne but not having the stature