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Jan 16 2007

She whose name is unspoken

Job’s wife has been much maligned and, in my opinion, misunderstood. Much of that misunderstanding is understandable, I suppose, since she is mentioned in only one verse in the entire book of Job and in that, we are not even told her name. In chapter 2, after all the calamities have fallen on Job and he is sitting in a pile of ashes scraping his sores with a broken piece of pottery, his wife comes to him. Verse 9: “His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

You can see why so many preachers and teachers love to heap abuse on her. She doesn’t give you a whole lot of reason to think she deserves better. But, I think she at least deserves another look.

Let’s consider Job’s wife, old what’s her name. We’re told that Job had seven sons and three daughters, which means we can safely assume that Job’s wife gave birth to those ten children, carrying them inside her for a grand total of 90 months… that’s 7.5 years that she was pregnant, plus another 20 years or so of carrying them around in her arms, feeding, bathing, and nurturing them just to get them into toddlerhood. With Job taking care of his flocks and other business interests, it was his wife who raised the children.

Then, in one day, they were all dead. There is arguably no grief greater than that of losing your own child. Job and his wife suffered that times 10. She was carrying that unthinkable pain when she came upon the sight of her husband… the man she loved and cared for and pledged her life to… having been struck down with some sickness that caused an outbreak of sores all over his body. Her grief was compounded by more grief. She surely thought that the only thing left for them both was to die and she looked at that prospect as a welcome relief to their pain.

“You think I’m a bitter woman, well, mister, I got a word for you:
You just hold that accusing tongue ’til you walk a mile in my shoes!
You know all about my husband. Well, we both suffered the same.
Now he’s the famous man and you don’t even know my name!”
—from “My Man’s Got the Blues”; Job: a Postmodern Opera of Biblical Proportions

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