At the Scent of Water

Book

J. Gerald Janzen. At the Scent of Water: The Ground of Hope in the Book of Job. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.

Reviewer

Eric Massanari, Pastor, Shalom Mennonite Church, Newton, KS

“There once was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job . . . .” To read these first words of the Book of Job, especially to read them aloud and taste their cadence on the tongue, is to evoke memories of other great stories that begin in like manner: “Once upon a time . . . ,” or “In the beginning . . . ,” or even “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . .”

Such words are invitations to open a door, cross a threshold, and embark on a journey beyond familiar times and places, although, as often happens with great stories, the journey sometimes wends its way very close to home. So it is, J. Gerald Janzen reminds us, with the great and terrible journey of Job.  

Janzen has proven to be a trustworthy guide for this journey. For several decades he has engaged this text in rigorous study, publishing in 1985 a detailed commentary on Job for the Westminster John Knox Press Interpretation series. In his more recent book, Janzen enters the story world of Job with a different orientation. While retaining the critical methods of a biblical scholar, he adds rich insights from such diverse sources as the poetry of Robert Frost, theories of developmental psychology, the philosophical musings of Alfred North Whitehead, and Janzen's own experiences and encounters with Joban suffering.

Rather than a chapter-by-chapter treatment of the text, Janzen takes a thematic approach, with the title revealing the book’s ultimate trajectory: toward hope. He suggests that the story of Job reflects the theological struggle experienced by the Israelites during the Babylonian exile.

This was partly a struggle between different understandings of God as reflected in the two great covenants -- the covenant with Abraham and Sara, and the covenant with Moses and the people at Sinai. Janzen describes the two covenants as reflecting different theological “default positions,” with the Abrahamic covenant representing a “personal clan God” and the Mosaic covenant representing a “cosmic high God.”

While the Mosaic covenant would have been the more functional mindset for the people prior to the exile, Janzen suggests that the experience of suffering during the exilic period undermined the reward-punishment foundations of that covenant. To find meaning in the midst of their struggle, the people turned to the theological heart of the much older Abrahamic covenant because it offered a God who remained steadfastly present in the face of suffering. 

According to Janzen, the story of Job reflects this very pattern and search for hope.

“It is as though God is inviting Job to take his place in a world whose dynamism, in all its potential for vibrant life and, yes, danger, bursts through human concerns for ‘security first,’ concerns that help to fuel the human preoccupation with order and laws and reward-punishment logics,” writes Janzen. “It is as though God is inviting Job to give up the logic of reward-punishment for a life-affirming strategy of risk-reward, in which affirmation of life in the face of all its vulnerabilities is the path to true participation in the mystery of existence” (109).

The book would be incomplete without the personal reflections offered in the epilogue.  Here, the author’s tone becomes more pastoral than scholarly, and the reader is reminded that Job’s struggle to affirm life is not only a mirror held up to the journey of the ancient Israelites, it is a very human journey that we all must travel.  The tale of Job wends very close to home indeed, as each of us longs for even the scent of water in the arid moments of our lives.

In this relatively slim volume Janzen covers much ground, and at times one might wonder if he is traveling too many directions.

However, the patient reader will be rewarded by the forays into seemingly disparate disciplines, because with each one Janzen manages to masterfully guide us along a side trail to a unique overlook on the expanse of the Joban narrative. Thus, this book will likely appeal to a wide range of readers, and it would lend itself as much to a seminary classroom as to an adult book study in a congregational setting.