The Book Of Job

Neville Goddard 02-01-1963

Tonight we will speak on the Book of Job, possibly the most misquoted book in the world. I dare say all day long you use passages, and you aren’t aware you are misquoting this Book of Job. For no one knows who wrote the book. It bears the title of its hero, as do so many books of the Bible: the Book of Joshua, Nehemiah, Ezra, Daniel, Ruth – so many bear the name of the hero of the volume. That is the Book of Job. The word “Job,” so claim the famous scholars, by analysis means: “Where is my father?” You and I have heard it as “the persecuted one,” but the central point of the narrative is that Job was completely innocent – not guilty of any offense, but simply the victim of the most cruel experiment by God. The very last chapter reveals that it was all by God. Some scholar along the way, or some scribe, inserted some little story in the first chapter which is suspect, because they couldn’t believe that God could do that to man. So they claim that a pact was made between Satan and God, and God allowed Satan to do it: Satan the accuser, Satan the doubter. But Satan disappears in the very first chapter and never reappears. He does in the second chapter just for a moment, but he doesn’t in the forty-two chapters thereafter, not even in the epilogue. And so we know that the cruel experiment was by God.

Now, you are Job, I am Job, the world is Job – the world of humanity. And to approach it as if it were an object lesson in patience – patience under stress, under trial – is to go astray at the very start. That is not the purpose of the story. I hope I can get it over to you as I see it. If I were to place it in the Bible, I would place it at the very end of the Old Testament, for it seems to lead right into the revelation of the New Testament. But I am not rewriting the Bible or rearranging it – but were I to place it, that is where I would put it. It simply leads right into the unfolding of the vision as we find it in the gospels and the epistles.

First, if you are not familiar with it, let me just tell you a few of the highlights of Job. The scene is laid in Edom and all the characters are Edomites, renowned for their wisdom, semi-nomads. Job, as the story tells us, was an upright and very rich Arab sheikh, owning thousands of sheep, thousands of camels, hundreds of she-asses and oxen, numbers of servants and ten children – seven boys and three perfectly beautiful girls. So we are told in the story. It’s a prologue to tell us this much of the great hero who was Job.

Then come the four woes, based upon the pact between Satan and Jehovah. The first one comes in and announces the fact that the Sabeans came suddenly and slaughtered all the servants who were taking care of the sheep and took away all the sheep. While he was yet speaking, the second woe appeared and he said that they took away all the camels and slaughtered all the servants. Then comes the third woe: they took away all the oxen, the she-asses, and slaughtered all the servants. Then comes the fourth woe, that his children –all of them –were dining in the house of the oldest son, and while they were all together there came this mighty wind and crushed the four corners and the house collapsed and they were all killed, and he was the only one who escaped to come and bring the news to Job.

And Job rent his robe, shaved his head, threw himself upon the floor, and then said: “Naked I came into the world, naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return.” Then he blamed himself – not for the act, but for having said: “Naked I came into the world and naked I shall return.” He saw nothing to condemn in God, and so he did not see anything wrong that God had done.