by
Damien F. Mackey
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The
Testament of Job is thought
to have been written somewhere between the C1st BC and the C1st AD. It adds
details not to be found in the biblical Book of Job, such as the spectacular
one that Job was a veritable king of Egypt.
Importantly,
for this study, the Testament of
Job gives more prominence to Job’s wife, even providing her with a
personal name – a detail missing from the Book of Job. And that name is, as it
happens, cognate with “Sarah”, the name of Job’s wife (see my Part Two).
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Prologue
To the reader
who wrote the following, recalling an alternative (for Job as Jobab of Genesis)
to my thesis that the prophet Job was Tobias, son of Tobit:
Hi Damien, while
I find this topic intriguing, I am finding difficulty in linking Tobias whose
father was Tobit and his mother was Anna (apparently), but there is no
indication of Job(Tobias) sons. I am at the moment trying to find a genealogical
path to Sarah. So far her father was Reuel(Raguel) and mother was Edna.
….
what do you say
concerning Gen 36.33. It does not explicitly describe the genealogy of Jobab as
Job. However, his lineage can be traced through his father Zare (Gen 36:33),
whom the Edomite genealogy identifies as a son of Raguel (Gen 36:16–17), one of
the sons of Esau by Ishmael’s daughter Basemath (Gen 36:10). …. [,]
I replied in
favour of my view for Job’s having lived at a time much later than Jobab’s:
…. Names get
duplicated. For example, the geographical names in the Book of Job, usually
attributed to Edom, can also be found in the region of Bashan where I locate
Job. I noted this fact in “Job’s Life and Times” [https://www.academia.edu/3787850/Jobs_Life_and_Times].
…. If you carefully read [this article], you will see from that quote of
Delitzsch that the type of fertile farmland that the Book of Job attributes to Job
can by no means be located in sterile Edom. But it does fit Bashan, where
Arabic traditions place the home of Job – and so do I. The Book of Job is
closest in style and content to Jeremiah (and Lamentations), sometimes almost
word for word with Jeremiah (who, I have suggested, may have been young Elihu
of the Book of Job). It clearly belongs to the c. C7th BC. Also, the mention of
a squadron of Chaldeans is fitting in that late era, but not at all in the era
of Jobab of Genesis.
….
Added to all that,
the mention of the Adversary “Satan” seems to be a late concept, also occurring
in Zechariah 3:1. And C. Seow has described the Book of Tobit as being the “most
substantial early influence” on the Book of Job, see: http://bookofjob-amaic.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/book-of-tobit-is-most-substantial-early.html
That is most
fitting if Job was the son of Tobit, as I am arguing. ….
[End of e-mails]
The Testament of Job
According to this
late apocryphal document we learn that Job’s wife of his sufferings - i.e., the
wife whom we had encountered most fleetingly in the Book of Job - was named Sitis. The Jewish Encyclopedia article
on the subject thus summarises the rôle of this Sitis in the tale (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8694-job-testament-of):
For seven years (48 years;
Paris MS.) [Job] sat on a dunghill outside of the city, while his wife, Sitis,
who had been brought up in royal luxury, served as water-carrier to win bread
for herself and him. Afterward (after 15 years; Paris MS.), when she was no
longer allowed to take him bread, Satan, disguised as a bread-seller, went to
meet her, asking, as the price of three loaves of bread for her starving
husband, for the hair on her head; to save her husband from famishing, she
consented (comp. Shab. 59a; Akiba's wife). At last, when under the influence of
Satan, her patience gave way, and in an impassioned appeal, full of pathos
(contrasting her former riches and glory with her present state of gloom and
poverty) and poetic grandeur, she called upon Job to curse God and die (comp.
LXX. Job ii. 9). Job, however, indignantly rebuked her and challenged Satan,
who had been hidden behind her all this while, saying: "Only a coward
fights with frail woman; come forth and wage war with me!" Then Satan broke
forth into tears, and said, "I yield to thee who art the great
wrestler," and left him, abashed (ch. iii.-vi., ed. Kohler; ix.-xxvii.,
ed. James; comp. B. B. 16a: "The grief of Satan was greater than that of
Job"). As to Job, the great "athlete" or "wrestler,"
see IV Macc. vi. 10, xvii. 15-16; and Philo [where Job is frequently
characterized as such; comp. Heb. x. 32. ….
[End of quote]
According to my Part One of this
series, Job’s wife had intended in 2:9 for her husband, not “to curse God and
die”, as according to the Testament of
Job above, but to “bless God and die”.
But the special jewel that I draw
from The Testament of Job is that the
name here attributed to Job’s wife, Sitis
(var. Siti, Sitidos), has the Arabic
meaning of “Lady” (سيتي).
And so with the name, “Sarah” (שָׂרָה) (http://finejudaica.com/pages/hebrew_names.htm):
“Hebrew name meaning “noble lady, princess”.
So,
possibly, the Testament of Job has preserved, in the Arabic
name Siti[s], meaning “Lady”, the actual name of Job’s much tested wife,
Sarah, meaning “Lady”.
C.L. Seow