Was Job Actually Patient?

Have you ever heard a reference to someone having “The patience of Job”? It is one of those phrases that floats around even among people who have never read the Bible. It is meant to describe someone who endures terrible suffering, seemingly without complaint and with perfect faith. That is the Job most of us think about.

The phrase is actually derived from the King James translation of a verse in the New Testament, where James says, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job” (James 5:11, KJV). The Greek word used by James was hypomonē, and it does not mean patience as calm, quiet, or slow to anger. It translates as “remaining under,” which is more like an active endurance — pushing from beneath a weight that should crush us, and not being crushed.

Modern translations are better: “the perseverance of Job,” “the steadfastness of Job,” are more accurate to the story, but the King James translators chose “patience” because, in 1611, the word still carried a meaning similar to the other words. Over four hundred years, the meaning of patience softened, and we were left with the idea of a Job who quietly took his medicine.

That picture of Job is reinforced because many of us only read the first few chapters of the story, and the quietly patient Job is there — in the opening. If we keep reading, we discover that for the remaining thirty-nine chapters, he is anything but patient. He wishes he had never been born. He accuses God of attacking him for no reason. He demands a trial. He calls his friends miserable comforters. And he never once feels like he deserves his suffering.

A quick reminder about genre. Job is poetry, a sort of theater production akin to Shakespeare — a blameless man, a wager in heaven that Job will curse God, his subsequent loss of everything, no help from his friends or family, and a complete restoration at the end.

The narrative structure breaks the drama into distinct acts that are meant to tell us stories about ourselves, instructive for when we endure the most common of human experiences…suffering.

One thing the book is wrestling with is worth thinking about while you read this post: whether suffering can be explained at all. Job’s friends are sure it can. They believe in a simple formula — good people are blessed, bad people suffer, so if you are suffering badly, you must have done something to deserve it. Most of us carry some version of that formula in our heads. It is in our nature to tie the explanation of suffering to something we have done, or something we could have done.

Job’s story blows that idea apart. Job is, the book tells us plainly, a good man (nay, a perfect man), and he is suffering. The formula doesn’t add up.

So, rather than coming up with my own formula for understanding suffering, as I normally would, I want to examine the four acts of the Book of Job and offer four ideas that may help us learn a key thing from Job.

How to Endure.

Act I — The Suffering (Job 1–3)

The first act of the book wastes no time bringing the suffering. Shortly after the wager between God and Satan, over the course of a single day, Job loses his oxen and donkeys to raiders, his sheep to fire from heaven, his camels to another raid, and then all ten of his children are killed when the house they were eating in collapses. The messengers arrive one on top of another, each breaking in before the last has finished, so it all lands at once. Then his health goes, his body covered in sores. His wife, who lost the same ten children, tells him to curse God and die… sheesh.

I hope we can all see the signal here. Job just experienced everything the author could think of that represents suffering.

Let’s take a look at how Job responds in the subsequent chapters:

Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. — Job 1:21 (KJV)

Let the day perish wherein I was born… Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? — Job 3:3, 11 (KJV)

At first glance, this does not seem like the same person. One is blessing the Lord and seems quite pragmatic, and the other wants to die and wishes he had never been born. Those feel very different. I even think we view the calm “blessed be the name of the Lord” Job as the faithful response, and the raw “why was I even born” Job as the moment someone’s faith fell apart. Yet, when we actually think about our most difficult moments, our moments of deep suffering, I think we can all admit that we vacillate between them both. In some moments, we tell ourselves it will be okay and that we will grow; in others, it is paralyzingly awful, and we aren’t sure how to go on.

The idea, at least for me, in this first act is simple. Our feelings, our responses to suffering, will swing between these two extremes, but one thing is clear: how we feel when we are suffering does not define whether we are faithful. In fact, our first concern when we or others are suffering should not be about faith. It should be about admitting we are suffering and that it sucks.

So when life falls apart — and at some point it will — we don’t have to fake being okay. I am convinced that God would rather hear the honest, angry prayer than a polite one we don’t mean. Crying out toward Him is not a step away from faith. It may be the most faithful thing we do on that day.

And when it is someone you love who is hurting, the hardest thing is to fight the urge to fix it fast — to explain it, to find the bright side. What they need first is for you not to flinch when they say out loud the unbearable things they are feeling.

Idea 1 — Suffering Sucks, and That is Okay

Act II — The Wrong Kind of Comfort (Job 4–27)

Job has three friends — Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar — and when they hear what happened, they leave their own homes and travel to be with him. The first thing they do is sit with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, saying nothing, because they can see how bad it is.

People often point to “sitting in silence” as the model of how to comfort someone. I’m not so sure. Sitting quietly for a week was partly just the mourning custom of the day. What actually mattered was simpler — they showed up. Our presence in times of suffering is a conduit for God’s presence to be felt in other people’s lives, and that is almost always the catalyst for relief.

Then Job’s friends screw up and open their mouths.

What follows is three long rounds of speeches, and they all run on the same idea. The friends are certain of the formula — God is just; God blesses the good and punishes the wicked, so Job’s suffering must be punishment for something. And that leads them somewhere cruel. If the formula is true and Job is suffering, then Job must have sinned. The more he says he didn’t, the more they decide he is lying on top of it. By the end, Eliphaz even invents specific sins that Job must have committed because his theology requires it.

Job eventually has enough of their accusations:

I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all. — Job 16:2 (KJV)

The friends were not bad men. They were good, faithful, certain men — and the certainty was the problem. They knew exactly how God worked, and Job’s life did not fit their understanding. Faced with a good man in undeserved agony, they had two choices: question the formula they had built their faith on, or question Job. They chose to blame Job.

The entire story is built to disprove their formulaic concept of God. We are told in the very first verse that Job is blameless. We saw the wager in heaven. We know, in a way the friends never could, that Job’s suffering has nothing to do with his sin. That is the point the author keeps hammering: suffering is not a scoreboard. Bad things are not a reliable signal that someone did something to earn them. Good people suffer terribly, and the formula that says otherwise is a lie that piles guilt on top of pain.

This is especially true for how we view ourselves. When we are the ones suffering, we have to stop reading our own circumstances and pain as proof that God is punishing us or that we failed some test.

…for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. — Matthew 5:45 (KJV)

Jesus is describing blessings and suffering; it runs both directions. If the sun doesn’t rise along the lines of who deserves what, neither do the rains. We need to kill the instinct we all have to explain our suffering in terms of wrongdoing or failure — even when we have made mistakes that have worsened our situation, that does not mean God is punishing us for our mistakes. The second act of Job’s story emphatically reminds us that we should not correlate suffering with sinfulness.

Idea 2 — Suffering is not Correlated to Sin

Act III — Where is the Daysman (Job 9–31)

By the middle of the book, Job is not just grieving. He is building a case through his conversations with his friends that demands the same thing: a trial. He doesn’t want comfort anymore. He wants his day in court with God.

Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. — Job 13:3 (KJV)

He knows how impossible that is. You cannot drag God into a courtroom. There is no judge over the two of them, no one with the standing to make it fair. And Job puts his finger on exactly what is missing:

Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. — Job 9:33 (KJV)

A daysman is a mediator — a go-between who could stand between Job and God, put a hand on each of them, and see that things are made right. Job is crying out for someone to close the impossible distance between a suffering man and the God he needs to face. He doesn’t have one in that moment, but believes one will eventually come.

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. — Job 19:25–26 (KJV)

Jesus Christ is the daysman between God and us — fully God and fully man, the one who can actually bridge the divide between God and us. I believe there are three primary reasons why Jesus can give us true hope, and not just passive wishing that suffering will pass.

First, Jesus understands.

The Gospel records that Jesus felt “sorrow even unto death” as he began his suffering in Gethsemane. While in Gethsemane, Jesus sweated blood, and He begged for the cup to pass. On the cross, He cried out and asked why God had forsaken Him. An anguished prayer was not beneath the dignity of Jesus Christ. So, when we cry out, we are crying out to a God who has stood exactly where we are standing.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. — Isaiah 53:4 (KJV)

Second, Jesus can heal.

The blind, the lame, the grieving, the dead. Jesus not only taught about enduring suffering; He alleviated it. I believe He still does. Not always in the way or on the timeline we would choose, but the same power that healed in Galilee is not weaker now.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. — Isaiah 53:5 (KJV)

Third, Jesus can give us strength.

There are seasons in life when Jesus does not lift our load — Job’s story is an example. In those seasons, His grace is a strength to carry what we never thought we could on our own.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. — Matthew 11:28–30 (KJV)

A yoke is the wooden frame that joins two oxen so they can pull a load together. When Jesus says, “Take my yoke,” He is not offering to lift the burden off us completely — He is offering us a chance to take it up with Him, and with that action, He promises we can carry more than we ever thought possible.

One thing that makes the concept of the daysman difficult for anyone suffering is that He is not physically present. This is where we can help most. When we take on Christ’s yoke, we also agree to help others when they are suffering. To show up. Recently, my wife lost one of her closest high school friends. My wife was in pain, but even though she was overwhelmed with sadness, she immediately showed up for her friend’s family. Her willingness to bring relief to the family led to small miracles and inspirations, bringing healing and relief. This is the power of Christ, the power of the yoke that we share with Him.

Engaging with Christ and asking for help will not always change our circumstances, but in my experience, it will change us. The weight gets lighter because we are no longer the only ones holding it. Our minds, when given a glimpse of the hope Christ brings, can be strengthened in the face of suffering.

Idea 3 — Hope is not Passive, it Requires Action

Act IV — The Whirlwind (Job 38–42)

For most of Job’s story, God stays silent. Job demands his hearing over and over, and the silence continues for so long you start to wonder if anyone will answer at all. Then, finally, God speaks — out of a whirlwind, and it does not go as Job expected.

God never once explains anything to Job. He never mentions the wager. He never tells Job why any of it happened. Instead, He starts asking Job questions about the world Job lives in, but does not understand:

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?… Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? — Job 38:4, 31 (KJV)

He points to the foundations of the earth, the stars, the storehouses of the snow, the wild animals no one can tame. God shows Job something true: the world runs on more threads than any of us can see, and holding it all together takes a knowledge no human mind could comprehend. Job wanted an explanation. God’s answer, in effect, is that the explanation Job is asking for is not something he could even fathom. The reasons run all the way down into the machinery of eternity, and we are simply not built to see that far.

I don’t think this is a cop-out from God. I think it is a mercy. We ask God why, and we mean it — but if He laid out the whole answer, every thread and consequence woven through time and eternity, it would overwhelm us and most likely not satisfy us anyway.

What is important is that Job encounters God. The whirlwind is a symbol of an unexplainable encounter. For most of us, our encounters are not as chaotic as a whirlwind — they are more subtle: an unexpected experience, a word from a stranger, a moment of inspiration that brings relief, a feeling of peace we cannot fully account for. The same active hope that keeps us reaching for God is what puts us in the path of these encounters. We pray, we serve, we keep showing up even when it is awful — and somewhere along the way, God meets us. Not always with answers, but with Himself.

After this encounter with God, something changes in Job:

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. — Job 42:5 (KJV)

Job never gets his answer. He gets God in an incomprehensible whirlwind instead. The trial he demanded for thirty chapters finally comes, and it turns out the encounter was what he actually needed — not an explanation. We are never going to get the full why in this life, because it will not help us as much as encountering God does.

Idea 4 — We May Never Understand Why, but We Can Encounter God

Then the play comes to its end, and God settles things with Job’s friends:

Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. — Job 42:7 (KJV)

The friends had defended their perception of God with certainty. Job accused God to His face and demanded a trial. And it is Job — the one who raged and fought — whom God says spoke rightly. However, rather than bask in finally being vindicated, Job instead prays for the friends who failed him — and then, as should happen in any good drama, his full restoration comes. Job ends with more than he began with: flocks, family, and a long life.

Even this ending is meant to teach us something. Job is given ten new children, but of course, no one believes that ten new children replace the ten he buried. A parent who loses a child and later has another does not feel the second as a replacement for the first. The restoration that comes after our suffering will never erase the suffering; those scars last forever.

The nice, tidy ending of Job is meant to be a reminder that there can be joy, even amid the scars of suffering, and in life beyond it.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Podcasts

Faith Matters Podcast: Encouraging faithful inquiry amid complexity.
Comeback Podcast: Sharing Stories of those who left the church and came back.
Unshaken with Jared Halverson: In-depth historical and doctrinal studies for those wrestling with tough questions.
Leading Saints: Insights into modern leadership and discipleship, often addressing nuanced challenges.

Books

Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days (Vols. 1–2): Thorough Church history, incorporating modern research.
Planted by Patrick Q. Mason: A compassionate approach to faith challenges.
The Crucible of Doubt by Terryl and Fiona Givens: Thoughtful exploration of faith reconstruction.
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman: A deeply researched biography reflecting Joseph’s certainty and complexity.
Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants by Steven C. Harper: A summary of the history and context for each section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Blogs and Articles

Gospel Essays: Accessible discussions suited for individual and group study.
Faith Matters: Engages contemporary faith topics with candor.