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Job’s moral development runs parallel to another transformation, this one concerning his grasp of metaphysical, or cosmic, knowledge. Unlike Job’s evolution into righteousness, which requires him to change his oblivious approach to the here and now, his ascendance to wisdom demands a change of a very different sort: a new understanding of the afterlife.
This marks a shift in the dialogues as well. Initially concerned with the emotional world of a single man, they soon widen to encompass the plight of all mankind and the nature of immortality. Indeed, at its philosophical core, the Book of Job sets the historic stage for the epic battle between the cosmic forces of light and darkness. Each of these terms appears thirty-three times in the book, not counting synonyms, constituting over twenty percent of their usage in the Hebrew Bible—ten times their relative share. No other topic comes close to being as important to deciphering the text. To become a sage, Job must appreciate the place of these two opposing elements in creation. Only then can he grasp their existential dimension and achieve a renewed understanding of the meaning of life.68
This cosmic odyssey begins with a Job who knows only darkness. It appears prominently in his descriptions of death, which he views as a descent into a dark cosmic underworld:
I go where I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and of the Shadow of Death. The land of utter gloom, as darkness itself, of deep shadow without order, and which is manifest as darkness.69
Job perceives Sheol, or the world of the dead, as “darkness incarnate.” Sheol also evokes the oceanic Abyss: “Darkness that you cannot see, and an abundance of waters that cover you,” leaving no doubt that in its cosmology, Job’s cosmic pit is one of water, submerged in the deepest heart of the primordial Sea, beneath the plate of the earth.70 God clearly points to this identity: “Have you entered into the springs of the Sea? Or have you walked in search of the Abyss? Have the gates of Death been opened unto you? Or have you seen the doors of the Shadow of Death?”71 Thus, Job’s underworld is devoid of agonizing fires or eternal punishments. It is, instead, a place of unconscious sleep, utterly lifeless, where “dead things (refaim) whirl under the waters.”72 Job sees the descent into Sheol as ebbing into nothingness.73 Indeed, the shade of man that is imagined latent in Sheol maintains no autonomy, identity, or consciousness, as Job tells God: “You will seek me, and I will be absent”;74 “I will be as though I had not been.”75
It is not surprising, then, that the early Job sees death as an egalitarian destiny. To him, death is the great equalizer of men, a place to which both the righteous and the wicked, the mighty and the weak, go down together: “He [God] destroys the innocent and the wicked,”76 Job says, and reiterates: “Together, on the earth they lie.”77 Like the early Job’s pagan concept of God, his view of death is in keeping with primitive mythology; as Alice K. Turner writes: “The dead spirits in these early stories lead a… completely egalitarian existence. There is no division yet into privileged or blessed souls versus sinners or common folk.”78 This is Job’s idea of death throughout the first half of the book. Clearly, this view of “the world to come,” lacking any posthumous reward and punishment, precludes the possibility of divine justice. Subjected to tragedy himself, Job becomes adamant that sinners may enjoy a better life than the worthy, and if all men are destined for the same fate after death, what motivation can there be for adhering to God’s way? As long as Job holds to this view he is unable to transcend his agony and despair.
Job’s emphasis on eternal darkness as a physical place reflects a vertical concept of the cosmos, with the Abyss of the underworld below, the heights of Heaven atop, and the Earth standing between them. This cosmology runs like a leitmotif throughout the book: “Higher than Heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know?”79 As Job deepens his investigation of the cosmic order, the true significance of this dichotomy is revealed. He begins to understand that the identification between death, Sheol, and the Abyss is rooted in the biblical story of creation. It recalls the primordial Sea of black waters that existed before the formation of Heaven and Earth, described in Genesis as “darkness upon the face of the Abyss.”80 The Book of Job teaches that, over the course of creation, this monstrous Sea was “barred” or locked beneath the plate of the Earth and became the cosmic underworld. Nowhere else in the bible is this ever explained. The epic feat that created Sheol is evident from identifying Sheol with yam, the mythic Sea, and tehom, the Abyss: “By his power [God] stilled the Sea; by his understanding he smote Rahab. By his spirit Heaven was spread over it; his hand jabbed the copper bar”;81 and “Who shut in the Sea with doors…. When it emerges [to Earth] it exits from a womb…. When I fixed my limit to it and set bars and doors. When I said, This far you may come, but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!”82 Job recalls the same feat when he asks: “Am I the Sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?”83
It is this picture of creation that establishes the element of light in the metaphysical equation, for as we are told repeatedly in the chapters that comprise Job’s cosmic inquiries, God’s ceiling of the Sea by erecting the canopy of Heaven is identical to a sealing in of its inherent darkness. This was accomplished through the creative act of “Let there be light!” Accordingly, the Book of Job states: “Behold, he spreads his light upon it and covers the bottom of the Sea”;84 “He has compassed a circle upon the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness”;85 “He sets an end to darkness”;86 “He binds the floods from overflowing; and he brings the latent into light.”87 Since only the creation of light made possible the formation of life, the primordial darkness of Sheol is, by default, identical with death.
The idea of light soon marginalizes the egalitarian destiny of Sheol and offers a parallel, heavenly, destiny. For the brilliant, crystalline Heaven, with its sun, lightning, and stars, is not the only place in which light is located. According to the text, human beings also have an inner spark of light—variously conceived of as a “lamp” or “candleflame”—which is connected to this eternal, celestial element. This spark will constitute Job’s new, secret appreciation of man’s eternal nature. But his discovery is gradual and hesitant. It begins, tentatively, when he challenges the finality of Sheol. As Job concludes the first round of dialogues, he suddenly speaks of Sheol as a temporary hiding place rather than a permanent repose:
O that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past… and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my shift I will hope, until my replacement comes.88
Here, Sheol is no longer a dead end. Previously, Job said he would be absent in death, but he now declares the exact opposite: “You will call, and I will answer you; you will long for the creation of your hands.”89 As the next stage of his progression, Job expresses a revitalized desire for a meaningful immortality, the first time he has entertained such a possibility: “O that my words were now written! O that they were fixed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and with lead in the rock forever!”90
Job’s breakthrough, however, occurs in a single statement: “The lamp of the wicked is put out.”91 Here the author imparts to us a crucial clue to the cosmic nature of man. He teaches us the positive from the negative. If the light of the wicked is extinguished, then by implication the light of the righteous is not. Indeed, under further scrutiny, we discover that the extinguishing of light is a dire fate that neither Job nor any debater ever attributes to the virtuous or to man in general anywhere in the entire book. The introduction of this novel idea pertaining to man’s “lamp,” or inner light, defines the differentiating factor between the souls of the good and those of evil—fate is no longer blind. Now Job can entertain the possibility of divine justice when, in chapter 28, he demands to be treated fairly by God for the first time, insisting, as Elie Wiesel puts it, that “man is not a toy.”92
As with his moral development, Job’s friends facilitate the process by which he arrives at this epiphany regarding the afterlife. Job’s reference to man’s “lamp” follows an image hinted at by Elifaz, regarding a sinner whose “flame will dry up.”93 Bildad as well adds to the sinner’s fate in the underworld, which is common to all mankind, a further type of extinction:
The light of the wicked shall also be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The light shall be dark in his residence, and his candleflame shall be put out on him…. He shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the cosmos.94
Zofar, too, reiterates this idea: “Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures; an unlit fire will devour him.”95 With their help, Job comes to realize that the righteous man and the sinner do not share the same fate. The former’s inner light shines on after his death, whereas the latter’s is extinguished.
The “candleflame” light of man, conjured up in these quotes, is a spark of the cosmic light of Heaven. Both lights defy the darkness of the underworld, and both exist forever. They are beyond the reach of death. Indeed, Job’s idea of a lamp, like Bildad’s candleflame, correlates with the biblical idea of man’s highest soul, or neshama, which is “a candleflame of the Lord.”96 By stressing the importance of this component, Elihu and God finalize the differentiation between the virtuous and the sinful, as God states: “From the wicked, their light is withheld.”97 They introduce, in effect, an additional concept of eternal life, defined as an ideal existence. How does God relate to man? asks Elihu, and he answers: “He will deliver his lifeblood from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo, all these things works God oftentimes with man. To save his lifeblood from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of life.”98 The preservation of one’s lifeblood (nefesh) in this verse is merely a prerequisite to achieving a higher realization of oneself: “For with you is the fountain of life: in your light shall we see light.”99 In these quotes, just as in common English, the word “life” changes its meaning from temporal life on Earth to life eternal.100
