Job's Wife Series

Because of his great novel, War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy became

one of the most famous Russians that ever lived. His fame and

fortune did not bring him happiness, however, because of his wife.

They were about as compatible as a porcupine and a bubble. She

loved luxury, and he hated it. She loved the plaudits of society, and

he sought to escape them. She just loved the use of wealth for

power, and he felt it was a cursed sin. She was so filled with

jealousy that she drove all his friends away from the home. She

even drove out her own daughter, and then rushed into Tolstoy's

room and shot the girls picture with an air-rifle.

For years she nagged, scolded, and screamed to get her own way,

and when he resisted she would fall to the floor in a fit with a bottle

of opium to her lips, swearing she would kill herself. Finally, at age

82, Tolstoy fled from his home into the cold not knowing where to

go. Eleven days later he died of pneumonia in a railway station

house.

I share this history, of a less than ideal wife, because most of the

commentators of history feel that Job's wife was in this same

category, or even worse. Way back in the early centuries of

Christianity, preachers were saying, Job's biggest tragedy was that

his wife was not visiting the kids when the tornado hit. Job lost

everything but his wife, and leaving her was Satan's most cruel

blow. Modern preachers say this same type of thing as a joke, but

many of the great theologians have meant it in all seriousness.

Augustine called her the devil's accomplice. Calvin called her a

Diabolical Fury.

No woman in history has been so severely condemned for so few

words. She only steps on the stage for a moment, and she utters

about ten words. On the basis of those few words she has been

psychoanalyzed by preachers and scholars, and they have

concluded, she was to Job what Judas was to Jesus. She was just a

terrible wife. Kuyper, the modern preacher and theologian,

expresses the pessimism of the centuries about her. He writes, "In

her the last spark of a woman's love, the last remainder of feminine

devotion, has been completely extinguished." God made man just a

little lower than the angels, but here was a woman who seems to be

just a little higher than the beast.

You women will be glad to hear that there is another, far more

merciful, view of this poor woman. William Blake, the English poet-painter,

produced a book of paintings depicting the major scenes of

the book of Job, back in 1825. He did not follow the lines of

tradition, and write her off as one of Job's problems. He portrayed

her at Job's side sharing in his suffering, in every scene. He

vindicated her against the scorn of the centuries. This made many

Bible expositors look more closely at the record of Scripture, rather

than tradition, and their closer look changed tradition.

For centuries nobody ever stopped to consider that the ten

children Job lost were also her children, and that as a mother, she

would have a more severe struggle with grief, even than Job had.

Plus, there is the fact that she now, on top of it all, has a husband

who is helpless, and apparently fighting a hopeless battle against a

dreaded disease. It is often more difficult to watch a loved one

suffer than to suffer yourself. For centuries men looked upon Job's

wife as an uninvolved bystander, who could have been a great

encouragement to poor Job in his time of need, but she blew it.

Nobody ever bothered to ask what she was going though.

Everybody talks about the great suffering of Job, but few ever talk

about the greater suffering of his wife.

Modern scholars, more sensitive to the grief she was trying to

cope with, see the whole account in a different light. They no longer

see her as a tool of Satan trying to get Job to turn on God. They see

her as a woman in despair who cannot take anymore of the

heartache of seeing her husband die a slow agonizing death. She,

therefore, urges him to end it quickly by cursing God. It was a

common belief that sudden death would result from cursing God.

She was saying that he should commit suicide. Her motive was

mercy, for she was advocating mercy killing.

Job clearly rebukes her for her desperate advice, and tells her it

is folly to be angry at God. You have to take the bad with the good,

and that is just life. "You buy the land, you get the stone. You buy