The theology of Job certainly demands a late age and an advanced stage of reflection. One interesting point is raised by the employment, in the Prologue, of the figure of Satan. This personality, so fruitful a factor in speculation on the cause of evil, demands a careful study. It should be noted, first, that he is referred to as _the_ Satan, that is, "the Adversary"; it is a generic, not a proper, name. This creature is represented as appearing together with the angels in the presence of God, and although his designs are sinister and his suggestions unworthy, he is still a minister doing the will of God. This delegation of evil advocacy can be traced, from the idea that it is due to God Himself (2 Sam. xxiv. 1), to the work of the separate spirit who offered to entice Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 21), and then to the greater definiteness of our author. Beyond this book, again, the adversary is a darker character who has to be rebuked by God (Zech. iii.), and in the history of the Chronicler _the_ Satan has become "Satan," a proper name (1 Chron. xxi. 1; cp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 1); but we have to go outside the Old Testament Canon to get a completely dualistic opposition of God and Satan (Wisdom ii. 24).
The conception of God has passed, in this book, entirely beyond the tribal Deity Jehovah, and even beyond the ethical Personality known to the Prophets, to One who is felt to be unknowable; and yet withal Job clings to the idea that he shall one day see the face of the Redeemer who now hides Himself. As in the Psalms, the alleged idea of immortality (xix. 25 ff.) is not very definite, and so contradicts the general expectation of the book (vii. 9 f. x. 21 f. xiv. 10 ff. 20 ff. xvi. 22; xxi. 26; xxx. 23), that it must be taken to refer to Job's conviction that some vindication of his cause will be made here in this life. At the same time the idea of a future judgment which shall proclaim his innocence and the ill-desert of his sufferings, is so strong, that it sweeps death out of vision, and the hope of the future life hovers in the thought if it does not break into language.
A dispassionate examination of the solutions here offered to the problem of suffering shows that nothing really beyond a negative position is reached in this book. The speeches of Job must be taken to convey the author's opinions, and they are a most emphatic repudiation of the doctrine of Providence expressed by the three friends. They can only repeat the accepted notion that suffering is everywhere the cause of sin, and with scorn and indignation Job repudiates the charge, so far as he is concerned; he maintains his innocence and appeals to God as his witness; but the Witness is silent and there is no daysman betwixt them. Job's protest is not concerned with mere innocence, for in one magnificent passage he appeals to his beneficent life spent in the service of the poor and needy (xxxi.). The answers of Job leave the little system of Providence supported by his friends, completely discredited, and in this particular Jehovah sides with Job. The theophany and speeches of Jehovah do not, however, seem to convey any further contribution to the problem than perhaps the idea that for man it is insoluble, because he does not and cannot see the whole; and so nothing is left for man but to bear his griefs in silence and maintain his trust in God.