How Job and Oedipus Handled Suffering

Imagine having over a billion dollars, thousands of people at the beckoning call, a perfect spouse and family, hundreds of HIV-negative love slaves, more cars than General Motors, and even getting along with the in-laws! When a person has this much going in his favor, he or she tends to forget about who allowed him or her to enjoy the joys of good fruit and instead begins to take life for granted. Unfortunately, none of the material gains made on this earth can be taken into eternity with him or her – not even the prized Corvette. On the contrary, if nothing went as expected and someone spends his or her life moaning and groaning about every situation as a result of misdeed and a total lack of remorse, then nothing good would seem to come out of life. The most common misconception is that destiny is the source of human suffering:  in other words, how we live and treat others determines how we die. Death has no escape no matter the individual’s piety, particularly if the individual is considered to be good or heroic. With the cases of Job and Oedipus, people can often make bad decisions thereby allowing adversity to enter and/or fail to understand the occurrence.

Human suffering indeed is not caused by any one condition; it is the result of several ailments in conjunction with lifestyle, location, or sometimes being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its source cannot be defined as one such instance, such as coronary heart disease. The Bible attributes suffering to Adam and Eve as a result of that first sin in Eden, of which Adam is forced to till the earth for food. Not getting off scotch-free, Eve is commanded to not only become submissive to Adam, but also she has to carry the load and experience pain by bearing children (Genesis 3:14-23).  Throughout the remainder of the Old Testament, other examples of suffering include Moses not being permitted to enter the Promised Land after leading a new generation of Israelites to it; Joseph’s disposal into a dry pit by his eleven brothers and left for dead; and the upright Job, whom has been tormented beyond that of any man not named Jesus Christ and rises from the ashes a more prosperous man than ever before.

To the naked eye, Job was the best man God had to offer because of his pious ways and to the person looking at him, this was the guy who they all knew was going to heaven from how he lived. The man treated everyone equally, took care of home, and more importantly, thanked Him for giving him all of his prosperity and success. One day Satan proposed to God that if Job had everything taken from him – home, cattle, children, and alas, his health – then he would curse God and want to die. As a result of the troubles, Job is urged by his wife to “curse God and die” (The Book of Job 412). If his life had not become bad enough, the statements his friends Zophar, Eliphaz, and Bildad have made further appall him. They foolishly accused him of committing a terrible sin, causing him to sit around in sackcloth and repent for all.

“Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak:  I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear:  but now mine eyes seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 91).

 In spite of it all, Job still kept the faith; he even suggests that in order to reap benefits, mankind must endure some trials and leave all faith in the Supreme Being.

On the contrary, Oedipus is generally a good guy except for one tragic flaw:  his hotheadedness. Here is a genius that can crack age-old riddles yet his country goes AWOL; it seems that he cannot be told anything. Even when he does seem to follow sound advice, it backfires at him. For example, he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother in addition to leaving the city as an outcast as opposed to entering as a ruler. He is suffering since he cannot fully understand his fate and is attempting to escape the future. Oedipus, in turn, is revealed as “a brother and father to his children in his house, husband and son to her who gave him birth; wife-sharer and the killer of his father.”(line 457). Because of his ill-tempered ways, he eventually kills his father Laios and marries his mother Jocasta. "Oedipus knew the famous riddles. He was a mighty king, he was the envy of everyone who say how lucky he'd been. Now he's struck a wave of terrible ruin. While you're alive, you must keep looking to your final day, and don't be happy till you pass life's boundary without suffering grief.”(line 1524)

As Oedipus should have learned, running from an issue simply causes more confusion and additional problems when it is finally encountered. Fate can be changed; however, if the spoken words are powerful enough for the hearer to accept at face value and he or she takes heed to them, then he or she deserves what is coming. In his case, all he had to do was a little bit of family history by retracing his lineage and he likely would have known Jocasta was his mother. Unfortunately, it took the death of Laios and the city of Thebes to turn against him to realize the transgression. Therefore the criminal prosecuted in this instance happens to be the king himself; he still would have refused to believe the townspeople.

Suffering is a natural part of human life:  we live; are pampered from birth until we are supposedly mature enough to enter the “real world” without being thrown in the midst like a pack of hounds; we get older and wiser; our bodies and minds fail during the twilight of life; and the inevitable death. Job shows how to endure the pain and is lauded as a hero, while Oedipus is labeled a wimp for running from his obstacles. Both men share an uncanny knack of listening to a wiser being and turning away from him at one point or another in the stories; therefore their true suffering is not a direct result of destinies, but instead from having the audacity to question or rebel. All of us will die one day, so being afraid of death should not be part of the equation; the drawn-out screaming and yelling we only see at the funeral home and the cemetery is primarily for show. Understanding that God allows bad things to happen to good people will free up a lot of the conflicts associated with suffering, including the stereotype of being alone.

Works Cited

The Bible. “Job”. World Masterpieces, Vol. 1. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 1973. 72-91.

Sophocles. Oedipus the King. http://www.legacyarchives.com/books/Sophocles.html

Behrens, Laurence and Leonard J.Rosen. “The Book of Job.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. New York: Longman, 2000.