Hedged in, Hunted, Haunted, Hiding: Divine Presence and Absence in the Dialogues in Job

Abstract This article examines the complex conceptualization of divine presence and absence in the dialogue sections in the book of Job through seven categories, which exemplify a disjointed portrayal of God and the dissonance between Job’s perspective and that of the friends. The metaphors Job uses for divine presence are more dynamic: hedging, hunting, haunting, wounding, creating, and destroying. The friends reuse these same metaphors but repurpose them in the service of theological explanations, rarely speaking out of personal experience. Job alone voices the inexplicability that God is ignoring him and hiding his face, or simply inactive, whilst for the friends, Job’s experience of God’s absence is justifiable. Job’s disjointed portrayal of divine oppressive presence alongside absence can be explained by its rhetorical function, which is to demonstrate the depth of his suffering in order to persuade either God or the friends to alleviate it. Therefore, in addition to illuminating the multi-layered nature of comprehending conceptualizations of divine presence and absence in Job, broader implications are drawn for interpreting portrayals of God in the Hebrew Bible, in the recognition that the rhetorical force and circumstances of the speaker impact the reader’s evaluation and expression of God’s presence and absence.