Job's Crisis of Language: Power and Powerlessness in Job's Oaths

Abstract

When Job loses everything, it may seem that what he has left are words. Yet, testing the limits of language in his new situation through a series of curses and oaths, Job becomes increasingly aware that his previously powerful words have been sapped of their former force. Although commonly supposed that, in his final oath of ch. 31, Job effectively forces God to answer him, this article argues that Job's call for God's response is a ruse, based on his experience of God's silence and absence. In ch. 31, Job speaks seemingly powerful words, fully aware of their powerlessness; his aim is to invest them with the power they lack by convincing his hearers that they are in fact powerful.