(Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 2.reihe) JiSeong James Kwon - Scribal Culture and Intertextuality - Literary and Historical Relationships Between Job and Deutero-Isaiah-Mohr Siebeck (2016)

JISEONG JAMES KWON
Scribal Culture
and Intertextuality
Forschungen
zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe
85
Mohr Siebeck
Forschungen zum Alten Testament
2. Reihe
Herausgegeben von
Konrad Schmid (Zurich) • Mark S. Smith (New York)
Hermann Spieckermann (Gottingen)
85
JiSeong James Kwon
Scribal Culture
and Intertextuality
Literary and Historical Relationships
between Job and Deutero-Isaiah
Mohr Siebeck
J i S eong J ames K won , born 1977; 2010 Master of Divinity,Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,
USA; 2012 Master of Theology, 2016 PhD in Biblical Studies, Durham University, UK;
currently Editor/Lecturer in Holy Wave Publishing & Academy and External Lecturer in
Pierson School of Theology, Pyeongtaek University, South Korea.
e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-154398-2

ISBN 978-3-16-154397-5
ISSN 1611-4914 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 2. Reihe)
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©2016 by Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, Germany, www.mohr.de

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Preface
This book is a revised version of my thesis which was written at the Depart
ment of Theology and Religion, Durham University and which was finally
completed in 2015. First of all, I am especially grateful to Prof. Stuart Weeks
who first suggested that I consider Judean scribal culture in the Hebrew Bible
in this doctoral research. I would like to express my thanks to my secondary
supervisor Prof. Robert Hayward whose comments made up for many defi
ciencies in the entire argument. I am grateful to the members of the oral-
examination committee Prof. Walter Moberly and Dr. Katharine Dell. It was
a great privilege to encounter Prof. John Sawyer in the Old Testament semi
nar, and he kindly read my thesis and provided valuable feedback. Lastly, I
wish to specifically thank Prof. Konrad Schmid, who kindly read my word
and pointed out significant errors and offered to publish this research.
Furthermore, I thank my collegues Kumiko Jean Takeuchi and Tom Judge
who studied together under the same supervisor during the past three years.
Many members of Waddington Street URC always welcomed me and gave
me love and courage. Especially, Mr. Malcolm Reay, Prof. Charles Cran-
field/Mrs. Ruth Cranfield, Dr. Arthur Banister/Mrs. Judy Banister, Mr. Doug
las McMurtrie, and Revd. Steven Orange carefully read each chapter and
corrected numerous mistakes in my thesis. The summary of Chapter 2 was
presented in the Wisdom Literature session and the summary of Chapter 4 in
the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament/Ancient Israel Studies session at the ISBL
in conjunction with the annual conference of the EABS at Vienna in 2014. I
also gave a paper from the summary of Chapter 2 at the 2014 annual SBL
conference in San Diego, CA. Other related topics were presented in the Dur-
ham-Sheffield-Manchester PG Day and in the PG Meeting at Durham Theol
ogy & Religion department.
Finally, I am immensely grateful to my parents, both Hyukki and my
mother Jin who have always supported me and have prayed for me. For more
than eight years and with greater devotion than any others, my wife GeumSuk
has supported me with priceless sacrifice and patience, and my children,
Jonathan and Sophia have provided pleasure and happiness at home.
April 2016 JiSeong J. Kwon

Contents
Preface............................................................................................................... VII
Abbreviations.................................................................................................... XV
Introduction...................................................................................1
A. T he S c o p e o f th e T e x t ...................................................................................... 1
I. The Book of J o b ........................................................................................ 1

II. Deutero-Isaiah........................................................................................... 3
B. L ite r a tu r e R e v ie w ............................................................................................ 4
C. A s s u m p tio n s a n d M e th o d s .............................................................................. 6
Part I.
The Distinctive Relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah
Chapter 1. The Comparative Study between Job and Deutero-

Isaiah .......................................................................................... 11
A . S c h o la r ly C la im s ............................................................................................11
I. Types of Resemblance............................................................................ 11
1. Vocabulary......................................................................................... 12
2. Style and Form................................................................................... 14
3. Theme and Motif................................................................................16
II. Types of Explanation Offered................................................................ 18
1. Explicit and Intentional Reference.................................................. 18
2. Implicit Reference............................................................................. 20
3. Reference to a Common Literary Source........................................ 21
B. C r itic a l R e f l e c t i o n s .......................................................................................23
I. Limits of Literary Reference.................................................................. 24

1. The Nature of Ancient T exts............................................................24
2. Analogy.............................................................................................. 25
3. Dating Texts.......................................................................................26
a) Literary D ating............................................................................ 26
b) Dating of Job and Deutero-Isaiah...............................................28
II. The Misuse of Intertextuality................................................................. 30
1. Theory of Intertextuality..................................................................30
2. Intertextual Study in the OldTestament...........................................33
3. Intertextual Study in Job andDeutero-Isaiah................................... 37
C. C o n c lu s io n ................................................................................................... 39
C h a p te r 2. R e se m b la n c e s b e tw e e n Jo b an d D e u te r o -I s a ia h ........41
A . E x a m in in g C o m m o n T h e m e s a n d T e r m s ..................................................... 41
I. Theodicy and Suffering Servant.............................................................41

1. Theodicy............................................................................................ 42
2. Suffering Servant.............................................................................. 44
II. Creation and Monotheism...................................................................... 47
1. Creation.............................................................................................47
2. Monotheism....................................................................................... 52
III. Terms Linked to Common Themes........................................................55
1. Terms of Suffering Servant............................................................. 55
2. Terms of Creation............................................................................. 58
IV. Conclusion................................................................................................59
B. E x a m in in g P a r a lle l E x p r e s s i o n s ................................................................. 60
I. “Mighty in power” (Job 9:4; Isa 40:26)............................................... 60

II. “He who alone stretched out the heavens” (Job 9:8; Isa 44:24).......... 62
III. “Beyond investigation” (Job 9:10; Isa 40:28)....................................... 63
IV. “What are you doing?” (Job 9:12; Isa 45:9)........................................65
V. “The hand of Yahweh has done this” (Job 12:9; Isa 41:20)............... 66
VI. Conclusion................................................................................................68
C. C o n c lu s io n ..................................................................................................... 69
C h a p te r 3. Jo b an d D e u te ro -Isa ia h in th e H e b re w B ib le .............. 70
A. P e n ta te u c h a l a n d D e u te r o n o m is tic T e x t s .................................................. 71
I. Job and Pentateuchal/Deuteronomistic Texts....................................... 71

II. Deutero-Isaiah and Pentateuchal/Deuteronomistic T exts.................. 76
B. T h e B o o k o f J e r e m ia h ....................................................................................80
I. Job and Jeremiah.....................................................................................80

II. Deutero-Isaiah and Jeremiah.................................................................. 82
C. F ir s t a n d T h ird I s a i a h ...................................................................................85
I. Job and First/Third Isaiah....................................................................... 85

II. Deutero-Isaiah and First/Third Isaiah...................................................86
D . T he B o o k o f P s a lm s ..................................................................................... 89
I. Job and Psalm s.........................................................................................89
II. Deutero-Isaiah and Psalms..................................................................... 91
E. T h e B o o k o f L a m e n ta tio n s ............................................................................ 93
I. Job and Lamentations.............................................................................. 93

II. Deutero-Isaiah and Lamentations...........................................................94
F. O th e r P r o p h e tic B o o k s ................................................................................. 96
I. Job and Prophetic Books..........................................................................96

II. Deutero-Isaiah and Prophetic Books...................................................... 99
G. O th e r W isd o m B o o k s ................................................................................. 102

I. Job and Proverbs..................................................................................... 102
II. Job and Ecclesiastes............................................................................... 104
H . C o n c lu s io n ................................................................................................. 105
Part II.
Scribal Culture in Job and Deutero-Isaiah
Chapter 4. Scribes and Scribal Culture.................................... 111
A . S c r ib e s a s th e L i t e r a t i ............................................................................... 112
I. The Extent of Literacy.......................................................................... 112
II. Scribes in Ancient Near East and Israel............................................ 114
III. The Identity of Scribes........................................................................ 116
1. The Continuity of ScribalCulture...................................................116
2. Critical Reflections....................... 116
3. Identity and Definition of Scribes 118
B. S c r ib e s a s B ib lic a l W r ite r s ....................................................................... 123

I. IDO in the Hebrew B ible....................................................................... 123
II. Scribe in the Second Temple Period....................................................125
III. Interpretation of Biblical Evidence......................................................128
IV. Jeremiah, Baruch, and Scribe: Jeremiah 3 6 .........................................129
C. E d u c a tio n , T e x tu a lity , a n d E n c u ltu r a tio n ................................................ 134

I. David Carr.............................................................................................. 135
II. Karel van der Toorn...............................................................................137
D. C o n c lu s io n ................................................................................................... 139
E. F u r th e r D is c u s s io n : S a g e s, P ro p h e ts, a n d S c r ib a l C u ltu r e ..................... 140
I. Sages as Biblical W riters...................................................................... 141

II. Prophets as Biblical Writers..................................................................145
III. Form Criticism and Scribal Culture................................................... 147
IV. Summary.............................................................................................. 149
F. C o n c lu s io n ................................................................................................... 150
Chapter 5. Intellectual Background of Job and Deutero-Isaiah 151
A. L ite r a r y D e p e n d e n c e o f J o b on F o r e ig n L i t e r a t u r e ................................152
I. Sumerian Literature...............................................................................152
II. Babylonian Literature........................................................................... 153
1. Dialogue between a Man and His G o d ........................................ 154
2. The Babylonian Job......................................................................... 154
3. The Babylonian Theodicy.............................................................. 156
4. A Pessimistic Dialogue between Master and Servant................ 157
IILUgaritic Literature.................................................................................158
IV. Egyptian Literature..............................................................................159
1. The Debate between a Man and His S oul....................................160
2. The Protests of the Eloquent Peasant........................................... 161
3. The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord to the Lim it........................162
V. Evaluation: Job’s Reference to Foreign Literature............................. 163
B. L ite r a r y D e p e n d e n c e o f D e u te r o -Is a ia h on F o r e ig n L ite r a tu r e 164

I. Babylonian Inscriptions........................................................................ 164
1. The Cyrus Cylinder......................................................................... 166
2. Babylonian Royal Inscriptions.......................................................166
II. Assyrian Prophetic Oracles...................................................................167
1. Oracles of Encouragement to Esarhaddon................................... 169
2. The Covenant of Assur and Reports toAssurbanipal.................... 170
III. Egyptian Prophetic Literature............................................................. 171
1. The Prophecy of N eferti..................................................................172
2. The Words of Khakheperreseneb....................................................173
IV. Evaluation: Deutero-Isaiah’s Reference to Foreign Literature....... 174
C. J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h in A n c ie n t N e a r E a s te r n C u l t u r e ..................... 176

I. General Influence..................................................................................176
1. Personal and National Suffering.....................................................176
2. Literary Dialogue in Job..................................................................177
3. Self-Presentation Form in Deutero-Isaiah.................................... 178
II. Differences in Context, Idea, and Thought........................................ 180
III. Considerations...................................................................................... 182
D . C o n c lu s io n ................................................................................................. 183
Chapter 6. Scribal Ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah.....................184

A . S h a r e d I d e a s in J o b a n d D e u te r o - I s a ia h .................................................185
I. God’s Control.........................................................................................185
1. God’s Control in Jo b ....................................................................... 186
2. God’s Control in Deutero-Isaiah.....................................................189
3. Plan and Determinism.....................................................................191
II. God’s Freedom...................................................................................... 195
1. God’s Freedom in Jo b ..................................................................... 195
2. God‘s Freedom in Deutero-Isaiah.................................................. 198
3. Mosaic Covenant............................................................................. 201
III. Implications........................................................................................... 206
1. Problems of God’s Judgment and Justice..................................... 206
2. Differences between Job and Deutero-Isaiah................................208
B. T he C o n te x t o f J o b a n d D e u te r o - I s a ia h ..................................................... 209
I. Job and Deutero-Isaiah in the Context of the Persian Period...........209

1. Historical Literature...................................................................... 210
2. Hebrew Poetry................................................................................ 211
3. Prophetic Literature........................................................................212
II. Job and Deutero-Isaiah in the Context of the HellenisticPeriod....215
1. Daniel................................................................................................216
2. Ecclesiastes......................................................................................217
III. Implications........................................................................................... 218
IV. Job and Deutero-Isaiah in the AncientNear Eastern Context............ 221
1. Divine Intervention........................................................................221
2. Personal Piety and Divine Sovereignty......................................... 223
C. C o n c lu s io n ...................................................................................................224
Conclusion..................................................................................................... 225
Bibliography...................................................................................................... 229
Index of References.......................................................................................... 253

Author Index..................................................................................................... 269
Subject Index..................................................................................................... 275
Abbreviations
Biblical Texts, Translations, and Versions

For biblical texts and general ancient texts, I use the abbreviations in “The SBL Handbook
of Style” (§8.1-3).
Aq Aquila
ESV English Standard Version
JPS Jewish Publication Society: Tanakh 1985 (English)
LXX Septuagint (Greek version of the Old Testament)
LXE English Translation of the Septuagint Version
MT Masoretic Text of the Old Testament
NAB New American Bible
NIV New International Version
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
RSV Revised Standard Version
Syr Syriac Peshitto
Tg T argum
Vg Vulgate
1 lQtgJob Targum of Job from Qumran, Cave 11
Monographs, Journals, Periodicals, Major Rej'erence Works, and Series
AB Anchor Bible
ABD The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Ed. D. N. Freedman. New York:
Doubleday, 1992.
ABRL The Anchor Bible Reference Library
ABS Archaeology and Biblical Studies
A EL M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book o f Readings, 3
vols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1973-1980.
ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Ed. J. B.
Pritchard. 3rd ed. with supplement. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969.
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
AOS American Oriental Society
ASTI Annual o f the Swedish Theological Institute
ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments
BA The Biblical Archaeologist
Balentine S. E. Balentine. Job. Smyth & Helwys Bible commentaries 10. Macon:
Smyth & Helwys, 2006.
BCOTWP Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms
Bl Biblical Interpretation
XVI Abbreviations
BP.AJCA BI: A Journal o f Contemporary Approaches

BLS Bible and Literature Series
BM Before the Muses: An Anthology o f Akkadian Literature. Ed. B. R.
Foster. 3rd ed. Bethesda: CDL Press, 2005.
BN Biblische Notizen
BO Biblica et Orientalia
BR Biblical Research
BS Bibliotheca Sacra
BWANT Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
BWL W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1960.
BZAW Beihefte zur ZAW
CANE Civilizations o f the Ancient Near East. Ed. J. M. Sasson. 4 vols. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995.
CB Coniectanea Biblica
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBR Currents in Biblical Research
Cheyne T. K. Cheyne. Job and Solomon: Or the Wisdom o f the Old Testament.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1887.
Clines D. J. A. Clines Job 1-20. WBC 17. Dallas: Word Books, 1989; Job
21-37. WBC 18A. Nashville: Nelson, 2006; Job 38-42. WBC 18B.
Nashville: Nelson, 2011.
COS The Context o f Scripture. Eds. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger. 3 vols.
Leiden; New York: Brill, 1996-2002.
CQR Church Quarterly Review
CR Currents in Research
Crenshaw J. L. Crenshaw. Reading Job. Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2011.
CRINT Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
CTJ Calvin Theological Journal
CTR Criswell Theological Review
CTSSR College Theology Society Studies in Religion
DBCI Dictionary o f Biblical Criticism and Interpretation. Ed. S. E. Porter.
London: Routledge, 2006.
DCH The Dictionary o f Classical Hebrew. Ed. D. J. A. Clines. 8 vols. Shef
field: Sheffield Academic, 1993.
Dhorme E. A. Dhorme. Commentary on the Book o f Job. Trans. H. Knight.
London: Nelson, 1967.
DOTWPW Dictionary o f the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings. Eds. T.
Longman III and P. Enns. Downers Grove: IVP, 2008.
Driver-Gray S. R. Driver and G. B. Gray. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on the Book o f Job together with a New Translation. ICC. Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1921.
DTS Dallas Theological Seminar
ECC Early Christianity in Context
EJ Encyclopaedia Judaica. Eds. F. Skolnik and M. Berenbaum. 2nd ed.
26 vols. Detroit: Macmillan & Keter, 2007.
ET Expository Times
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FIOTL Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen
Testaments
GBSOTS Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Old Testament Series
Good E. M. Good. In Turns o f Tempest: Reading o f Job, with a Translation.
Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.
Goldingay J. Goldingay. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40-55.
Ed. D. Payne. ICC 2 vols. London: T&T Clark, 2006
Gordis R. Gordis. The Book o f Job: Commentary, New Translation and
Special Studies. New York: JTSA, 1978.
Gray J. Gray. The Book o f Job. Ed. D. J. A. Clines. Sheffield: Sheffield
Phoenix Press, 2010.
GTJ Grace Theological Journal
Habel N. C. Habel. The Book o f Job. OTL. London: SCM, 1985.
HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon o f the Old Testament. Ed. L. Kohler.
Leiden; New York: Brill, 1994.
Hartley J. E. Hartley. The Book o f Job. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.
HB1S History of Biblical Interpretation Series
HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology
HCOT Historical Commentary on the Old Testament
HS Hebrew Studies
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
HSS Harvard Semitic Studies
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
IB Interpreter's Bible Commentary
ICC International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of
the Old and New Testaments
IRT Issues in Religion and Theology
ITQ Irish Theological Quarterly
IVP Inter-Varsity Press
JANER Journal o f Ancient Near Eastern Religions
JAOS Journal o f the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal o f Biblical Literature
JBQ Jewish Bible Quarterly
JCS Journal o f Cuneiform Studies
JEOL Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch - Egyptisch Gezelschap Ex Oriente
Lux
JH S Journal o f Hebrew Scriptures
JJS Journal o f Jewish Studies
JLCR Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion
JNES Journal o f Near Eastern Studies
JP Journal fo r Preachers
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JSO T Journal fo r the Study o f the Old Testament
JSOTSup JSO T, Supplement Series
JTS Journal o f Theological Studies
JTSA Jewish Theological Seminary of America
KAT Kommentar zum Alten Testament
LAI Library o f Ancient Israel
XVIII Abbreviations
LBS The Library of Biblical Studies

Longman III T. Longman III, Job. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament
Wisdom and Psalms. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.
LHB/OTS Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
LSTS Library of Second Temple Studies
MDOG Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Geselleschaft
MP Modern Philology
NCB New Century Bible
NCBC New Century Bible Commentary
NCoBC New Collegeville Bible commentary
NERTOT Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Ed. W.
Beyerlin. London: SCM, 1978.
NIB New Interpreter's Bible Commentary
NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament
NIDOTTE New International Dictionary o f Old Testament Theology and
Exegesis. Ed. W. VanGemeren. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997.
NODE The New Oxford Dictionary o f English. Ed. J. Pearsall. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998.
NTT Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift
NTIC New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
OAC Orientis Antiqui Collectio
OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis
OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology
OCD The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Eds. S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth,
and E. Eidinow. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012.
ODCC The Oxford Dictionary o f the Christian Church. Eds. F. L. Cross and E.
A. Livingstone. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997
OTL Old Testament Library
OTM Old Testament Message
OTMs Oxford Theological Monographs
OTP Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near
East. Eds. V. H. Matthews and D. C. Benjamin. New York: Paulist
Press, 1991.
Pope M. Pope. Job. AB 15. New York: Doubleday, 1965.
PRS Perspectives in Religious Studies
PUP Publications of the University of Pretoria
RB Revue Biblique
RBS Resources for Biblical Study
RE Review & Expositor
SAA State Archives of Assyria
SAA 3 Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetiy and Literaiy Miscellanea. SAA v.
3. Helsinki: Helsinki UP, 1989.
SAA 9 Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies. SAA v. 9. Helsinki: Helsinki UP,
1997.
SAACT State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts
SAK Studien zur Altagyptischen Kultur
SB Studia Biblica
SBL Society o f Biblical Literature
SBLDS Society o f Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SBLSS Society o f Biblical Literature Symposium Series
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
SEA Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok
Seow C. L. Seow. Job 1-21: Interpretation and Commentary. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2013.
SGKA Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums
SHBC Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentaries
SHR Studies in the History of Religions
SHS Scripture and Hermeneutics Series
SJT Scottish Journal o f Theology
SOTS Society for Old Testament Study
SOTSMS Society for Old Testament Study Monograph Series
SPCK Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
SPOT Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
SVT Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
TA Theologische Arbeiten
TB Tyndale Bulletin
TDOT Theological Dictionary o f the Old Testament. Eds. G. J. Botterweck,
H. Ringgren, and H.-J. Fabry. Trans J. T. Willis, G. W. Bromiley, and
D. E. Green. 15 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974-2006.
Terrien S. L. Terrien. Job. Commentaire de l’Ancien Testament 13. Geneve:
Labor et Fides, 2005.
TLOT Theological Lexicon o f the Old Testament. Eds. E. Jenni and C.
Westermann. Trans. M. E. Biddle. 3 vols. Peabody: Hendrickson
Publishers, 1997.
TS Theological Studies
Tur-Sinai N. H. Tur-Sinai. The Book o f Job: A New Commentary. Jerusalem:
Kiryath Sepher, 1967.
TVZ Theologischer Verlag Zurich,
UCOP University of Cambridge Oriental Publications
USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Supplements to VT
Watts J. D. W. Watts. Isaiah 34-66. WBC 25. Nashville: Nelson, 2005.
WAW Writings from the Ancient World
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
ZAW Zeitschrift fu r die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Miscellaneous
BH Biblical Hebrew
DI Deutero-Isaiah
hpx hapax legomenon (lit. ‘being spoken once’)
K Kethib
MSS manuscripts
Q Qere
UP University Press
Introduction
The book of Job and the section of Isaiah known as Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40-55)
have traditionally been considered in the context of different traditions, wis
dom and prophecy respectively. Although they belong to different literary
genres, most biblical scholars have pointed out that there is no question about
the fact that the two books have a distinctive literary and historical relation
ship. To establish the relationship between the two books, they have focused
on presenting reasonable links based on vocabularies, expressions, forms,
genres, motifs, and themes, and have concluded that Job was influenced by
Deutero-Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah depended on texts from Job. In these claims,
linguistic similarities have convincingly sustained the possibility of the liter
ary dependence between biblical texts, assuming historical dates and places in
which the two books were written.
A. The Scope of the Text
Before reviewing comparative studies between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, men

tioning the extent of the two texts will provide sufficient grounds to support
further discussion and argument.1
/. The B o o k o f Job
It has been widely accepted that literary components such as prose tale (Job
1-2; 42:7-17), dialogue (3-31), Elihu’s speech (32-37), and Yahweh’s
speech (38:1-42:6) in Job were not written at once, but went through a num
ber of redactions by authors for a long duration;2 this often led interpreters to
1 The dating of Job and Deutero-Isaiah and the problem o f linguistic dating will be dis
cussed in Chapter 1.
2 Refer to following commentators; Marvin H. Pope, Job, AB 15 (New York: Double
day, 1965), xxi-xxviii; Edouard Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book o f Job, trans. Harold
Knight (London: Nelson, 1967), lviii-cxi; John Gray, The Book o f Job, ed. David J. A.
Clines (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), 56-75; John E. Hartley, The Book o f Job
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 20-33; David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20, WBC 17 (Dallas:
Word Books, 1989), lvii-lix; Choon-Leong Seow, Job 1-21: Interpretation and Commen
tary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 26-39.
compare selected passages in Job with the text of Isa 40-55. There are major
issues of literary integrity and unity to be explained.
Firstly, it is common to assume that the prologue and epilogue of Job was
already circulated before the composition of the present form, although
whether the prose tale was simply attached, was modified, or was newly
composed, has produced no consensus. Marvin Pope points out that there are
“inconsistencies” between the prose tale and the dialogue, and supports dif
ferent authorships between them; from several disparities (1) in the character
istic of Job (pious or argumentative); (2) in dogmas about retribution; (3) in
divine names. Secondly, Elihu’s speech (Job 32-37) has been treated as a
secondary addition, because Elihu is not addressed anywhere before Job 32
and his name is not found in Yahweh’s speech and the epilogue. Some critics
have argued that the style of Elihu’s speech is very different with the rest of
the book.34 The secondary addition of Elihu’s speech is widely accepted, but
also some present persuasive reasons for its integrity with the main part of the
book.5 Thirdly, many have proposed ways of rearranging the dialogues in the
third cycle of dialogue (Job 27:13-23).6 Reconstructions of the material of
this cycle have been done by adding Zophar’s speech and increasing Bildad’s
speech, in order to make a completely symmetric structure in each cycle.
Clines, for instance, rearranges Job’s speech of 26:1-14 into the part of Bil
dad’s third speech, and relocates Job’s speeches into those of Zophar (27:7-
10, 13-17; 24:18-24; 27:18-23).78Even John Hartley, one of the conservative
interpreters, proposes the necessity of reconstruction by adding Job 27:13-23
o
into Bildad’s third speech in 25:1-6. In whatever way, the part of the third
cycle seems to need rearrangement. Fourthly, the text of Job 28 has been
considered as a secondary addition, because the content of Job 28 as a well-
constructed poem is quite different from the general features of Job’s
speeches. However, the text of Job 28 is the personal reflection of how hard it
is for humans to achieve God’s wisdom and how powerless they are in the
exploration of divine wisdom. This may possibly match Job’s miserable ex
perience, so that it would not be necessary to shift this part into Elihu’s
speech nor to regard it as a sort of “interlude”.
While acknowledging complicated theories which identify the possibilities
of alterations and the secondary additions of this book over the centuries,9 1
3 Pope, Job, xxi-xxv.

4 Dhorme, Job, ciii-cx; Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on
the Book o f Job, ed. George B. Gray, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1964), xl-xlviii.
5 Hartley, Job, 28-30; Clines, Job 1-20, lviii-lix; Seow, Job, 31-7.
6 Pope, Job, xxv-xxvi; Hartley, Job, 25-6.
7 David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37, WBC 18A (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 661-3.
8 Hartley, Job, 25-6.
9 For the recent research with regard to the compositional history of the book of Job, see
the following references. Wolf-Dieter Syring, Hiob und sein Anwalt: Die Prosatexte des
generally focus on the literary coherence of entire composition of this book
rather than attempt to break it into different redactional layers; taking a spe
cific stance regarding the composition history of this book is unnecessary in
this research since I will deal with the broader period of its compositional
date than a specific period. Again this neither means that the results of his
torical critical intepretion should be renounced at some distance nor that I
would exclusively read this text as a final-form reading, without resolving
existant incoherence for the harmonization between texts. However, as I sup
pose, if it is hard to predicate unambiguous and objective factors by which
the book has been redactedand modified, we must be cautious to give conven
ient emendations.10
II. D e u te r o -Is a ia h
For the discussion of this research, I divide the book of Isaiah into three parts
by a classical definition of Bernhard Duhm; First Isaiah (Isa 1-39), Deutero-
Isaiah (40-55), and Third Isaiah (56-66).11 So, in this research Deutero-Isaiah
refers to Isa 40-55. The position of Deutero-Isaiah in the book of Isaiah
might be much closer to Blenkinsopp’s view which sees Deutero-Isaiah as a
Hiohhuches und ihre Rolle in seiner Redaktions - und Rezeptionsgeschichte, BZAW 336
(Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 2004); Jurgen van Oorschot, “Die Entstehung des
Hiobbuches,” in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beitrage zum Hioh -
Symposium a u f dem Monte Verita vom 14.-19. August 2005, ed. Thomas Kruger et al.,
ATANT 88 (Zurich: TVZ, 2007); Carol A. Newsom, “Re-Considering Job,” CBR 5 (2007):
155-82.
10 In this sense, I more or less agree with Seow, saying that “instead of performing tex
tual surgeries to suit modern preconditions of coherence, it is necessary to give the ancient
narrator-poet benefit of the doubt and to grapple with those dissonances and asymmetry
that may well be part of how the book means”; Seow, Job, 38. Clines suppose that “the
author of the prologue and the epilogue is also the poet of the dialogues, and wrote the
prose framework deliberately for its present place in the book”. Literary incoherence and
differences between prose-tale and dialogue are designed as intentional and reasonable by
a final editor. He makes several points: (1) “Job should change from his initial acceptance
of his suffering to a violent questioning o f it”; (2) “since the friends of Job are not repre
sented as Yahweh-worshippers, it is only natural that in the dialogues the name of Yahweh
should be avoided”; (3) “the dialogues should proceed in ignorance o f the events in heaven
which have brought about Job’s misery, for if the ultimate cause had been known, there
would have been no problem for the friends to discuss”. Finally, he highlights the literary
coherence between dialogue to be filled by friends’ rigorous words and the two passages of
Job 2:11-13, where Job’s friends arrive and console Job, and of 42:7-8 where Yahweh
rebukes words of Job’s friends and commands their atonement. See Clines, Job 1-20, lviii.
11 The view of a conservative minority in which the entire book of Isaiah is attributed to
the prophet Isaiah in Jerusalem should not be overlooked, if the canonical approach is
cautiously taken. Refer to John N. Oswalt, The Book o f Isaiah: Chapters 40-66 (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 3-6.
i 'y
discrete unit. However, this is neither meant to present Deutero-Isaiah as a

completely separate book from the first and third part of Isaiah, nor to see
Deutero-Isaiah only in the framework of the final form of Isaiah.12134 Nor is it
my intention to work on the assumption that the later redactional layers in Isa
1-39 - as many assume there are secondary addtions by later redactors in
First Isaiah, e.g., Isa 34-35 - are undoubtedly not attributed to Deutero-Isaiah
and that the entire section of Isa 1-55 is not rewritten by a single author of
Deutero-Isaiah; I suppose that these theories are highly probable.15
In a nutshell, what is necessary for the purpose of this research is to exam
ine previous and contemporary studies in terms of the literary and historical
relationships between the book of Job and Deutero-Isaiah where scholars in
their comparitive works exclusively have restricted into the whole text of Isa
40-55. Thus I use this term “Deutero-Isaiah” as the scholarly well-defined
partition. In the limit of our concern, I do not include Isa 34-35 and Isa 56-
66 in the text of Deutero-Isaiah, and accordingly when it comes to examples
dealing with textual connections between Isa 40-66 and other biblical texts, I
limit them with affinities of Isa 40-55.16
B. Literature Review
In fact, the resemblances between Job and Deutero-Isaiah have been consid
ered for several centuries in the figure of Yahweh’s servant which has nu
merous parallels with an innocent sufferer, Job.17 This, in the modern era of
biblical criticism, began with the commentary of Thomas K. Cheyne who
12
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55: A New Translation with Introduction and Com
mentary, AB 19A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 54-5.
13 Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40-66: A Commentary, OTL (London: SCM, 1969), 28
says that “chs. 40-55 go back in their entirety to Deutero-Isaiah himself, and that their
contents represent what he himself preached”.
14 Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 1-5.
15 Hugh G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: D eutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composi
tion and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005); also see Christopher R. Seitz, Z io n ’s
Final Destiny: The Development o f the Book o f Isaiah: A Reassessment o f Isaiah 36-39
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991).
16 In Chapter 3, I will deal with the interconnections between Deutero-Isaiah and
First/Third Isaiah.
17 Thomas K. Cheyne, The Prophecies o f Isaiah: A New Translation with Commentary
and Appendices, vol. 2 (London: Kegan Paul&Co., 1884), 259-68; Jean C. Bastiaens, “The
Language of Suffering in Job 16-19 and in the Suffering Servant Passages in Deutero-
Isaiah,” in Studies in the Book o f Isaiah, ed. Jacques van Ruiten and Marc Vervenne (Leu
ven: Peeters, 1997), 421-32; Alan Cooper, “The Suffering Servant and Job: A View from
the Sixteenth Century,” in As Those Who Are Taught, ed. Claire M. McGinnis and Patricia
K. Tull (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 189-200.
argued that the sufferings and rewards that Job received “as an individual and
as a type” have significant parallels with those of the Servant of Yahweh in
Deutero-Isaiah, and that these two characters, who are recognised by Yahweh
after going through calamities and hardships, have the possibility of mutual
dependence. From a different perspective, Robert Pfeiffer asserted that Deu
tero-Isaiah combines two disparate ideas of a deity; the historical God of
Israel and the “Edomitic” God who is presented as the Creator of the physical
universe as in the book of Job.1819*
The most comprehensive research into the association between Job and
Deutero-Isaiah was conducted by Ralph Elliott, who in his PhD thesis ar
gued that, except in the Elihu speeches (Job 32-37) and the passages about
the two beasts (Job 40:15-41:26), the author of Job either deliberately used
materials from Deutero-Isaiah or unintentionally employed the linguistic and
thematic patterns of others as “a disciple of the school which continued Deu
tero-Isaiah’s emphases”.2123To support the view of the literary dependence of
Job on Deutero-Isaiah, he suggested philological aspects of commonality in
“rhythmic and metric structures”, “vocabulary”, “syntax”, “style”, and “the
peculiar usage of divine names”, and further theological aspects in common
themes of God, man, evil, suffering, and the world. Following the method in
determining the direction of the literary dependence which Pfeiffer used,
Samuel Terrien, who takes far greater account of verbal resemblances,
reached the same conclusion and maintained that Job did not borrow texts
from Deutero-Isaiah, but instead v ic e v e rsa . However, according to Terrien,
this does not mean that the manuscript of Job would have been known to
Deutero-Isaiah in a written form but that it would be well-known through the
process of the oral transmission of Job’s texts.
Differing from the aforementioned scholars who insisted on the authorial
intentionality in using an earlier text, J. Gerald Janzen suggested that Job and
18 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:264.

19 Robert H. Pfeiffer, “The Dual Origin o f Hebrew Monotheism,” JBL 46 (1927): 194.
90
Ralph Elliott, “A Comparative Study of Deutero Isaiah and Job” (PhD, Louisville:
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1956).
21 Ibid., 287-90.
22 See ibid., 158-290.
23 He addresses that “the Second Isaiah seems to offer an answer to the questions o f ex
istence raised by Job”. See Samuel L. Terrien, “Quelques Remarques sur les Affinites de
Job avec le Deutero-Esaie,” in Volume du Congres, Geneve, 1965, VTSup 15 (Leiden:
Brill, 1966), 309; Samuel L. Terrien, Job, Commentaire de FAncien Testament 13 (Gen
eve: Labor et Fides, 2005), 72-4; Samuel L. Terrien, “The Book of Job: Introduction and
Exegesis,” in IB, III (New York: Abingdon Press, 1951), 889-90; Terrien argues that the
book of Job is not answering the question concerning theodicy which sages of Mesopota
mia or Egypt usually discuss, but makes “a contribution to the theology of presence”. See
Samuel L. Terrien, The Elusive Presence: Toward a New Biblical Theology, RP 26 (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), 362.
Deutero-Isaiah have in common the motif of cosmic creation which is firmly
associated with mythological images in Mesopotamian and Canaanite litera
ture (cf. Gen 1; Ps 74, 89).2425According to Janzen, thematic issues of “mono
theism, power, and justice” in the trial speeches, in the Cyrus poem, and in
the servant poems of Deutero-Isaiah appear to present the supremacy of
God’s power. In recent times, interpreters have been moving actively to
challenge the previous researches and to adopt the sophisticated method of
biblical intertextuality into the comparative study. Two interpreters, Christina
L. Brinks and Will Kynes take Job’s text to be a parody of Deutero-Isaiah and
consider that there were literary allusions in Job to Deutero-Isaiah, rather than
direct quotations or borrowings between the two texts.
C. Assumptions and Methods

Although there are significant insights in those comparative studies, one of
the most frequent limits is that they make external comparisons between texts
based on linguistic similarities and use them in determining the direction of
literary reference. Most explanations of why the two literatures resemble each
other are entirely limited to the literary dependence between the two texts, or
are narrowed down to the literary influence of a particular literary tradition.
Further, for the purpose of investigating commonalities in both texts, it is
necessary to designate the cultural and historical background from which the
two books originated, and in particular, I propose the idea of scribal culture.
In this research, a consideration of the relationship between Job and Deu
tero-Isaiah will be undertaken by presenting the work in two substantial parts.
The first part will scrutinise the validity of the researches concerning the
distinctive connection between the two books; from Chapter 1 to 3 (Part I), I
will investigate in detail scholarly claims that allege a distinctive literary and
historical relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. Chapter 1 will exam
ine types of resemblances between the two books and ways of explaining the
24 See John G. Janzen, “On the Moral Nature of God’s Power: Yahweh and the Sea in
Job and Deutero-Isaiah,” CBQ 56 (1994): 458-78; “Creation and the Human Predicament
in Job,” Ex Auditu 3 (1987): 45-53.
25 Janzen, “Nature”; also see “Another Look at God’s Watch over Job (7:12),” JBL 108
(1989): 109-14. Janzen uses Lind’s claim that Deutero-Isaiah implies the concept of mono
theism, that Yahweh alone is God in the cosmos and history. Millard C. Lind, “M onothe
ism, Power, and Justice: A Study in Isaiah 40-55,” CBQ 46 (1984): 432-46.
See Christina L. Brinks, “The Thematic, Stylistic, and Verbal Similarities between
Isaiah 40-55 and the Book o f Job” (PhD, Notre Dame: Univ. o f Notre Dame, 2010); Will
Kynes, “Job and Isaiah 40-55: Intertextualities in Dialogue,” in Reading Job Intertextually,
ed. Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes, LHB/OTS 574 (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 94 -
105.
historical background of similarities, and will present several weaknesses and
limits indicated in the comparative studies of the two books. Chapter 2 will
examine whether the assertion of the mutual dependence between the two
books can be substantially supported by evidence of general subject-matter
and a series of verbal parallels. Chapter 3 will present many comparative
studies between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical texts, and from this
survey will assess whether it can be claimed that those resemblances between
the two books are distinctive from any other books in the Hebrew Bible.
The second part from Chapter 4 to 6 (Part II) will consider the social and
historical background in which the two books originated, and will concentrate
mainly on why these verbal and thematic overlaps occur between the two
books. Then, scribes as literate experts and their cultural knowledge will be
proposed as the broad context in which biblical materials were composed.
This thesis submits that, before the final stage of the canonization in the Hel
lenistic period, many of the present forms of biblical materials were in gen
eral produced in the Second Temple period. This does not mean that in the
pre-exilic and exilic periods the biblical texts were not written, but there is
much evidence that the authoritative prototype of biblical books had been
preserved, copied, interpreted, and composed from the pre-exilic period.
What I propose here is the broad context of scribes who had memorised their
spoken/written texts and had educated the next generations from their inher
ited collections. In Chapter 4, I will present the scribal culture which has
significance in understanding the intellectual environment in the pre-
canonical stage of the Hebrew Bible and will further consider why this con
cept of scribal culture is not employed by a majority of biblical interpreters.
In order to view the intellectual milieu around scribes, Chapter 5 will present
non-Israelite sources that are supposed by scholars to be similar to the texts
of Job and Deutero-Isaiah, and will evaluate the arguments about the literary
relationship with foreign texts. Finally, Chapter 6 will present shared ideas
between two scribal texts and will examine diverse thoughts among scribes
by comparing them with other biblical texts. The similarities and differences
within scribal texts provide significant insights into understanding the litera
ture and the history of contributions to the composition of Job and Deutero-
Isaiah.
Specifically, in my argument, the meaning of “intertextuality” by means of
a heuristic approach will be reconsidered and reassessed through the example
of the link between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, and various interconnections with
Israelite and non-Israelite sources will be searched for in the broad context of
scribal culture in the Second Temple period. Recently there has been an out
pouring of intertextual criticism in Old Testament study. “Scribalism” and
“scribal culture”, I believe, could shed fresh light on the present chronic prob
lems of this intertextual study. It could frame more appropriate questions in
order to produce a comprehensive survey of the context behind the Hebrew
Bible.
Part I
The Distinctive Relationship between Job

and Deutero-Isaiah
Chapter 1
The Comparative Study between Job

and Deutero-Isaiah
As evidence of the distinctive relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah,

the aforementioned scholars present different levels of commonality, from
lexical, form, and thematic correspondences. Then, ways for interpreting
overlapping words have been mostly described as the intentional borrowing
and awareness of authors, or by more technical terms of literary theory such
as “quotation”, “allusion”, “echo”, and “influence”. In this chapter as a start
ing point, I will look at the claims made by scholars that the literary relation
ship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah is distinctive within the Hebrew Bible.
In reviewing their diverse claims in terms of the connection between the two
books, I will indicate several types of resemblance and then possible ways of
explaining linguistic affinity. Here, I ask: what types of linguistic similarities
are adopted commonly in comparing Job and Deutero-Isaiah and how do they
explain the phenomena of verbal and thematic similarities between them? As
critical reflections, I will examine the limits of the comparative studies which
adopt an author-oriented reading. In particular, this will be of importance to
this research in reconsidering the nature of the intertextuality imposed by
linguistics and by looking at how OT scholars utilise the concept of biblical
intertextuality.
A. Scholarly Claims
I. T yp es o f R e s e m b la n c e
Most interpreters in the comparative study of Job and Deutero-Isaiah by no

means dissent from the assertion that there is a close relationship based on
certain linguistic resemblances between the two books. However, the primary
variation is that they present different levels of commonality in various verbal
and thematic correspondences. Those literary evidences of commonality by
and large are divided into three types: vocabulary, style/form, and theme/
motif.
1. V o c a b u la ry
The most explicit type of commonality between the two books is of specific
lexical parallels which are identified in vocabulary, phrase, and sentence.
When parallels as evidence of literary dependence between Job and Deutero-
Isaiah are suggested, the most important factor is the frequency of occurrence
in the Hebrew Bible. If a parallel is something only found in the two books, it
is likely to receive much attention as a special case of a close association.
Arguing the priority of Job over Deutero-Isaiah, first of all, Robert Pfeiffer
classifies parallels into two parts, “utterance” and “thought”; the first part
includes nineteen common nouns and verbs (under the headings of “flora”,
“fauna”, “cosmology”, and “miscellaneous”), eight idiomatic expressions,
and eight figures of speech; 1 the second part includes similar motifs and
thoughts related to “the deity” and “man”.2 However, he neither seeks to
explain shared vocabulary by reference to associated motifs, nor examines
whether the corresponding items of vocabulary and phrases have similar
meanings in each context. Samuel Terrien later fills out previoius researches
by considering lexical affinities in relation to common forms and themes.3 He
suggests as the common ground of the relationship between the two books
three theological motifs: “the motif of divine transcendence” (Job 9:4//Isa
40:26; Job 9:8//Isa 44:24b; Job 9:10//Isa 40:27, 28ab, 29-31), “the motif of
existence” (Job 4:19//Isa 45:9, 11; Job 12:10//Isa 42:5), and “the motif of
Yahweh”s Servant” (Job 3:23//Isa 40:27a).4 However, parallel terms used in
establishing the relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah have been re
considered to be doubtful in recent studies (Nurmela, Brinks, and Kynes).
When a set of verbal links is examined, they reduce it to a minimum (Terrien,
Brinks, Kynes) and tend to suggest as reasonable links parallel phrases which
mostly appear in Job 9-12 and Isa 40-45. Let us see some examples. Firstly,
setting aside compiled lists of the word-strings by which scholars routinely
make the case of the mutual relationship, C. L. Brinks carefully puts forward
five significant examples in which Job and Deutero-Isaiah have a common
idea of a court scene with God and corresponding wording (Job 9:4//Isa 40:26;
Job 9:8//Isa 44:24; Job 9:10//Isa 40:28; Job 9:12//Isa 43:13; Job 9:12//Isa
45:9).5 Moreover, it is suggested that both Isa 41:20 and Job 12:9 in Job’s
fourth speech (Job 12-14) form an identical word-string and the common
1 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 203-4; also, see Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old
Testament (London: Black, 1952), 467.
2 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 204-5.
3 Terrien, “Remarques.”
4 Ibid., 300-8.
5 Job’s third speech and parts o f Deutero-Isaiah here speak of “the idea of going to
court with God. See Brinks, “ Similarities,” 167.
theme of God’s action which is also similar to Ps 107:16.6 Secondly, Risto
Nurmela examines only three cases to identify the relationship between Job
and Deutero-Isaiah; two cases overlap with Brinks’ examples (Job 3:23; 5:9;
9:4, 10//Isa 40:26-28; Job 12:9//Isa 41:20) and another case is added (Job
25:2//Isa 45:7).7 Thirdly, Kynes suggests as evidence of the textual parallels
four corresponding verses: Job 9:10, 5:9//Isa 40:28; Job 9:12, 25:2-4//Isa
45:9, Job 9:12, 11:10//Isa 43:13; Job 5:12-13, 12:17//Isa 44:25.8 The follow-
ing ten instances are the most remarkable parallels which recent scholars have
put forward.
[Expressions found only in Job and Deutero-Isaiah]
- HD f ’QN (“mighty in power”) in Job 9:4//Isa 40:26 (Elliott, Terrien,
Brinks, Nurmela)
- HI*? □’’QU) HOJ (“who alone stretched out the heavens”) in Job 9:8//Isa
44:24 (Pfeiffer, Terrien, Brinks)
- nNT nnt^y n*IJT"T *0 (“that the hand of Yahweh has done this”) in Job
12:9//Isa 41:20 (Brinks, Nurmela)
- (“to frustrate”; hiphil participle,) in Job 5:12//Isa 44:25a (Kynes)
- (“to make peace”) in Job 25:2//Isa 45:7 (Nurmela, Kynes)
- “[TT mriDJ (“way is hidden”) in Job 3:23//Isa 40:27 (Elliott, Nurmela)
[E x p r e s s io n s r a r e ly f o u n d in J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h (other occurrences
elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible)]
- npn pN (“beyond investigation”) in Job 9:10 (cf. 5:9; 9:10)//Isa 40:28 (cf.
also in Ps 145:3; Prov 25:3) (Elliott, Terrien, Nurmela, Brinks, Kynes)
- TUP 'D (“who can turn him back?”) in Job 9:12a (cf. 11:10; 23:13)//Isa
43:13 (cf. also in Isa 14:27; Jer 2:24) (Elliott, Brinks, Kynes)
- nUJprrnO (“what are you doing?”) in Job 9:12b (cf. 35:6)//Isa 45:9 (cf.
also in Prov 25:8; Eccl 8:4) (Terrien, Pfeiffer, Brinks, Kynes)
- Win** (“to make fool”) in Job 12:17//Isa 44:25b (cf. also Eccl 7:7) (Kynes)
In these places, where Job and Deutero-Isaiah talk about God’s action, nature,
and the human-divine relationship, the resemblances in vocabulary between
the two texts seem to be significant.
Furthermore, it is worthwhile to draw out numerous verbal parallels re
garding Deutero-Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant” in further detail. They are
mostly concentrated in the “Servant Songs” of Isa 52-53.9 The most fre
quently cited example here is that the word (“my servant”) in both
books links the suffering servant (“my servant” in Isa 52:13; 53:11b)
6 Ibid., 170-5.
7 •
Risto Nurmela, The Mouth o f the Lord Has Spoken: Inner-Biblical Allusions in Sec
ond and Third Isaiah, Studies in Judaism (Lanham: UP of America, 2006), 8, 12-3, 42.
8 Kynes, “Job,” 9-11.
9 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:264-5; Dhorme, Job, cliv-clv; Terrien, “Remarques,” 308;
Cooper, “Suffering,” 195-6; Brinks, “ Similarities,” 146-7.
with H2J7 1*PN (“Job my servant” (Job 1:8; 2:3; 42:7, 8a, 8b); the following is
the most notable parallels:10
- IN in (“suffering”) Job 2:13//m iiO ft (“pain”) Isa 53:3b
- mriDJ (“hidden”) Job 3:23//“inDQll (“as one who hid”) Isa 53:3
- 1N1T1 (“(God) to crush me”) Job 6:9//iO“Tft (“being crushed”) Isa 53:5
- b f i y (“trouble”) Job 7:3/A q P12 (“out of trouble”) Isa 53:11
- ‘'Nl (“who sees me”) Job 7:8//‘in*nJl (“we should look at him”) Isa 53:2
- niD (“death”) Job 7:15//mrf7 (“to death”) Isa 53:12
- (“target”) Job 7:20(hpx)//p,Uin (“(Yahweh) attacked”) Isa 53:6
- (“my transgression”) Job 14:17//D‘’plP£3TlKl (“among the sinners”)
Isa 53:12
- lin (“they have struck”) Job 16:10//PDQ (“being stricken”) Isa 53:4
- iVin (“left”) Job 19:14/M m (“rejected”) Isa 53:3
- JIPJU (“(the hand of God) touched”) Job 19:21//p*Ul (“being stricken”) Isa
53:4
- VDlPm (“be appalled”) Job 21:5 (cf. 2:12; 17:8)//*lftfttP (“they were ap
palled”) Isa 52:14
- H 'D l (“deceit”) Job 27:4 (cf. 31:5)//nm n (“deceit”) Isa 53:9
- onrrN*? (“no justice”) Job 16:17//DQn"Nt7 (“no injustice”) Isa 53:9
- D H lp (“graveyard”) Job 1 7 :l//n ip (“his grave”)Isa 53:9
- p i n m (“you consider”) Job 30:20//UJnnn (“they understand”) Isa 52:15
- nm (“contempt”) Job 31:34//ntlJ (“He was despised”) Isa 53:3a
There are other references to the servant poems in Deutero-Isaiah which
make parallels with Job’s texts (Isa 49:1-6; 50:4-9; Job 16, 17, 19).11
2. S ty le a n d F o rm
The second type of resemblance used for establishing the relationship be
tween Job and Deutero-Isaiah is that of literary style and form. I here present
three similar styles and two additional common forms among examples sug
gested by other scholars; though these cases are not only found in the two
books, but also can be seen in other biblical texts.
Firstly, with regard to adverbs and conjunctions, both books prefer using
the negative particle, *73 (“not”; Job 41:15; seven times in Isa 40:24; 43:17;
44:8, 9; cf. Psalms, Proverbs, Isa 14-35) and the conjunction, (fourteen
times in Isa 40-48; four times in Job; cf. Isa 26-35; Psalms).12 Secondly, a
series of clauses begin with participles to speak of attributes of a deity with
10 Furthermore, although there is no identical vocabulary, the following verses deal with
the similar issue of Suffering Servant; Job 1:8//Isa 53:9; Job 2:7, 7:5//Isa 53:3-4; Job
19:18//Isa 53:3; Job 42:10//Isa 53:12; Job 42:8, 10//Isa 53:12; Job 42:13, 16//Isa 53:10.
11 Bastiaens, “Suffering,” 421-30.
12 Pfeiffer, Introduction, 467.
the article (Isa 40:22f; 43:16f; 44:26b-28; Job 5:10a; 9:5-7) or without the
article (Isa 44:24-26a; 45:7, 18; 46:1 Of; 51:13, 15; cf. 56:8; 63:12f; Job 5:9,
10b, 12f; 9:8-10; 26:7-10).13 Thirdly, both books take the common form of
the rhetorical questions introduced by *72 (Isa 40:12-17; Job 34:13; 36:22-23;
38:5—41 )14 which is used for presenting the incomparable power and wisdom
of Yahweh. For instance, in Isa 40:12-17, Roy Melugin draws attention to the
structure of “disputation genre” which is constituted by disputation and ar
gues that both Isa 40:12-17 and Job 38-39 in Yahweh’s speech overlap each
other in the common usage of 'Q questions (cf. Prov 30:1—4);15 a similar
form of lawsuit is found between Elihu’s speech and Isa 40:12-31 (Job
36:23//Isa 40:12-13; Job 35:5//Isa 40:26).16 In the lawsuit form, the verse Job
41:1 which consists of the concluding segment of Yahweh’s speech (Job
40:25-41:3) after rhetorical questions end with the interrogative which
shows the powerlessness of humans compared with Leviathan whom Yahweh
created and this same style is found in Isa 40:15.17
Moreover, there are two common literary forms (G a ttu n g e n ). Firstly, they
take a judicial and disputational form using rib-pattern (2*H) and lawsuit ter
minologies (Isa 41:11, 21-24; 45:9; 49:25; 50:8; 51:22; Job 9:3; 10:2; 13:6—
19; 23:6; 31:35; 33:13; 35:14).18 This generally includes the verb y i (“to
argue”) and other related words in court setting - D2WQ (“judgment”) and
p“T^ (“righteousness”). According to Terrien, the form of a legal disputation
in Job is employed entirely from Job’s speeches with friends and God (Job
9:2b-3, 32; 14:3) to Job’s “oath of innocence” (Job 31:35) and Yahweh’s
summoning (Job 40:7-9, 10-14); “If one wished to dispute (I'H*?) with him,
one could not answer Him once in a thousand times” (Job 9:3). On the other
hand, in the rib-pattern of Deutero-Isaiah, the plaintiff is not a human, but a
deity, and the defendant to the disputation is expanded from the Israelites to
all of humanity;19 e.g., “Let them approach, then let them speak; let us to-
13 Pfeiffer believes that Deutero-Isaiah adopted the first and second characteristics un
der the literary influence of the book of Job; Ibid., 468.
14 Brinks, “ Similarities,” 123.
15 This form has been regarded as the typical form of wisdom discourse. Roy F.
Melugin, “Deutero-Isaiah and Form Criticism,” FT 21, no. 3 (1971): 330-1.
16 Meindert Dijkstra, “Lawsuit, Debate and Wisdom Discourse in Second Isaiah,” in
Studies in the Book of'Isaiah, ed. Jacques van Ruiten and Marc Vervenne (Leuven: Peeters,
1997), 259; John B. Curtis, “Elihu and Deutero-Isaiah: A Study in Literary Dependence,”
in Proceedings, Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies, vol. 10 (Cincinnati:
Eastern Great Lakes & Midwest Biblical Societies, 1990), 34.
17 Melugin, “Deutero-Isaiah,” 332-3; Roy F. Melugin, The Formation o f Isaiah 40-55
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), 32-3.
181 translated Gunnel Andre, “Deuterojesaja Och Jobsboken: En Jamforande Studie,”
SEA 54 (1989): 33-42 with the aid of a translation programme and a Swedish-English
dictionary. Curtis, “Elihu,” 10:36.
19 Terrien, “Remarques,” 304.
gether draw near for judgment (Isa 41:1). Secondly, they also
commonly cite “the nature list” in each book. Yahweh’s speech in Job in
cludes a nature list which describes the physical universe and the animal
world (Job 38-39), while Deutero-Isaiah often uses it in hymnic form (Isa
40:12-17; 41:18-20; 43:20). John Curtis, in particular, points out meteoro
logical figures - “rain” (Isa 45:8; 55:10; Job 36:27-28; 37:6), “snow” (Isa
55:10; Job 37:6), and “scorching wind” (Isa 49:10; Job 37:17).20212
3. Them e a n d M o tif
The third type of resemblance used to argue for a relationship between Job
and Deutero-Isaiah is that of common theme and motif. Here I divide impor
tant thematic patterns into five categorisations: divine nature and action, crea
tion, human weakness, the relationship between God and humans, and inno
cent sufferer. The most distinctive theme selected from both books is divine
nature and action. For instance, Terrien emphasises the motif of divine tran
scendence and Pfeiffer, discussing the idea of monotheism in Deutero-Isaiah,
speaks of God the Creator who has supreme power over the physical world.
God possesses mighty power (Job 9:4; Isa 40:26) and understanding (Job
26:12; Isa 40:14), and is unfathomable (Job 5:9; 9:10; Isa 40:28), unstoppa
ble (Job 9:12; 11:10; 23:13; Isa 43:13), omniscient (Job 21:22; Isa 40:14),
and incomparable (Job 10:7; Isa 43:13), while his way is hidden from humans
(Job 3:23; Isa 40:27). God’s unlimited power also extends over individuals
and nations: God “frustrates” “the devices of the shrewd” (Job 5:12; cf. 15:4;
16:12; 40:8) and “the sign of diviners” (Isa 44:25), and “makes fools” of
human authorities and their wisdom (Job 12:17; Isa 44:25). And the founda
tion of Job’s or Israel’s suffering and deliverance is the action of God himself:
“the hand of Yahweh has done this” (Job 12:9; Isa 41:20).
The second noteworthy theme is the creation of the world. God’s power
is portrayed in the creative act in which Yahweh “stretches out heavens” (Job
9:8; Isa 40:22; 44:24) and “lays down the foundation of the earth” (Job 38:4;
Isa 48:13), using cosmological terms - “circuit” (Tin) (Job 22:14; 26:10; Isa
40:22; 44:13) and “to the ends of the earth” (JHNnTTl^p*?) (Job 28:24; Isa
40:28). Particularly, the “creation” motif is habitually exemplified in the
imagery of the divine battle and in mythological figures such as “Rahab”
(m n ) (Job 9:13; 26:12; Isa 51:9), “Tanin” ( p n ) (Job 7:12; Isa.51:9), and Sea
(□•») (Job 26:12; Isa 51:15).23
20 Heinz Richter, “Die Naturweisheit des Alten Testaments im Buche Hiob,” ZAW 70
(1958): 1-20.
21 Curtis, “Elihu,” 10:36.
22 Brinks, “Similarities,” 193.
23 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 201; Terrien, “Remarques,” 305-6; Janzen, “Nature.”
Thirdly, the weakness and finitude of humanity are an important theme.
Humans are burdened with hard work and suffering (Job 7:1; 10:17; 14:14;
Isa 40:2), and are weak and fragile being like “clay” (“lEft) which is fash
ioned by its maker (Job 10:9; Isa 45:9), like “a garment eaten by moths” (Job
13:28; Isa 50:9; 51:8), and like a “worm” or a “maggot” (Job 25:6; Isa 41:14).
Humans are thoroughly dependent on a deity who gives “breath” (HOUfa) and
“spirit” (n n ) (Job 12:10; 27:3; Isa 42:5). Their fragility and weakness are
clearly presented in the final destiny of the wicked by divine judgment like
withering grass (Job 8:12; Isa 40:7-8). Furthermore, the two books use a
series of human authorities such as “judges”, “counsellors”, “nations” (Job
12:17, 21, 23; Isa 40:13-15, 17) to emphasise the nothingness of mankind
compared with Yahweh. The hidden way (“JTT m nD J) by God is the main
cause of human despair - Israelites complain that their way is “hidden from
Yahweh” (Isa 40:27) and foreign people praises God who hides himself (Isa
45:15), while Job laments his suffering, saying why light is given to a man
“whose way is hidden” (Job 3:23) - and humans cannot “perceive” (f»2) God
(Job 9:11; 23:8; Isa 44:18). In particular, Janzen acknowledges the unique
connotation of “suffering servitude or troubled life” (Job 7:1; 14:1; Isa 40:2;
cf. Dan 10:1) in the term other than the conventional meaning - “ar
mies”, or “warfare” (cf. 2 Sam 3:23).24
The fourth common theme is the relationship between God and humans.
God in Job is recognised as a “redeemer” (*?RJ) who will vindicate Job’s
innocence (Job 19:25) and is similarly depicted as a “redeemer” (“vindicator”
or “champion”) of Israel in Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 41:14; 44:6, 24; 47:4; 48:17;
49:7, 26; 54:5, 8). Or God (as accuser and judge) and humanity (defender)
appear as each party of a lawsuit, asking “who will contend with me?” ( '’D
T T ) (Job 13:19; Isa 50:8; cf. Job 23:6; 40:2; Isa 51:22). Furthermore, the
relationship between God and humans according to Henry Rowold is created
as rivalry in “challenge-question” in Yahweh’s speech (Job 38:2-3; 40:7-14;
Isa 40:12; 41:2a, 4).25
Finally, the most common theme of the two books is the model of innocent
sufferer. In the history of interpretation of the book of Job, scholars (Cheyne,
Dillman, Peake, Kuenen, Hartley, Dhorme, Cooper, Bastesian, Terrien,
Brinks, and von Rad) have seen the figure of Job as corresponding with the
“Suffering Servant” in Deutero-Isaiah. For instance, Cheyne proposes seven
strong affinities between the two texts: Yahweh’s righteous servant, leprosy,
disfigured form, mockery and desertion by people, restoration and reward,
intercession for others, and triumphant life after suffering.26 Jean Bastiaens
24 Janzen, “Nature,” 469.

-y c
Henry Rowold, “Yahweh’s Challenge to Rival: The Form and Function of the Yah-
weh-Speech in Job 38-39,” CBQ 47 (1985): 207-8.
26 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:264-5.
compares verbal and stylistic patterns in the Suffering Servant in Deutero-
Isaiah with the description of the innocent sufferer shown in Job’s speeches
in Job 16-17, 19 (Job 16:10//Isa 50:6; Job 16:17//Isa 53:9) and with the inevi
table fate of the wicked in Bildad’s speech (Job 18:5-21//Isa 52:14a; 53:4a,
8).2728Unlike Cheyne, Bastiaens proposes that the two characters of Job and
the Servant are not identical, and have many differences in their natures,
causes, and purposes but that both books, which include similar language and
symbolism concerning the problem of suffering, respond to questions about
“human conduct, human suffering and the justice of God”. A different ap
proach is taken by Alan Cooper, who follows the exegetical model of Eliezer
Ashkenazi, the sixteenth century Jewish commentator, who was convinced
that Job was a symbolic figure of innocent suffering and represented the ex
iled Israelites. To prove the intra-biblical relationship between the two books,
Cooper highlights eighteen keywords in parallel proof-texts (cf. Isa 53:9//Job
16:17) suggested by Ashkenazi.29 In the context of the Servant Song of Isa
52:13-53:12, according to Cooper, the theme of the Servant’s suffering in the
two books was designed to “convey a message of hope to the Jews”.30312
II. T y p e s o f E x p la n a tio n O ffe r e d
Given three sorts of similarities - vocabulary, style/form, theme/motif - pre

sented as evidence of the distinctive relationship between Job and Deutero-
Isaiah, how have biblical scholars explained such explicit phenomena? Gen
erally, current scholarship categorises verbal overlaps between texts as “quo
tations” or “allusions” if there is perceived to be authorial intention, while
•
>i
they are called “echoes” when intentionality is absent. Definitions of vari

ous terminologies such as “allusion”, “quotation”, “echo”, and “influence”,
however, have not reached a scholarly consensus. Here, types of explaining
them may generally be divided by three cases; explicit and intentional refer-
T9
ence, implicit reference, and reference to common literary sources.
1. E x p lic it a n d In te n tio n a l R e fe r e n c e
The first method of explaining resemblances is that the author of one book
intentionally referred to the whole or parts of the other. If this account, for the
most part, is right, one author should have been aware of the other specific
book and could noticeably embody the vocabularies, forms, and themes of the
27 Bastiaens, “Suffering,” 432.

28 Ibid.
29 Cooper, “ Suffering,” 198.
30 Ibid., 198.
31
Will Kynes, My Psalm Has Turned into Weeping: J o b ’s Dialogue with the Psalms,
BZAW 437 (Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2012), 31-3.
32 For these terms, I referred to definitions by Kynes. See ibid., 31-3.
other into his own work; those similarities result from the direct inspiration of
borrowing or quotation. Some interpreters, claiming explicit intentional refer
ence, argue that Deutero-Isaiah referred to the book of Job rather than that the
author of Job consulted the work of Deutero-Isaiah.33 Cheyne, for instance,
argues that each author would be aware of works of the other and used those
which come from the same historical milieu, but he claims the priority of the
book of Job, that Job’s passages were directly quoted in Isaiah’s passages.34
He maintains that “there could be no design in this partial coincidence”, but
that the book of Job, to some extent, facilitated the formation of Deutero-
Isaiah and influenced it, in order to prepare Israelites for the Messianic era in
human history.35 In another place, he provides twenty-one parallels in other
similar themes apart from the theme of personal suffering, and among those,
only two cases (Job 26:12, 13//Isa 51:9b, 1Oa; Job 16:17//Isa 53:9) at least are
considered as the “imitation” of Job’s texts in Deutero-Isaiah.363789
Likewise, Pfeiffer’s claim is that “one of the two authors was acquainted
with the other” and “in no cases is Job clearly the borrower,” and “in some
'X 'l
cases Job appears to be the source of Second Isaiah.” Pfeiffer’s claim, that
Deutero-Isaiah has borrowed from Job, is dependent on two assumptions - TO
that the nature of God in Job is shaped by Edomitic wisdom, and that Deu
tero-Isaiah (cf. Isa 40) highlights a “monotheistic doctrine” which is totally
absent in Job. Terrien claims that Job could not have known Deutero-Isaiah,
because the author of Job omits the motif of creation, and the idea of the
vicarious suffering in Job is scattered in different passages.40 Finally, Cooper
also supports a direct referential relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah,
citing Ashkenazi’s intertextual study; Ashkenazi says that similar words in
Deutero-Isaiah prove that they come from Job:
[Isaiah] repeated them verbatim: “Behold, my servant shall prosper” [Isa 52:13]. In other
words, behold Job (already referred to as “my servant”), who was utterly abased, yet pros
pered and rose to the heights.41
33 Except for Elliott, “ Study.”

34 But those resemblances in the theme o f the Suffering Servant are not caused by inten
tional reference, but by coincidence on similar themes, since the original part of the Ser
vant poems in Deutero-Isaiah according to Cheyne is probably regarded as a predecessor of
the book of Job. Thomas K. Cheyne, Job and Solomon: Or the Wisdom o f the Old Testa
ment (London: Kegan Paul&Co., 1887), 84.
35 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:267.
' Cheyne, Job, 84; Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:250.
38 Ibid., 198; also see Robert H. Pfeiffer, “Edomitic Wisdom,” Z A W 44 (1926): 13-25.
40 Terrien, “Job: Introduction,” 889-90.
41 Cooper, “ Suffering,” 197-8.
From the reference of Ezekiel 14: 14, 20 (“Noah, Daniel, and Job”) and Ash
kenazi’s comments - e.g., “all of Isaiah’s words in this passage can be found
precisely among the words of Job” - Cooper claims that Isaiah directly re
ferred to Job.42
2. I m p lic it R e fe r e n c e
In the comparative study of verbal parallels, recent studies have tended to talk
about implicit references to earlier texts; the implicit and intentional reference
to earlier texts as “allusion”; the implicit and unintentional reference as
“echo”. 43 For instance, Curtis considers that the author of Job intentionally is
using Deutero-Isaiah’s text, in order to create the persona of Elihu as a sacred
man; Curtis submits that “the author of Elihu speeches knew well the thought
and teachings of Deutero-Isaiah,” but “these borrowings are not quotation”;44
by depending on texts of Deutero-Isaiah, the author of Job reinforces the
issues of God, humans, and suffering that are earlier raised in Deutero-Isaiah.
Some do not think that historical context is important in deciding the direc
tion of literary dependence. Bastiaens, for instance, argues that linguistic
commonalities concerning the suffering servant cannot “lead to a kind of
identification of Job and the Servant”, but shows that they specifically use the
common language of suffering (Job 16-19; Isa 49; 50; 53); nonetheless, he
suggests that texts of Job are reminiscent of the Servant in Deutero-Isaiah or
the passages of Deutero-Isaiah are implicitly reflecting the text of Job (Job
16:10//Isa 50:6; Job 16:17//Isa 53:9).45
There are some scholars who do not draw a clear line between quotation
and allusion rejecting the case of the unintentional reference to earlier sources,
and who confidently assert the source of literary dependence. For instance,
Nurmela in his intertextual study in Isaiah 40-66 does not discuss examples
of “unconscious allusion”, but says that “all the similarities” which he ad
Ibid., 194-5.
43 According to Kynes, two terms, “quotation” and “allusion” could be partly identical
in that “allusion” along with quotation includes authorial “intentionality” which recalls a
previous text. However, on the other hand, the meaning of “allusion” is overlapped with
“echo” which has unintentionality. See Will Kynes, “My Psalm Has Turned into Weeping:
The Dialogical Intertextuality o f Allusions to the Psalms in Job” (PhD, Cambridge: Univ.
of Cambridge, 2011), 30-2. Indeed, the definition is not distinguishable among scholars.
Brinks in the verbal dependence on Isa 50 and 53 interchanges “allusion” with “echo”,
while Kynes separates them by authorial intentionality. See Brinks, “ Similarities,” 186.
“Allusion” according to Sommer includes “echo” as a weak allusion. See Benjamin D.
Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford: Stanford UP,
1998), 6-31.
45 Bastiaens, “Suffering,” 432.
dresses “result from conscious borrowing.’’46 Nurmela’s studies of three par
allels between Deutero-lsaiah and Job only include both the quotation and
allusion as conscious reference.47 He argues that the first case of parallels
(Job 3:23; 5:9; 9:4, 10//Isa 40:26-28) is literary allusion; “Isa 40:26-28 dis
plays ‘a chiastic structure of allusion’ to Ps 147 and Job”.48 The second simi
larity of Isa 41:20 and Job 12:9 is classified as the conscious quotation of
Deutero-lsaiah over Job. The third similarity in Isa 45:7 and Job 25:2 is
claimed as allusion.
Brinks’ conclusion about the relationship between the two books seems to
distinguish “allusion” from “echo” according to the nature of resemblances.
Firstly, there are strong verbal parallels to consider, that the author of Job was
aware of the language of Deutero-lsaiah and made conscious reference and
dependence to them. However, Job’s author implicitly parodied the messages
of Ps 107 and Deutero-lsaiah (Job 9:2-12; 12:7-25; Isa 40:26; 41:20; 44:24)
rather than directly quoting them. Secondly, when looking at several exam
ples of verbal similarities with regard to the innocent sufferer, the author of
Job alludes to and echoes words and ideas from the third and fourth servant
poems. Brinks, however, does not certainly distinguish allusion from echo:
[T]he author of Job would be simply echoing the language of a precursor text without
attempting to misinterpret or change the meaning. ... alluding allows the author to pack
another text’s content into a few well-chosen and familiar words. ... echoing a few key
words from Isaiah 50-53 would have communicated his point succinctly yet powerfully.49
Similar with Brinks’ conclusion, Kynes using synchronic and diachronic

ways of intertextual theory maintains that verbal parallels in the two books
prove to be the intentional parody;50 the parody of previous texts assumes
conscious adaptation from another, whether it is explicit or implicit.
3. R e fe r e n c e to a C o m m o n L ite r a r y S o u r c e
Contrary to the two previous explanations, this case does not assume that a
later author used other specific texts as a reference. Instead, it is considered
46 Although he says, “quotation and allusion must have been possible already at the
stage of oral tradition, and we cannot determine the form in which the prophets were a c
quainted with e.g. Isaiah 1-39, whether it was oral or written”, he only considers conscious
quotation and allusion which can be traceable to the previous sources. Nurmela, Mouth, 4 -
5.
47 Ibid., 8, 12-3,42.
48 Ibid., 8.
50 Brinks and Kynes use the conclusion o f Dell’s claim, that passages of Job misuse a
conventional hymnic form and parody it. See Katharine J. Dell, The Book o f Job as Scepti
cal Literature, BZAW 197 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991). However, they are both arguing that
there was literary allusion between Job and Deutero-lsaiah.
that similarities resulted from the adoption of Israelite literary traditions or
from the usage of non-Israelite resources which were widely known to bibli
cal writers in the same milieu. It is very common for biblical interpreters in
this area to assume that Job and Deutero-Isaiah take over certain traditional
forms of prophetic lawsuit or wisdom disputation. James Crenshaw, for in
stance, insists that the commonality between the two books can be understood
in the adoption of a popular G a ttu n g , a prophetic S tr e itg e s p r a c h (“disputa
tion”).5152The dialogue in the book of Job, according to Crenshaw, has a much
closer relationship with covenant lawsuit than with “a paradigm of an an
swered lament”, and the prophetic S tr e itg e s p r a c h as a controversy dialogue
which belongs to one of the forms of “wisdom literature” “has contributed to
the genre as found in Job and explains the kinship with II Isaiah.” Rowold
proposes a “challenge to rival genre” by comparing the similar literary form
between forensic S itz im L e b e n in Yahweh’s speeches (Job 38-39) and the
disputation/trial speeches in Deutero-Isaiah.53
Another explanation suggests that the major reason for the affinity be
tween the two books is that both authors utilise mixed literary forms and
traditions. Gunnel Andre, for example, supports that three different literary
models such as Hittite vassal-treaty, myth, and biblical covenant influenced
the literary form of rib-pattern in Job and Deutero-Isaiah.54 She concludes
that the authors of Job and Deutero-Isaiah deliberately transformed well-
known literary genres and terms in each context, in order to express Yah
weh’s action with his people and his enemies. In a different way, Janzen
claims that the two books use the motif of cosmic conflict in an unconven
tional way, but that the commonality is derived from widespread Babylonian,
Canaanite myths, and “the Priestly cosmology of Genesis 1”.55 According to
Janzen, such a treatment of mythological figures in Job 38:8-11, 40:15-41:34
and in Isa 51:9 contrasts with the prevailing views of divine conflict and
51 James L. Crenshaw, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,”

ZAW 82 (1970): 388-9.
52 Ibid., 389.
53 Rowold, “Rival”; Edward L. Greenstein, “A Forensic Understanding of the Speech
from the Whirlwind,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions, ed. Michael V. Fox (Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 254.
54 Andre, “Deuterojesaja.”
55 With regard to the reference to creation in Deutero-Isaiah, Janzen says that “the vari
ous divine references to cosmic ordering in Deutero-Isaiah contain no hint of this m otif of
conflict. ... when it is placed alongside the reversal of the m otif in Job, and when it is
considered alongside the absence of conflict in creation depicted in Genesis 1 and the
closely related Psalms 104, the conclusion is invited that its absence in Deutero-Isaiah is
deliberate, that it stands, perhaps, in dialectical contrast to Babylon’s own account of
creation, Enuma elish. ... Deutero-Isaiah favored image of cosmos as tent may be taken to
connect with the Priestly cosmology of Genesis 1”. Janzen, “Nature,” 473-4.
reverses “Job’s reiterated motif of God’s conflict with the Sea”.56 Finally,
Brinks, with the cases of allusion shown in the second type, adds another
explanation; resemblances about God’s “creation” in the two books are the
result of interacting with creation traditions, particularly with the priestly
account of creation.57*
B. Critical Reflections
This claim on literary reference has so far been applied to most comparative
studies, and to intertextual study in recent decades; such interpretations of the
origin of resemblances are also found in other comparative studies between
Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical materials. But, determining the direc
tion of literary dependence has been a much harder task than scholars have
commonly presumed. In order to find possible answers concerning the his
torical setting of various similarities, they to some degree use assumptions of
the historical criticism of the Old Testament as the representative means of
“author-centered” reading. Such an approach has constituted the backbone of
ro
explaining simiarities between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. However, although

historical criticism has made remarkable strides in perceiving the historical
setting of biblical books, it has to some extent accepted questionable premises
of biblical dating or has depended on conjectures with regard to the authors”
preferences and their literary intentions. For instance, when Cheyne argues
the priority of Job over Deutero-Isaiah, except for the Servant song (Isa
52:13-53:12), he does not give any definite clue about why he reaches this
conclusion. The dependence of Deutero-Isaiah on Job imposed by Pfeiffer
begins with guesswork, that “Edomitic wisdom” influenced the unique view
of God in Job. Elliott’s view, the borrowing of Job on Deutero-Isaiah, is
based on unclear clues; that the book of Job mainly emphasises the individual
issue of suffering, while Deutero-Isaiah highlights the national issue, and that
Job was written in 500-400 BCE and Deutero-Isaiah in 546-536 BCE.59
Besides, it is very difficult to comprehend the psychologically complex and
hidden intentions of authors in making their texts, and to assess whether the
56 Ibid., 473.
57 Brinks, “Similarities,” 234-5.
fO
Historical criticism has played an important role in restoring the original meaning of
the Hebrew Bible, in providing a broad knowledge of Sitz im Leben behind the text, and in
reconstructing the history of the formation of the Hebrew Bible.
59 Furthermore, he asserts that the book of Job “is the individualistic expression, the
diction, the sprinkling o f Aramaisms, the idiomatic syntax, and the boldness of expression,
coupled with the problem-searching method, the angelogy, the ethical ideas, the accepted
monotheism, and the reach for an after-life, which would lead the present author to set the
date for Job”. Ibid., 288-90.
origin of the similarities was caused by literary reference, or by unknown
sources drawn from other civilizations.60 Determining whether later texts
used earlier ones consciously or unconsciously and which one is used as an
earlier or a later certainly needs more caution.
I. L im its o f L ite r a r y R e fe r e n c e
It would be plausible to trace an earlier source from later sources, by demar

cating areas of interpretation and by confirming the chronological order of
Israelite and non-Israelite texts.61*63However, the discussion of literary refer
ence as to the relation between Job and Deutero-Isaiah seems to remain unre
solved. If one supports the assumption of the literary dependence/influence, it
is necessary to confirm the following issues: (1) the nature of ancient texts; (2)
the existence of precise analogy; (3) the dating of texts.
1. T h e N a tu r e o f A n c ie n t T exts
Firstly, if the textual reference by an author occurred in a specific period, the

collection of books such as the book of Job and the book of Deutero-Isaiah in
the modern sense should have existed. However, when considering the oral
literary culture of Israel, it is doubtful whether an author could possibly have
access to such literary materials as a sort of book. Karel van der Toom argues
that the origin of the word, “book” is Greek, “biblia” and the concept of the
Bible as one book or a collection of books began from the second century
BCE as a Hellenistic invention. Such a concept of a “book” of canonical
corpus which is supposed to be the outcome of rabbinic discussion is an
anachronism. For instance, what we can confirm in the case of Job is no
more of a clue than that, as Marvin Pope says, “the recovery of portions of
Targum of Job from the Qumran Caves indicate that the book must have been
in circulation for some time before the first century B.C.”64
AO
Schokel, for instance, suggests limits of hisorical criticism in explaining “the author”
and “the author’s influence”. See Luis A. Schokel, A Manual o f Hermeneutics (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic, 1998), 44-7.
61 For instance, see David M. Carr, “Method in Determination of Direction of Depend
ence,” in Gottes Volk am Sinai: Untersuchungen zu Ex 32-34 und Dtn 9-10, ed. Matthias
Kockert and Erhard Blum (Gutersloh: Chr. Kaiser, 2001), 107-40.
Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making o f the Hebrew Bible (Cam
bridge: Harvard UP, 2009), 9.
63 He notices “in the period of the Second Temple, however, the Bible was still a collec
tion of scrolls - not a codex” and uses the “stream of tradition” instead of the term
“books”. Ibid., 21, 26.
AA
O f course, some parts of book in dialogue influenced “by eastern Semites, and by the
Sumerians,” may be as early as the second millennium B.C., “while the completed book
may be as late as the third century B.C.”. Pope, Job, XXXVI-VII.
The next premise to be confirmed is about the nature of authorship in
antiquity. Proposals concerning literary reference usually start with an author
as the identifiable originator of a book. However, as a matter of fact, the
traditional concept of individual authorship of the Hebrew Bible alleged by
scholars is grounded on a modern idea, not on the ancient writing culture.
According to van der Toorn, “anonymity” was a prevalent custom of literary
production in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel, even until the
Hellenistic era.65 If the scholarly consensus is right that the book of Job has
been developed in multiple compositional stages over two or three
centuries,66 we may not talk about the literary quotation/allusion by an author
living in a particular time and location, but it would probably be more
appropriate to suppose that there were various voices in a group of authors
through successive generations.
2. A n a lo g y
Secondly, in order to show the literary connections, it is necessary to present

equivalent analogies, not loose linguistic correspondences. Does a cluster of
parallel vocabularies and phrases between texts constitute definite analogies
in both contexts? Generally, comparative study mainly concentrates on the
use of the same phrases and motifs in parallel terms rather than on the entire
contextual idea appearing in corresponding contexts, so that it readily
overlooks the original purpose of the texts and obscures the genuine
relationship between the texts. For instance, let us see the study of Tryggve
Mettinger. Adopting the literary theory from Michael Riffaterre, he suggests
the notion of literary devices such as “markers” and “signals” by which “the
surface context” triggers “a memory of the infracontext”. 67 The literary
technique used in determining many textual meanings in relation to other
texts, according to Mettinger, is “the metamorphic use of a traditional genre”;
i.e., the author of Job is utilising many images and languages used in Psalms
and Lamentations; e.g. the suffering man in Job 19:6-12 alludes to the siege
metaphor in Lam 3 .68 What he indicates is not real analogies between
65 Toorn concludes that “authors, in antiquity, were scribes.” van der Toorn, Scribal,
27-49.
66 Gray argues that “the Book o f Job, excluding the later addenda of the Elihu section
(chs. 32-37), and the poems on Behemoth and Leviathan, and 42.12ff, which we regard as
a midrashic expansion, was substantially composed between 450 and 350 BCE”. See Gray,
Job, 35. See also Norman H. Snaith, The Book o f Job: Its Origin and Purpose, SBT 11
(London: SCM, 1968); Leo G. Perdue, The Sword and the Stylus: An Introduction to Wis
dom in the Age o f Empires (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008), 118-9.
fJl
Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, “Intertextuality: Allusion and Vertical Context Systems in
Some Job Passages,” in O f Prophets ’ Visions and the Wisdom o f Sages, ed. Heather A.
McKay and David J. A. Clines, JSOT (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 258-65.
68 Ibid., 275.
passages in the context, but common literary motifs and genres such as
lamentation, hymn, and law. Unfortunately, those similar genres/images
between evoking and alluding texts are commonplace in the Hebrew Bible,
and are not sufficient grounds to prove the literary connection.
3. D a tin g T exts
Thirdly, the dating of biblical texts and their arrangement in a chronological

order makes it difficult to establish literary dependence.
a) L ite r a r y D a tin g
The dating used in claims about literary reference has mainly depended on
linguistic features and patterns in Biblical Hebrew (BH). For example, Avi
Hurvitz holds that much of the prose tale of Job has been written in late Bib
lical Hebrew (LBH) because of linguistic elements of post-exilic writing as
shown in Esther, Chronicles and Ezra, and in the influence of Aramanism.69
On the contrary, Ian Young insists in analysing Hurvitz’s LBH linguistic
elements that, although the prose tale includes LBH linguistic forms, it “does
not exhibit enough for an accumulation of LBH features to place it with the
core LBH books”, but rather it shows linguistic elements of early Biblical
Hebrew (EBH).70 More recently, Jan Joosten defends “a mediating position”,
that the prose tale belongs to somewhere between LBH and EBH, and he
assigns it to the Babylonian period rather than the Persian period.71
The debates with regard to linguistic dating of biblical materials are still
on-going.7273On the one hand, Hurvitz and his adherents maintain that LBH is
distinct from EBH in its form and style and perfectly replaces EBH in
chronology, so that with a profile of LBH linguistic elements, an unknown
text can be dated by “an accumulation of LBH features” (followed by Roland
L. Bergey, Mark F. Rooker, Richard M. Wright). On the other hand, Young,
69 Avi Hurvitz, “Date of the Prose-Tale of Job Linguistically Reconsidered,” HTR 67

(1974): 17-34; for the similar dating, see Robert Gordis, The Book o f God and Man: A
Study o f Job (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1978), 209-18; Hartley, Job, 17-20.
70 He adds: “This conclusion has no chronological implication, however, since EBH and
LBH represent not two chronological phases but co-existing styles o f Hebrew in the post-
exilic and quite possibly pre-exilic period.” Ian Young, “Is the Prose Tale of Job in Late
Biblical Hebrew?,” VT 59, no. 4 (2009): 606.
71 Jan Joosten, “Linguistic Clues as to the Date of the Book of Job: A Mediating Posi
tion,” in Interested Readers, ed. James K. Aitken et al. (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 347-57.
72 Kim provides an interesting summary about two conflicting views on dating linguis
tic elements of biblical texts. See Dong-Hyuk Kim, Early Biblical Hebrew, Late Biblical
Hebrew, and Linguistic Variability: A Sociolinguistic Evaluation o f the Linguistic Dating
o f Biblical Texts, SVT 156 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013).
73 Ibid., 151-2. Avi Hurvitz, “Can Biblical Texts Be Dated Linguistically? Chronologi
cal Perspectives in the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew,” in Congress Volume: Oslo
Robert Rezetko, and Martin Ehrensvard have challenged the methodology
which Hurvitz and his followers have supported.74 These opponents argue
that LBH texts do not exclude EBH linguistic elements, but rather only that
they contain more LBH linguistic elements than EBH elements, and that both
EBH and LBH have always coexisted throughout the history of biblical
literature.7576What they assert is that it is not possible to date biblical texts as
LBH texts, even though Hurvitz has exhibited a LBH linguistic profile.
Lately, Dong-Hyuk Kim sought to judge between two conflicting views, and
persuasively advocated Young’s view from the sociolinguist’s theory of
William Labov who distinguishes two types of Hebrew linguistic changes;
though he partly agrees with Hurvitz’s view that EBH and LBH need to be
seen in chrological terms, he follows Young’s view that it is certainly not
possible to date biblical materials exclusively by linguistic styles and forms.
Both views have their own validity and there is certainly difficulty in
giving a convincing solution in this sphere. In my opinion, as Hurvitz says, it
would be reasonable to some degree to suppose that there are distinct forms
and styles between two patterns of BH and that we might possibly put them in
different historical periods. Nonetheless, I suppose that it is not necessary to
regard the exlic period as a historical breaking point in dividing LBH from
EBH completely. In the main, I agree with Young and his followers, in
claiming that differences between LBH and EBH need to be understood as
the creative register of biblical authors, and the linguistic frequency in LBH
and EBH texts could not be a factor in determining a chronological order; i.e.,
the diversity of BH seems to be “a matter of style, not chronology”. So, if
scholars wish to determine the chronological order in biblical texts from
linguistic profiles, they need to consider that such a literary dating of BH
necessarily involves many intricate problems.
1998, ed. Andre Lemaire and Magne Saeb0, SVT 80 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2000), 143-60;
A Concise Lexicon o f Late Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Innovations in the Writings o f the
Second Temple Period, SVT 160 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2014).
74 Ian Young, Robert Rezetko, and Martin Ehrensvard, Linguistic Dating o f Biblical
Texts (London: Equinox, 2008). Also, see Ian Young, Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew, FAT
5 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993); “Biblical Texts Cannot Be Dated Linguistically,” HS
46 (2005): 341-51.
75 Kim, Early, 152.
76 Kim, Early, 89, 91. Kim says in concluding parts: “ [M]ost linguistic changes dis
cussed in historical and present-day sociolinguistics are changes from below. ... Their
language must have distinguished its users from those who did not use it and who belonged
to the lower classes of the society” . Ibid., 157-8. Further, refer to William Labov, Princi
ples o f Linguistic Change, vol. 1, 2 vols., Language in Society 20 (Oxford: Blackwell,
1994).
77 Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvard, Linguistic Dating o f Biblical Texts, 1:86.
b) D a tin g o f J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h
The dating of Job and Deutero-Isaiah for the discussion of comparative

studies has been made in two ways: either by putting them in the same period
or by putting them in different periods. Firstly, dating Job and Deutero-Isaiah
at the same period has frequently been suggested. For instance, Leo Perdue
dates the dialogues of Job (except for Job 1-2; 42:7-17; and Job 28, 32-37)
and Deutero-Isaiah in the exilic period, as pointing out similar styles and
themes; without assessment Perdue follows the dating of Deutero-Isaiah
to
which Terrien already proposed. He suggests as theological features of Job

“the absence of major traditions of election, salvation history, covenant, and
Torah” and says that the author of Job reflects the Babylonian traditions
during the Exile.7879 However, Perdue’s dating of the dialogues of Job and
Deutero-Isaiah is highly problematic, in that we have no distinct linguistic
profiles of exilic Biblical Hebrew.
Secondly, some argue that the two books came into existence in different
periods. On the one hand, it has been claimed that Job is earlier than Deutero-
Isaiah. For instance, Pfeiffer gives several linguistic features which indicate
the priority of Job over Deutero-Isaiah; in the book of Job, he notices the use
of the divine names and m*7N, and the lack of technical terms (e.g., iO l,
“ISP, *7P£3) related to the theme of “creation”, which may be used in the post-
exilic texts and which are found in texts of Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 41:4; 44:27;
45:12; 48:13f).80 Similarly, Terrien’s claim, that Job was formed prior to
Deutero-Isaiah, depends on literary-stylistic features which are prominent in
the exilic and post-exilic periods; the author of Job does not use the Hebrew
verb N“Q (“to create”) in describing God’s creation activity and does not
formulate the concept of “vicarious suffering” found in Deutero-Isaiah;8182
Job could not have been inspired by Deutero-Isaiah without considering the solution of
vicarious suffering. It is also very unlikely that he would speak of the creation without
X9
using the technical term, N"13, “to create”, if he had known the work of Deutero-Isaiah.
Terrien, relying on the probable date of the formation of Deutero-Isaiah,

estimates that the poet of Job may “be pictured as a man who lived probably
78 O f course, he agrees that “the folktale was told orally and then possibly written down
during the First Temple period in order to present a story o f edification” and Woman W is
dom in Job 28 and the Elihu speeches in Job 32-37 was formed in the Persian period. See
Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville: Westminster John
Knox, 2007), 83-5.
79 Ibid., 85.
80 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 205.
81 Contra Gray, Job, 34; “We cannot admit the absence of the doctrine of atonement
through vicarious suffering in the Book of Job as a reason for dating the Book before
Deutero-Isaiah.”
82 My own translation from Terrien, “Remarques,” 309-10.
between 580 and 540 BC”.83 He dates the book of Job to the exilic period
before Deutero-Isaiah, and suggests that Job should more likely be placed
between old Babylonian Wisdom and Deutero-Isaiah; he dates the poetic
dialogue (Job 3:1-42:6) to an early sixth century BCE in parallel references
with Jeremiah (Job 3//Jer 20:14-18; Job 21//Jer 12:1-3) and the prologue and
epilogue (Job 1-2; 42:7-17) to the ninth or eighth century BCE.8485However,
we have little reason to determine the priority of Job over Deutero-Isaiah
solely on the basis that specific vocabularies and themes were frequently used
or omitted, and recent commentators would not agree that the book of Job
was formed in the pre-exilic and exilic periods.
On the other hand, recent scholarship has likely considered that Deutero-
Isaiah was written in the exilic period (550-539 BCE) and the book of Job
was formed later in the post-exilic period, so that it has been argued that
Deutero-Isaiah influenced the book of Job (e.g., Sommer, Brinks, and Kynes);
then, the primary source is not Job, but Deutero-Isaiah, and they do not
consider the influence of Job on Deutero-Isaiah. Moreover, Janzen and
Fishbane maintain that the book of Job employs the common theme of cosmic
creation found in Gen 1, texts of Psalms (cf. Ps 89, 74), Jeremiah, and the
Babylonian creation story, E m m a e lis h , so much so that the author of Job
was aware of creation language which is mostly related to mythological fig- oc
ures; Fishbane in particular compares Job 3:1-13 and Gen 1-2:4a. In this
respect, Brinks argues that there is no evidence of any allusion of Deutero-
Isaiah to Job, and that Job has been written subsequent to Deutero-Isaiah.86
For another example, when Kynes assumes that the author of Job used texts
of Deutero-Isaiah,87 he uses other scholars’ assumptions (Willey, Sommer,
and Schultz) arguing that Deutero-Isaiah was earlier than the book of Job.
Although many interpreters may be constrained to focus an option from
above assumptions, such a dating of Job and Deutero-Isaiah would remain
controversial, unless they provide linguistic and thematic similarities as sup
portive evidence. At best, from the debate, we may say that the final form of
83 Terrien, “Job: Introduction,” 890; Terrien, “Remarques,” 300; “The problem of the
dependence of Deutero-Isaiah to Job cannot be vitiated by the illusion that the book of Job
was in manuscript in the sixth century BC.”
84 Terrien, “Quelques,” 309-10; Terrien, Job, 14-5; “Job: Introduction,” 884-92.
85 Michael A. Fishbane, “Jeremiah IV 23-26 and Job III 3-13: A Recovered Use of the
Creation Pattern,” V T 21 (1971): 151-67; Janzen, “God’s Watch”; Janzen, “Nature.”
86 Brinks, “ Similarities,” 178, 190; Kynes, “Job,” 5.
87 Kynes, “Job,” 98. Also, Driver argues that the poet of Job parodies parts of Psalms
(esp. Job 7:17//Ps 8) or Proverbs, as it is, under premises that if “Ps 8 implies familiarity
with P, and P was written about 500 B.C., this alone brings down the book of Job as late as
the 5th cent. B.C.” See Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book o f Job,
lxvii-iii. Terrien rejects the possibility of determining the date of Job with uncertain dating
of Psalms and Proverbs. See Terrien, “Job: Introduction,” 889.
the book of Job has probably been established throughout the Persian period
(538-332) since the pre-exilic period and that the dating of Deutero-Isaiah is
OQ
not earlier than the exilic period, while there is the possibility of late edition
even in the late Persian period; though it is not possible to tell the precise
dates of the formation of the two books. For this, I will discuss the issue no
further than is necessary for my purpose. This research is far from determin
ing questions of historical priority, especially given that both Job and Deu
tero-Isaiah are multi-layered pieces of literature.
II. T he M is u s e o f In te r te x tu a lity
Comparative studies have tended to appropriate intertextual criticism as a

more systematised method since the late twentieth century. In general, “inter-
textuality” investigates the mass of unlimited networks and cross-influences
that governs the composition, comprehension, and development of texts. This
term, however, has been widely misused in biblical studies, so that this
method has the same limitation as the general author-oriented approaches
showed before the emergence of the intertextual study in the Old Testament.
1. T h e o ry o f In te r te x tu a lity
The theory of “intertextuality” first emerged from the idea of the Russian
literary theorist Mikhail M. Bakhtin and the terminology was introduced by
Julia Kristeva in the late 1960s, in order to provide a literary tool for the
process of textual transformation and in cultural interaction.**90 Although
on
There are three ways for the dating of the book of Job: (1) the pre-exilic period, even
the patriarch period; Pope, Job, xxxi-ii; Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion o f Israel: From
Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, trans. Moshe Greenberg (London: Allen & Unwin,
1961), 334-8; Hartley, Job, 19; (2) the exilic period (587-538 BCE); Terrien, “Job: Intro
duction,” 884-92; Cheyne, Job, 74; (3) the Persian period; Naphtali H. Tur-Sinai, The
Book o f Job: A New Commentary (Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1967), XXX-LI; Gordis,
M an, 207-18; Gray, Job, 32-5.
OQ
For the dating of Deutero-Isaiah, there are four possible options; (1) the pre-exilic pe
riod; Oswalt, The Book o f Isaiah, 3-6; (2) the exilic period; Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, 3 -
5; Christopher R. North, The Second Isaiah: Introduction, Translation and Commentaiy to
Chapters X L -L V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 1-4; John L. McKenzie, Second Isaiah,
AB 20 (New York: Doubleday, 1968), xxiv-xxx; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55, 92-5; Sha
lom M. Paul, Isaiah 40-66: Translation and Commentary, ECC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2011), 2; (3) the Persian period; Christopher R. Seitz, “Isaiah 4 0 -6 6 ,” in The New Inter
p re te r’s Bible, NIB 6 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 316-9; (4) the late Persian (or the
early Greek) period; John Goldingay, Isaiah 40-55: A Critical and Exegetical Commen
taiy, ed. David Payne, ICC 1 (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 25-30.
90 Refer to Mary Orr, Intertextuality Debates and Contexts (Cambridge: Polity, 2003),
20-32; Graham Allen, Intertextuality, 2nd ed., The New Critical Idiom (London:
Routledge, 2011), 8-60.
Kristeva invented this term, she was heavily influenced by the theories of
Bakhtin. The core concept related to “intertextuality” in Bakhtin’s work is
found in the idea of “dialogism” exemplified in novelistic prose and in other
consequential terms such as “polypony”, “h e te r o g lo s s ia ”, “double-voiced
discourse”, and “hybridization”.91923To Bakhtin, the language “is shaped by
dialogic interaction with an alien word that is already in the object” and “a
word forms a concept of its own object in a dialogic way”. Bakhtin’s inter
textuality is based on many complex social-cultural contexts in which utter
ances and words exemplify worldviews, interpretations, discourses, and ide
ologies in a “tension-filled environment”. He writes:
The word, directed toward its object, enters a dialogically agitated and tension-filled envi
ronment of alien words, value judgments and accents, weaves in and out of complex inter
relationship, merges with some, recoils from others, intersects with yet a third group: and
all this may crucially shape discourse, may leave a trace in all its semantic layers, may
complicate its expression and influence its entire stylistic profile. The living utterances,
having taken meaning and shape at a particular historical moment in a socially specific
environment, cannot fail to brush up against thousands of living dialogic threads, woven by
socio-ideological consciousness around the given object of an utterance; it cannot fail to
become an active participant in social dialogue. After all, the utterance arises out of this
dialogue as a continuation of it and as a rejoinder to it - it does not approach the object
from the sidelines.
Bakhtin claims that interrelationships in unlimited known and unknown texts,

utterances, and discourses should be understood in h e te r o g lo t (“as language’s
ability to contain within it many voices, one’s own and other voices”)94 which
“represents the co-existence of socio-ideological contradictions between the
present and the past, between differing epochs of the past, between different
socio-ideological groups in the present, between tendencies, schools, circles
and so forth, all given a bodily form”.95 The dialogical nature of a literary
work led him to criticise the idea of “stylistics”, literary critics “assuming that
when readers read, communication proceeds in a simple, direct, and uniform
line from text to reader”.96 This is the theoretical basis of language and text
from Bakhtin used by Kristeva.
However, Kristeva does not repeat the notion of Bakhtin’s dialogism, but
by placing it into the term “intertextuality”, she extends the initial idea given
by Bakhtin. As defined by Kristeva, “an intertextuality” refers to no more
91 Allen, Intertextuality, 22.

92 Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist,
University o f Texas Press Slavic Series 1 (Austin: Univ. of Texas, 1981), 279.
93 Ibid., 276-7.
94 Allen, Intertextuality, 29.
95 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, 29.
96 Patricia K. Tull, “Intertextuality and the Hebrew Scriptures,” CR: Biblical Studie 8
( 2000): 68.
than “a permutation of texts” so that “in the space of a given text, several
utterances, taken from other texts, intersect and neutralize one another”.97
Kristeva notices that texts are structuralized in different linguistic, social, and
historical levels:
The text is defined as a trans-linguistic apparatus that redistributes the order of language by
relating communicative speech, which aims to inform directly, to different kinds of ante
rior or synchronic utterances. ... The concept of text as ideologeme determines the very
procedure of a semiotics that, by studying the text as intertextuality, considers it as such
within (the text of) society and history.98
In particular, differently from Bakhtin, who sees “a subject responding in a

particular social world”, Kristeva looks at language “as a mosaic of interre
lated, virtually subjectless discourses”.99 Text is not isolated from social
structure, so that it consists of a collection or combination of cultural, histori
cal, and social texts which reflect all the different thoughts, words, and dis
courses. The consequence of this notion of intertextuality is to give up the
traditional belief that texts have a unified and unique meaning, but to under
stand that “texts are thoroughly connected to on-going cultural and social
processes”.100 Although Kristeva understands intertextuality in the frame of
socio-cultural textuality, she recognises that her new term has been used in
different ways in other places, and finds that it “has often been understood in
the banal sense of ‘study of sources’”.1011023In order to avoid the mistreatment of
this term, she conveniently drops the term “intertextuality” and uses another
term “transposition” (“of one or several sign system(s) into another”), “be
cause it specifies that the passage from one signifying system to another de-
mands a new articulation of the thetic”. 102
Following the theoretical heritage of Bakhtin and Kristeva, Roland Barthes
announces “the death of the Author” where “writing is that neutral, composite,
oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is
lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing”. The sense of inter
textuality to Barthes goes far beyond any possible literary influence:
We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single “theological” meaning
(the “message” of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of
97
Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and A rt, ed.
Leon S. Roudiez (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), 36.
98 See Chapter 2, “The Bounded Text”; Ibid., 36-7.
99 Tull, “Intertextuality,” 71; also refer to Kristeva, Desire, 86-7.
100 See Allen, Intertextuality, 37.
101 Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language (New York: Columbia UP, 1984), 60.
102 Ibid., 59-60.
103 Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath, Fontana Communications
Series (London: Fontana, 1977), 142.
writings, none o f them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn
from the innumerable centres o f culture.104
In this manner, what most postmodern linguistic theorists have argued is that
all existent texts can and must be read in an unlimited network with other
texts and that none of them can be interpreted as a separate document, but
must be seen as a communicative dialogue in cultural textuality.105 This is
distinct from classic approaches of the originality, imitation, and intention in
text, and it is significant to distinguish traditional claims about “influence
theory” 106107from the postmodern concept of “intertextuality”.
2. In te r te x tu a l S tu d y in th e O ld T e s ta m e n t
The present burgeoning of intertextual research in biblical studies has by and

large benefited from the contemporary literary theorists, and biblical intertex
tual study has been discerned in two methodologies; “author-oriented” and
“reader-oriented” intertextual studies. According to Patricia Tull, an author-
oriented approach is labelled as that of “traditional” intertextualists, and a
reader-oriented approach is directed into that of “theoretical” (or “radical”)
“intertextualists”. On the one hand, traditional intertextualists rely on
“linear, historicist models of interpretation that seek to identify chronological
relationships among texts”.108 They explain the interrelationships, based on
the concept of influence in which “the actions of later texts are described in
relation to precursor texts, whether as ‘imitation’, ‘parody’, ‘misreading’, or
‘borrowing’” (Bloom, Rabinowitz, Johnson).109 On the other hand, theoretical
intertextualists use a purely synchronic approach which is close to postmod
ern theory in which readers become a major subject of interpretation by im
posing plural meanings. Tull says that they “view texts as being so thor
IU4 Ibid., 146.

105 Allen states how “intertextuality” is used by people and comments on “how and why
it has taken on its current meanings and applications” . Allen, Intertextuality, 2. Key texts
on “intertextuality” include Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed.
Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, trans. Roy Harris (London: Duckworth, 1983); Bak
htin, The Dialogic Imaginations Kristeva, Desires Roland Barthes, “Theory of the Text,” in
Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, ed. Robert Young (Boston; London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 31-47.
106 Worton and Still argue that “although the term intertextuality dates from the 1960s,
the phenomenon, in some form, is at least as old as recorded human society.” Further they
say that “imitation must therefore be seen as a theory not only of writing but also of read
ing as a performative act of criticism and interpretation.” See Michael Worton and Judith
Still, “Introduction,” in Intertextuality: Theories and Practices (Manchester; New York:
Manchester UP, 1990), 2, 7.
107 Tull, “Intertextuality,” 61-3.
108 Geoffrey D. Miller, “Intertextuality in Old Testament Research,” CBR 9 (2011): 286.
109 Tull, “Intertextuality,” 62.
oughly and deeply interwoven that tracing lines among them becomes as
meaningless as distringuishing among water drops in the ocean”.110 The idea
of this group thus rejects the view of traditionalists and highlights “the multi-
facted disalogical, revisionary, sometimes even polemical relationships in
which texts stand over against one another”.111*
Although there is a great gap between two methodologies, we do not have
to resort exclusively to theoretical intertextuality as ignoring the author-
centered approach, nor to apply the traditional approach (“diachronic”) with-
119
out noting a synchronic reading of a text. To ameliorate this dichotomy
between radical and traditional intertextuality, it would be laudable to
combine the synchronic reading with the diachronic reading. For instance,
Miller provides two examples as integrative approaches between a reader-
oriented and a author-oriented reading; from the works of John Vassar who
proposes multiple influences between texts, and of H. Koehl-Krebs who talks
of a bi-directional influence.113 However, Miller decisively dismisses this sort
of integrative approach to equate two methods, saying that “it cannot
withstand the criticism already voiced by many scholars, especially those
adopting the reader-oriented approach”.114 The point is that, whenever the
integrated method is used, it leads to the same problem as the traditional
intertextuality; by downgrading the meaning of “intertextuality” into the level
of prior “source-hunting”.115
When many biblical scholars introduce the concept of intertextuality into
biblical hermeneutics, what they envisage differs from the original meaning.
While many linguists commonly understand that “intertextuality” refers to the
way in which readers access unlimited sources, and that texts are shaped on
the basis of cultural textuality,116 it has more simply come to substitute the
110 Ibid.
1.1 Ibid., 62-3.
1.2 Miller, “Intertextuality,” 286.
113 Ibid., 292-3. For these examples, see John S. Vassar, Recalling a Story Once Told:
An Intertextual Reading o f the Psalter and the Pentateuch (Macon: Mercer UP, 2007), 35;
Helene Koehl-Krebs, “L ’intertextualite comme methode d ’investigation du texte biblique:
Fexemple de Malachie 3,20,” B N 121 (2004): 63.
1,4 Miller, “Intertextuality,” 292-3.
115 “Intertextuality is one of the most commonly used and misused terms in contempo
rary critical vocabulary. ... Such a term is in danger of meaning nothing more than w hat
ever each particular critic wishes it to mean;” Allen, Intertextuality, 2; Heinrich F. Plett,
“Intertextualities,” in Intertextuality (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991), 3-29.
116 However, I do not agree with the general argument of structuralism and post
structuralism which opens the plurality of textual meanings and which maintains that texts
have no meanings and the authors of texts are no more than compilers of existent dis
courses. For the excellent criticism of this area, see Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Mean
ing in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality o f Literary Knowledge (Leices
ter: Apollos, 1998).
notion of literary reference between two texts. Ironically, this traditional
notion of borrowing and influence is itself what the theorists who advocate
the concept of “intertextuality” have criticised. For instance, since the pub
lication of Michael Fishbane’s influential book, B ib lic a l In te r p r e ta tio n in
A n c ie n t I s r a e l ,1
1718 frequently when biblical interpreters describe the relation
ship between an early source and a later borrower by using special terms such
as “exegesis”, “influence”, “revision”, “polemic”, “allusion”, or “echo”, they
have blended the approach of literary influence with the notion of “intertextu
ality”.119120Such a literary technique to some degree might come from the Jew-
ish-Christian interpretive premise. Fishbane describes intra-biblical interpre-
1“70
tation, using a tr a d itu m -tr a d itio model and categorising the historical proc-
191
ess of scribal edition into the three genres, “law, a g g a d a h , and mantology”.
In another place, while distinguishing diverse modes of canon according to
“successive stages of culture” - the “proto-canonical stage” (“the canon-
before-the-canon”), the “canon-within-the-canon stage”, and the canonical
final corpus which is related to “the archetypal mode of exegetical work in
rabbinic Judaism” - Fishbane suggests:
Indeed, the principle of "damileih" (or resemblance) is the deep principle of analogy that
underpins all rabbinic midrash, in one form or another, creating out of Scripture a vast
warp and w oof of intertextual connections. ... For the rabbinic mind, then, Scripture is
intertextual to the core. Indeed, for the ancient sages the canon and intertextuality are
functional corollaries - the one being the fixed context, the other the ever possible praxis.
Rabbinic exegesis stands on this basic point.122
The idea of Fishbane’s biblical intertextuality has been influential in estab

lishing the tradition of rabbinic Midrash and in some degree it is quite true
that in Jewish-Christian canonical exegesis, pointing to other scriptural texts
is helpful in enlightening the textual correlation; it is far from my intention to
put forward that the entire claim of Fishbane and other interpreters adopting
199
the concept of intra-biblical exegesis is erroneous. However, when consid
117 Marko Juvan, “Towards a History o f Intertextuality in Literary and Culture Studies,”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 10 (2008): 3.
Patricia K. Tull, “Intertextuality and the Hebrew Scriptures,” CR: B S 8 (2000): 61-3.
118 Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1985); note also his earlier Text and Texture: Close Readings o f Selected Biblical
Texts (New York: Schocken Books, 1979).
119 See, e.g., Sommer, Prophet.
120 The term “inner-biblical” has been synonymous with “intra-biblical” (DBCI, 167-9).
121 Fishbane, Biblical, 88.
122 Michael A. Fishbane, “Types o f Biblical Intertextuality,” in Congress Volume: Oslo
1998, SVT 80 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 44.
191
Carr indicates the same point: “I think Fishbane is largely right about the norms sur
rounding much Jewish and Christian interpretation of scripture, and I am not criticizing
Fishbane or anyone else here for failing to be true to the original intention behind
ering the original sense of what Kristeva and his adherents said, such a state-
ment, “intertextuality is the core of the canonical imagination”, 124 needs to be
reconsidered.
With regard to this issue, David Carr, in his recent work, criticises the con
cept of biblical intertextuality as a literary technique which attempts to redi
rect the literary resources behind given texts, and he argues that intertextual-
19S
ity is actually a complex, uncontrollable, and unconscious network. The
necessity to distinguish “influence” from “intertextuality” has been clearly
argued by Carr:
Insofar as biblical scholars aim and claim to be reconstructing specific relationships be
tween a given biblical text and earlier texts, the proper term for this type of inquiry is
reconstruction of “influence,” not “intertextuality.” The term “intertextuality” in contrast is
proper to the myriad o f largely unreconstructable, conscious and unconscious relationships
between a given text, say a biblical text in this case, and a variety of sorts of “texts” - oral
discourse, business interactions, artistic creation, etc. - in circulation in a broader culture.
Insofar as this broader realm of intertexts is relatively inaccessible to biblical scholars,
1
“intertextuality” thus is best used to refer to the “unknown” background of biblical texts.
Carr then suggests that the concept of literary influence used in reconstruct
ing literary relationship only within canonical corpus should be substituted
for the theory of intertextuality in which texts include “not just literary works,
but (also) all kinds of popular culture, oral discourse, concepts, motifs,
etc”.*1245627 Carr notes:
Authors of any time or age always had to work with chunks of language and language
patterns that had, whether they knew it or not, been previously used in earlier textual com
binations, which in turn were dependent on earlier, quite different combinations in an
infinite and amorphous semiotic network.128
Therefore, if “intertextuality” is understood as an intricate and unlimited

network in which any literature reflects dialogues with other earlier and con
temporary materials, but also as cultural diversity found in oral speech,
known/unknown texts or motifs, and conscious/unconscious texts, the
original meaning of “intertextuality” probably is much closer to a reader-
oriented approach than an author-oriented approach. Miller puts it in this way:
Since the reader-oriented, purely synchronic approach constitutes a more authentic
application of the post-structuralist concept borrowed from literary theory and postmodern
Kristeva’s and others’ use of the term “intertextuality”. See David M. Carr, “The Many
Uses of Intertextuality,” in Congress Volume Helsinki 2010, ed. Martti Nissinen, SVT 148
(Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012), 515.
124 Fishbane, “Types of Biblical Intertextuality,” 39.
125 Carr, “Many,” 515-7.
126 Ibid., 522-3.
127 See ib id , 516.
128 Ib id , 511.
thought, it should be designated as the study o f intertextuality. The more diachronic,
author-oriented approach indebted to traditional methods of biblical criticism should be
given a different name, as many scholars have tried to do.1291302
Likewise, Benjamin Sommer obviously distinguishes intertextuality from

influence and allusion, and selects as methodology the principle of literary
allusion and influence concerning the study of the literary relationship of
Isaiah 40-66 in the Hebrew Bible;
Intertextuality is synchronic in its approach, influence or allusion diachronic or even his-
toricist. Intertextuality is interested in a very wide range of correspondences among texts,
influence and allusion with a more narrow set. Intertextuality examines the relations
among many texts, while influence and allusion look for specific connections between a
1TO
limited number o f texts.
Therefore, let us maintain the concept of “intertextuality” in biblical study, if

interpreters use this term in a reader-oriented approach based on a postmod
ern theory. Otherwise, it would be more precise to use the term “inner-
biblical exegeses”, “inner-biblical allusion”, or “inner-biblical echo” than
to adopt the intertextual criticism or the integrated method under a covering-
term of “intertextuality”.
3. I n te r te x tu a l S tu d y in J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h
When recent scholars introduce the theory of intertextuality, they mostly

speak of the literary dependence/influence by terms of “echo”, “allusion”, or
“quotation” according to the degree of the authorial consciousness, rather
than substantiating the meaning of intertextuality; e.g., Nurmela explains
intertextual links as quotation and allusion; Pyeon as allusion and echo,
Brinks and Kynes as allusion. Let us look at the works of Brinks and Kynes
among the latest studies.
129 Miller, “Intertextuality,” 305.

130 Sommer, Prophet, 8.
131 Miller, “Intertextuality,” 305; provides some references to use “inner-biblical” exe
gesis or allusion. Also see Fishbane, Biblical, Karl W. Weyde, “Inner-Biblical Interpreta
tion: Methodological Reflections on the Relationship between Texts in the Hebrew Bible,”
SEA 70 (2005): 287-300; Lyle M. Eslinger, “Inner-Biblical Exegesis and Inner-Biblical
Allusion: The Question of Category,” VT 42 (1992): 47-58; Benjamin D. Sommer, “Exe
gesis, Allusion and Intertextuality in the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Lyle Eslinger,” VT
46 (1996): 479-89; Jeffery M. Leonard, “Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions: Psalm 78 as
a Test Case,” JBL 127 (2008): 241-65.
132 See Nurmela, Mouth “Introduction”; Yohan Pyeon, You Have Not Spoken What Is
Right About Me: Intertextuality and the Book o f Job (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), 68;
Brinks, “ Similarities,” 101-2; Kynes, “Job,” 98.
1'1XAmong four researches which appropriate the theory of intertextuality between Job
and Deutero-Isaiah, the methods o f Pyeon and Nurmela are not entirely sophisticated and
well-established. The intertextual study of Pyeon is in fact a diachronic approach which
Firstly, Brinks criticises most of the previous interpreters, saying that for
mer surveys, which predate theoretical development of intertextuality, did not
pay sufficient attention “to the complex composition history of the two
works”.*134 She argues that interpreters did not consider “the more subtle rhe
torical strategies of allusion, echo”,135136789and defines “intertextuality” as “con-
taining within it all manner of connections between all manner of texts”.
She states that “any conclusions about authorial intention have to remain
tentative”, but immediately changes her stance:
[L]anguage of intentionality is unavoidable in the present case. I am interested in whether
and how the ancient and anonymous author(s) in question used the words of a previous text
to communicate something to readers and what impact that rhetorical strategy might have
n1->
on the interpretation of the author’s text.
She simply chooses the concepts of quotation and allusion that include the
intentionality of authors as a working hypothesis, but does not consider the
notion of intertextuality important enough. Then, she concludes that the
author of Job was associating with passages of Deutero-Isaiah (Job 9:2-12;
12:7-25; Isa 40:26; 41:20; 44:24) and “may have borrowed wording from the
third and fourth servant poems for Job’s self-description”. In general, it
would be reasonable to talk about literary techniques of “quotation” and “al
lusion” in the Hebrew Bible, but her methodology fails to make a difference
with previous scholars whom she earlier criticised. Further, if she seeks to
argue the literary relationship as a parody of Job on Deutero-Isaiah, it is nec
essary to provide more evidence beyond verbal affinities.
Secondly, Kynes proposes “intertextualities in dialogue” between Job and
Deutero-Isaiah. In methodology presented in the study between Job and
Psalms, he maintains that the separation between the progressive understand
ing and the traditional understanding of intertextuality is a “false dichotomy”,
saying that the criticism against traditionalists is “subjective and exagger
puts Job’s intertexts in earlier sources without looking at various intertextual relationships
between Job 3-14 and the Hebrew Bible. Nurmela assumes the direction o f dependence
only by verbal parallels between Isaiah 40-55 and Job without presenting supportive clues.
135 Ibid.
136 Ib id , 100.
137 Ib id , 101.
138 She says: “ Still, the goal is an important one; if an author’s textual conversation
partners can be discovered, it follows that doing so gives the audience an advantage in
interpreting his or her words. The value of this goal is illustrated by the proliferation of
investigations into the sources of quotation and allusion, especially in English poetry.” See
ib id , 70-1.
139 Kynes, “Job.”
ated”.140 He applies the notion of dialogical intertextuality to the relationship
between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. In spite of the careful examination, he sim
ply dismisses the possibility of the priority of Job over Deutero-Isaiah posed
by Terrien, saying; “instead of answering Job’s question, allusions to Job’s
speeches would undercut the message of Isa 40-55 altogether.”141 As an ex
planation for “the antithetical relationship between the respective meanings of
the parallel in their context”, he argues that there was “parody”;142 what the
“parody” implies necessarily presumes the intentional usage by the later au
thor to produce a new context from the source text. The attempt to satisfy
both camps of synchronic and diachronic approaches deserves encouragement,
but Kynes’ method of drawing the priority of one text over another is far
from the original sense of “intertextuality” which involves cultural knowl
edge; these diachronic approaches on the basis of the chronological order and
the authorial intentionality would not enrich biblical “intertextuality”.
C. Conclusion
So far, I have summarised the diverse scholarly claims for relationships be
tween Job and Deutero-Isaiah according to their resemblances and interpreta
tions. What biblical scholars have consistently assumed is that the similarities
between the two books in vocabularies, forms, and themes appear as signifi
cant indicators of the literary dependence or reference by author(s); though a
few interperters argue the influence of common sources in Israelite or non-
Israelite literature and tradition.143 Then, I have analysed several limits of the
aforementioned researches between the texts of Job and Deutero-Isaiah, al
though they have helped our understanding of interrelationships between the
two books. Firstly, among scholarly claims before and after the development
of intertextual criticism, an author-oriented approach has evinced the lack of
historical evidence in terms of the authorial intention and the question of
literary influence. The theory of literary dependence/influence needs to clar
ify some muddy issues about the nature of ancient texts, analogy, and literary
dating, if one tries to apply it to the comparative study between the two books.
Secondly, when applying the modern theory of intertextuality into compara
140 Kynes, “Psalms in Job,” 22-5. He argues: “I have developed an approach for identi
fying inner-biblical allusions and interpreting them both historically and hermeneutically
and labeled it ‘intertextualities in dialogue’ to express my belief that the interpretation of
allusions best lies in the interface between diachronic and synchronic approaches” . Ibid.,
30.
141 Kynes, “Job,” 98.
142 Ibid.
143 The use o f common sources and themes will be examined in Chapter 2 and literary
connections with non-Israelite sources will be treated in Chapter 5.
tive studies, scholars have more or less misused the original meaning of “in-
tertextuality” that means social and cultural textuality, and have very often
replaced it with literary reference. In fact, the process of the oral-literary
transmission of biblical writings makes it difficult to prove that there was a
literary dependence in the pre-canonical stage. Of course, the well-balanced
“intra-biblical exegesis” limiting its boundary within the canonical corpus is
welcome and always is commendable, but it is important to distinguish inter-
textual study from intra-biblical exegesis. Literary reference from one text to
the other thus should be taken in a cautious way,144 and biblical intertexuality
needs to be applied within more accurate guidelines.145
If the former ways to explain those resemblances cannot be appropriate,
we now need to go one step further and I here propose another way of under
standing the literary relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. If it is hard
to confirm that there are referential connections between the two books, what
is the most probable scenario which we can consider? How can we explain
the literary resemblance between the two books? Although we may point out
numerous resemblances leading us to assume that there might be one-sided or
mutual dependence/influence or the intentional use of a specific common
source, it would be more likely that those similarities in the two literary
works were produced and developed in a common writing culture in the Isra
elite community. Until now, few scholars seem to question the concept of the
literary reference with regard to the socio-historical background for those
resemblances between the two, but throughout this research, I will examine
the substantial connection among the two bodies of literature and will pro
pose as highly probable that Job and Deutero-Isaiah are products of the
shared cultural heritage of literate experts; though claiming such a socio-
historical setting of literary experts does not preclude the possibility or neces
sity to more precisely determine the literary reference among the two literary
units.
144 Juvan notes: “Masterful borrowing was until the eighteenth century acknowledged as
the normal path to artistry. ... Influence was, as a matter of fact, accepted in literary his
torical terminology only from the second half o f the nineteenth century on. Positivists and
their descendants believed that aside from past literary words there were many other pow
erful impulses for artistic creativity”. Juvan, “Towards,” 2.
145 Plett notices that “intertextuality is not a time-bound feature in literature and the
arts.” see Plett, “Intertextualities,” 26.
Chapter 2
Resemblances between Job and Deutero-Isaiah
In this chapter, I will explore whether common themes and expressions be
tween Job and Deutero-Isaiah may be accepted as reasonable evidence of a
distinctive relationship, and for this purpose, I will examine the probable
links between the two books and see if they do pass several tests. I here ask
three questions: (1) Is the supposed commonality such as “theodicy”, “suffer
ing servant”, “creation” and “monotheism” being used as umbrella terms too
vague? (2) Are supposed parallels actually using the same elements in a dif
ferent context with a different meaning? (3) When observing possible textual
links, are the suggested resemblances prevalent in other ancient Near Eastern
literature or unique to the Hebrew Bible? Finally, I will scrutinise five re
markable expressions among many parallels which exegetes have mostly
identified. By this, we will see that though they are similar in themes and
expressions, when they appear in corresponding books they are being used to
convey different ideas and thoughts. If what the texts have in common is only
the wording and the general subject-matters, that is insufficient to support the
idea that there was direct borrowing or contact.
A. Examining Common Themes and Terms
/. T h e o d ic y a n d S u ffe r in g S e r v a n t
“Theodicy” normally means “discourse about the justice of God in the face of
indications to the contrary - the presence in the world of evil in all its
forms.”1 The issue of theodicy, the so-called religious and philosophical at
tempt to answer the questions in terms of evil and suffering in the world, is
likely to commonly appear in both books as the most central theme. A group
of scholars has seen general resemblances in the thought of unresolved prob
lems of suffering and has explored it as an indispensable source of inspiration.
From that standpoint, they have recognised commonalities between the figure
of the suffering servant in Deutero-Isaiah and the model of the innocent suf
ferer in Job.
1 John A. Davies, “Theodicy,” in DOTWPW (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008), 808.

1. T h e o d ic y
I suggest three ways in which “theodicy” may not be a proper term to under
stand biblical ideas as well as texts of Job and Deutero-lsaiah. Firstly, the
term “theodicy” is too vague a concept to apply to the association between
biblical texts - the same can be said of non-Israelite texts - and it is likely to
be the product of cultural and theoretical understanding, developed in con
temporary modem thought. This term was coined by modern philosophers in
the attempt to explain the theological dilemma of incompatibility between the
existence of evil and the good and omnipotent God. For instance, Marcel
Sarot notes that the Greek compound term - “God” (@£0$) and “justice” (Jixyj)
- was first used by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1710 and has been popular
2
in the West since the eighteenth century.
In fact, the issue of divine injustice has not been debated anywhere in an
cient Near Eastern literature in the same manner as the modern philosophical
concept of “theodicy”. The ancient Near Eastern documents neither attempt
to defend divine justice before undeserved suffering of humanity nor to de-
'i
scribe sufferers as innocent; it is difficult to see any intention by authors to

defend injustice of divine action from which arises human suffering and natu
ral disaster. And they neither discuss in the purely theoretical and abstract
dimension the problem of justice and evil, nor pursue the ideal and rational
solution to it. Then, how does the Hebrew Bible tackle the issue of suffering
and evil? The Hebrew Bible talks about the realistic pain of an individual and
the national tragedy occurring in Israelite’s history. There may be places in
the Hebrew Bible which describe issues of good and evil which have some
affinity with the idea of modern theodicy.234 However, most theological aspects
of evil and injustice from biblical materials are far from the thought of mod
2 He proposes three meanings of theodicy in modern thinking which are not homoge
nous with the ancient Jewish concept: “the philosophical study of the relation of God and
evil”, “the defence o f the justice of God in spite of the evils in God’s creation”, and “ra
tional theology”. Marcel Sarot, “Theodicy and Modernity,” in Theodicy in the World o f the
Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 2-4. Thus, it is not proper to employ this culturally-influenced
complex term in the biblical study of pre-modern times and the idea of “theodicy” should
be excluded in interpreting given biblical materials. Ibid., 5-26.
3 Bricker in two articles examines the validity of categorizing some of Mesopotamian
and Egyptian works into the term of “theodicy” and argues that to entitle those ancients as
“theodicy” is anachronistic; it comes from a modern sense because the divine justice in
ancient texts is hardly doubted. See Daniel P. Bricker, “Innocent Suffering in Mesopota
mia,” TB 51 (2000): 193-214; “Innocent Suffering in Egypt,” TB 52 (2001): 83-100.
4 Sarot mentions a few biblical perspectives which indicate the modern view of
theodicy. See Sarot, “Theodicy,” 22-5. In the same book, Latto and Moor categorise six
typological aspects of theodicy from the monotheistic Jewish-Christian context. See Antti
Laato and Johannes C. de Moor, “Introduction,” in Theodicy in the World o f the Bible
(Leiden: Brill, 2003), vii-liv.
ern theodicy, although interpreters think that biblical texts discuss the phi
losophical origin of evil to defend the divine justice against the atheistic posi
tion of non-Israelites. It consequently may be risky to suggest “theodicy” as
the distinctive motif in the Hebrew Bible.
Secondly, the usage of the term “theodicy” should be avoided, in that bib
lical texts have their own contexts, although they broadly speak of the prob
lem of human suffering. It is evident that the primary concern of Job in the
dialogue is justice itself, whether it is related to the social justice in the world
or to the individual experience. However, it is linked neither to defensive
thinking concerning the origin of evil in the ethical world, nor to the divine
provision in an evil world. What Job keeps on pursuing in the dialogue is his
public vindication by God in relation to his innocent suffering, while Job at
this point realises that the place where he lives is not the morally ideal world;
and he puts forward questions about distorted justice. Moreover, the poetic
dialogue in Job is not based on the philosophical theory of theodicy, but on a
practical and authentic reflection involving the innermost despair and pain in
his life. Yahweh’s speech, also, supplies no answer with regard to the abstract
tension between justice and evil. E. W. Nicholson notices that “understood in
this way, such a declaration self-evidently considers theodicy unnecessary,
since one of the main purposes of theodicy is to acquit God of the evil that
may befall the righteous.” 5 Likewise, David Burrell comments: “it seems
quite clear now that the poet has little to offer for one who defines theodicy
as ‘explaining how there could be evil in God’s world’”.6 Likewise, Deutero-
Isaiah has no intention of defending or of rationalising God’s justice, nor of
explaining it in relation to evil in the world in the light of philosophical the
ory; but instead, the prophet declares the righteous judgment of God, and
confirms who is the true God in sharp contrast to idols and idol-makers. He
speaks of the way in which iniquities committed by Israelites, and their dis
tress, vanish in accordance with God’s purpose; and he describes how God
controls political and cosmic evil. Thus, the idea of “theodicy” could not be
applied in interpreting the biblical texts like the book of Job which treats an
individual’s suffering in the consistent faith of Yahweh or like Deutero-Isaiah
in which God directly responds to the problem of evil and to the practical
issue of the community.
5 See Ernest W. Nicholson, “The Limits of Theodicy as a Theme of the Book of Job,” in
Wisdom in Ancient Israel, ed. John Day et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), 78.
6 See David B. Burrell and Anthony H. Johns, Deconstructing Theodicy: Why Job Has
Nothing to Say to the Puzzle o f Suffering (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008), 123. Illman
notices that it is difficult “to say how theodicy in the Book of Job fits into Green’s classifi
cation” of theodicy (“the free-will-theodicy”, “the educative theodicy”, “the eschatological
theodicy”, “theodicy deferred”, and “the communion theodicies”). See Karl-Johan Illman,
“Theodicy in Job,” in Theodicy in the World o f the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 304.
n
Lastly, the theme of “human suffering” is too widespread in o

extra-biblical
materials to be a distinctive theme in Job and Deutero-lsaiah. Scholars have
acknowledged that the two books display literary resemblances to Egyptian
and Akkadian literature. In particular, it has been thought that the book of Job,
which is struggling with the mysterious knowledge of God allowing unde
served suffering, is the representative book among Israelite writings along
side ancient works related to the innocent sufferer. For example, we have
famous Babylonian and Egyptian documents that may be classified as
“theodicy” literature such as the T h e B a b y lo n ia n T h e o d ic y and T h e D ia lo g u e
o f a M a n w ith H is S o u l.7*9 Further, in order to connect Israelite texts with the
notion of “theodicy”, scholars mainly select argumentative discourses in the
texts and present the form of lawsuits or judicial proceedings; for instance,
James Crenshaw and Gunnel Andre argue that Job and Deutero-lsaiah adopt
the form of the legal and controversial debate.10 However, in a nutshell, the
specific form of lawsuit does not necessarily represent the idea of theodicy
and no context in each book is equivalent to a real lawsuit type and judicial
procedure. In Job, technical terms (rib-pattern, expressions related to “judg
ment”, etc) employed by Job articulate a wish for God’s vindication, whereas
the polemic language in Deutero-lsaiah is designed as a broadside against the
powerless idols and foreign gods.
2. S u ffe r in g S e r v a n t
It has been argued that the suffering of the innocent individual that the story
of Job pinpoints is associated with the mysterious suffering of Yahweh’s
7 1 have already started this section by saying that “theodicy” was never dealt with in
ancient Near Eastern texts. Although some have perceived that there are problems in using
the term “theodicy” - mostly people did not pay attention to this - this has been designated
as a category in ancient literature. In this thesis, I will sometimes follow this convention
for convenience sake, when the ancient Near Eastern texts are related to issues of human
suffering, disasters, and innocent sufferer.
o
See Karel van der Toorn, “Theodicy in Akkadian Literature,” in Theodicy in the
World o f the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 57-89; Antonio Loprieno, “Theodicy in Ancient
Egyptian Texts,” in Theodicy in the World o f the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 27-56.
Crenshaw provides the broadcontext and text of “theodicy” in the Old Testament. See
Crenshaw, “Popular”; “The Shift from Theodicy to Anthropodicy,” in Theodicy in the Old
Testament, ed. James L. Crenshaw, IRT 4 (Philadelphia: Fortress; London: SPCK, 1983),
1-16; “Theodicy and Prophetic Literature,” in Theodicy in the World o f the Bible (Leiden:
Brill, 2003), 236-55; James L. Crenshaw, Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Prob
lem o f Evil (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005).
9 Cf., see Chapter 5 of this thesis.
10 Terrien, “Remarques,” 304; Crenshaw, “Popular,” 388-9; Andre, “Deuterojesaja,”
35, 39-42.
servant in Isaiah 52:13-53:12.11 Such a thematic affinity normally has made
readers perceive the character of Job as an equivalent metaphor to the servant
of Yahweh who suffered from severe distresses. However, these links neither
mean that the motif of the suffering individual is identical in both texts, nor
do they demonstrate the distinctive relationship between them. This motif of
the suffering servant is, to some extent, overstated and is not dependent on
precise analogy. If we closely observe the origin and nature of the sufferings
of Job and the Servant, it will be seen that the suffering servant’s description
in Deutero-Isaiah is incompatible with the figure of Job and that the nature of
the suffering which two characters confront is likely to be quite different at
several points.
On the one hand, in the book of Job, the purpose of innocent suffering and
its explanations are not answered anywhere. In the prologue, Job’s unfortu
nate course has been drawn by the divine allowance of sufferings to attest the
piety of Job challenged by “the Satan”,12 and questions of the individual’s
suffering and social injustice continue in the dialogue, instantly coming to an
end with the unexpected divine teaching of the cosmic design. No part of
Yahweh’s speech is linked to the issue of human injustice, although it might
be given to individuals for the sake of the divine discipline which Job and
Elihu state (Job 23:10; 33:2-37; 36:5-15; cf. Isa 48:10), and in the epilogue,
we may not decisively find the sensible purpose of Job’s afflictions. On the
other hand, the poem of Yahweh’s servant in Deutero-Isaiah seems to have
apparent purposes for others’ benefits. His suffering has the representative,
vicarious, and substitute characteristics “instead o f ’ and “for” others’ sin and
weakness (Isa 53:4-6). Although the substitutionary sacrifice of the suffering
servant, which is not bound to the sacrificial law system in Leviticus, is
unlawful and unjust, Yahweh ultimately will make his soul a sin offering
(OU?N) (Isa 53:10) by removing others’ penalties and withdrawing the divine
punishment. Likewise, Job, in a sense, could be portrayed as a priest to be
concerned with others’ sins, but rather what Job does at most is to present
11 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:259-68; Terrien, “Remarques,” 308; Elliott, “ Study,” 273-5;

Hartley, Job, 14-5; Curtis, “Elihu,” 10:35-6; Bastiaens, “ Suffering”; Cooper, “Suffering”;
Brinks, “ Similarities,” 145-8, 179-88.
12 The noun juiyn (“the Satan”) with the definite article in Hebrew only occurs fourteen
times in the prologue of Job (1:6, 7 (x 2), 8, 9, 12 (x 2); 2:1, 2 (x 2), 3, 4, 6, 7) and three
times in Zechariah 3:1-2. Otherwise, in 1 Chr 21:1 and Num 22:22, the noun “Satan”
without the definite article becomes a proper name. The development of the conception of
fown as a personal name “Satan” seems to come from the later Jewish and non-Jewish
tradition (Clines, 20; Gray, 126; Gordis, 14), so that this term in Job should be distin
guished from “Satan” o f the later modification. Some render in Job as “the Adver
sary” (Seow, 272) or “the Prosecutor” (Good, 50) as a title who functions as the opponent
of humans and of God. However, in the narrative o f Job, is not the antagonist of
God, but is subordinate to Yahweh and functions as the adversary of humans like Job
(Clines, 19-20; Gray, 126). I render this as “the Satan”.
burnt offerings (H^P) for his children’s probable sin, considering that they
might “curse God in their hearts” (Job 1:5) and for his friends as an interces
sory work according to God’s command (Job 42:8-9). Furthermore, while
Job actively protests his innocence from the beginning, Deutero-lsaiah accen
tuates the silence of Yahweh’s servant in his voluntary act, conforming to his
inevitable fate as a victim (Isa 53:7). So, Job’s works would be little identical
with the substitutionary sacrifice of the Yahweh’s servant of Deutero-lsaiah.
In addition, when seeing the relationship between the two books on the
model of suffering servant, some have perceived Job not as an individual, but
a collective whole. Such a view metaphorically blends the figures of Job and
Yahweh’s servant with the national identity of Israel during the exile. T. K.
Cheyne, for instance, broadly regards Job as the representative of all human
ity which suffers earthly hardships (Job 6:2, 3; 7:1-3; 9:25; 14:1, 2);13 Alan
Cooper also claims that the figure of Job to be identified with Yahweh’s ser
vant should be regarded as the symbol of the exiled Israelite community.14
However, a major problem with this view is that Job’s suffering could not be
generalised at the level of human suffering usually observed, because Job’s
case is unusual and improbable in reality. Nothing in the book of Job possibly
indicates that Job represents the Israelite community; its story takes place in
non-Israelite territory, “in the land of Uz” (Job 1:1a) and it does not have
clear references of Israel’s history. Moreover, it is hard to determine whether
Yahweh’s servant in the servant poems of Deutero-lsaiah (Isa 42:1-9; 49:1-7;
50:4-11; 52:13-53:12) is used either as the symbol of Jacob-Israel (Isa 43-
48), as an unknown individual, as a historical individual or as the prophet
himself.15 Of course, in many ways, it would be reasonable to believe that
Yahweh’s servant in Deutero-lsaiah may symbolise the entire Israelite com
munity. However, especially in Isa 52:13-53:12, the mixture of pronouns “I”,
“he”, “we” and “they” makes it confusing to distinguish the identity of Yah
weh’s servant.16 The initial cause of the Israelites’ suffering was divine pun
ishment for their own iniquities, and this differs from the reason why Yah
weh’s innocent servant in Deutero-lsaiah undergoes sufferings. So, the argu
ment that the identity of the suffering servant in Isa 52:13-53:12 refers to
Jacob-Israel is rather unconvincing.
13 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:261, 264.

14 Cooper, “Suffering.”
15 Christopher R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-lsaiah: An Historical and
Critical Study, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford UP, 1956).
16 David J. A. Clines, I, He, We and They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53 (Univ. of
Sheffield, 1976); John Goldingay, The Message o f Isaiah 40-55: A Literary-Theological
Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 473-7.
II. C re a tio n a n d M o n o th e is m
Both Job and Deutero-Isaiah share considerable interests in Yahweh as a

Creator God and as a supreme God among all deities. This context of God’s
singleness has been generally presented in the typical themes of “creation”
and “monotheism”.
I. C re a tio n
The theme of “creation” seems variously to be related to the beginning of the

world and human beings as the primeval event, to the establishment of the
cosmic, social, and moral order, and to its continuous sustaining power. Many
interpreters consider that the creation of the world in connection with Gen 1—
11 is shown in the prologue, in the hymns of the poetic dialogue debating the
divine justice (Job 9:8-10; 12:7-25; 26:7-10), in the Hymn of Wisdom
(28:1-28), in Elihu’s speech (36:26-37:24), and in Yahweh’s speech (38-
41).17*This strong drift toward the subject-matter of creation is because inter
preters categorically have assumed that a creation doctrine occupies the cen
tral position in wisdom literature. Such as, creation theology has been re-
garded as the significant theme in the book of Job. In the same viewpoint,
the creation motif has been regarded as playing an important role in the for
mation of Deutero-Isaiah with the assumption that prophetic books are engag
ing with the literary tradition of creation.19 Form-critical studies have shown
that two motifs of creation and redemption in Deutero-Isaiah frequently are
17 For the interpretation of the book of Job in terms of the influence of the creation the
ology, see Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom & Creation: The Theology o f Wisdom Literature (Nash
ville: Abingdon, 1994), 123-92; “Creation in the Dialogues between Job and His Oppo
nents,” in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beitrdge zum Hiob - Symposium a u f
dem Monte Verita vom 14.-19. August 2005, ed. Thomas Kruger et ah, Abhandlungen zur
Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments (Zurich: TVZ, 2007), 197-216. Balentine in
particular interprets Job’s texts in the relationship with “the grammars of creation”. See
Samuel E. Balentine, Job, SHBC 10 (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2006), 25-8.
IX
For the references to the interpretation of wisdom texts as centering on creation, see
Roland E. Murphy, “Wisdom and Creation,” JBL 104 (1985): 3-11; Leo G. Perdue, Wis
dom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book o f Job, JSOT 112 (Sheffield: Almond
Press, 1991); James L. Crenshaw, “In Search of Divine Presence : Some Remarks Prelimi
nary to a Theology of Wisdom,” RE 74 (1977): 353-69; Rainer Albertz, Weltschopfung
und Menschenschopfung: Untersucht bei Deuterojesaja, Hiob und in den Psalmen (Stutt
gart: Calwer, 1974).
19 For the creation theology in Deutero-Isaiah, refer to Barend J. van der Merwe, Penta-
teuchtradisies in Die Prediking van Deuterojsaja: With a Summary in English (Groningen:
J. B. Wolters, 1955); Richard J. Clifford, “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah and Its Cos
mogonic Language,” CBQ 55 (1993): 1-17. Paas points out eighth century prophetic texts
to use terms and motifs of creation such as Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. See Stefan Paas,
Creation and Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets (Leiden: Brill,
2003).
indicated in “hymnic praise”, “disputation speech”, and “words of salvation”
(H e ils w o r t ). However, there are some problematic points in this area.
Firstly, the main criticism of the view that creation theology is the com
monality between Job and Deutero-lsaiah arises from the uncertainty in usage
of the term “creation” . “Creation” in the Hebrew Bible is mixed with di
verse poetic metaphors and imageries, so much so that to define the literary
relationship by the term “creation” may provoke confusion. For instance,
Claus Westermann distinguishes “creation as birth” from “creation as act”
and proposes “four main types of creation to be distinguished in the world
outside Israel”: “creation by birth or by a succession of births”; “creation
through struggle”; “creation as fashioning, making or forming”; “creation
through utterance”. Moreover, the description of “creation” in the ancient
Near Eastern literature as well as in the Hebrew Bible is very different from
the present-day ideas of the origin of the universe and from the doctrinal
concept in the unified process of creation discussed in traditional theology.
The ancients certainly did not understand it as a scientific and complete the
ory, and the major difference between the modern and ancient descriptions of
creation lies in how they deliver the idea. The ancients conceptualizing of
creation such as in Ugaritic and Babylonian stories generally used mythologi
cal narrative.2021324*The biblical narrative of creation in Gen 1-2 likewise adopts
an interesting narrative in terms of the world for human beings, which is not a
scientific theory. Likewise, when reading Job and Deutero-lsaiah, we find
that the two books neither deal with the origin of the universe (“cosmogony”),
nor do they describe its gradual process as the primeval event as in Gen 1-
2. They are not designed to teach the lesson of the world’s order which is
perceptible to humans nor share the “creation-thought” built around Gen 1-2.
20 See Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, 8-21; Antoon Schoors, I Am God Your Saviour: A
Form-Critical Study o f the Maingenres in Is. X L-LV, SVT 24 (Leiden: Brill, 1973);
Melugin, Formation.
21 According NODE, “creation” is defined by “the action or process of bringing some
thing into existence”.
22 O ’Dowd divides the creation imageries into seven categories: “cosmic battle”, “king-
ship”, “theophany”, “lament and theodicy”, “cosmogony”, “creation and redemption”, and
“wisdom and creation order”. See Ryan O ’Dowd, “Creation Imagery,” in DOTWPW
(Downers Grove: IVP, 2008), 60-63.
23 Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary, trans. John Scullion
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 26-47.
24 Richard J. Clifford, “The Hebrew Scriptures and the Theology of Creation,” TS 46
(1985): 507-23.
9SElliott, for instance, maintains that “the germ of creatio ex nihilo is to be seen in both
books”. However, texts here are not concerned with such a theological dogma. Elliott,
“Study,” 281-2.
Attempts to merge diverse biblical imageries and motifs related to creation
into a modem idea of creation thus seem to have their limitations.
Secondly, passages which may be judged to have the motif of “creation,”
do not necessarily contain the same literary purpose. When associating the
two books via creation theology, scholars (Cheyne, Pfeiffer, Elliott, Terrien,
Andre, Janzen, etc.) propose the motif of C h a o s k a m p f and its mythological
figures which symbolise chaos and disorder. They all suggest that authors of
Job and Deutero-Isaiah utilised the mythological languages in ancient Near
Eastern literature. Terms associated with the “chaos” motif - such as fin b
(“Leviathan”; Job 40:25 [Eng. 41:1]; cf. Isa 27:1), WfU (“serpent”; Job 26:13;
cf. Isa 27:1), p n (“Tanin”; Job 7:12; Isa 51:9), D* (“Sea”; Job 26:11-12; Isa
50:2; 51:15), and in*l (“Rahab”; Job 9:13; 26:13; Isa 51:9)2627- a r e suggested
as evidence of literary dependence between texts. This may be seen in Isa
51:9 and Job 7:12, 9:13 (cf. 26:12) which employ two mythological terms
p n and n m ;28 see the following examples:
inwn 'by □■’wnm pjrrDN ' jn o'n
Am I the Sea or the Sea-dragon Tannin, so that you set a guard over me? (Job 7:12)29
nm nry innu? [rnnn] (innn) isn mba
God will not withdraw his anger; beneath him bow the helpers of Rahab (Job 9:13)
nm y n n [irmnnm] (injmnm) D'n yn iron
By his power, he stilled the Sea and by his skill30 he struck down Rahab. (Job 26:12)
26 Paas points out problems of the use of the term “creation”. Paas, Creation, 1-20;
“The biblical Hebrew does not know any word that corresponds with our concept of ‘crea
tion’ both in the sense of the ‘actions’ of God that lead to an ordered universe as well as
the ‘universe itse lf, which results from those actions”. Ibid., 55.
97
Rahab probably originated from an Akkadian word ra’abu which means “tremble,
rage” especially used for “the surging o f water” (TDOT:XIII: 352) and for describing the
chaotic force in God’s battle in Job 9:13, 26:12 and in Is 51:9. It is generally acknowl
edged to be an allusion from the Babylonian epic, Enuma Elish, which shows M arduk’s
battle with the Tiamat. See A. Caquot, “G a’ar,” TDOT.III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1980), 49-53. Also see TDOT:XIII, 354-357. Another mythological figure, dragon (Tan
nin) has a Canaanite background as the chaos monster in primeval times and in the conflict
between Baal and Tannin. Recent scholars have debated whether these imageries imply
mythological, symbolic or realistic reference in each context and contain the metaphoric
link of chaos in creation narrative. See John Day, G o d ’s Conflict with the Dragon and the
Sea: Echoes o f a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (UCOP 35; Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1985); “God and Leviathan in Isaiah 27:1,” BS 155, no. 620 (1998): 423-36. Also see
John A. Emerton, “Leviathan and Ltn : The Vocalization of the Ugaritic Word for the
Dragon,” VT7>2, no. 3 (1982): 326-31.
28 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 201; Terrien, “Remarques,” 305-6; Janzen, “Nature,” 467,
474.
29 English translations of biblical texts mostly are of my own unless otherwise indi
cated.
Following qere, in m n n i (“his insight”) rather than kethib iru n n m which is a form of
scribal miswriting (See BHS; Hartley, Clines).
n m rm n o n N'rrnN mbn n m D“rp w m y mn' y n t ry-’utib m y m y
p n nbbinn
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Yahweh. Awake, as in days of old, generations
of long ago. Was it not you hewing in pieces Rahab and piercing Tannin (the Sea-dragon)?
(Isa 51:9)
m iy n iN ix m rp vbjt in rm Dm pm *pr6N m rv
And I am Yahweh your God who stirs up3132the Sea, so that its waves roar: Yahweh of the
hosts is his name. (Isa 51:15)
Nonetheless, when considering the circumstances in which each context

makes use of specific vocabulary, it is unlikely that the usage of these terms
related to the motif of C h a o s k a m p f was originally intended to refer to a stage
of the primeval creation. In particular, technical terms such as (“Sea”),
i m (“Rahab”), and p n (“Tanin”) do not necessarily have to be interpreted
against the background of Canaanite and Babylonian creation myth. On the
one hand, in Job 7:12, Job bitterly cries out that God treats him like the hos
tile forces “Sea” and “Dragon”, which provoke the divine anger and which
are on God’s black-list. Job 9:13 highlights that the divine anger which Job
experiences is the same as that which God exercised against the “helpers of
Rahab”; here Job has already acknowledged that no one can comprehend
what God will do or can stop it, if God has determined what God will do
(9:4-12). Just as God mastered the “helpers of Rahab”, a man like Job is not
worthy to argue against God (9:13). Finally, the phrase Dm pm “to still the
Sea” in 26:12a - “shattering Rahab” in 26:12b; “piercing the fleeting serpent”
in 26:13 - might be involved with the act of creation referring to the divine
battle against chaotic forces, but it emphasises God’s power which primordial
chaos lacks. On the other hand, when Deutero-lsaiah uses mythological im
ageries in Isa 51:9, 15, a similar problem arises. It is difficult to determine
whether or not they refer to the motif of primeval creation, since these ex
pressions in the Exodus motif could refer to Israel’s enemies. For instance,
the term “Rahab” ( i m ) is used for Egypt (Isa 30:7) and “Tanin” ( p n ) for
Pharaoh (Ezek 29:3), so much so that interpreters have not reached a consen-
'X'X
sus as to the meaning in Isa 51:9. In my view, in fact, similar expressions -
31 The Hebrew verb yjn could have two meanings, “to calm down” (Nip, Hip; Jer 47:6;
Deut 28:65) or “stir up” (Qal; Jer 31:35; Job 26:12). I follow “to stir up”.
32 Two terms ]un and irnb can be translated as a sort of “reptile” like “crocodile”, “ser
pent” (TDOT:XV, 726-31), dti is the term of “sea” as a geographical unit (TDOT:VI, 97),
and nm can mean either “mythical sea monster” or “a name for Egypt” (DCH:VII, 425).
Riitersworden claims that the word nm appears neither in the Ugaritic texts nor in the pre-
exilic texts in the OT, so that “the association of Rahab with the other figures is a product
of the exilic period” (TDOT:XIII, 355). Thus, it is ambiguous to say that these are refer
ring to mythological terms.
Regarding interpretive debate, see Jan L. Koole, Isaiah III. Volume II / Isaiah 49-55
(HCOT; Peeters, 1998), 172-5; John D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34-66 (Revised ed.; WBC v. 25;
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005), 211; Oswalt notes that “Tag. and Vulg. translate ‘rahab’
“drying up the sea” and “making a path in the water” (Isa 51:10) and “stilling
the Sea” (Isa 51:15; cf. Job 26:12) - in their own contexts refer neither to a
creation motif nor to an Exodus motif, but they are used for highlighting the
nature of the Creator in the divine struggle against evil and chaotic enemies,
and in the astonishing deliverance of His people.
In such a common presentation of mythological imagery, there is no neces
sary causative link with creation activity to remind readers of “creation faith”,
in that the usage in each context has different literary roles and purposes.*34
The shared language rather designates God’s sovereign power and govern
ance over cosmic and political forces in Job and Deutero-Isaiah, and is used
for establishing the importance of Yahweh and the incomparability of Israel’s
God; on the one hand, Job’s usage of mythological terms aims at underscor
ing Job’s miserable situation, mistreated by God (Job 7:12) and the impossi
bility of contending against God (Job 9:13; 26:12); on the other hand, specific
vocabularies would appear to indicate God’s power which will deliver his
people from evil forces (“Rahab”, “Sea”) as described in Isa 51:9, 15.
Lastly, the question is: “Is the theme of creation distinctive in Job and
Deutero-Isaiah or well-known thoughts on which biblical authors could draw
without difficulty?” Needless to say, it is definitely not distinctive. It is not
only prevalent in ancient Near Eastern documents, but also is a very basic
thought of the Hebrew Bible. For instance, similar language can be found in
many texts in Psalms and Amos, in order to elevate the supremacy of Yahweh
as a true God. Further, since Hermann Gunkel’s book, S c h o p fu n g u n d C h a o s
in U rze it u n d E n d z e it , was published in 1895, people have been convinced
that Babylonian myths in the pre-history of Israel were sources of the creation
theology in the Hebrew Bible.35 It is not so novel that documents relating
creation myths in ancient Near East influenced Jewish religion - for example,
the famous Babylonian creation story, E n u m a e lish - and then they have been
debated as having analogies and contrasts with biblical materials; to be sure,
this does not mean that Deutero-Isaiah and Job used particular Ugaritic and
Akkadian texts. All that can be said is that because there exist the plentiful
with ‘mighty men’ and ‘proud one’”; John N. Oswalt, The Book o f Isaiah: Chapters 40-66
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 339; John Goldingay, Isaiah 40-55: A Critical and
Exegetical Commentary (ed. David Payne; ICC vol. 2; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 236-7.
34 Clines argues that “there is nothing in the OT to suggest that the battle was a stage in
or precondition for creation”. See Clines, Job 1-20, 233; Contra Carol A. Newsom, “Job,”
in The New Interpreter’s Bible, NIB 4 (Abingdon Press, 1997), 395, 411.
35
See Hermann Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos in Urzeit und E ndzeit: eine
religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung iiber Gen 1 und Ap Joh 12 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1895).
Richard Clifford supposes that Deutero-Isaiah and Job referred to “traditional cos
mogonies” in ancient Near Eastern sources. See Richard J. Clifford, Creation Accounts in
motif of C h a o s k a m p f and linguistic resemblances in other foreign cultures
around Israel, we have no reason to accept that one text utilised a specific
L e i t m o t if from a literary source. Rather than thinking of literary dependence,
it would be more likely that there were cultural phenomena from which bibli
cal authors would draw out a kind of C h a o s k a m p f motif and terms.
2. M o n o th e is m
Next, the idea of monotheism has to be discussed with the subject of “crea
tion”. The term “monotheism” has been considered either as a significant
common motif in Job and Deutero-lsaiah or as a religious belief of Deutero-
lsaiah. For instance, Pfeiffer says that Deutero-lsaiah includes the monotheis
tic idea which is lacking in the book of Job which places greater emphasis on
anthropocentric and anthropomorphic ideas. Elliott takes it for granted that
the entire book of Job is shaped by a monotheistic idea and sees Job and Deu-
tero-Isaiah as promoting monotheism (Job 9:24; Isa 44:6b). However, their
arguments are flawed in several points.
The primary problem with the term “monotheism” is that it is inclined to
TO
fit a modern religious and philosophical notion, not an ancient ideology.
Very often in the study of the Old Testament, “monolatry” - worshipping the
one God without rejecting the existence of other gods - is treated equally as
“monotheism”.*378940 However, if one would like to use it, monotheism should be
the Ancient Near East and in the Bible, CBQ 26 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Asso
ciation, 1994), 163-76, 185-203.
37 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin.”
38 Elliott, “Study.”
39 Hans Wildberger, “Der Monotheismus Deuterojesajas,” in Beitrage zur Alttesta-
mentlichen Theologie (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 506-30; Millard C.
Lind, “Monotheism, Power, and Justice : A Study in Isaiah 4 0 -5 5 ,” CBQ 46, no. 3 (1984):
432-46; Hywel Clifford, “ Deutero-lsaiah and Monotheism,” in Prophecy and Prophets in
Ancient Israel Proceedings o f the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. John Day; New
York: T&T Clark, 2010), 267-89; Against the monotheistic idea in Deutero-lsaiah, see
Nathan MacDonald, “Monotheism and Isaiah,” in Interpreting Isaiah (Nottingham: Apol-
los, 2009), 43-61; Walter Moberly, “How Appropriate Is ‘Monotheism’ as a Category for
Biblical Interpretation?,” in Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (ed. Loren T. Stuck-
enbruck and Wendy E. S. North; ECC 263; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 216-34.
40 The term, “monotheism”, which means the religious belief in the existence of the
only one God who is worthy to be praised, has been coined by Henry Moore’s systematic
presentation (1614-1687) of the Christian gospel. Yet, it should be clearly distinguished
from “monolatrism” and “henotheism” which also acknowledge the existence of other
deities as worshiping the only one deity alone; “monolatrism” whose first usage is sug
gested by Schleiermacher and which “is used of devotion to one god without denying the
existence of others”; “henotheism” which “is a religious stage in which temporarily one
god was adored and the plurality o f gods disappeared from view.” See Nathan MacDonald,
strictly distinguished from “monolatrism” and “henotheism”; in many cases,
texts do not clarify “monotheism”. As a matter of fact, the existence of for
eign gods is a common assumption as stated by texts, while Israelites in their
possessed land are required to worship the only one God. In the usage of the
term “monotheism”, Jewish and Christian interpreters have been uncomfort
able in identifying such a modern term with the biblical idea. R. W. L. Mo-
berly responds to the issue, whether “monotheism” should be retained or
abandoned; he states that “probably the most obviously appealing strategy is
to retain it, but to concentrate on careful definition of what is, and is not,
meant by the term in its various contexts”.41
Furthermore, there are specific passages in Job and Deutero-Isaiah which
contradict monotheism, but which possibly support the polytheistic idea. In
the scene of God’s heavenly assembly, God is portrayed as a deity having
children, D',ni7Nn (“sons of God”; Job 1:6; 2:1) who come to “present
themselves before Yahweh”. The existence of other divine beings in the
counsel here seems to originate from the early stages of thought on the nature
of the deity as observed in Deut 32:8 and Exod 15:11; before the later stage
of history where the phrase “sons of God” is interpreted as other supernatural
forces such as the “morning stars” (Job 38:7) and “angelic forces” (33:23—
24).42 So, if the prose-tale can be taken securely as an original part of the
“The Origin o f ‘Monotheism,’” in Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, ECC 263
(London: T&T Clark, 2004), 204-6, 213-4.
41 Moberly, “Monotheism,” 233; Moberly criticises Regina Schwartz’s thesis from the
Christian and Jewish perspective; Walter Moberly, “Is Monotheism Bad for You?: Some
Reflections on God, the Bible, and Life in the Light of Regina Schwartz’s the Curse of
Cain,” in The God o f Israel (ed. Robert P. Gordon; UCOP 64; Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2007), 94-112; also See Ronald E. Clements, “Monotheism and the God of Many Names,”
in The God o f Israel (ed. Robert P. Gordon; UCOP 64; Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007),
47-59.
42 Christian and Jewish interpreters suggest that this term in a monotheistic framework
signifies courtiers serving a deity: “godly being, divine creatures” (Tur-Sinai), “divine
beings” (Gordon), “angels, slaves” (Dhorme, Hartley; cf. Job 4:18), and “angelic forces”
(LXX, Tag). “The sons of God” is retained in other versions like the Vulgate and the
Peshitta: E. Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book o f Job (trans. H. Knight; London: Nelson,
1967), 5; Robert Gordis, The Book o f Job: Commentary, New Translation and Special
Studies (Moreshet S eries: Studies in Jewish History, Literature and Thought vol. 2; New
York: JTSA, 1978), 13-4; Naphtali H. Tur-Sinai, The Book o f Job: A New Commentary
(Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1967), 6; Hartley, Job, 71. On the other hand, Driver sees this
phrase as “individuals of the class of gods”; Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the Book o f Job (ed. George B. Gray; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1964),
10; also Clines and Gray suppose that denoting the term as angelic beings is the later inter
pretation; Clines, Job 1-20, 18-9. The parallel expression “the morning stars” (Job 38:7;
cf. 1 Kgs 22:19) set alongside this term ( dy 6 n un) could reflect a theological shift “from
monolatry to monotheism”. Here, the interpretation designating “family of the sons of
God” (Ugaritic), and “physical descendant” (Canaanite) seems to be appropriate as devel
book of Job, the argument from monotheism loses its significance. In Deu
tero-lsaiah, the concept of the divine assembly, expressed by the phrase
- “who has been the counsellor to teach him” in Isa 40:13b43 -
goes against monotheistic belief. R. N. Whybray traces the imagery of Yah-
weh’s council or counsellor from Isa 40:13-14 and argues that the idea of the
divine assembly originates, to a considerable extent, in the perception of the
deity at the time of Deutero-lsaiah.44 He further argues that the phrase ’OTIN
(“Whom has he consulted?”) in Isa 40:14a is connected to the charac
teristic of the royal council meeting with wise advisers 45 In the given context,
this expression highlights that Yahweh does not need the help of the heavenly
council to make a decision, and portrays Him simply as a chief deity, assign
ing all the possibilities of the world’s control to Yahweh. Thomas Romer
argues that Deutero-lsaiah “had to integrate into this deity functions tradi
tionally attributed to goddesses and to demons or evil gods” (Isa 42:13-14;
46:3; 45:7-8; 49:15) and concludes that “this evolution makes it difficult to
characterise the Hebrew Bible as the result of a straightforward evolution
from polytheism to monotheism”.46
When it is argued that the text of Deutero-lsaiah speaks of monotheism -
cf. Isa 44:6b (“I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no
God”) - scholars suppose that the uniqueness of Yahweh is described in a
literary form of “polemic” statements against other gods, to highlight that
foreign deities are not reliable deities at all. For example, Elliott states: “the
writer formulated and expressed his monotheism by pointing out the folly and
vanity of idol worship”.47 However, the polemic rhetoric in Deutero-lsaiah
does not necessarily support the monotheistic idea. It is like saying that Yah
weh of Israel is shouting out to foreign idols: “You are not a god, but foolish
man-made wood and metal.” It is no more than the process of denigrating and
mocking idols and their gods that results from their mundane manufacturing
by idol-makers (Isa 44:9-20).
oped in the earlier period (Deut 32:8); John Gray, The Book o f Job (ed. David J. A. Clines;
Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), 125-6.
43 G (“and who has been his counselor, to instruct him?”; LXE) and Vg (“or who have
been his counselor, and have taught him?”) put an interrogative pronoun.
44 For expressions of the divine assembly See Roger N. Whybray, The Heavenly Coun
sellor in Isaiah XI 13-14: A Study o f the Sources o f the Theology o f Deutero-lsaiah,
SOTSMS 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1971), 39-48.
45 Whybray argues that “in Isa. xl 14 Yahweh, as king, is pictured as holding a royal de
cision”. See ibid., 33.
46 Thomas C. Romer, “Yhwh, the Goddess and Evil: Is ‘Monotheism’ an Adequate
Concept to Describe the Hebrew Bible’s Discourses about the God o f Israel?,” Verbum et
Ecclesia 34 (2013): 5, http://www.ve.org.za/index.php/VE/article/view/841.
47 Elliott, “Study,” 205.
Therefore, the term “monotheism” ought to be avoided in explaining the
relationship of Job and Deutero-Isaiah. Both texts commonly describe the
superiority and sovereignty of Yahweh, in order to underscore that Yahweh is
the only important and true God who created the world. There are of course
real differences between them. While in Job there is no attack upon other
gods and idols and there is no polemic against other gods, in Deutero-Isaiah
much of what is being said about the superiority of God is related to attacking
the worship of other deities.
III. T e rm s L in k e d to C o m m o n T h em es
In addition, interestingly, Hebrew words, phrases, and expressions are sug

gested as certain evidence in describing common themes in Job and Deutero-
Isaiah which we have looked at; I examine the frequently mentioned expres
sions which are linked with two proposed themes; suffering servant and crea
tion.
1. T e rm s o f S u ffe r in g S e r v a n t
Let us see parallels related to the theme of the suffering servant; Cheyne
provides seven verbal and thematic resemblances between the figure of Job
and the suffering servant in Deutero-Isaiah (Job 1:8//Isa 53:9; Job 2:7; 7:5,
15//Isa 53:3,4; Job 42:10//Isa 53:12; Job 42:8, 10//Isa 53:12; Job 19:25-
27//Isa 53:10-12); Jean Bastiaens indicates lexical correspondences between
passages in Job 16-19, which address Job’s affliction and the fate of the
wicked, and texts of Deutero-Isaiah (Job 16:7—17//Isa 50:4-9; 53:7-10a; Job
16:19-21//Isa 49:4; 50:7-9; Job 17:1—9//Isa 50:6; 52:13-14; Job 19:7—27//Isa
49:7; 52:14a-b; 53:2-3, 4b, 11a); Cooper summarises eighteen parallel
verses. However, verbal links alone may not prove that there is a common
ality of the suffering servant running through both of them. Firstly, the most
cited parallel expression, often considered a definite connection, occurs in
Job 16:17 and Isa 53:9:4849
pdt Tibam '£m onrnKb bp
Because there is no violence in my palms, and my prayer is pure (Job 16:17)
van nma Nbi nlpp oorrNb bp
Because he had done no violence and no deceit with his mouth (Isa 53:9b)
Does the common phrase, OOrrN*7 b y (“because of non-violence”),50 become

compelling evidence to confirm the common distinctive motif of the suffering
48 See Bastiaens, “Suffering”; Cooper, “Suffering,” 194-6.

49 Bastiaens, “Suffering,” 423-4; Cooper, “Suffering,” 196; Brinks, “ Similarities,” 185.
50 In Job 16:17, the conjunction, bp, is properly rendered as causal case, “because”
rather than “although” in order to indicate the contrast between “the divine assaults” and
“the innocence”, not between “weeping” and “innocence”. See Clines, Job 1-20 , 387.
servant? On the one hand, the confession of Job’s non-violence in Job 16:17a
is presented as Job’s answer to the divine mistreatment and assault against
Job. Both the mark of “non-violence” in his hand (v. 17a) and the prayer to
show his pure religiosity (v. 17b) present a firm determination to prove his
innocence, noting that the present sufferings cannot be the result of his
wrongdoings. On the other hand, the non-violence and non-deceit of the suf
fering servant in Isa 53:9b result in his burial with the wicked and the rich in
53:9a, but the death of the servant shows that he was an innocent man. Ac
cordingly, while in Deutero-lsaiah it serves to accuse people who failed to
acknowledge the servant’s innocence and voluntary service, Job’s wording is
used as a rhetorical device to dispute the fact that, because of Job’s non
violence, his suffering is unfair, and to call for the immediate vindication of
God. This expression is very unusual and seems to be a technical term having
contrasting tones; perhaps derived from popular usage.
A second noteworthy parallel appears in the usage of the Hebrew root pj(£3
in Job 7:20b (noun, h p x , VJ0O) and Isa 53:6b (hiphil perfect, JPJisn)51 where
the two figures are portrayed as a target beaten by God:
Nipnb 52'bp mnw 7b pasnb 'jnnfc? nnb
Why do you make me your striking target? And why am I a burden to you? (Job 7:20b, cf.
36:32)
uba pp nx in jnnn mm
But Yahweh let the guilt of all of us strike him (Isa 53:6b)
However, in each passage, the way they are described as the mark of the
divine attack is dissimilar. Job, rejecting the continuation of his life and the
excessive divine attention, is saying to God “leave me alone” (Job 7:16, 19),
Otherwise, TNK, Tur-Sinai, Gordis, and Hartley render it as “although” . See Tur-Sinai,
Job, 268; Gordis, Job, 178; Hartley, Job, 259. On the other hand, in Deutero-lsaiah the
conjunction bp can be understood in a “concessive” sense where the innocence of the
servant is contrasting with the wicked of the land who mistreated his tomb. See Wester-
mann, Isaiah 40-66, 254; Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-lsaiah: A Commentary, Hermeneia
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 393. However, the “causal” (LXX, Vg) usage as “because”
is a better rendering to indicate an ironical tone. See Clines, I, 20; Goldingay, Isaiah vol.2,
318.
51 Cooper, “Suffering,” 196; Brinks, “ Similarities,” 147.
52 The prepositional phrase ’bl? (“to me” or “to m yself’; KJV, RSV, JPS, Good) in MT
is the one o f the eighteen passages which the scribes have conventionally modified;
tiqqunei Sopherim (“corrections of the Scribes”) (Gordis, 82-3). This textual change is the
adjustment of the scribes in order to avoid the negative and improper aspects and expres
sions in describing God. The original reading therefore should be "pby (“to you”) which is a
reading supported by LXX and other manuscripts (Seow, 510-1). Blommerde suggests a
better reading as ’by “Most High” used as a “vocative”, instead o f ’by (Job 10:2; Ps 7:9;
32:4; 41:8; 68:30; 141:3; Lam 3:61); Anton C. M. Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Gram
mar and Job, BO 22 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), 50.
c->
and is asking why he became the “object of hostile contact” by God, even
though he is a mere individual among all human beings. Job’s sin, if there are
sinful deeds, is too trifling to deserve to draw God’s attention, and here his
initial question - “If I sin, what have I done to you? You, watcher of men!”
(7:20a) - has an ironical sense, since God does not have to be affected by an
individual in suffering (7:20b).5354 The emphasis on human insignificance is
intended for a plea to God for withdrawing the harsh attack on him. On the
other hand, the nuance in Isa 53:6b has neither an ironical nor a disputational
tone, but Deutero-Isaiah states that the affliction of the servant results from
Yahweh’s decision by which consequences of people’ misbehaviours were
made to strike the servant. The pain of the Yahweh’s servant is associated
with the issue of others’ iniquities and restoration, not with his own wrongdo
ings.
A third corresponding point occurs in the usage of the word HID (“death”).
The verbal connection in Job 7:15 and Isa 53:12b could almost make us con
clude that the two figures prefer “death” to “life”:5556
56,mnspn mn p:nn “imm
So that my soul would choose strangling, death rather than this existence. (Job 7:15)
mn*7 mpn mPa nnn
for he exposed his life to death (Isa 53:12b)
53 Gordis, Job, 82.

54 Hartley, Job, 152.
55 Cooper, “ Suffering,” 196. Hartley notes that “in Isaiah the thought of victory over
death is developed further than in the book of Job (14:7-17)” . See Hartley, Job, 14-5.
56 This term D2p means literally “bone”, “substance”, and “being” (BDB), but commen
tators have suggested different renderings about the expression Tflnxpn. On the one hand,
this prepositional phrase 'm n sp n could be translated as “rather than my bones” or “from
my bones”, if the term is rendered as “throat”, not as “individuality” or “person”; so it
permits this translation in v. 15, “my throat prefers suffocation, Death more than my
bones” (See Good, 66). However, to understand D^p simply as “bone” or “body-frame”
would be odd rendering. As Clines says (Clines, 165), if two terms Timsp (“my exis
tence”) and (“my soul”) can be rendered as designating the entire being or substance
of Job, the whole sentence may be understood most naturally (also, Gordis, 81). On the
other hand, many commentators emend VTinspn to T im p n (“rather than my sufferings (or
pains)”) as in Job 9:28 and Ps 147:3 (Driver-Gray, 72; Dhorme, 106-7; Terrien, 134; Gray,
181). Although this could be another direction of interpretation, there seems to be no com
pulsory reason of the emendation. Another emendation has been proposed by Sarna (also
Hartley, 148). He regards the preposition n of TTinspn as “the enclitic of the preceding
(n)m n ”, so that the translation becomes “so that my soul (I) choose strangulation, my
bones (=1) death” . See Nahum M. Sarna, “Some Instances of the Enclitic-M in Job,” JJS 6,
no. 2 (1955): 109. Recently, Seow reads the phrase, TUQSpQ m n by making the verb TiDNn
in v. 16 as the relative clause. This permits the translation, “Death more than my body-
frame that I abhor” (Seow 508).
Throughout the dialogue, Job confesses the desire to end his life, cursing the
day of his birth (Job 3:21; 10:21-22). The brevity of human life against the
longevity of trees and water appears very insignificant (14:8-9, 11), but death
would appear to be the last place to escape the divine wrath (14:13-14). As
Job longs for death in order to recover his intimate relationship and commu
nication with God, he despairs because of the hiddenness of God (Job 23:8-9;
cf. Isa 45:15), and is terrified by the shadow of coming death (23:16-17). On
the other hand, no lamenting and complaining of coming death are heard
from the voice of the servant in Deutero-lsaiah - “he opened not his mouth”
(Isa 53:7) - and therefore he does not ask to encounter Yahweh. (Isa 53:7).
The death of the suffering servant in Deutero-lsaiah is given as his destiny to
achieve the divine will (Isa 53:10) and as the route along which he must pass
to bring the ultimate victory (53:12a). Consequently, the suffering servant is
likely to be portrayed as “a victorious warrior leading a huge company of
defeated opponents”57 and as a king winning a great victory over death and
Sheol (cf. Isa 40:10-11).
In addition, there is another reason why those connections cannot prove
the relationship between Job and Deutero-lsaiah via the motif of Deutero-
lsaiah’s suffering servant. Linguistic resemblances with passages of the suf
fering servant in Deutero-lsaiah appear in depicting other figures in the book
of Job. For example, in Elihu’s speech, phrases in which Elihu speculates
about himself create several verbal links with Deutero-lsaiah, and as Curtis
argues, this makes us regard Elihu as a suffering servant (Job 32:8//Isa 50:4-5;
Job 33:3//Isa 50:4; Job 33:7//Isa 42:2-3).58 In Bildad’s speech, terms to de
scribe the inevitable fate of the wicked also have linguistic similarities with
the servant in Deutero-lsaiah (Job 18:5-21; Isa 52:14a; 53:4a, 8).59
2. T erm s o f C re a tio n
The strong linguistic connection attaching the two books to “creation”60 oc
curs in the usage of Hebrew verbs such as (“to create”), “IP (“to form”),
7 \ m (“to do”, “to make”), “[ID (“to establish”), and *?37D (“to make”, “to ac
complish”).6162In particular, three synonymous terms - N"Q, " IP , and ntZW - are
CO
often referred to in relation to the concept of the creation of the world.
Firstly, there is the unique common phrase in the Hebrew Bible,
(“to make peace”) in Job 25:2 and Isa 45:7. Secondly, imagery in “making”
57 Goldingay, Message, 517.

59 Bastiaens, “Suffering,” 430-1.
60 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 199; Elliott, “ Study,” 275-85; Terrien, “Remarques,” 305-6,
309-10; Brinks, “ Similarities,” 190-235.
61 TDOT:II, 246.
62 Elliott, “Study,” 279-82; Terrien, “Remarques,” 302-3.
(niZW) and “forming” (12P) “pottery” with “clay” ("lftn) seem to involve crea
tion by God (Job 10:9; cf. DTIO’ “whose foundation is in the dust”
in 4:19; Isa 45:9; cf. 41:25). Thirdly, several terms are associated with build
ing and artisan imageries to represent the divine action in creation; see the
following idiomatic phrases: (1) the idiom, f “IN “^ ( “laying the foundation of
the earth”) (Job 38:4; Isa 48:13; cf. 51:13, 51:16; cf. Ps 104:5)63; (2) the id-
iom, Ip ntD3(“stretching the measuring line”) which means the artisan’s work
and implies a different meaning - the divine action of Creator in Job 38:5, but
in Isa 44:13, the measuring work by the idol-maker (cf. Lam 2:8; Zech 1:16);
(3) the idiom, HUH(“stretching out the heavens”) (Job 9:8; Isa 40: 22;
44:24; 45:12; 51:13; cf. 2 Sam 22:10; Ps 18:19; 104:2; 144:5; Jer 10:12;
51:15; Zech 12:1).
Moreover, there are terms describing the entire cosmos. For instance, Elli
ott argues that “the character and order of the universe depicted in Deutero
Isaiah and Job” which “is very much like that of the Babylonian concept”,
can be structured in three parts such as “heaven,” “earth”, and “the under
world.”64 For this, interpreters usually suggest specific links between the two
books; Tin (“circle”, “horizon”; Isa 40:22; 44:13; Job 22:14 (noun); 26:10
(verb); cf. Prov 8:27; Sir 43:12) (Pfeiffer, Elliott, Terrien);65 fHNrrm^p*?(“to
the ends of the earth”; Isa 40:28; Job 28:24; cf. Isa 41:5, 9) (Pfeiffer).6667
Nevertheless, all these relevant terms and idioms associated with “creation”
neither necessarily refers to the primordial event of creation nor to the crea-
tion myth. The usage of the verb is not restricted to creation as the
primeval event, and the expression of “making pots” only speaks of the skil
ful act of the artisan. Passage of Job and Deutero-Isaiah mainly speak of a
Creator rather than “creation”; e.g., Isa 45:7, 18; 54:16 (N“Q), Isa 45:9, 18
(1ST); Isa 45:1, 7, 12 (H&P); Job 26:8. The emphasis on creation imagery is
not on the establishment of the world order, but on the control over the world
in Job and on the transformation of the creation order in Deutero-Isaiah.
IV . C o n c lu sio n
Although extensive researches have suggested common themes in Job and

Deutero-Isaiah, such exhibitions are unsatisfactory; although they might have
63 Theodore M. Ludwig, “Traditions o f the Establishing of the Earth in Deutero-Isaiah,”

JBL 92 (1973): 345-57.
64 Elliott, “Study,” 282.
65 Seybold supposes that based on the fact that this form of words appears only in rela
tively late Hebrew and the specialized meaning, the word “circle” results from “late secon
dary development under the influence of Babylonian technology, and cosmology” and
means “describe a circle” or “incise a circular line” (TDOT:IV, 245).
66 In these two verses, “the ends of the earth” is associated with the totality of the world
and identifies God’s supernatural power over the creatured world.
67 Paas, Creation, 65.
useful thoughts. With certain terms such as “theodicy”, “suffering servant”,
“creation”, and “monotheism”, I argued that those themes are too vague,
deliver different ideas in each context, and are commonplace prevalent in
other texts. Moreover, it is unlikely that technical words, related to suffering
servant and creation, reflect a distinctive association between the two books;
though this does not mean that none of linguistic parallels evince any rela
tionships.
B. Examining Parallel Expressions
Now, let us take a close look at detailed examples of parallel expressions. The
most reasonable verbal connections in recent survey for this area appear to
focus on a few chapters of the poetic dialogue - especially Job 3, 5, 9, 12 and
25 - while corresponding words in Deutero-lsaiah appear in sporadic pas
sages. If we find same verbal expressions, we need to ask the questions: “do
they mean the same thing in both texts?”, “are they common prevalent ex
pressions which we can find in other texts?” Here, I will present five expres
sions, and will state reasons why those verbal links could not demonstrate a
re>
particular literaty relationship; the first four examples are found in Job 9:2—
13 and Isa 40:12-31, 44:24-45:13 and the final one in Job 12:9 and Isa 41:20.
I. “M ig h ty in p o w e r ” (J o b 9 :4 ; Is a 4 0 :2 6 )
To begin with, the phrase 1"D (“mighty in power”)*69 only occurs in Job
9:4 (cf. 9:19a) and Isa 40:26 within the Hebrew Bible:70
□bun rba mypmn ro p a w mb nan
He is a wise one in heart and is a mighty one in power71*- Who has disputed against him
and has remained uninjured? (Job 9:4)
AX
I have chosen these five examples from cases that in recent years biblical scholars
have most frequently proposed. See the section “Shared Vocabulary” in Chapter 1.
69 Furthermore, Job 36:19b (“Will your cry for help avail to keep you from distress, or
all the force of your strength?”) from Elihu’s speech, in an unusual way, uses the phrase
nzr'XQNO (lit. “exertions of power” (hap. leg.) highlighting that all sorts of Job’s “powerful
efforts” are useless. Refer to NIDOTE:I, 441.
70 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 203; Elliott, “ Study,” 196; Terrien, “Remarques,” 301-2;
Christina L. Brinks, “Job and Deutero Isaiah: The Use and Abuse of Traditions,” BI:AJCA
20 (2012): 412; Nurmela, M outh, 8.
71 Some (Terrien, Tur-Sinai, Gordis) note that the phrase, nn nab Dan (“wise in
heart” and “mighty in strength”) should be applied to humans and everyone, not to God
and then this first colon is viewed as a concessive clause, “though, however”. However, the
first colon as a casus pendens modifies the direct object the suffix of l'bx in the second
colon, God (Driver-Gray, Dhorme, Hartley, Clines).
□ m in n o N i p ' n u n dW D N ns n a o a n N ^ m n n b a n -q - 'o in t i u w y nnnTN W
ttvj xb w x ro psai
Lift up on high your eyes. And see: who creates these? He who brings out their host by
number, calls them all by name by abundance of strength, and as a mighty one in power; 72
no one will be missing (Isa 40:26)
From this same phrase, Terrien speaks of “divine transcendence” as a com

mon motif, saying that “Job speaks of the futility of human bravado in the
face of the destructive omnipotence which provokes the erosion of mountains,
earthquakes and eclipses (9:5-7)” and that “Deutero-Isaiah sings the omni
presence of God the Creator who looks for the redemption of human beings
(Isa 40:2-24, 27—31 )”.73 However, although both texts use the same wordings
PD p'ONl, it is doubtful whether each corresponding phrase describes God’s
“transcendence”. First of all, Job’s lamentation is because Job comes to know
that he cannot win the dispute with God. Although Job’s summon success
fully makes God come into a courtroom setting and Job has opportunities to
ask God about his misery, Job realises that he is not fit to address anything to
God and no one can stand up against him (Job 9:2-4). He notices that the
primary reason why he cannot get vindication from God is the divine power
itself. God’s mighty power in the context of Job 9:2-4 is in no way the object
of praise and hope, but is the source of Job’s personal depression. In this
regard, the phrase in Job 9:4 (cf. 9:19) lays emphasis on the idea of the im
possibility of arguing against God, rather than referring to the praise of God’s
omnipotence. On the other hand, the same wording in Isa 40:26 emerges in a
different context, where God’s mighty power turns up as reviving the van
ished hope of Jacob-Israel. Deutero-Isaiah urges the exiles to take a look at
the heavenly creatures and to see the Creator who knows and calls them by
name, in order ultimately to redirect them to God’s lordship over the Babylo
nian gods formed in astral cults. He stresses that God by his mighty power is
controlling them without missing anything. The phrase FID is then ap
plied to the powerless and weak people (vv. 29, 31) to encourage their faith in
God. Given that the message of Isa 40:26 is full of divine empowerment to
recreate and to comfort the exiled community, Job’s speeches in Job 9:4 con-79
79
The phrase, m fÔNl duin mo, does not refer to the heavenly bodies (Kimchi, Torrey,
Merendino), but is attributed to Yahweh’s power (Westermann, Koole, Goldingay). The
lQ Isa3 reads iitd fONl (fONl: noun), instead of no fONt ( f ’ONl: adjective) in the MT.
Variants acknowledge the phrase as two nouns: G renders this as yeal ev xparet icrûog, Tg
as “might o f power,” and Vg as “strength and power.” Moreover, the noun fONl makes a
clearer parallelism with DUIN m o . And the wording ijtd of lQ Isaa is more unambiguous,
namely, that the “strength” belongs to God (Goldingay v l, 124-5; Koole, 116). Thus, the
reading of lQ Isaa is reasonable in this case.
vey in the same phrase deep grief for his plight.74 Accordingly, although this
phrase J"D PEN is not commonplace in the Hebrew Bible,757689the same wording
conveys different nuances and meanings in each context.
II. “H e w h o a lo n e s tr e tc h e d o u t th e h e a v e n s ” (J o b 9 :8 ; Is a 4 4 :2 4 )
The second example is the unique phrase, VTl^ (“who stretched

out the heavens alone”), which only appears in Job 9:8a and Isa 44:24 (with
a small variation) within the Hebrew Bible; Robert Gordis for this particular
77
expression argues that the poet of Job is directly quoting Isa 44:24:
Tm-bp “pm mb no:
He who alone stretched out the heavens and trod on the back of Yam (Job 9:8)
On) n ppn m b d w no: b:: nwy mm 73: n p in *psri *jb*u mm n n ^ m
78[7 in q ] (t i n )
Thus Yahweh - your redeemer and your shaper from the womb - says: “I am Yahweh, the
Maker of all things, stretching out the heavens alone, treading the earth [by myself] (who is
beside me?)” (Isa 44:24)
From this parallel, Terrien argues that “the juxtaposition of themes implicitly
suggests the assimilation of the Israel’s creation to the creation of the uni-
verse.” However, a closer examination of each context informs us that both
texts may not be simplified as the idea of “creation”. As the phrase 073# PIDJ
in Job 9:8a makes a parallelism with another reference to “[7m
O' (“trampling sea waves”) in 9:8b, these two expressions are likely to pre
sent the imagery of God’s creation in the form of a hymn of praise. However,
this is designed to portray the works of God, not to hint at the creation of the
world as a cosgonomic event. Further, Job’s doxology to God’s power is
surrounded by his despairing lament, which presents his inability to dispute
against God, and is placed in frustration, that he cannot win the argument
74 This verse might include indirectly sarcasm in terms o f overwhelming power of God
to humans. However, Job has no enmity against unjust God. I agree with Clines’ com
ments; “we do not have here the bitter sarcasm that several commentators find (e.g.,
Fohrer, Hesse); Job’s tone is that of the lament rather than the reproach.” See Clines, Job
1-20, 228.
75 Note: a similar phrase (fONl pm; “strong and mighty”) is found in Isa 28:2a, Deut
31:7, 23; Josh 1:6-7, 9, 18; 1 Chr 22:13; 28:20.
76 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 203; Elliott, “ Study,” 196; Terrien, “Remarques,” 302;
Brinks, “Job,” 412-3.
77 Gordis, Job, 103.
78 There are two choices TIN m (K; “who was with me?”; lQ Isa (TIN N'Q), 4QIsb, and
Hebrew MSS; LXX, Aq, Vg) and TiNQ (Q; “by m yself’; Tg, Syr). There is no reason to put
an interrogative at the end of this sentence. So, the translation here uses Q in MT (Watts,
693; Goldingay 2, 9-10).
against God (Job 9:2-4, 14-24).80 In Isa 44:24 (cf. 40:22), we may suppose
that the author describes the past creation event as using words such as “shap
ing (“IIP)”, “making (nwy)”, “stretching (PIDJ)”, and “treading (yp“l)”. Yet,
the primary concern is not with the creation of the world, but with the recrea
tion of Jacob-Israel. The phrase HI*? 0*73# PIU3 is in the context of divine
superiority over the present and future history of Babylon and Judah as a
“Creator” and “Ruler” by overturning human oracles (v. 25) and by fulfilling
the divine intention through Cyrus (vv. 26-28); in Isa 40:23 over “princes” or
“rulers” and in Isa 44:25 over the “signs of liars”, “diviners”, or “wise men”.
This corresponding phrase aims to articulate God’s creative power, which
defeats political and religious enemies and restores his people without any
aids; namely, its literary purpose is to describe Yahweh who empowers Isra
elites to recall the greatness of God’s power as restorer. Accordingly, in this
same wording, Deutero-Isaiah moves to counter the negative view of the
divine power found in Job 9:8a.
Such a divine action developed in Deutero-Isaiah similarly occurs in other
poetic and prophetic texts with the phrase DV2W P1U3 “to stretch out the heav
ens” (2 Sam 22:10; Ps 18:19; 104:2; 144:5; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Zech 12:1; Isa
42:5; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13, 16).8182Norman C. Habel holds that the formula “he
who stretches out the heavens” is associated with the prevailing C h a o s k a m p f
motif and “sacred tent traditions in Israel”. So, there is little reason to con
sider the direct dependence between Job and Deutero-Isaiah with regard to
this idiom.
III. “B e y o n d in v e s tig a tio n ” (Jo b 9 :1 0 ; Is a 4 0 :2 8 )
The third frequently cited parallel is the phrase “Ipn pN (“beyond investiga
tion”)83 in Job 9:10 and Isa 40:28:
“ison p*ny npn pany mVn niyy
It is he who does extraordinary things beyond investigation and he who performs marvel
lous things beyond numbering. (Job 9:10)
npn pN ym Nbi qy” xb pnan myp *nn mm DViy nyniy nV dn nym mbn
irmnr6
80 Gray, Job, 190.

O1
Scholars (Gordis, 103; Tur-Sinai, 157) frequently mention in this verse the Babyloni
an Creation Epic, Enuma elish (tablet IV, 11. 137) to recall the similarity between texts:
“He split her like a shellfish into two parts: half o f her he set up and ceiled it as sky”
(ANET, 67). It shows that there was widespread knowledge of the creation narrative, not a
direct quotation from foreign texts. This parallel cannot be suggested as unusual case of
proving the distinctive relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah.
82 See Norman C. Habel, “He Who Stretches out the Heavens,” CBQ 34 (1972): 34.
83 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 203; Elliott, “ Study,” 196; Terrien, “Remarques,” 303; Nur-
mela, M outh, 8; Brinks, “Job,” 413; Kynes, “Job,” 101.
Have you not known? Have you not listened? Yahweh is the everlasting God, the creator
of the ends of the earth. He neither grows weary nor grows exhausted; his understanding is
beyond investigation (Isa 40:28)
This phrase in Job 9:10 is used for describing the mysterious works of God
beyond human understanding (vv. 8-10) and in Isa 40:28b speaks of no limit
to the understanding of Yahweh who gives strength to the faint and energy to
the resourceless (Isa 40:29). In this connection, Terrien notes that “the
immeasurability of creative activity is employed by Job to affirm transcen-
oc
dence in the context of human impotence.” However, the phrase in Job 9:10
is not used for praising God’s wonderful and unsearchable deeds (vv. 8-10;
cf. Amos 5:8), but it aims at resisting God’s unjust treatment toward Job so
much so that its tonality is discouraging and hopeless; “dismay” (Clines) or
probably “irony” (Gordis). The marvellous power shown in the created world
comes to be overwhelming for Job. So, the main reason for using this idiom
is to speak indirectly against God who is not using his power in the right way.
On the other hand, in Isa 40:28, this expression “ipn is used for intensify
ing God’s limitless “understanding” as the Creator, the eternal God who is
fundamentally different from humans and other foreign gods. This is the
declaration of who God is, delivered in a polemical tone toward Israel who
complained that their “way” (“JTT) is “hidden from Yahweh” (mrPQ m nOJ)
and their “justice (UflWD) is ignored (v. 27) by their God. Since the God of
Israel is not an unresponsive deity disfiguring justice, but the Creator in time
and space empowering the hopeless, the prophet confirms that the infinite
divine wisdom positively works for the benefit of the exilic community. Thus,
the immeasurable stature of God in Job 9:10 is the source of doubting the
divine justice, of complaining about the hidden way of contending with God,
and of despairing humans. However, the boundless wisdom in Deutero-lsaiah
is the foundation of removing human doubt, of convincing Israel of the divine
judgment, and of achieving divine empowerment for his people.
Furthermore, if other references relating to “lp n f N are considered, the ar
gument that there exists a distinctive literary connection between Job and
Deutero-lsaiah via this word-pair would be unpersuasive. In the book of Job,
Eliphaz in Job 5:9 already uttered the eight words in Job 9:10, although there
are slight variants:
12DE pN-*Tp rrmbs: npn pai niVn niyp
It is he who does extraordinary things unsearchable beyond investigation, who performs
marvelous things beyond counting. (Job 5:9)845
84 Verse 29a starts with a participial clause modifying “his understanding” in v. 28b.
See Goldingay, Isaiah vol.1, 127-8.
This parallel between Job 5:9 and 9:10 is more remarkable than that with
Deutero-Isaiah,
OA
and would imply that Job is ironically reusing Eliphaz’s
words. Furthermore, other noteworthy references in the Hebrew Bible are
found in Prov 25:3 and Ps 145:3 - the expression “Ipn pN in Ps 145:3 defi
nitely appears with God’s salvific action in doxology form (Ps 145:19-20),
and in Prov 25:3 refers to the “unsearchable” heart of the king:
Great is Yahweh, and the one to be greatly praised, and his greatness is beyond investiga
tion (“Ipn pjK). (Ps 145:3)
As the heavens are for height, and the earth is for depth, the heart of kings is unsearchable
(“Ipn pN). (Prov 25:3)
IV . “ W h a t a re y o u d o in g ? ” (Jo b 9 :1 2 ; Isa 4 5 :9 )
The fourth phrase n w p rrn o (“what are you doing?”) in Job 9:12 and Isa 45:9
has been regarded as evidence of a literary relationship:
niyyrrnn v b x urrub ’n firin’ in
If he carries off*8788, who can prevent him? Who will say to him; “What are you doing?” (Job
9:12)
ib D’T -pN fbpfli n & y rrn n r u r b “inn “in*rn
Would the clay say to the one forming it: “what are you doing?” Or would your work say:
“he has no hands”? (Isa 45:9b)
How does each context use these same wordings? To begin with, the phrase
n w y rrn o in Job 9:12a is employed to handle the impossibility of disturbing
the divine action by which God allows Job’s personnel suffering; and espe
cially in Job’s experience it underscores that he cannot bring God into the
court and interrogate Him saying “what are you doing?” On the contrary,
Deutero-Isaiah, in a polemic statement, depicts the relationship of potter-pot,
warning that a pot cannot teach its maker and should not forget that it is sim
ply clay. In this analogy, the context in Isa 45:9-13 includes the argumenta
tion of Yahweh against Israelites who points out their lack of faith and says
Here Eliphaz’s words have the conventional form of doxology to encourage the inno
cent Job to seek God. This is quite admonitory (cf. 5:8, 17) and functions as rationalizing
the divine justice against Job’s claim. See Dhorme, Job, 133.
87 Pfeiffer, “Dual Origin,” 204; Terrien, “Remarques,” 303; Kynes, “Job,” 101-2;
Brinks, “Job,” 413.
88 Most commentators (Driver-Gray, Dhorme, Tur-Sinai, Good, Gray) render qnrp as “to
snatch away, break, slaughter” in connection with the verb Han. However, Grabbe main
tains that “the comparative philological evidence seems strong enough to keep the MT qnn
(“carry o f f ’; hapax) without change” . In my opinion, it seems to be unnecessary to emend
it into Harr since the verb root nnn, is found in the noun H00 in Prov 23:28 (cf. Eccl 15:14;
32:22; 50:4; Sir 15:14; 32:21; 50:4; 1QH 5:10). See Lester L. Grabbe, Comparative Phi
lology and the Text o f Job: A Study in Methodology, SBLDS 34 (Missoula: Scholars,
1977), 60-3; Walter L. Michel, Job in the Light o f Northwest Semitic, BO 42 (Rome:
Biblical Institute Press, 1987), 209-10; Clines, Job 1-20, 111.
that they have no right to contend with their Creator (v. 9a), to teach the
Creator how he should manage the world (v. 9b), and to object to their birth
and destiny (v. 10). In Isa 45:9, the God whom Israel protested against in
their unbelief was not always a hidden deity as in Job (Isa 45:15; cf. 54:8),
but he had spoken from the beginning (45:19; cf. 48:16) as the Shaper of
Israel (45:11a) and the Creator of human history (45:12). Accordingly, the
same wordings are not matched in each differing context.
Moreover, it would be better to suppose that the phrase nu?prrno is a
conventional expression in the Hebrew Bible. For instance, there is the same
expression from Elihu’s speech employed in Job 35:6 where it implies that
Job’s increased sins are not able to affect God and His sovereign deed:
If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are
multiplied, what do you do to him?(lb_n w y rrn Q ) (Job 35:6)
This parallel with slight changes is also found in different passages of Prov
25:8 (to neighbours), Dan 4:32 (to God; m i p HD), and Eccl 8:4 (to kings);
cf. Sir 36:10. In addition to this, another literary connection, “who can turn
him (it) back” between Job 9:12 (Ulûr *73) and Isa 43:13 (nJl*’^*’ **01;
slightly different) is a good example that indicates that the parallel words are
no more than a well-known expression (cf. Job 11:10; 23:13; Isa 14:27; Jer
2:24).
V. “T h e h a n d o fY a h w e h h a s d o n e t h i s ” (J o b 1 2 :9 ; Is a 4 1 :2 0 )
Finally, another cited verbal connection is HNT nnw y iTliVT *0 (“the hand
ofYahweh has done this”) in Job 12:9 and Isa 41:20:8990
nm nnlyp m rrT ^ p t -n*?
Who among all these does not know that the hand ofY ahw eh91 has done this? (Job 12:9)
n*nn banur u>npi nm nrro mrv'T *0 hit iboun izrizn ij?t i int jpnb
89 Hartley, Job, 173; Clines, Job 1-20, 232-3.

90 Gordis, Job, 138; Nurmela, Mouth, 12-3; Brinks, “Job,” 414.
91 Throughout the entire dialogue, the divine name mm is employed only here and the
alternative name, m?x, instead of “Yahweh” in MT is found in five other Hebrew manu
scripts (“three MSS of Kennicott and two of de Rossi”). So, some commentators have
believed that the original version had nv?X. (Pope, Dhorme). Dhorme (also Duhm, Gray)
claims that the author of Job altered the name nv?N to mm from the reference of Isa 41:20.
See Dhorme, Job, 173-4; Gray, Job, 217. But, Gordis treats it as unconscious usage, and
Clines similarly argues that “the hand ofY ahw eh” was “not an accidental intrusion” as it is
a well-known idiom prevalent in the Old Testament (over thirty occurrences); but he agrees
that that there could be the possibility of “scribal slip” (also Newsom). See Gordis, Job,
138; Clines, Job 1-20, 295; Newsom, “Job,” 428. In my opinion, it is impossible to deter
mine, with the same verbal connection only, whether there was intentional literary depend
ence on Isa 41:20 or it was a scribal slip, but this word seems to be a late revision.
So that they may see and know, may consider and understand together that the hand of
Yahweh has done this and that the Holy One of Israel has created it. (Isa 41:20)
This unique parallel might affirm the particular correlation between the two
books, but there is at least one missing step in this argument. The idiomatic
expression appears in Job’s dialogue in which Job challenges his friends to
test what is the knowledge which the natural world of “animals”, “birds”,
“earth”, and “fish” possesses (12:7-8): “Ask the animals and they will teach
you” (12:7a). The literary form in Job 12:7-9 is generally considered as
“wisdom instruction” or “satire”92 on the traditional doctrines in which his
friends have believed.93 The relevant question about the context of the formu
lation is: “What is the knowledge that even the natural world itself, but not
humans, can perceive?” What is ambiguous in the given context is the precise
reference of the pronoun TINT; because the pronoun may refer to God’s im
measurable wisdom (11:7-9), to the just governance of the world (11:10-11)
(pointing back to Zophar’s speech), to Job’s innocence and the injustice of
the real world which Job lamented (12:4-6), or to the simple fact that crea
tures are governed by God (12:10).
In the given context, on the one hand, such a natural knowledge of creation
is the elementary knowledge concerning the world order in creation and the
retributive principle in the world which Job has already known very well (Job
12:2-3). On the other hand, what the pronoun means is the abnormal and
aggressive act of God without any reason.94 In my view, the latter better fits
in the present context than the former; though both implications could work
in the present context. Because of what Yahweh’s hand has done, not his own
wrongdoings, the innocent Job has become a “laughingstock” to his friends (v.
4) and has been condemned by oppressors (v. 5) and because of God’s wrong
judgment, the wicked are in peace and secure (v.6). The elementary informa
tion of all the created things shown in Job 12:7-9 can say nothing but the
truth that, behind every work in the world, God exists. It might be the well-
arranged created order that his friends understood, but it is not the real
knowledge of how it works. In this rhetorical question, it indicates that the
superficial judgment of his friends upon Job is no more than a conventional
sort of cliche (v. 12) and ultimately fails to resolve Job’s dilemma and to
reflect how God governs the world. Consequently, the phrase m<T"T *0
TINT nnu?y here serves to undermine his friends’ flawed doctrine of God’s
09
Dell regards vv. 7-9 as being a misused “traditional form of praise to God as creator”
to declare God’s glory in Psalm (cf. Ps 98:7-9). See Dell, Sceptical, 126-8.
93 Job 12:7-8 according to Gordis is “a restatement by Job of the Friends’ admonition to
him”. See Robert Gordis, “Quotations as a Literary Usage in Biblical, Oriental and R ab
binic Literature,” HUCA 22 (1949): 214-5; Clines, Job 1-20, 292-3.
94 With reference to the pronoun “this”, Newsome says that “all that one needs to know,
Job suggests, is that God is ultimately responsible.” See Newsom, “Job,” 428. Clines notes
that it is “the willful act of a malign deity” . See Clines, Job 1-20, 294.
omnipotence and implies that God’s unresponsive injustice is behind Job’s
suffering.
Next, let us see the context which the same wordings have in Isa 41:20. It
is supposed that the passage Isa 41:17-20 typically consists of the direct
proclamation of Yahweh which addresses for the prophet and humans what
God will do for the protection and security of His people. It is given in the
response to the desperate cry of the afflicted including the Israelite commu
nity, providing God’s answer and promise that “I the God of Israel will never
forsake them” (41:17b). Yahweh’s announcement of the community’s renew
ing and of the oppression’s end is described in metaphors of the transforma
tion of the land; the watering of the desert (v. 18) and the re-animation of
seven wilderness plants (v. 19). The great transformation comes as the means
of the new creation, and in the miraculous rehabilitation of nature, which
comes along with the transformation of human destiny, God’s action is an
ticipated for the participants to perceive95 the work of Yahweh’s hand and to
receive the God of Israel as the Restorer and Creator for the destiny of hu
mans (41:20). Accordingly, the pronoun nKT in Deutero-lsaiah is not linked
with the pessimistic view of the unbalanced judgment of God as Job said, but
definitely implies the final renewing and restoring act of Yahweh for the
exiles who were in doubt and fear. The common expression, therefore, means
something entirely different in the two contexts.
Furthermore, the additional reason for denying the literary relationship is
that this is used as a common idiomatic phrase in other places in the Hebrew
Bible. Dhorme notices that although there are parallel wordings between
them, the author of Job echoes “truths universally known and forming an
integral part of current literature”96*98as presenting links with Ps 109:27, Isa
66:2, and Jer 14:22b; in particular Ps 109:27 is likely to be a well-known
expression in Israel which possibly dates from a pre-exilic period. Indeed,
since the origin of the phrase “the hand of Yahweh” has multiple sources in
other biblical materials, the linguistic similarity may not show the associa
tion between the two books.
VI. C o n c lu sio n
The most often cited links between Job (Job 9:4, 8, 10, 12; 12:9) and Deu
tero-lsaiah (Isa 40:26, 28; 41:20; 44:24; 45:9) have been supposed to sustain
the relationship between the two books. Terrien, as discussed above, argues
95 In four Hebrew verbs: “seeing” (int ), “knowing” (ijrm), “considering” (icwzm), and
“understanding” (iVoum).
96 Dhorme, Job, 173-4.
Q7 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1989), 922; Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, WBC 21 (Waco: Word Books, 1983), 76.
98 Jimmy J. M. Roberts, “The Hand of Yahweh,” VT21 (1971): 244-51.
that the motif of the “divine transcendence” is obviously concentrated in
verbal parallels in Job 9-10 and Deutero-Isaiah." However, before assuming
the distinctive association between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, the whole literary
context should be compared, and what we have found out is that they are used
with different literary meanings and for different theological purposes. The
literary purpose of the same wordings in Job 9 and 12 is to represent the im
possibility of disputing with God and to speak of his incomprehensible divin
ity, while, in Deutero-Isaiah’s linked verses, the author gives a reliable and
immediate answer to the doubts and questions of Israel with regard to God’s
power and justice, to correct their unbelief and to reassure the hearers. Thus,
by simple overlapped wordings, no one may validly address the existence of
the literary association between the two books.
C. Conclusion
A Jewish scholar, Samuel Sandmel, addresses the danger of assuming that

passages, which are parallel in a literary sense, also have an historical asso
ciation. He calls this phenomenon of over-generalization, of determining the
literary influence in a particular direction, p a r a lle lo m a n ia , and defines this
“as that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed simi
larity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if
implying literary connections flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direc
tion.” 9100 As an example, Sandmel states that the relationship between the
Pauline epistles and the rabbis, although there are no less than 259 parallels
between them, is not “in thorough agreement” and shows “attitudes and con
clusions about the Torah that are diametrically opposed”.101 Likewise, such
an overemphasis may be found in the claim about the interrelationship be
tween Job and Deutero-Isaiah. However, verbal resemblances may be ex
plained not by literary dependence/influence, but by a common reflection of
broader cultural phenomena on which both writers might possibly draw, so
that we need to evaluate these links very carefully. No matter how many
parallels between texts are produced, unless there are distinguishing and
unique analogies, none of them definitely could demonstrate a literary rela
tionship; though reading our texts in the framework of those subject-matters
is useful in some contexts.

100 Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1.
Chapter 3
Job and Deutero-Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible
The main task until now has been to demonstrate that comparative studies
between Job and Deutero-Isaiah lack sufficient evidence to show a genuine
correspondence. Now, in order to strengthen the foregoing argument, I will
explore interconnections between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical litera
tures. On the one hand, numerous verbal parallels and thematic affinities
between the book of Job and the Hebrew Bible have been proposed by bibli
cal scholars so far, and many recent works introduce an intertextual study in
this domain.123On the other hand, Deutero-Isaiah exhibits strong and clearly-
marked affinities with other biblical texts, and a variety of textual associa-
tions has been examined by commentators; comparative studies of the rela
tionship between Deutero-Isaiah and other texts have recently been under-
taken by Patricia Tull Willey, Benjamin Sommer, and Risto Nurmela. Here,
for our task, I will present several examples of remarkable parallels between
Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other texts, because it is hardly feasible to address all
the potential resemblances observed in each relationship, in this limited space;
I will not evaluate all the scholarly views about the literary reference, nor
1 Cheyne, Job, 83-9; Tur-Sinai, Job, lxiv-lxix; Dhorme, Job, clii-clxxiv; Hartley, Job,
11-3. For the intertextual studies in the Hebrew Bible, Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes,
eds., Reading Job Intertextually, LHB/OTS 574 (New York: T&T Clark, 2013); Thomas
Kruger et al., eds., Das Buck Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beitrdge zum Hiob - Sym
posium aufdem Monte Verita vom 14.-19. August 2005, ATANT 88 (Zurich: TVZ, 2007);
Stephen L. Cook et al., eds., The Whirlwind: Essays on Job, Hermeneutics and Theology in
Memory o f Jane Morse, JSOT 336 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2001).
2 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:241-58; Umberto Cassuto, “On the Formal and Stylistic Rela
tionship between Deutero-Isaiah and Other Biblical Writers,” in Biblical and Oriental
Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1973), 141-77.
3 Willey interprets similarities with other biblical texts by broad literary reference in
verbal links rather than contextual background and tone, but Sommer examines them and
more cautiously adopts “allusion”. But, what they miss is that they do not include intertex
tual links with the book o f Job and this is because they believe that the writing of Deutero-
Isaiah predates the book o f Job. In particular, Willey only focuses on selected Deutero-
Isaiah’s passages: Isa 51:9-52:12 (Nahum, Psalm, Lamentations, Pentateuch, Jeremiah);
Isa 49:1-50:3 (Lam, Jeremiah); Isa 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12 (Lamentations); Isa 54:1-17
(Psalms; Pentateuch, Jeremiah, Lamentations). See Patricia T. Willey, Remember the
Former Things: The Recollection o f Previous Texts in Second Isaiah, SBLDS 161 (Atlanta:
SBL, 1997); Sommer, Prophet. Recently, Nurmela, Mouth.
give detailed judgments, but I will give my personal views and impressions in
a number of cases.4 In addition, because of this extensive coverage of the
textual links, the examination will be of necessity cursory. However, this is
an indispensable part in the current debate to investigate the distinctive rela
tionship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah.
After looking at a set of textual links, the key issue is to determine whether
the claim of distinctive relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah is justi
fied. The question - “Does the relationship between the two books have
unique characteristics which differ from the relationship between the two
books and other biblical materials?” - is rarely asked by biblical scholars. So,
this examination through textual links in the broader corpus would be method
of determining the literary relationship of Job and Deutero-Isaiah. If the re
semblance between the two books is commonplace when compared with
other relationships, even though there are some remarkable connections be
tween the two books, the distinctiveness of the relationship would be very
limited.
A. Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic Texts
7. J o b a n d P e n ta te u c h a l/D e u te r o n o m is tic T exts

Let us start by looking at resemblances between Job and the Penta-
teuch/deuteronomistic texts. Firstly, it has been thought that Job’s texts have
a close relationship with the Pentateuch5 and with the priestly tradition. By
this, interpreters have argued that the author of Job critically used and refor
mulated the contents in such materials.6 An affinity is found in the phrase
4 In a nutshell, what these copious interconnections suggest, as I suppose, is that there is

not much likelihood that the authors of Job and Isa 40-55 already knew all the earlier
sources and referred to them in their writings.
5 Tur-Sinai maintains that the story of Job is “the running commentary” on the Penta
teuch stories and that “the author of the poem regarded Job as a contemporary of Moses.”
See Tur-Sinai, Job, lxiv-lxv.
6 See Konrad Schmid, “Innerbiblische Schriftdiskussion im Hiobbuch,” in Das Buck
Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beitrage zum Hiob - Symposium a u f dem Monte Verita
vom 14.-19. August 2005, ATANT 88 (Zurich: TVZ, 2007), 241-61; “The Authors of Job
and Their Historical and Social Setting,” in Scribes, Sages, and Seers, ed. Leo G. Perdue,
FRLANT 219 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 145-53; Samuel E. Balentine,
“Job as Priest to the Priests,” Ex Auditu 18 (2002): 29-52; “Job and the Priests: ‘He Leads
Priests Away Stripped’ (Job 12:19),” in Reading Job Intertextually (New York: T&T
Clark, 2013), 42-53; William S. Green, “ Stretching the Covenant: Job and Judaism,” RE
99 (2002): 569-77; Israel Knohl, The Divine Symphony: The B ib le’s Many Voices (Phila
delphia: JPS, 2003); The Sanctuary o f Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School
where the epilogue of Job comes to an end with these words, fpt 3VN nft'M
□’’ft*' plWl (Job 42:17), similar to the record of the death of Abraham and
Isaac found in the priestly documents (Gen 25:8; 35:29);7 also, Job is com
pared to the figure of Jacob in the patriarchal narrative, in that the word DH
appears in these two characters (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3; Gen 25:27).8 More interest
ingly, many have mentioned similar patterns between the creation account in
Gen 1:1-2:3 and the soliloquy of Job cursing the day of his birth in Job 3.9 It
has been maintained that Job’s author used the idea of God’s creation during
seven days in Gen 1 (vv. 2, 3, 7, 14-15, 21) to reapply them into Job’s seven
curses in Job 3 (vv. 3, 4, 5, 6-7, 8, 9, 15) in which Job nullifies all hope and
laments his fate (cf. Jer 20:14-18).10
Interpreters have attributed verbal parallels and possible connections be
tween Job and the priestly documents to the intentional usage of the author of
Job. For instance, William Green claims that the book of Job supplies a better
way of adapting the covenantal relationship to the reality of individuals while
accepting the central ideas of Judaism - “monotheism”, “covenant”, and
“cult”.1112The book of Job, according to Green, presents “a fuller theological
19
context for Leviticus” and widely adapts “the structure of levitical religion”.
Konrad Schmid similarly maintains that Job “presents a critical evaluation of
the theocratic order of the Priestly Order which must be considered one of the
fundamental theological tenets of priestly thinking”. 13 Israel Knohl, as an
other example, seeing Job as the figure having the most dignified faith among
non-Israelites, argues that the shift of faith from “the fear of the Lord”, which
the pious Job possessed, to “the religious insight” after Yahweh disclosed
himself out of the tempest in Job 38:1, is similar to the dynamic change in the
priestly Torah where the faith moves from Moses to Israel.14 Especially
noteworthy is the fact that there are the differences about the role of humans
in the word between Job and the priestly Torah; in the priestly Torah and
Job’s initial knowledge, humans are the centre of the world, while Yahweh’s
speech in Job does not exalt humans as the apex of all the creatures; probably,
(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007). For the connection with Leviticus, see Mary Douglas,
Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999).
7 Schmid, “Hiobbuch,” 247-8.
8 Ellen F. Davis, “Job and Jacob: The Integrity of Faith,” in The Whirlwind, JSOT 336
(London: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 100-120.
9 Fishbane, “Jeremiah” ; Schmid, “ Hiobbuch,” 244-5; Balentine, “Priests,” 47-8.
10 Balentine, “Priests,” 47-8. The pattern of Job 3:1-13 has the “counter-cosmic incan
tation”, a reversal of the creation description in Gen l-2 :4 a. Refer to Fishbane, “Jeremiah,”
153-4.
11 “Job provides a fuller theological context for Leviticus than Leviticus provides for it
s e lf’; Green, “Stretching,” 577.
12 Ibid., 577.
13 Schmid, “The Authors o f Job,” 151.
14 See Knohl, Sanctuary, 165-7; Symphony, 115-22.
it might be said that the theology of Genesis is critically evaluated by Job.
However, it is likely to be an excessive interpretation to equate the process of
“the refinement of an individual’s faith-consciousness” in Job with “that
which takes place on a national scale in the Priestly Torah” from the Genesis
period to the period of Moses and Israel.151678
On the contrary, Samuel Balentine doubts if the author of Job is critically
engaging with the priestly traditions. Instead, in association with the priestly
languages in Job (Gen 1:1—2:4a; Exod 25-31; 35-40; Num 1-10; 26-36; cf.
also Ezekiel, Leviticus), Balentine claims that the author intended to criticise
the diminishing efficacy of the priestly group (Job 12:17-21); the author of
Job (e.g., Job 12:19) obliquely reflects the historical context where priests
were banished, thrown away by God, and protests at such a removal of
priests. According to him, there are possible connections between the
priestly materials and the prologue of Job such as “blameless” Job (DH; Job
1:1), “burnt offering” (m^P; Job 1:5; 42:8; Gen 8:20; 22:2, etc.), rituals of
“mourning” (Job 1:20; 2:7, 12; Isa 15:2; 22:12; Jer 7:29; 16:6; Ezek 7:18;
Amos 8:10; Mic 1:16), and “loathsome sores” (f^nW; Job 2:7; Lev 13:18-
23). For another example with the book of Genesis, the creation account of
the Garden of Eden from Gen 1:1-2:4a is compared with the figure of a
“priestly Job”, taking “the land of Uz” (Job 1:1, 3) as a geographical
1o
back-
ground in the prologue and epilogue (Job 1-2; 42:7-17). His claim, that
“the question of the chronological relationship between Job and the Priestly
traditions must remain open”,19 is notable, but it would be difficult to read the
book of Job in the historical context of the priestly system and rituals.
Secondly, Deuteronomy and the entire deuteronomistic texts have pro
duced a variety of literary resemblances with the book of Job.20 Edward
15 Knohl, Symphony, 119.

16 In conclusion, Balentine claims that “the ‘priestly’ Job in the Prologue-Epilogue
seems resolutely committed to the efficacy of the sacrifices, prayers, and rituals that de
fines religious behaviour from a cultic perspective.” See Balentine, “Priests”. Also, see
“Job as Priests.”
17 Balentine, “Priests,” 49-51.
18 Meier and Balentine treat the prologue of Job as echoing the prologue of Genesis: six
narrative scenes in heaven and earth; the use o f the Hebrew verb 112 (“bless”) (Gen 2:3;
Job 1:5, 11, 11, 21; 2:5, 9; 42:12). Sam Meier, “Job 1-2: A Reflection of Genesis 1-3,” VT
39 (1989): 184-90; Balentine, “Priests,” 45-6.
19 Balentine, “Priests,” 44.
20 Georg Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bucher Ijob, Sprichworter, Rut. Zur
Frage friiher Kanonizitat des Deuteronomiums,” in Die Torn als Kanon ju r Juden und
Christen, ed. Erich Zenger, Herders biblische Studien (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder,
1996), 70-90; Manfred Oeming, “Hiobs Monolog - der Weg nach Innen,” in Hiobs Weg:
Stationen von Menschen im Leid, ed. Manfred Oeming and Konrad Schmid (Neukirchen-
Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2001), 57-75; Markus Witte, “Does the Torah Keep Its
Promise? Job’s Critical Intertextual Dialogue with Deuteronomy,” in Reading Job Intertex-
Greenstein maintains that Job refers to a dozen passages from the Song of
Moses in Deut 32, and parodies them as a source of conventional wisdom
thought (Job 38:7, Deut 32:43a; Job 29:6, Deut 32:13b-14a).21 He argues the
parody of Deut 32 on Job as a later source, although saying “the term ‘influ
ence’ is also clearly inappropriate” and “theoretically, neither the Song of
Moses nor the book of Job has priority”.2223He points out the noteworthy
word-pair which only appears in the Song of Moses (Deut 32:4) and in Job’s
prologue (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3): (D^Qn (“whole”, “integrity”), “IW*’ (“straight”,
“upright”), and then draws a conclusion, that “the God who would do only
justice in the Song of Moses is refigured in the book of Job as a man who has
suffered intolerable divine injustice and who is himself absolutely committed
to doing and speaking the right”.24*
In recent researches, some have affirmed that ideas which are featured in
Job’s prose tale - Job’s piety and blessings (Job 1:2-3, 10; Deut 28:12; 30:9),
Job’s disease (Job 2:7b; Deut 28:35), and Job’s double reimbursement ac
cording to the law (Job 42:10; Deut 30:3cf. Exod 22:3, 8) - contain critical
views on the Deuteronomistic theology. Raik Heckl recommends parallel
readings between Samuel-Kings and Job, by comparing Job’s loss and resto
ration with the death of the Elides (1 Sam 1-4) and the change of the exiles’
fate (Deut 30:3); e.g., motifs of interceding for someone (1 Sam 2:25a; Job
42:7-9) and cursing against God, and of children’s sudden deaths (Job 1:5;
2:9; 1 Sam 1:11; 2:9b; 3:13) between Job and 1 Sam 1-4.2627According to
Heckl, the thematic formula described in the restoration of Job - 2W m m
1VN lYnWTIN (“Yahweh restored the fortunes of Job”) in Job 42:10 - is
found in the narrative concerning the restoration of Jehoiachin in 2 Kgs
25:27-30. Further, Heckl, seeing Job as “a representative of Israel in suffer
tually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 54-65; Manfred Oeming, “Hiob 31 und der Deka-
log,” in The Book o f Job, ed. Willem A. M. Beuken, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologi-
carum Lovaniensium 114 (Leuven: Peeters, 1994), 362-68; Schmid, “Hiobbuch.”
21 Edward L. Greenstein, “Parody as a Challenge to Tradition: The Use of Deuteronomy
32 in the Book of Job,” in Reading Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 6 6 -
78.
22 Ibid., 69.
23 Ibid., 77.
24 Ibid., 77.
Refer to Witte, “Torah,” 63-4; Raik Heckl, Hiob— vom Gottesfurchtigen zuni Rep-
rdsentanten Israels: Studien zur Buchwerdung des Hiobbuches und zu seinen Quellen,
FAT 70 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 263-72; Schmid, “Hiobbuch,” 251-2.
26 Raik Heckl, “The Relationship between Job 1-2, 42 and 1 Samuel 1-4,” in Reading
Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 81-93.
27 Ibid., 87-8. The character of Job depends on the exemplary pious figures in 1 Samuel
and Jewish literary traditions such as Eli, Samuel, and Hannah. Heckl supposes that “an
older independent Job story never existed” (p. 86). The structure of the prose tale is influ
enced by deuteronomistic theology and mainly supports a critical stance against Job’s
ing” in the postexilic period, conclusively asserts that “Job’s theology of
history is not only critically directed against deuteronomism, but it also opens
new perspectives: the restoration of Job who represents Israel follows the
reconciliation between God and the pagan world, represented by Job’s
friends.” Heckl’s view, Job’s critical reception of deuteronomism, would be
helpful to compare both texts, but his argument is based on inappropriate
analogy by equating Job with Israel, and Job’s friends with pagans, and the
claim that “an older independent Job study never existed”2829 is hardly accept
able.
For another example, Georg Braulik argues that wordings in Job 24:1-17
are related to the language of the book of Deuteronomy and Exod 20, and
especially that Job 24:14-16 is correlated with the Decalogue (Deut 5:17-19;
22:22, 26) and Exod 20:13-15.30 Manfred Oeming and Markus Witte, what is
more, hold that Job’s moral behaviour presented in the form of the “oath of
purgation” in Job 31 closely corresponds to the thought of the Decalogue and
to Deuteronomy’s theology.3132In a slightly different approach, Witte, however,
supports “a structural intertextuality” rather than a direct literary dependence
between Job and Deuteronomy, and attempts to indicate “how Deuteronomy
is repeatedly alluded to in the multiple redactional layers of Job as the book
developed”. For example, Job’s references to in (“mark”) and “l£)D (“book”)
in Job 31:35 are interpreted as “a cipher for the Torah authored by God” and
“these signs” from the Torah stand “as an analogy for the first commandment
(Deut 5:6-7)”.33 Furthermore, Witte argues that the author of Job, from the
word “ini* (“the only One”) in Job 23:13, 31:15 and Deut 6:4, makes the
figure of Job look like the righteous one “as a witness to the S h e m a I s r a e l ”.34
friends’ theology; the fact that Job’s prayer for his friends as representatives of the pagan
world is followed by the restoration of Job can refer to the Jewish eschatological hope and
salvation for Israel and pagan nations. He says that “the canonical book of Job is therefore
a witness to the critical reception and interpretation of deuteronomistic theology” (p. 89).
28 Ibid., 89.
29 Ib id , 86.
30 Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium,” 70-90.
31 Oeming, “Hiob 31”; “Hiobs Monolog”; Witte, “Torah,” 57-60.
32 Witte, “Torah,” 55.
33 Ib id , 58.
34 Ib id , 58. Witte also proposes conceptual connections, “suggesting an intended con
tention with Deut 32 by the poets standing behind Job 31” - (1) “the salutation of the
earth” (Deut 32:1 //Job 31:38-40); (2) “the m otif of devouring fire” (Deut 32:22//Job
31:12); (3) b'bs, “judge” (Deut 32:31//Job 31:11, 28) - and other thematic similarities such
as an encounter with God (Deut 5:4, 22//Job 31:35-37), “social ethics” (Deut 10:17—
19a//Job 31:14) (p. 58-9). And Eliphaz’s admonition is an attempt to put the Torah into
Job’s mind (Job 22:22) and Yahweh’s speech from the storm (Job 38-39) is understood as
the verification of Job’s petition to the Torah. In Elihu’s speeches, Elihu is “understood as
an interpretation o f the Shema Israel” (Deut 32:39) (p. 64). W itte’s claims concerning the
In my opinion, a broad influence of the deuteronomistic texts on Job seems to
be more reasonable than the possibility of the direct allusion or quotation
from Deutero-lsaiah. In particular, I agree with Witte’s conclusion, that Job
shows “a sharp challenge of the deuteronomic theology of the justice of God”,
and “may be read as a critical commentary on Deuteronomy and on its foun-
dation of the righteousness of God and humanity”.
II. D e u te r o -ls a ia h a n d P e n ta te u c h a l/D e u te r o n o m is tic T exts
Likewise, Deutero-lsaiah has constantly been interpreted in relation to the

Pentateuch and the deuteronomistic texts. In the first place, what is com
monly acknowledged is that the Pentateuch contains many “typological”
connections with Deutero-lsaiah. The most prominent typology between the
two books, although it is not always accepted, has been made from the theme
of a new exodus, echoing passages in the Exodus tradition, where the
H e ils g e s c h ic h te of Israel which is extended from the patriarchal period to the
entry into the Promised Land shapes Deutero-Isaiah’s eschatological vision.
Fishbane notices the typological expression of “the exodus tr a d itu m ” in Isa
43:21a, as referring to Israelites who declare their praise to Yahweh - “the
people whom (1EDP) I formed for m yself’ - reminiscent of the delivered
Israel in the Song of Sea in Exod 15:13, 16 (“the people whom (1T"DP) you
have redeemed/purchased”). Another expression shared with the exodus
story is the phrase pT£Dm tfb (“not in haste”) in Isa 52:12, Exod 12:11, 31,356*
relationship between Job and Deuteronomy are that the faithful obedience to the Torah will
ultimately lead to the successful life although the deuteronomic idea o f justice is criticized
by Job’s poet. The book of Job is thoroughly connected with the teachings of the Deca
logue or the Torah and figures of Job and Elihu are suggested as faithful witnesses of
Torah.
35 Ibid., 65. Similarly, for the critical view of Job on Deuteronomistic theology, see
Schmid, “The Authors of Job.”
36 For the relationship between the pentateuchal Exodus m otif and Deutero-lsaiah, see
Willey, Remember, 28-32; Merwe, Pentateuchtradisies in die Prediking van Deuterojsaja;
Walther Zimmerli, “Der ‘Neue Exodus’ in der Verkundigung der beiden groBen
Exilspropheten,” in Gottes Offenbarung: Gesammelte Aufsatze zum Alten Testament,
Theologische Biicherei 19 (Miinchen: C. Kaiser, 1963), 192-204; Bernhard W. Anderson,
“Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah,” in Isra el’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honour o f
James Muilenburg, ed. Bernhard W. Anderson and Walter J. Harrelson (London: SCM,
1962), 177-95; “Exodus and Covenant in Second Isaiah and Prophetic Tradition,” in Mag-
nalia Dei, the Mighty Acts o f God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory o f G.
Ernest Wright, ed. Frank M. Cross et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 339-60; Dale
Patrick, “Epiphanic Imagery in Second Isaiah’s Portrayal o f a New Exodus,” HAR 8
(1984): 125-41; Fishbane, Text and Texture, 121-40.
Another allusion appears in the imagery “streams of water” in the desert (Exod 17:3—
6; Isa 43:20; 48:20-1); Fishbane, Biblical, 364.
and Deut 16:3 where the migration from Babylon across the wilderness in
Isa 52:11-12 resembles the Israelites’ marching orders during their journey in
the desert of the Exodus:
ndo auto mo mo
mn' w j ran roinn ins
p3*7n v b nouom iNsn pram n*? '3
*7N3l2;' 'n*7« D33DNQ1 H1H' D3\l£)*7 ^ " ' 3
Turn , turn away, go out from there, do not touch unclean things; go out from the midst of
her; purify yourselves; you who bear the vessels of Yahweh; because you will not go out in
haste, and you will not leave in flight; because Yahweh will march before you and the God
of Israel will be your rear guard. (Isa 52:11-12)
Also, the visibility of Yahweh (INT p p l pp *0, “for eye to eye they see”)
among exiles in Isa 52:8 (cf. Lam 4:17; Ps 98:8) may be connected to Num
14:14 (HiCU p p i pp'PWN, “seen face to face”) which describes Yahweh’s
theophany in the pillar of cloud and fire.
There are other typological resemblances between Pentateuchal sources
and Deutero-Isaiah: Moses and Cyrus (Isa 44:24-45:13; Exod 6-8);3839 Noah’s
flood (Isa 44:27; 50:2; 51:10; 54:9-10; 55:10-13; Gen 6:9-9:17);40 Abraham
and Cyrus (Isa 41:2-3; Gen 14);41 Moses and the Suffering Servant;42 the
exiled Israelite and Jacob (Isa 43:22-28; Gen 30-32).43 Among these typolo
gies, there are three notable examples. The imagery of the “barren one” in Isa
54:1 (my?*’ m p p ) (cf. Isa 51:2) would recall the childlessness of Sarah
in Gen 11:30 (m p p ) and of Samson’s mother in Judg 13:2-3 ( n Vi m p p
m y ) ; 44 in this imagery, the later blessing to Abraham and Sarah might be
involved in the coming fertility of forsaken Judahite children by the reunion
with her husband Yahweh. A second typology possibly emerges from the
reference of Isa 43:22-2845 where Jacob-Israel fails to offer the sacrifice to
Yahweh, and this leads to the destruction of Israel; this is associated with
common vocabularies shown in the narrative of Jacob’s predicament to
38 The reversal reuse (“not in haste you will go out”) in Isa 52:12a is a unique case of
Deutero-Isaiah and the Hebrew word, fiTDri, which is only found otherwise in Exod 12:11
and Deut 16:3. Willey, Remember, 133-4.
39 Graham S. Ogden, “Moses and Cyrus,” IT 28 (1978): 195-203.
40 David M. Gunn, “Deutero-Isaiah and the Flood,” JBL 94 (1975): 493-508.
41 Gwilym H. Jones, “Abraham and Cyrus: Type and Anti-Type?,” VT 22 (1972): 304-
19.
42 Claude L. Chavasse, “ Suffering Servant and Moses,” CQR 165 (1964): 152-63.
43 Klaus Baltzer, “Schriftauslegung bei Deuterojesaja? - Jes 43,22-28 als Beispiel,” in
Die Vater Israels, ed. Manfred Gorg (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989), 11-16.
44 Cf. Gen 22:15-17; Isa 51:2. See Willey, Remember, 246-7; Sommer, Prophet, 133-4.
45 Baltzer, “Schriftauslegung bei Deuterojesaja?”
Mesopotamia (Gen 30-32).46 A third typology comes from the reference to
Noah’s flood, where Yahweh promises Israel’s security from her enemies
(Gen 6-9; Isa 54:9; Ps 89).4748
This typological association in Deutero-lsaiah has often been understood
as having the influence of a common literary heritage. Shalom Paul, for in
stance, does not mention the direct reference or allusion of Deutero-lsaiah to
the Pentateuch, but rather indicates the broad influence of “Israel’s epic tradi
tion” such as myth, flood, the patriarchal traditions, and the Egyptian exo-
AO
dus. In particular, the claim to the use of the Exodus motif in Deutero-lsaiah
has often been challenged. Dale Patrick, for example, traces the origin of the
imagery of a new exodus bearing the descriptions of the transformation of
nature (Isa 43:16-21), and insists that the imagery recalls “the epiphanic
traditions of Hebrew Scripture and of the ancient Near East”.49 This opens the
possibility of the literary influence of common ancient Near Eastern sources.
The second way in which Deutero-lsaiah resembles Pentateuchal materials
appears in the use of the creation theme and related terms in Gen 1:1 —2:4a (or
“Priestly Code”); e.g., Isa 45:7 and Gen 1:2.50 Sommer, following Moshe
Weinfeld, maintains that Deutero-lsaiah develops the priestly creation narra
tive into a polemic speech against an anthropomorphic view of God drawing
from the priestly writer and that Deutero-lsaiah there rejects four representa
tive accounts of the priestly creation in Gen l:l-2 :4 a .51 Firstly, while Genesis
suggests that before the creation in Gen 1:1-3, unformed matter described as
“formlessness” (inn), “void” (inn), “darkness” (“jwm), and “the surface of
the deep” (□’’Fin covered the universe, Deutero-lsaiah declares that
Yahweh creates everything, including the force of darkness (Isa 45:6-7, 18).
Secondly, Deutero-lsaiah rejects the anthropological notion of God in Gen
1:26 (“Let us make man in our image”), asserting that Yahweh is incompara
ble to any earthly image (Isa 40:18, 25; 46:25). Thirdly, God in Deutero-
lsaiah does not consult any divine beings about his plans (Isa 40:13-14;
44:24), while the heavenly council (“Let us make”) in Gen 1:26 appears in
discussing the creation of humans. Fourthly, Deutero-lsaiah emphasises that
God by no means rests, while the priestly writer portrays God resting after the
completion of creation (Gen 2:2; Exod 31:17; Isa 40:28). As a result of these
46 Another typology given here is the allusion where “the nation Israel received the
benefits promised by priestly law to a person sold into debt-slavery” (Lev 25:10; Isa 61:1).
Sommer, Prophet, 140-2.
47 Willey, Remember, 247-9.
48 Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 44-6.
49 Patrick, “Epiphanic Imagery,” 126.
50 Arvid S. Kapelrud, “The Date of the Priestly Code (P),” ASTI 3 (1964): 58-64;
Moshe Weinfeld, “God the Creator in Gen. 1 and in the Prophecy of Second Isaiah,” Tar-
biz 33 (1968): 105-32; Fishbane, Biblical, 324-6.
51 Sommer, Prophet, 142-5.
differences, Weinfeld and Sommer maintain that Deutero-Isaiah was aware of
priestly and JE texts and used them by denying and transforming the ideology
of received priestly literatures.52 Importantly, the Deutero-Isaiah’s view on
the priestly writer is likely to be in line with Job’s critical tone in the relation
to the priestly Torah.
The third place is the literary relationships between Deutero-Isaiah and the
deuteronomistic texts. Sommer argues that Deutero-Isaiah echoes materials
from a Mosaic poem (Deut 33:26-29; Isa 45:14-19),53 and uses shared terms
- e.g., n*7W (“send away, divorce”) - from prevalent legal practice (Deut
24:1-3; Isa 50:1; Jer 3:1-8; Hos 1-3).54 Paul presents various affinities be
tween the deuteronomistic texts and Deutero-Isaiah that are mostly linked
with specific terms and phrases alongside common themes; “the nature and
uniqueness of the God of Israel,” “the nature of God’s relationship with Is
rael,” and “the nature of the temple”.55 Verbal parallels that he notices are
given as evidence of the direct influence of the deuteronomistic texts on Deu
tero-Isaiah; e.g., Deut 4:35, 39; 32:12; 32:39; 1 Sam 2:2; 2 Sam 7:22; 22:32;
1 Kgs 8:23; 8:60; Jer 10:6//Isa 43:10, 11; 44:6; 45:5, 6, 14, 18, 21, 22; 46:9.
There is a thought-provoking presentation from parallels presented by Paul,
but they lack analogies to designate a literary relationship between Deutero-
Isaiah and Deuteronomy.5657
There is little reason to reject the literary influence of the Deuteronomistic
theology on Deutero-Isaiah, but like the book of Job, it is significant to notice
how Deutero-Isaiah evaluates Mosaic laws and covenants. The general intra-
biblical analysis between Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah seems to have a
bias by assuming that Deutero-Isaiah is embracing “the kerygma” of Deuter-
onomy, without paying the attention to differences in tone and theology.
Differences and contrasts along with commonalities between Deutero-Isaiah
and the Deuteronomistic corpus and thought should not be missed in these
two major traditions. For example, Antje Labahn sees the emergence of Deu
teronomistic motifs and themes on Deutero-Isaiah, but more importantly
argues that rather than that Deutero-Isaiah conveys the same message to the
52 Ibid., 149-51.
53 Ibid., 136-7.
54 Ibid., 138; Sommer comments from these similarities: “ Deutero-Isaiah and Hosea
agree that God and Israel will be reconciled, while Jeremiah views reconciliation as im pos
sible”.
55 Shalom M. Paul, “Deuteronom(ist)ic Influences on Deutero-Isaiah,” in Mishneh To-
dah, ed. Nili S. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 219-27.
56 For another instance, Janzen argues that Deutero-Isaiah in Isa 51:2 uses the word inx,
in order to echo the Shema (Deut 6:4-5), but there is no solid ground for this association.
See John G. Janzen, “An Echo of the Shema in Isaiah 51:1-3,” JSO T 43 (1989): 69-82.
57 Walter Brueggemann, “Isaiah 55 and Deuteronomic Theology,” ZAW 80 (1968):
191-203; Sommer, Prophet, 140, 155.
theological ideas of the editors of Deuteronomistic materials, Deutero-lsaiah
contrasts more sharply representing Deuteronomistic theology.58
B. The Book of Jeremiah
I. J o b a n d J e r e m ia h
It has been appreciated that Job has even more common features with
Jeremiah than with any other prophetic books. Most scholars seem to agree
that the language and motifs of the book of Job are inseparably bound up with
Jeremiah;59 at the very least, Jeremiah’s character as a righteous prophet un
dergoing suffering substantially resembles Job. According to Greenstein, the
author of Job is “attenuating the Jeremiah source”; he suggests five areas
corresponding to parallels between Jeremiah and Job where Jeremiah “ap
pears to have served as a model” of inspiration for Job.60 Katharine Dell, like
Greenstein, argues: “that Job is imitating and progressing the sentiments of
Jeremiah is the most natural literary and historical conclusion, even if they do
both owe something to a wider lament tradition”;61 she further proposes pas
sages of Jeremiah’s confessions which are supposed to function as inspiration
or source to the book of Job. From the observations of Greenstein and Dell, I
present five associations between Jeremiah and Job. Firstly, Jeremiah and Job
as righteous sufferers experience isolation, abandonment, and betrayal from
people and God, and lament over their losses in their “confessions” (e.g. Jer
18:18-20). Greenstein suggests two images related to this theme: the imagery
of (“the dry wadi”) in Job 6:15, 28 with the verb 2TDN (“to lie, deceive”)
58 The intersection of these theological concepts are by and large explained by social
and geographical locations where the two biblical texts are describing; Babylon in exilic
for Deutero-lsaiah and Palestine for Deuteronomists. While Deteronomistic materials focus
on Palestine-living Israel and their nationalism, Deutero-lsaiah talks about the hope of
exilic community and all the nations based on the universalism. See Antje Labahn, Wort
Gottes und Schuld Israels: Untersuchungen zu Motiven denteronomistischer Theologie im
Deuterojesajabuch mit einem Ausblick a u f das Verhdltnis von Jes 40-55 zum
Deuteronomismus, BWANT 143 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1999).
59 Dhorme, Job, clix-clxii; Terrien, “Job: Introduction,” 889; Edward L. Greenstein,
“Jeremiah as an Inspiration to the Poet of Job,” in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the
Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor o f Herbert B. Hnffmon, ed. John Kaltner and Louis
Stulman, JSOTSup 378 (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 98-110; Katharine J. Dell,
“ ‘Cursed Be the Day I Was Born!’: Job and Jeremiah Revisited,” in Reading Job Intertex-
tually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 106-17.
60 Greenstein, “Jeremiah,” 99.
AI Dell is alert to the dangers of form-critical classifications of the lament genre, and
classifies parallel examples “as a re-use of known tradition rather than as a misuse with
parodic intent”. See Dell, “Job,” 107, 116.
to emphasise personal disappointment (cf. 3TDN 1ED, “like a dried-up-wadi”)
in Jer 15:17—18b; and the motif of “economic dependency” (Jer 15:10; Job
6:22-23).“
The second similarity is found in the description of the cursing on the day
of the individual’s birth. Terrien proposes seven verbal and thematic simi
larities between Job 3:3-26 and Jer 20:14-18; Dell notices that both charac
ters use cursing language (bbp in Job 3:1b, IHp in Job 3:8a, TIN in Job 3:8a;
Jer 20:14) about the day of birth (Jer 20:14-18; Job 3:1-12; 10:18-19).M The
most frequently cited correspondence in terms of the statement of self-curse
is:
“q ; mn “ion nb’bm n "rbiN Dr •mw
Perish the day on which I was born, and the night that said, “A new-born male is con
ceived!” (Job 3:3)
in n 'jvbN tdn ornV’~n2>N nr n 'm b' “iv>n orn “ina
innate; not; “inr p "[bnV nnab nN_nN nten ntew unan nna
Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be
blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, “A son is born to
you,” giving him such joy. (Jer 20:14-15)
Thirdly, both figures complain about the prosperity of the wicked and their
children, and use the form of the indictment in the rhetorical question (Job
21:7; Jer 12:1b; cf. Hab 1:13):62*6465
*rn n a r o ) ipnp rn'- D'ptn yno
Why do the wicked live, prosper,66*and grow mighty in power? (Job 21:7)
m Harr bn ibu> nnbs D'piPn “pn ynn
Why does the way of the wicked thrive? Why are all who are treacherous at ease? (Jer
12:1b)
A fourth similarity is that both books take up the typical form of prophetic
litigation (Jer 12:1-6; Job 9; 13:15; 23:2-17). Greenstein and Dell assume a
literary dependence, claiming that this common form in Job originates in and
is expanded from Jeremiah (Jer 12:1-6; Job 9; 13:15; 23:2-17); Greenstein
holds that the author of Job for specific cases is inspired by Jeremiah; the
form of Jeremiah’s lawsuit and the prophetic ITH pattern (Jer 2:4-13).
62 Greenstein, “Jeremiah,” 100-2. See also other connections between Jer 15:10-21 and
Job 6:22-23, 15; 34:6, 13:22, 31:35a; Dell, “Job,” 112-4; Dhorme, Job, clxii.
This theme could been adopted by the poet o f Job from Jeremiah passages (Terrien,
Dhorme, Greenstein, Dell) or could be rooted on a common source (Carroll, Tur-Sinai).
64 Terrien, “Job: Introduction,” 889; Dell, “Job,” 109-10.
65 Greenstein, “Jeremiah,” 103-4; Dell, “Job,” 115.
66 The verb ipny here has the meaning of “thrive” in a complementary sense to the
phrase f n r m in v. 7b rather than “to grow old” (also TNK). See Gray, Job, 293.
Dell maintains from the examples o f Job 9:2-3 and Jer 12:1a that “legal language in
the attempt with God seems to originate here in Jeremiah.” See Dell, “Job,” 114-5. Also,
refer to Greenstein, “Jeremiah,” 104-5.
Fifthly, parallels between Jer 20:7-12 and Job’s texts, according to Dell,
reflect “lament psalms and other prophetic outpourings”, as Jeremiah’s pas
sages are significantly echoing Job’s lament and agony in dialogue.68 She
notices that these expressions “have the context of God being to blame”; in
p in t; (“laughingstock”; Jer 20:7b; Job 12:4a, 30:1a); in t y b (“mock”; Jer
20:7b) and fU (“mocking song”; Job 30:9); in pptN (“cry out”; Jer 20:8; cf.
Job 35:9) and pP^R (“cry out”; Job 19:7); in DQn (“violence”; Jer 20:8; Job
19:7).69
The explanations of these resemblances have been given as the direct in
fluence of Jeremiah on Job (Dhorme),707123or recently as the 1“parody” of texts of
n
Jeremiah - “subversion of convention” (Greenstein), or in “a reuse of

79
known tradition” (Dell). However, their claims are limited, to the extent that
they presume that the text of Jeremiah is earlier and more original than the
text of Job; though partly it is quite true.
II. D e u te r o -ls a ia h a n d J e r e m ia h
Resemblances between Jeremiah and Deutero-lsaiah have more remarkable

parallels than any other biblical books. Most scholars such as Cassuto, Paul,
Willey, and Sommer have maintained that Deutero-lsaiah either quotes, al
ludes to, or echoes Jeremiah’s language by directly adopting Jeremiah’s
wordings or by reformulating them in a new context and style. Sommer and
Paul, by contrast, accept the possibility that Deutero-lsaiah could have be
come similar to Jeremiah by being influenced by common literary traditions
such as “Mesopotamian royal and prophetic ideologies” and Israelite litera
ture; although both prefer the direct borrowing of Deutero-lsaiah.74 The fol
lowing are examples of the affinities between Job and Jeremiah.
68 Dell, “Job,” 111.

69 See ibid., 110-1.
70 Dhorme, Job, clxii.
71 Greenstein, “Jeremiah,” 107.
72 Dell, “Job,” 116.
73 Cassuto, “Formal”; Shalom M. Paul, “Literary and Ideological Echoes of Jeremiah in
Deutero-lsaiah,” in Proceedings o f the 5th World Congress o f Jewish Studies, v 1, Hebrew
Univ, Jerusalem, 1969 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1973), 102-20; W il
liam L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2: A Commentary on the Book o f the Prophet Jeremiah Chap
ters 26-52, ed. Paul D. Hanson, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 86-8; Willey,
Remember, 137-42, 151-5, 193-206, 241-6; Sommer, Prophet, 32-72.
74 Paul, “Jeremiah,” 119-20; Sommer, Prophet, 33; Laato claims that the servant and
Cyrus passages in Deutero-lsaiah are connected with “the courtly language reflected in the
Akkadian royal inscriptions.” Antti Laato, The Servant ofY H W H and Cyrus: A Reinterpre
tation o f the Exilic Messianic Programme in Isaiah 40-55, CB 35 (Stockholm: Almqvist &
Wikseli, 1992), 47-68.
The first category of resemblances is to be derived from the motif
concerning the return from exile.7576Willey suggests six verbal and thematic
affinities to be seen in Jer 31:8-10 and Isa 49:9-13. For instance, the imagery
of gathered sheep under the shepherd’s care in Jeremiah (Isa 40:11; 49:9-10;
Jer 31:8-9; cf. Mic 2:12; Ezek 34:11) is connected to the return of the exiled
Ifs
community in Deutero-Isaiah:
bnr rvibp mr ip'nni ynp' nnn npr m y njro
Like a shepherd, he tends his flock, gathers the lambs in his arms and he carries them in his
bosom, and gently lead the suckling mother sheep.7778(Isa 40:11)
nnm map* banlzr m tn n o w pm no m m d' u mmmm ipntP

m y np-D
Hear the word of Yahweh, O nations, and Tell it in the coastlands far away; Say, he who
scattered Israel will gather him, and will guard him as a shepherd keeps his flock (Jer
31:10)
The second is found both in the figure of Jeremiah as a suffering prophet and
in Yahweh’s servant in Deutero-Isaiah. These corresponding verses speak of
the divine appointment and the -70
calling to Jeremiah and Yahweh’s servant (Isa
49:5-6; Jer 1:5; cf. Isa 42:6); e.g., see the following parallel which contains
a unique parallel in the OT:
ib “rnyb tunn nsr mm mt* nnpi
p a n n*p~ry 'npiub nrnb on; m«b TTirui...
And now Yahweh has said, he who formed me from the womb as his servant, ... I will
make you as a light for the nations to be my salvation to the end o f the earth (Isa 49:5a, 6b)
■pnnj mub n' u Tmnpn omn xvn mini |unn “pum Dim
Before I formed79 you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb
I consecrated you; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jer 1:5)
Sommer, moreover, suggests the life and suffering of Jeremiah as original

types of Jacob-Israel and the Servant in Deutero-Isaiah: “Jeremiah and the
nation” (Isa 51:16//Jer 1:9-10; Isa 51:12—14//Jer 11:19-21); “Jeremiah and
servant figures” (Jer 20:11 //Isa 50:6-7; Jer 20:9//Isa 53:7-8; Jer 11:19//Isa
53:7-8).80 Dell, similarly, argues that the Servant of Yahweh in Deutero-
Isaiah echoes the language of Jeremiah (Isa 49:lb//Jer 1:5a; Isa 53:7b//Jer
75 Paul, “Jeremiah,” 105-6; Willey, Remember, 204-6; Cassuto, “Formal,” 150-1.

76 Willey, Remember, 204.
The phrase m r m 1?!? describes the shepherd’s concern in caring for suckling ewes;
mbs? Qal, pt, “suckling”. Jan L. Koole, Isaiah Part III Vol 1: Isaiah 40-48, HCOT
(Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1997), 79.
78 Cassuto, “Formal,” 156; Willey, Remember, 193-7. There is a difference at this
point; i.e., Deutero-Isaiah expands the divine mission to Israel (42:1-4; 50:4). See Paul,
“Jeremiah,” 109.
79 K, fn sN ; Q, (qal, impf).
11:19a; Isa 53:8b//Jer
O1
11:19c), and mentions possible links to Jeremiah’s life
and thought. She examines Farley’s study of Jeremiah’s references in
Deutero-Isaiah’s servant songs (Isa 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12),
and concludes that, though not all parallels are convincing, some connections
are valid and evince that Jeremiah’s identity as Yahweh’s servant influenced
the similar picture in Deutero-lsaiah.*8283
The third is the metaphor of “bridal ornament” and “unforgettable woman”
(Jer 2:32; Isa 49:15) where the use of the verb - rDWnn (“can she forget?”)
- is unique in the Hebrew Bible; “Can a woman forget her nursing child?” in
Deutero-lsaiah; “can a virgin forget her ornaments?” in Jeremiah. While
Yahweh is compared with an authentic mother of a child in Deutero-lsaiah
(49:15), Israel in Jeremiah is portrayed as a disloyal bride. The imagery of
“ornament” (HpD) and “binding them like a bride” (H^DD D'HWpm) in Isa
49:18 advances one more step from Jeremiah’s passage in which Yahweh
declares that Zion will never lose her gathered children.
The fourth similarity occurs in the covenantal relationship with God in
making “a new thing” (n u n n ) (Isa 43:19; Jer 31:22) and a new “covenant”
(Jer 31:31; cf. Isa 55:3). It has been argued that the prophecy of the new
covenant in Jeremiah (Jer 31:31-36) is restated and repeated in Deutero-
lsaiah (Isa 42:5-9; 43:25; 54:10, 13; 55:3).8485The most striking parallel
between the two books is a seven word-pair verbatim in Isa 51:15 and Jer
31:35 in which corresponding texts describe the power of Yahweh bounding
the chaotic sea: mw m a n s miY v b x lO m pjn (“who
or
stirs up the sea
when its waves roar; Yahweh of hosts is his name”). Other noteworthy
cases occur in longer passages, although they have fewer verbal
correspondences; for example, in the metaphor of Jerusalem’s devastated tent
(Jer 4:20b; 10:20; Isa 5 4 :l-2 )86*and the fulfillment of the earlier prophecy
07
about double-payment of punishment and payment (Isa 40:2; Jer 16:18).
In addition, another important view was proposed by Reinhard G. Kratz
arguing literary connections between the inaugurating section of Isa 40 where
O|
Katharine J. Dell, “The Suffering Servant of Deutero-lsaiah: Jeremiah Revisited,” in
Genesis, Isaiah, and Psalms, ed. Graham I. Davies and Katharine J. Dell, SVT 135
(Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010), 119-34.
82 Fred A. Farley, “Jeremiah and ‘The Suffering Servant of Jehovah’ in Deutero-lsaiah,”
E T 38, no. 11 (1927): 521-24.
83 Paul, “Jeremiah,” 114; Cassuto, “Formal,” 157; Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 87; Willey,
Remember, 197-200; Sommer, Prophet, 37.
84 Paul, “Jeremiah,” 116-7; Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 88; Willey, Remember, 137-41;
85 Cassuto, “Formal,” 151; Willey, Remember, 138, 140.
86 Willey, Remember, 241-3; Sommer, Prophet, 38-40.
o7
Two passages ( Isa 40:2; 61:7) share four common terms with Jer 16:18, nNUn (“sin”),
py (“punishment”, “guilt”), p x (“land”), mtfa (“double”). Paul, “Jeremiah,” 103-4;
Yahweh declares “comfort”ooof Israel and Jer 50-51 where Yahweh condemns
the foreign nation Babylon.
Overall, foregoing studies between Deutero-Isaiah and Jeremiah would
confirm literary associations, concluding that Deutero-Isaiah intentionally
uses the specific texts in Jeremiah. Though not all the cases affirm the
priority of Jeremiah over Deutero-Isaiah, those resemblances are likely to
have dominant cases among the literary relationships of Deutero-Isaiah.
C. First and Third Isaiah
I. J o b a n d F ir s t/T h ir d Is a ia h
We may see a few common connections between Job and First/Third Isaiah
(Isa 1-39, 56-66). For instance, both Job 12:13 and Isa 11:2 include common
words such as HOD)! (“wisdom”), nTQJ (“might”), (“counsel”), and
rmnn ( n n in Deutero-Isaiah; “understanding”) (cf. Prov. 8:14),88990 and there
88 Refer to Reinhard G. Kratz, “Der Anfang der Zweiten Jesaja in Jes 4 0 ,If. und das
Jeremiabuch,” ZAW 106 (1994): 243-61. In addition, for the interpretation of Isa 40ff in
connection with Gen 50, see. Reinhard G. Kratz, “Der Anfang des Zweiten Jesaja in Jes
4 0 ,If. und seine literarischen Horizonte,” ZAW 105 (1993): 400-419.
89
There are other verbal and theological similarities between the two books which are
not mentioned here. Paul divides them into three categories according to the level of liter
ary dependence on Jeremiah; (1) the direct use of Jeremiah’s passages: “reward” and “rec
ompense” (Isa 40:9; Jer 31:15-16), the return of the exile through “an express highway”
(Isa 40:3; 42:16; Jer 31:8, 20; cf. Isa 35:5-8), “the redeemed of the Lord” (Isa 45:11; Jer
31:10-11; cf. Isa 35:10); (2) the creative readaptation with the reference of cuneiform
royal inscriptions: the divine encouragement (Jer 1:8-9; Isa 41:10; 51:16), the polemic
against idols (Jer 50:41; 27:5-6; Isa 41:25; 45:12-13), the Creator God (Jer 33:2; Isa
45:18), protection of Israel (Jer 51:19; Isa 51:13-14), and series o f disasters (Jer 15:2; Isa
51:19); (3) coincidental examples. See Paul, “Jeremiah”. Cf. other similarities: “the certifi
cate of Divorce” (Jer 3:1; Isa 50:1; cf. Deut 24:1-4); “Zion’s shame” (Jer 2:1-2; 3:24-25;
31:19; Isa 54:4). See Willey, Remember, 200-4, 243-6. C.f., (1) reversing Jeremiah’s
earlier messages in Deutero-Isaiah’s context (Jer 14:2-9, Isa 42:10-16) and transforming
motifs o f “blind people” and “drought imagery”; (2) repredicting by which Deutero-Isaiah
reformulates prophecies of Jeremiah concerning messages of Israelites’ restoration: “pray
and response”; Jer 29:10-14; Isa 55:6-12; (3) fulfilling the old prophecy of Jeremiah: Jer
9:6; Isa 48:10-11; typological link: Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus (Jer 27:5-6; Isa 45:12-13),
God’s word in people’s mouth (Jer 1:9-10; Isa 51:16). See Sommer, Prophet, 32-72.
90 See following links between First Isaiah and Job. The unique phrase “the river will be
parched and dry” ($ T l TUT “inn) (w ithtrn and O"’) only occurs in Job 14:11 and Isa 19:5
within the Old Testament. The imagery of “dry water” in Job 14:11 is intended to empha
size the impossibility o f returning from the dead, while in Isa 19:5 (cf. 37:25; 51:10) this
imagery illustrates the destruction of the Egyptians. Two word pairs, “making them stag
ger” (nyn) and “like a drunken man” (TDU?) found in both Isa 19:14 (Isa 24:20a; cf. 28:7)
and Job 12:24-25 are able to illustrate God’s anger over humanity (cf. Ps 107: 27, 40). The
is the similar phrase “conceiving disaster and bringing forth harm”, mn
pN "rVl (Job 15:35) and flN TVim b o y n n (Isa 59:4).91 Studies of the inter
connections between Job and First/Third Isaiah, however, have been mostly
overlooked in biblical scholarship, or at least no authoritative researches have
been conducted; although there have been studies concerning a wide range of
wisdom influence on the texts of Isaiah. All three commentators - Hartley,
Dhorme, and Cheyne - deal with a heavy list of verbal parallels and common
themes between Job and Deutero-lsaiah, but hardly pay attention to
First/Third Isaiah. Hartley mentions only three parallels (Job 12:24—5//Isa
19:14; Job 14:11//Isa 19:5; Job 15:35a//Isa 59:4d (cf. Ps 7:15 [Eng 14])),
Dhorme omits First Isaiah and presents two parallels with Third Isaiah (Job
30:21 //Isa 63:10; Job 5:7; 15:35//Isa 59:4), and Cheyne presents only two
parallels with First Isaiah (Job 14:11//Isa 19:5; Job 11:6//Isa 28:29).92*If given
the larger scale of First/Third Isaiah, the paucity of commonalities between
Job and First/Third Isaiah is surprising.
II. D e u te r o -ls a ia h a n d F ir s t/T h ir d Isa ia h
No doubt, Deutero-lsaiah has close linguistic connections with First and

Third Isaiah; though scholars may vary in their understanding of this extent
of interconnections. It has taken it for granted that in the redactional history
of the book of Isaiah, Deutero-lsaiah partly or wholly expounds First Isaiah
adding a fuller meaning. This interpretive inclination has been continued in
recent scholarship which says that specific passages (e.g. Isa 40:1-11//6.T-3;
28:1-5) in Deutero-lsaiah have been developed with direct reference to the
First Isaiah.94 As an example, Hugh Williamson maintains that Deutero-lsaiah
was involved in the compositional process of one written book for the pur
disclosure (HDD) of blood (Ol) from the earth is used both by Job 16:18 and Isa 26:21 (cf.
Gen 4:10; 37:26; Lev 17:13; Ps 9:13). The poetic imagery, putting (D’U?) the hook (m n) in
the nose o f the enemy (^N), is commonly used. The hook (m n) in Job 40:26 (Eng. 41:2) is
used o f “a thorn put into the branchiae of a fish to carry it home” (NIDOTE, vol. 2., 44)
and nn (“hook”) in Isa 37:29b (2 Kgs 19:28) appears in a military context.
91 Dhorme consider this case as the “part of the common stock of tradition” and Dhorme
as “a dependence of Isaiah on Job”. See Dhorme, Job, clvii; Nurmela, Mouth, 104.
92 Hartley, Job, 12; Dhorme, Job, clvi-clvii; Cheyne, Job, 87.
See the following references; Ronald E. Clements, “Beyond Tradition-History: Deu-
tero-Isaianic Development o f First Isaiah’s Themes,” JSO T 10 (1985): 95-113; Christo
pher R. Seitz, “The Divine Council: Temporal Transition and New Prophecy in the Book
of IsaiahT JBL 109 (1990): 229-47; Williamson, Called.
94 For instance, the passage Isa 40:1-31 has a striking relationship with Isa 6 and 28;
that, more specifically, Isa 40:1-11 overlaps with the theme of divine council in Isa 6:5, 9,
10 and Isa 40:12-31, turning the prophetic message of judgment (Isa 6) and warning (Isa
28) to one of the hope o f restoration (cf. Isa 35). See Goldingay, Isaiah vol.l, 58-9.
pose of presenting God’s continuing work.95 Based on this claim, he argues
that there are many passages in Isa 1-39 which might have been redacted by
Deutero-Isaiah or by other later redactors after Deutero-Isaiah.96978In a slightly
different way, interpreters such as Rolf Rendtorff, Graham Davies, and
Sommer have questioned whether parts of the First Isaiah have been used for
composing Deutero-Isaiah as a source text, and they have highlighted the
broad prophetic tradition concerning the formation of Deutero-Isaiah. For
instance, Sommer maintains that Deutero-Isaiah - Sommer extends the extent
of Deutero-Isaiah into Chapters 40-66 - was influenced by First Isaiah, but
on the other hand holds that First Isaiah was not a unique source for Deutero-
Isaiah; see examples in Isa 28:1—5//Isa 40:1—10//Jer 16:16-18; 31:16//Ezek
21:2-12. He argues that “Isaiah 40-66 were not written to be a part of the
book of Isaiah nor to be included in the Isaiah tradition but were added to it
secondarily”. 99 It is surprising from his observations that some affinities
between passages in Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah’s passages which contain
allusions to Jeremiah - e.g., Isa 40:9//Jer 31:16; Isa 42:1 —9//Isa 11; Isa 60:5-
7//Isa 2:1-4; Isa 60:7-13//Jer 3:16-18 - are stronger than specific texts of
Deutero-Isaiah which have allusions to First Isaiah; he says:
The resemblances between Deutero-Isaiah’s allusions to Isaiah and his borrowings from
Jeremiah indicates that neither of these pre-exilic prophets played a unique role in Deutero-
Isaiah’s work. Both are important influences. ... he participates in a wider prophetic
95 Williamson, Called.
96 E.g., Isa 1:11, 18; 33:10(//40:1, 25; 41:21); 1:24(//49:26; cf. 60:16); 1:25(//48:10);
5:24(7/47:14); 5:26; 11:12(7/49:22); 6(//40:l-8); 8:10(//40:8, 44:26, 46:10); 8:17(//40:27,
31; 49:23; 54:8); 8:23b(//41:4; 44:6; 48:12); 10:5-19 (//4 5 :8 -l3); 11:1-5(//40:24; 42:1-4);
17:13; 29:5(//41:15-16); 18:6(//46:11); 28:1-4 (//40:6-8); 28:17(//42:4); 29:16(//45:9);
30:7(7/51:9); 30:8(//43:8-13); 31:2(//44:25-6; 45:7, 23; 55:11); 30:9(//42:4, 21, 24; 51:4,
7); 30:12(7/50:10). See ibid., 240-1. To explain a probable interrelationship between Isa 1-
39 and Isa 40-55, Williamson further suggests that various passages cumulatively in Isa 1 -
39 have intertextual links that would probably be edited either by Deutero-Isaiah or by
another redactor; (1) Isa 2:2-5; 5:25-30; 8:21-23; 11:11-16; 12 (2) 13:1; 14:l-4a; 24-27;
(3) 28:1-4; 33; 34-35; 36-9. Ibid., 117-240.
97 Benjamin D. Sommer, “Allusions and Illusions: The Unity of the Book of Isaiah in
Light of Deutero-Isaiah’s Use of Prophetic Tradition,” in New Visions o f Isaiah, ed. Roy F.
Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 156-86; Graham
I. Davies, “The Destiny o f the Nations in the Book of Isaiah,” in The Book o f Isaiah - le
Livre d ’lsaie , ed. Jacques Vermeylen (Leuven: Leuven UP, 1989), 93-120; Rolf Rend
torff, “Isaiah 6 in the Framework of the Composition of the Book,” in Canon and Theol
ogy: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology, ed. Margaret Kohl (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1994), 170-80.
99 Sommer, “Allusions and Illusions,” 173.
tradition, ... Deutero-lsaiah depends on Isaiah and Jeremiah in similar ways - but not to
the same extent. His affinity to Jeremiah is stronger.100
This is not the place for discusssing all the theories of the redaction history of
Isa 1-55, nor for explaining the multiple authorships of the book. In a
nutshell, what I agree with is that two sets of linguistic resemblances between
Deutero-Isaiah/Jeremiah and Isa 1-39 seem to corroborate Sommer’s view
that the author of Deutero-lsaiah is using broad prophetic texts. Furthermore,
it might be a possible approach that from verbal and thematic affinities
between Isa 34-35 and Isa 40-55,101102an author or a group of editors in a later
stage possibly produced the literary unit of Isa 1-55 in a consistent style.
Correlations between Deutero-lsaiah and Third Isaiah have by and large
been accepted and probably many parts in Isa 56-66 might be the result of
reinterpreting and developing the content and historical events in Isa 40-55
and 1-39. B. S. Childs maintains that there are significant passages within
Third Isaiah which affirm that the redactor of Isaiah 56-66 intentionally
referred to First Isaiah and Deutero-lsaiah. On the other hand, Joseph
Blenkinsopp - criticising the canonical approach in which Childs and
Christopher Seitz argue that “chs. 40-66 were deliberately dehistoricized to
enable them to be read as the eschatological fulfillment of the prophecies in
chs. 1-39” - sees each part of Isa 40-55 and 56-66 as distinct sections.103
Nonetheless, he also considers the deliberate continuity between Deutero-
lsaiah and Third Isaiah, and provides seven Isaianic connections which are
similar in word and metaphor; “comfort” (40:1; 49:13; 51:3, 12, 19;
52:9//61:2—3; 66:13), “the way” (40:3; 43:19; 49:11//57:14; 62:10), “the
coming of God (with power)” (40:10; 48:14; 51:5//59:16[=63:5]; 62:8), “the
glory of God” (40:5//58:8, 10; 59:9; 60:1-2, 19-20), “the Creator God”
(40:26, 28; 42:5; 45:7-8, 12, 18//65:17—18), “justice, righteousness, salvation”
(40:14, 27; 42:1, 3, 4; 49:4; 51:4; 53:8; 54:14//56:1; 58:2; 59:8, 14; 61:8),
“the Servant and the Servants” (41:8-9; 44:1-2, 22; 45:4; 48:20; 49:3, 5, 6-7;
50:10; 52:13; 53:11; 54:17//56:6; 63:17; 65:8-9, 13-15; 66:14).104 Nurmela
examines the literary allusion between Deutero-lsaiah and Third Isaiah and
presents four specific allusions in Deutero-lsaiah and fourteen in Third
100 Ibid., 176.

101 Some (Marvin Pope and Shalom Paul) suggest the possibility that Isa 34-35 origi
nally was added to First Isaiah by Deutero-lsaiah; Marvin H. Pope, “Isaiah 34 in Relation
to Isaiah 35,40-66,” JBL 71 (1952): 235-43; Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 50-2. Sommer omits Isa
34 in this list, saying that there is “no clear case of allusion” between Isa 34 and Isa 40-66;
Sommer, Prophet, 192; also refer to Benjamin D. Sommer, “New Light on the Composi
tion of Jeremiah,” CBQ 61 (1999): 646-66.
102 Childs, Isaiah, 446.
103 Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66: A New Translation with Introduction and Com
mentary, AB 19B (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 29-30.
104 Ibid., 31-3.
Isaiah.105 For instance, the noteworthy phrase between Isa 40:10 and Isa
62:11b is noticed (also, *]TT 135 (“prepare the way”) Isa 40:3//62:10;
57:14):106107
vi*h in)yai in« roto run N3 -jpur run
Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense is
before him (62:1 lb)
visb inbpm iriN row mn ib nbvn ijrm nit prnn nin’ \nN mn
Behold, the Lord Yahweh comes with strength, and his arm rules for him; behold, his
reward is with him, and his recompense is before him. (Isa 40:10)
D. The Book of Psalms
I. J o b a n d P s a lm s
Interpreters have seen the iclose relationship between Psalms and Job through
t \n
verbal and thematic links; Dhorme discusses passages in Psalms (Ps 1, 37,
73, 103, 107, and 144) as cases from which the author of Job directly bor
rows, 108 and Hartley presents thirteen parallels with Psalms.109 The most
comprehensive study of the association between the book of Job and hymnic
forms, including the book of Psalms, has been produced by Dell; detailed
examination of the link shows that “parody” - namely, the “misuse” of well-
known forms - represents the overall genre of the book of Job, and that Job’s
author adopts and transforms conventional forms of hymn in the sceptical
context of Jo b .110 Her findings to some extent might confirm the association
between Job and Psalms as the parody of literary forms such as “hymn”,
“praise to God”, “lament”, and “prayer”. 111 Following Dell’s approach of
105 For the full list of connections o f Trito-Isaiah with reference to Deutero-Isaiah, see
Jean C. Bastiaens, Trito-Isaiah: An Exhaustive Concordance o f Isa. 56-66, Especially with
Reference to Deutero-Isaiah: An Example o f Computer Assisted Research (Amsterdam:
VU Uitgeverij, 1984); Seizo Sekine, Die Tritojesajanische Sammlung - Jes 56-66 - redak-
tionsgeschichtlich untersucht, BZAW 175 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989).
106 Nurmela, M outh, 119-20. Blenkinsopp notes that the expression in 62:11c quotes
40:10b; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66, 33.
107 Moses Buttenwieser, The Psalms. Chronologically Treated, with a New Translation
(Chicago: Univ. o f Chicago, 1938), 524-54 explains links with Ps 73, 139, 39, and 23.
Also refer to Schmid, “Hiobbuch.”
108 Ps 73 recalls Jeremiah as well as Job. See Dhorme, Job, clxii-clxv.
109 Hartley, Job, 11-2.
110 See Dell, Sceptical.
111 The following correspondences are associated passages of Job and Psalms: Job 3:11 —
26, Ps 88:4-5; Job 6:8-10, Ps 55:6-8; Job 7:7-8, 11-12, 14:1-2, Ps 8; Job 9:5-10, Ps 104;
Job 10:2-12, Ps 139; Job 12:7-12, Ps 98; Job 12:13-25, Ps 107; Job 16:7-14, Ps 94:18-19;
Job 19:22, 21:7-13, Ps 10:5-6, 73:3-9; Job 23:8-9, Ps 23. Dell also suggests examples of
hymns in Job, a thorough study of Job’s use of Psalms has been done by
Kynes who claims that the dialogue part in Job parodies Psalms. Annette
Kruger, to take another example, notices that the texts of Ps 104 extensively
appear in Job’s speeches (Job 7:12; 9:5; 9:7-8; 22-27) indicating unique
11T
verbal correspondences and similar motifs.
The most remarkable example appears with words such as n n , *10**, PU,
“ISP, and 21W between Job 34:14-15 and Ps 104:29-30a where Elihu defends
God’s righteous act against Job; Christian Frevel says that Elihu’s text refers
to Ps 104:29-30, although there are other related passages in Gen 3:19, Job
10:9, Eccl3:20:"4
mu)’ layby dtni in ' pir *iow rbtt inniwi inn mb d^ - dn
If he were to set his mind to it, and gathers to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh
together would die, and humanity would return to dust. (Job 34:14-15)
ns unnrn ptom qnn nbu>n pmub muy-bai ppir nnn *\on pbni' *vnon
nniK
You hide your face, they are terrified; you take away their spirit, they die and return to
their dust. You send forth your spirit, they are created. (Ps 104:29-30a)
Another noteworthy example of Job’s reference to the Psalms occurs between

Job 7:1-19 and two theological views of Ps 8,1123415 exalting the divine provision
parody from other parts of the Hebrew Bible and especially from Ecclesiastes. See ibid.,
125-47.
112 Kynes, My Psalm, 183-5. The manner of Job’s parody of Psalms, according to
Kynes, can be described in three categories. The first category of parody is “praise”; Job’s
parody o f texts of Ps 8 (Job 7:17-18; 15:14-16; 19:9; 25:5-6) and o f texts o f Ps 107 (Job
12:13-13:2; 15:22-24; 21:11, 19). The second category of parody is “supplication” where
God’s omniscience and omnipresence in Ps 139 are parodied in Job 10, 11:7-9, and 23:8-
10 and where the Psalmist’s plea in Ps 39 is much more intensified in Job’s repeated ex
clamation (Job 6:8-11; 7; 13:28-14:6). The third is the parody of “instruction” of Ps 1 (by
Eliphaz; 5:13-14; 22:18; by Job; 10:3; 13:25; 23:10-11) and Ps 73 (by Job in 7:18; 9:29-
31; 19:25-27; 21:13-14; 23:11; by Job’s friends in 15:27; 18:3, 11, 14; 20:8). Finally,
Kynes claims that the parody of psalms by the author of Job creates two different charac
ters: Job as a model of piety and his friends as representing a lack of faith.
113 Annette Kruger, Das Lob des Schopfers : Studien zu Sprache, Motivik und Theologie
von Psalm 104 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2010). Frequently cited parallels
mostly appear in the hymn o f God’s creative power in Job 7:12; 9:5-8. See Christian
Frevel, “Telling the Secrets of Wisdom: The Use of Psalm 104 in the Book of Job,” in
Reading Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 159-60.
114 Hartley, Job, 12; Frevel, “Priests,” 161-2.
115 Christian Frevel, ‘“ Eine kleine Theologie der Menschenwurde’: Ps 8 und seine
Rezeption im Buch Ijob,” in Das Manna fallt auch heute noch: Beitrage zur Geschichte und
Theologie des Alten, Ersten Testaments: Festschrift fur Erich Zenger, ed. Frank-Lothar
Hossfeld and Ludger Schwienhorst-Schonberger (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2004),
262 argues that the positive view of human image, derived from Psalm 8:4-6, is taken as
the basic presumption of the author of Job 7:17-18.
and care for humans, and of Ps 39, lamenting the divine repudiation (Ps 8:5-7,
Job 7:17-18; Ps 39:12, Job 7:16; Ps 39:14, Job 7:19; Ps 39:9, Job 7:21)."6
Finally, Douglas Green explores the “journey imagery” in Ps 23 in the lit
erary connections with the whole narrative of Job; e.g., the correspondence 11*7
between Job 1:1-5 and Ps 23:2 which depicts a man under God’s blessing.
However, it is far from clear that Job has any structural and verbal pattern
called “journey imagery”.
Many connections between Job and Psalms are appreciated in the frame of
1 1o
the quotation of Job from Psalms (Dhorme), of the allusion of Job to
Psalms (Kynes, Frevel), or of the misuse of common hymnic forms (Dell).
Though we need to be more careful of such diachronic readings in the book
of Job, the author of Job would be aware of widespread hymnic styles; I agree
to some extent with Dell’s view that the author of Job is adopting widespread
hymmnic forms.
II. D e u te r o -Is a ia h a n d P s a lm s
Similarly, the literary relationship between Deutero-Isaiah and Psalms has

been acknowledged in common hymnic forms, as well as in the literary refer
ence.1167819120For instance, in a classical study of the book of Psalms, Moses But-
tenwieser maintains that the exilic (Ps 68, 85, 126) and post-exilic psalms (Ps
93, 96-8, 107) bear verbal and stylistic resemblances to Deutero-Isaiah;
though those psalms were not written by Deutero-Isaiah. Another example
was carried out by Westermann in which he recognises the existence of “en
thronement psalms” and claims either the priority of Isa 52:7-8 over Psalms
(e.g., Ps 47) or of Psalms over texts of Deutero-Isaiah afterwards.12112Jerome
Creach maintains that the verbal parallels between Book Four (Ps 90-106) of
the Psalter and Deutero-Isaiah have unique connections, especially in the
literary structure at the beginning and ending of each text. He concludes
116 Schmid, “Hiobbuch,” 258-60; Dell, Sceptical, 126-7; Fishbane, Biblical, 285-6.
117 Douglas J. Green, “The Good, the Bad and the Better: Psalm 23 and Job,” in The
Whirlwind, ed. Stephen L. Cook et al., JSOT 336 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 6 9 -
83.
118 Dhorme, Job, clxii-clxv.
119 Lynne M. Deming, “Hymnic Language in Deutero-Isaiah: The Calls to Praise and
Their Function in the Book” (PhD, Atalanta: Emory University, 1978); Westermann,
Isaiah 40-66, 23-7.
120 Buttenwieser, Psalms, 257-99, 303-43.
121 Claus Westermann, The Praise o f God in the Psalms (London: Epworth Press,
1966), 145-6; Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, 23-5.
122 “At least three theologically loaded terms appear both in Isaiah 40 and Psalm 90: the
call for ‘comfort’/ ‘compassion’, and the comparison of humanity to the ‘grass’ and the
‘flower of the field’”. Jerome Creach, “The Shape of Book Four of the Psalter and the
Shape o f Second Isaiah,” JSO T 23 (1998): 73-4.
that “the editors of the Psalter had Second Isaiah as a model when ordering
Psalms 90-106.” Paul on the other hand sees parallels as the influence of
Psalms on Deutero-Isiah; (1) Isa 40:6-8//Ps 103:15-20; (2) Isa 40:26//Ps
147:4-5; (3) Isa 41:18//Ps 107:35; (4) Isa 42:10//Ps 96:1; 98:1, 3; (5) Isa
42:10-11//Ps 96:11-12; 98:7-8; (6) Isa 42:12//Ps 96:7-8; (7) Isa 43:25-26//
Ps 51:3-6; (8) Isa 45:2//Ps 107:16; (9) Isa 45:22-25//Ps 22:24-32.*124 In those
arguments, the frequently cited parallels between Psalms and Deutero-lsaiah
having no resemblances to other prophetic books, are Ps 81 (//Isa 48:12-21),
89 (//Isa 55:1-3; cf. 2 Sam 7), and 98 (//Isa 42:10-12; 52:8-10), while other
correspondences usually appear as overlapping with prophetic materials; e.g.,
Isa 51:7 includes shared words with Ps 37:31 and Jer 31:32.125
Let us see more examples. Firstly, both Ps 89 and Deutero-lsaiah produce
parallel expressions to the covenant bestowed upon David; Isa 55:1-5 espe
cially has eight verbal and thematic correspondences such as n*H3 and DViy
HDn (Isa 55:3; Ps 89:2, 4, 25, 29, 40).126 Secondly, the theme of Exodus in
Isa 48:12-21 could be engaged with Psalmic language in Ps 81:6-17 where
Yahweh laments Israel’s failure in walking His way; “if Israel would walk in
my ways” (D^JT 'O'VTl ^7^^W‘,) in Ps 81:14b; “leading you in the way you
should walk” (“fbn 1TT1 “p m f t ) in Isa 48:17c .127*Thirdly, the phrases in Ps
98 (cf. Ps 96) which is one of the enthronement psalms are extensively shared
by Deutero-lsaiah in Isa 42:10-12 and 52:8-10. The seven words in Isa
52:10b precisely are found in Ps 98:3b as a unique parallel in the Hebrew
Bible: LPnbtf nplUT nN 1N“I (“all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God”) .129 Fourthly, Isa 51:9-10 shares mythological
terms and imageries such as “Sea”, “dragon”, “Rahab”, “the great deep”,
Ibid., 74.
124 Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 56-7.
196
Eissfeldt argues that “in Isa 55:1-5, as elsewhere in Second Isaiah, there is no
reference whatever to that which , for the author of Ps. 89, is the particular content of the
promise of God to David”. See Otto Eissfeldt, “Promises of Grace to David in Isaiah 55:1 —
5,” in Isra el’s Prophetic Heritage; Essays in Honor o f James Muilenburg (New York:
Harper, 1962), 199-200, 203. On the contrary, Willey and Sommer notice the intentional
reference to Psalms 89; Willey, Remember, 250-5; Sommer, Prophet, 117-8.
198
Harold L. Ginsberg, “A Strand in the Cord of Hebraic Hymnody,” in Albright Vol
ume (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Exploration Society, 1969), 47; Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, “In
Search o f the Hidden Structure: YHWH as King in Isaiah 4 0 -5 5 ,” SEA 51 (1986): 156-7;
Willey, Remember, 120-5; Concerning the use of Deutero-lsaiah’s hymnic form, refer to
Deming, “Hymnic Language in Deutero-lsaiah.”
129 Willey, Remember, 122; Harold L. Ginsberg, “The Arm of YHWH in Isaiah 51-63
and the Text of Isa 53:10-11,” JBL 77 (1958): 154. However, Sommer classifies this paral
lel as the influence by literary genre rather than as the direct borrowing from Psalms;
“Leviathan” from Psalms (Ps 44; 74:12-15; 77:6, 17-21; 89:11-12; 93:1-
4);130 also see other parallels.131
Scholars have pointed out verbal parallels between Psalms and Deutero-
Isaiah to determine the literary influence of Psalms on Deutero-Isaiah or vice
versa, but their decisions of the direction definitely seem to be dependent on
the dating of specific psalms. Some highlight the usage of a common stock of
hymnic expressions and forms as well as the possibility of the mutual de
pendence. At least, it is likely that Deutero-Isaiah contains the well-known
hymnic styles; while there is little reason to hold the literary reference.
E. The Book of Lamentations

I. J o b a n d L a m e n ta tio n s
The book of Lamentations designated as a lament genre has not been

searched in detail for specific connections with Job and Deutero-Isaiah.13213
However, expressions of individual or national mourning in the book of Lam
entations have been occasionally recognised as having shared verbal and
thematic resemblances with Job; some argue that Lamentations might know
and borrow from the text of Job, or Job might intentionally use the texts of
Lamentations.134135Mettinger argues that passages in Job 16:7-17 and 19:6-12
are alluding metaphorically to Lam 3 by turning God into the place of the
enemy or accuser of Job, and by depicting “Job as standing in the place of the
enemy whom God annihilates”. The “siege” or “blocking” imagery of the
city in Lam 3:7-9 and in Job 19:6, 8, 12 is the representative imagery which
strengthens the theme of God’s mistreatment of humans and of their hope
lessness. The most noteworthy affinity for God’s siege imagery is observed in
Job 19:8 and Lam 3:6-9, 44:
130 Willey, Remember, 144-51.

131 (1) Ps 82:5-8; Isa 40:17-23; (2) Ps 2:1-10 (Ps 72), Isa 44:24-45:8; (3) Ps 71:2-19;
Isa 46:3-13; (4) Ps 37:31; Isa 51:7; (5) Ps 74:11-16; Isa 50:2-3. Willey, Remember.
132 William Gwaltney, “The Biblical Book of Lamentations in the Context of Near East
ern Literature,” in Scripture in Context I I : More Essays on the Comparative Method, ed.
William W. Hallo et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 191-211; Paul W. Ferris, The
Genre o f Communal Lament in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, SBLDS 127 (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1992); Frederick W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, O Daughter o f Zion: A Study o f
the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible, BO 44 (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto
Biblico, 1993); Sommer, Prophet, 270, n.47.
133 Lam 3:7-9//Job 3:23; Lam 3:12//Job 16:12-13; Lam 3:14//Job 30:9. See Dhorme,
Job, clxxii.
134 Jean Leveque, Job et son Dieu: Essai d ’exegese et de theologie biblique (Paris: J.
Gabalda, 1970), 382-5.
135 Mettinger, “Intertextuality,” 274; Clines, Job 1-20, 442.
o'fcp *ppn Tin'm bpi tqpr nVi t u 'm s
He has blocked up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.
(Job 19:8)
'ntpm T ra n n*?i npn tu
He has blocked me about so that I cannot set forth; he has made my chains heavy. (Lam
3:7)
mp 'nn’nj nnja tu
He has blocked my ways with hewn stones; he has made my paths disturbed. (Lam 3:9)
In many verses, Job and Lamentations are analogous, to the extent that they
include common experiences of mourning and comfort. James Aitken main
tains that the figure of Job on the ash heap is seen as the “representative of a
devastated city or country” in Lamentations (Job 2:13; Lam 2:10); he con
cludes that describing Job as “the besieged city” without comfort shows an
engagement with Jewish tradition.136137
Verbal resemblances between Job and Lamentations are not as prominent
as some scholars suppose the intentional reference between them to be, and
moreover there are many psalms which have similar themes and motifs of
suffering and loss, and which possibly adopt the genre of lament. Thus, the
prevalent influence of the genre of “lament” possibly is the reasonable way of
assessing resemblances between the two books.
II. D e u te r o -ls a ia h a n d L a m e n ta tio n s
Scholars have suggested that the wording of Deutero-lsaiah in reference to

suffering and restoration is tied up with Lamentations; other than the use of
customary terms in a lament genre.138139Norman Gottwald points out in respect
of Lohr’s study that most resemblances are not sufficient to determine literary
influence, but notices unique connections between them; claiming that “the
many affinities between the two books often strike deeper than mere verbal
parallelism”. Mary Turner argues that female symbols in the Zion songs of
Deutero-lsaiah (40:1-11; 49:14-26; 50:1-3; 51:1-8; 51:9-52:12; 54:1-17)
136 James K. Aitken, “The Inevitability of Reading Job through Lamentations,” in Read
ing Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 215.
137
Carleen Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology
o f the Book o f Lamentations (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 58-77.
138 See Norman K. Gottwald, Studies in the Book o f Lamentations, SBT 14 (London:
SCM, 1954); Norman W. Porteous, “Jerusalem - Zion: The Growth of a Symbol,” in
Verbannung und Heimkehr, ed. Arnulf Kuschke (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961), 235-52;
Alan L. Mintz, Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature (New York:
Columbia UP, 1984); Mary D. Turner, “Daughter Zion: Lament and Restoration” (PhD,
Atlanta: Emory Univ., 1992); Tod Linafelt, “Surviving Lamentations,” H BT 17 (1995):
45-61; Willey, Remember, 125-32, 155-71, 187-93, 214-26, 233-41; Sommer, Prophet,
127-30; Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 57-9.
139 Gottwald, Lamentations, 44-5.
are influenced by Lamentations, “which depicted the demise of Jerusalem
through the image of the ‘childless’ Zion”. 140 Recently, Carleen Mandolfo
holds that Deutero-Isaiah “has long been recognized as a response to the
pained speech of Lamentations, as well as to many other texts”;141 focusing
on “God’s discourse” in Deutero-Isaiah (Lam 1-2; Isa 49, 51, 52, 54).142 Such
a concept, that the literary feature of Lamentations shaped the thought and
language in Deutero-Isaiah, has led scholars to argue for a particular associa
tion between them. Let us look at some examples. A first example of resem
blances appears in Lam 4:15 and Isa 52:11 - HID (“depart!”), NftD (“un
clean!”),'lJftrrbN (“do not touch!”) (cf. Isa 52:1; Nah 2:1, Ps 98:3); Willey
argues that this is a quotation of Deutero-Isaiah from Lamentations:143
mm 'ba w j ran romn ins?ipjtrrbN nou dwq ins? mo mo
Depart, depart, go forth from there, do not touch unclean things, go forth from its midst,
purify yourselves; people who bear Yahweh’s vessels! (Isa 52:11)
nub ifl'or Nb o ra nnN lyroj m ijarrbN mo mo mb i*np ndo mo
“Go away! Unclean!” people shouted at them. “Depart! Depart! Do not touch!” So, they
fled away and wandered; and people said among the nations, “they will stay no longer”
(Lam 4:15)
While the Judean community in exile among the nations in Lam 4:15 is
treated as Zion’s defiled children like lepers, Deutero-Isaiah in Isa 52:11,
according to Sommer, reverses the depraved condition of the newly gathered
community and depicts Babylonians as unclean.144 Secondly, the motif of
“Zion’s comforter” is the most prominent affinity to texts of Lamentations
where the role of Yahweh as the comforter in Deutero-Isaiah reverses the
mourning that there is “no comforter” for Zion in Lamentations (Lam 1:2b,
9b-c, 16b, 17a, 21a; Isa 40:1; 49:13; 51:3, 12, 19; 54:11):145
rvanN-ban oran nb'i’K
Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her (Lam 1:2b)
inp mm om ra
For Yahweh has comforted his people (Isa 49:13c)
mnnnrrbD am fvs? mm D n ra
For Yahweh comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places (Isa 51:3a)
Transformation of Lamentations’ messages by Deutero-Isaiah has been re

garded as the typical interpretation recurring in the relationship between the
two books. For instance, the themes of the wrath of Yahweh and of the devas-
140
Turner, “Daughter,” 219-20.
141
Mandolfo, Daughter, 117.
142
Ibid., 105.
143
Also see this parallel: Lam 4:17; Isa 52:8; Willey, Remember, 125-7; Gottwald,
Lamentations, 44.
144
Sommer, Prophet, 272, 5.
145
Willey, Remember, 130-2.
tation of Zion’s children found in Lam 2:13-19, 4:1-2 are reversed in Deu
tero-lsaiah where Yahweh responds to their grief and prayer in Isa 51:17-22;
including the rare phrase “at the head of every street”, rnifirrbD (cf.
Nah 3:10).146 Although “Yahweh’s abandonment” in several occurrences (Isa
49:14; 54:6-8, Lam 5:19-22) is likely to be a similar theme, in Deutero-
lsaiah “forgetting”, “forsaking”, and “abandoning” his people is momentary
and is immediately answered (Isa 49:15; 54:7);147 for other similarities, see
footnote.148
Overall, Job, Deutero-lsaiah, and Lamentations could probably share the
genre “lament” and the imagery of the devastated city, in order to describe
the present suffering of an individual or the exiled community.
F. Other Prophetic Books

I. J o b a n d P r o p h e tic B o o k s
Other prophetic books have a variety of affinities with the book of Job,
although, unlike the case of Jeremiah, those affinities between them are not
overwhelming. First, it has been argued that the book of Amos shares a sig
nificant proportion of common language, styles, and themes which are indi
cated in wisdom literature such as the book of Job; e.g., “consecutive numer
als” in Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6 and Job 33:14.149 Especially,
Crenshaw argues that specific words (Jl*72, mrf?^) in the doxologies of
Amos (Amos 4:13; 5:6, 8, 10; 9:5-6) strikingly overlap with the hymnic lan
guage in Job 5:9-16 and 9:5-10.150 He adds that the theophanic language in
Job, where Yahweh emerges as Creator of the universe, has similarities with
146 Ibid., 160; Sommer, Prophet, 129-30.

147 Willey, Remember, 189-93, 233-9. Cf., Linafelt argues “that Isa 49:14-26 is in fact
a direct answer to Lamentations, and that it is generated by the same concern for survival”
and proposes a verbal parallel as quotation from Lam 5:20 to Isa 49:14. See Linafelt,
“Surviving Lamentations,” 56; also see Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and
Protest in the Afterlife o f a Biblical Book (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
148 Five more motifs suggested by Willey “comforter” (Isa 51:11-12; Lam 1:1-4) (p.
155-158) (Isa 49:13; Lam 1:9) (p. 188); Zion’s humilation (Lam 1-3; Isa 52:1-2; 47) (p.
165-171); “servant” (Isa 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12; Lam 3:25-30) (p. 214-221); the compari
son between Daughter Zion and the Servant of Yahweh (geber) (Lam 1-3) (p. 221-226);
“sacred stones” (Lam 4:1-2; Isa 54:11-13) (p. 239-241); Willey, Remember.
149 Samuel L. Terrien, “Amos and Wisdom,” in Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom, ed.
James L. Crenshaw, LBS (New York: Ktav, 1976), 448-55; James L. Crenshaw, “The
Influence o f the Wise upon Amos: The Doxologies of Amos and Job 5:9-16, 9:5-10,”
ZA W 19 (1967): 42-52.
150 See Crenshaw, “Influence,” 49-50.
that of Amos (Amos 5:17; 7:8; 8:12, 11-14).151 It is worth mentioning the
parallel in Job 9:8-9 (cf. 38:31) and Amos 4:13, 5:8a:152
fan m m na'Di b'oa uty-nwp m 'nan-bp “p m
He trampled on the waves of sea. He is the one who made the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades,
and the circle of the southern wind. (Job 9:8b—9)
taw niNiir'nbN mm 'nan-bp tvti
He is the one who trampled on the heights of the earth (Amos 4:13d)
b'om na'n nipp
He is the One who made the Pleiades and Orion (Amos 5:8a)
Contrary to the influence of the wisdom tradition on the doxologies of the

book of Amos, Hilary Marlow insists on the influence of the prophetic tradi
tion or of the text of Amos on Job and presents two possibilities; the inten
tional dependence (Job 9:9; 38:31-32; Amos 5:8) and the broad influence of
prophetic source (Job 9:5-10; Amos 8; Job 11; Amos 9).153 She says that
while the resemblances between Amos and Job are derived from the broad
“references to the non-human natural world both earthly and cosmologi
cal”,154 “the language and themes of Amos are re-used or re-worked by the
author of Job”.155
Except for the books of Jeremiah and Amos, verbal and thematic parallels
with other prophetic books are unlikely to be many in common; Hartley gives
parallels only with Hosea and Malachi, and Dhorme suggests a few links with
Zechariah and Malachi.156 In the book of Zechariah, Zech 1-8 - apart from
Zech 9-14 which is assumably dated to the post-exilic period in origin - has
been discussed to have links with the prologue of Job 1-2. Because of the use
of the definite article ahead of a personal name fDU? (fOiPn; Zech 3:1-2; Job
1:6-9, 12; 2:1-7) different with 1 Chr 21:1, scholars have believed that there
ni See ibid., 51.

152 Hartley, Job, 12; Crenshaw, “Influence,” 49-50; Hilary Marlow, “Creation Themes
in Job and Amos: An Intertextual Relationship?,” in Reading Job Intertextually (New
York: T&T Clark, 2013), 147-8.
153 Marlow, “Amos.”
154 Ibid., 144.
155 The following are possible parallels between Amos and Job: first, two
correspondences in Job 9:8, 38:31-32 and Amos 5:8 make strong parallels (“Orion” and
“Pleiades”). The second noteworthy passage is Job 9:8 // Amos 4:13 (“treading on the high
places”), Job 9:6//Amos 8:8 (“who shakes the earth out of its place”). The third commonal
ity in shared vocabularies and themes is the use of the verb “fan (“overturn”) and of the
wording group to express darkness such as “|U>n, m abs (Job 9:5; 12:5//Amos 5:8). Job
11:7-11 and Amos 9:1-4 describe in slightly different ways Gods nature as “undiscover-
able” by humans in Job and “the impossibility of hiding from G od’s punishment” in Amos.
The final common m otif is God’s nature to direct “the forces of nature” and to manifest
God’s anger “through the power of nature.” Ibid., 154.
156 I refer to the following commentaries: Cheyne, Job, 87; Dhorme, Job, clxvii-clxviii;
Hartley, Job, 12.
is a contact point between Zechariah and Job 1-2, and have proposed that the
author of Job adopts the reference of “the Satan” from texts of Zechariah.157
In recent study, however, Michael Stead argues that “the book of Job must be
the cause of the semantic development of the word JUW” in Zechariah, “since
the Satan of Zech 3 is not described using the root 01W”(“to robe”; cf. Job
1:7). He proceeds to the intertextual study based on the priority of Job 1-2
over Zechariah and suggests the deliberate allusion of Zechariah 1 to Job 1-2;
e.g., (1) the expression, the horses and chariots go out “to present themselves
before the Lord” 222*TinO) in Zech 6:5, is compared to verses in Job
1:6 and 2:1 where the heavenly beings “present themselves before Yahweh”
(mrp_i7p n^nn*7); (2) the expression, “patrolling the earth” ( p N l ^ n n r f ? )
that describes the role of horses in Zech 1:10-11 makes a parallel with Job
1:7 and 2:2 which describe “the Satan” as roaming and patrolling the earth
(nn ‘fjnnnm pan ).158
One may mention the reference of the name 3PN as the paragon of the pi
ous man with Noah and Daniel (Ezek 14:14, 20); in Ezek 14:12-23, God
declares the inescapable judgment of Jerusalem, and, although the most pious
heroes were present, their righteousness will not save people. However, the
indication of the name ITN alone does not guarantee a literary link between
Job and Ezekiel. Paul Joyce, for instance, insists that “the reference of the
three paragons in Ezek 14 is proverbial in tone, and it is likely that Ezekiel is
alluding to an old tradition including a virtuous hero Job”;159 he also exam
ines other parallels; e.g., four reports by messengers in Job 1:13-19 and four
patterns of punishments in Ezek 14:13-19. The paucity of verbal parallels,
when considering the substantial scale of both books, and the lack of precise
analogy could not convince us to argue the literary relationship between Job
and Ezekiel.
James Nogalski reads together dialogues of Job and Bildad in Job 8-10
with the context of Joel 1-2 through the dynamic usage of the verb 1112).160 He
designates two competing views; in Job “as a protest literature” and in Joel
157 See Dhorme, Job, clxvii; Jean Leveque, “La datation du livre de Job,” in Congress
Volume: Vienna, 1980, ed. John A. Emerton, SVT 32 (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 206-19; Hur-
vitz, “Date of the Prose-Tale.”
158 Michael R. Stead, The Intertextuality o f Zechariah 1-8, LHB/OTS 506 (New York;
London: T&T Clark, 2009), 87, 208; also see Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, “A Busy Night in the
Heavenly Court,” S E l 71 (2006): 190.
159 Paul M. Joyce, “ ‘Even If Noah, Daniel, and Job Were in It...’ (Ezekiel 14:14): The
Case of Job and Ezekiel,” in Reading Job Intertextual ly (New York: T&T Clark, 2013),
127.
160 James D. Nogalski, “Job and Joel: Divergent Voice on a Common Theme,” in Read
ing Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 129-41.
standing on the prophetic tradition alongside Hosea.161162*The meaning of 3*IW in
Job’s reply (Job 9-10) involves death, while in Joel 2:12-14 it contains the
1AO
hope with the request of repentance. In this synchronic reading through the
conversation of three figures - Job, Bildad, and Joel - Nogalski argues that
Job critically understands the traditional theology imposed by the Book of the
Twelve.
Lastly, the prophetic books which are mentioned by commentators as hav-
ing affinities with Job are the books of Hosea and Malachi. Verbal affini
ties between Job and Hosea/Malachi, however, are scarce, and if there are
resemblances between them, those affinities seem to be prevalent in other
biblical books. For instance, Dhorme reckons that Malachi alludes to Job
from the expression of fearing Yahweh in Malachi; nilY ‘’N'T’ in Mai 3:16 (x
2); D*,ni?N NT! in Job 1:1.164 However, this parallel is no more than a com
monplace. The book of Hosea is hardly argued as having the direct depend
ence of Job; instead scholars look for the general influence of wisdom form
and thought on Hosea. 165
II. D e u te r o -Is a ia h a n d P r o p h e tic B o o k s
What of similarities in Deutero-Isaiah and the rest of other prophetic books?

Resemblances with them, in fact, are not as prominent as those between Deu
tero-Isaiah and Jeremiah or First/Third Isaiah; parallels with Jeremiah seem
to be more significant to the formation of Deutero-Isaiah than the parallels
with other prophetic books.166 Nevertheless, there are overlapping connec
161 It is suggested that while “Bildad and Joel represent, in many respects, the dominant
theological perspective of Deuteronomy and Proverbs”, “Job serves as an important correc
tive in this respect to the dominant theological voices in the Torah, the Prophets, and the
Writings”. See ibid., 141.
162 Ibid., 134-5.
1A't
Hartley suggests two cases in Hosea: TDDD (like a lion) in Hos 5:14, 13:7, 8; Job
10:16; Hos 6:l//Job 5:18 (cf. Deut 32:39; Isa 30:26). In Malachi: Mai 2:10a // Job 31:15).
See Hartley, Job, 12.
164 Dhorme, Job, clxviii.
165 Dell says that in Hosea, “there are some passages that use wisdom forms, more pre
dominantly there are those with wisdom content and there may be some with a wisdom
context”; Katharine J. Dell, “Hosea, Creation, and Wisdom. An Alternative Tradition,” in
On Stone and Scroll, ed. James K. Aitken, vol. 420 (Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2011),
423; also refer to A. A. Macintosh, “Hosea and the Wisdom Tradition: Dependence and
Independence,” in Wisdom in Ancient Israel, ed. John Day et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1998), 124-32. Nevertheless, she disagrees with the theory o f Raymond C. Van Leeu-
wen, “ Scribal Wisdom and Theodicy in the Book of the Twelve,” in In Search o f Wisdom,
ed. Leo G. Perdue et al. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 31-49, which argues
that there is a wisdom modification across the minor prophetic books.
166 See Sommer’s conclusion. He states that the literary affinity o f Jeremiah (39 allu
sions) is stronger than that of First Isaiah (24 allusions). Sommer, Prophet, 105-7.
tions between Deutero-lsaiah and other prophetic books which might suggest
that there was a literary contact between them. Indeed, although some of the
books are much smaller than Jeremiah, the frequency of connections with
Deutero-lsaiah is no less than that of the book of Jeremiah.
For instance, the book of Nahum which consists of three chapters has eight
remarkable verbal parallels with Deutero-lsaiah. Verbal patterns in the
motif of the downfall of Assyria and the deliverance of Judah are shared with
Deutero-lsaiah which refers to Babylonian destiny; see Nah 2:1 [Eng 1:15]
and Isa 52:1, 7:167168
my q'Di' m "pTTJ 'nbw yxn rmn' vtn mbw ymuto -itynn 'bn nnnrrbp run
mm nbD by'bn qn-nipb
Behold, upon the mountains the feet o f the one bringing good news, announcing peace!
Celebrate your festivals, O Judah. Fulfil your vows, because never again will the worthless
go through169 you. He is completely cut off (Nah 2:1; [Eng 1:15])
“[bn p'^b nuK nprub y'ntyn mu nm a mbitf y'nwn nuna 'bn onnrrby vinj nn
1'nbK
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one bringing good news, announcing
peace, bringing good news o f joy, announcing salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God is
reigning”. (Isa 52:7)
kuui bny lip “p-Km q'oi' Kb n unpn mp obtPn'
Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean will never again enter you.
(Isa 52:1b)
For another example, the book of Zephaniah (a small book of three chapters),
which is probably close to the period of the seventh-century prophet Nahum
also brings important parallels with Deutero-lsaiah. According to Cassuto,
Sommer and Shalom, Zeph 2:13-15 in which the prophet declares the total
destruction of foreign countries, is alluded by Deutero-lsaiah (Isa 47:8-10);
in particular, it is argued that Zeph 2:15 is used by Deutero-lsaiah (Isa
47:8).170 In addition, Cassuto proposes other connections in Zeph 3:14-20
and passages in Isa 40-66,171 but as Sommer pointed out, the possibility of
the literary dependence is so weak, because those similarities are very com
monplace, and the third chapter of Zephaniah has been dealt with as exilic
prophecies.172
167 Cassuto proposes the following list of parallels: (1) Isa 42:10-11; Nah 1:5; (2) Isa
47:2-3; Nah 3:5; (3) Isa 50:2; Nah 1:4; (4) Isa 51:19; Nah 3:7; (5) Isa 51:20; Nah 3:10; (6)
Isa 52:1, 7; Nah 2:1. See Cassuto, “Formal,” 168-9.
168 See ibid., 169; Sommer, Prophet, 82-3; Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 56.
169 K, "Vinyb; Q, "nyb (Qal infinitive construct).
170 Cassuto, “Formal,” 172-4; Sommer, Prophet, 252; Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 56.
171 (1) Zeph 3:14; Isa 44:23; 49:13; 54:1; (2) Zeph 3:15 Isa 49:17; (3) Zeph 3:16//Isa
41:10, 14; 43:1, 5; 44:2 (cf. Jer 30:10-11); (4) Zeph 3:20//Isa 43:5. See Cassuto, “Formal,”
176-7.
172 Sommer, Prophet, 104, 256.
Another prophetic book having the similarities with Deutero-Isaiah is the
book of Ezekiel. Cassuto lists two different groups of parallels between the
two books; the first group of parallels is common not only to the two books,
but also in earlier writings, mostly Jeremiah, so that they are probably to
depend on the texts of Jeremiah rather than those of Ezekiel (e.g., Isa
40:11//Jer 31:10//Ezek 34:12; Isa46:2//Jer 22:22; 30:16//Ezek 12:11; 20:18;
30:17); the second group of parallels occurs only in the two books and this
might support the particular connection between them (Isa 40:5; 49:26//Ezek
21:4, 10; Isa 48:11//Ezek 20:9, 14, 22; Isa 52:10//Ezek 5:8; 20:9, 14, 22,41;
22:16; 28:25; 38:23; 39:27).173 Due to these links in the second group, inter
preters often argue that Deutero-Isaiah, though its scope is very small, is
dependent on texts from Ezekiel.174*The most significant parallel occurs in Isa
48:11 and Ezek 20:9, 14, 22, including the verbal pattern about God’s persis
tent action for the sake of his name, which may be seen as follows:
jnN-Nb “inah Hum bn*1 u nwya 'jynb 'jynb
17^
For my sake, for my sake, I will act, for how should my glory be profaned? I will not
give it to another. (Isa 48:11)
Minn nnmt2>N mun Tpb bnn *,nbnb jpnb wpm
But I acted for my nam e’s sake, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations
among whom they lived (Ezek 20:9a)
□rrrpb DTiKsnn hu>k trun rryb bnn 'nbnb 'aw jynb nwpNi
But I acted for my name’s sake, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of my name
in whose sight I brought them out (Ezek 20:14)
□rrrpb nniN 'namm#** mun *rpb bnn jpnb wpNi n^na 'mu>m
But I hold back my hand and acted for my nam e’s sake, so that it should not be profaned in
the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them (Ezek 20:22)
In relationships between Deutero-Isaiah and Nahum/Zephaniah/Ezekiel, in

terpreters do not include on the intertextual list of Deuter-Isaiah the later
books such as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, while scholars suggest a few
connections with books such as Hosea and Micah. For instance, Shalom pro
173 Cassuto, “Formal,” 160-8.

174 Joel Kenneth Eakins, “Ezekiel’s Influence on the Exilic Isaiah” (ThD, Louisville:
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1970); See Dieter Baltzer, Ezechiel und
Deuterojesaja: Beruhrungen in der Heilserwartung der beiden grofien Exilspropheten,
BZAW 121 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971); Sommer, Prophet, 104.
17^
LXX (NRSV) read this part as “because my name be profaned?; I will not give my
glory to another” (LXE) assuming the original text omitted “my name”. 1Qlsa and 4QIscd
read this as having the first person verb of ¥?n; “how shall I be profaned?” But, both
proposals lack enough explanation to support them. And Tg and Vulg follow MT and in
this case MT is likely to be more original. In this case, the word, ■’TDD’), which appears in
the third colon after the phrase, bn1 "px ’3, could be the subject of the second colon; “for
how should by glory be profaned?” Goldingay supports this rendering. See Goldingay,
Isaiah vol.2, 134-5. Oswalt renders this as “for how could it be profaned?” See Oswalt,
The Book o f Isaiah, 265.
poses the literary connection between Deutero-lsaiah and Hosea from the
common motif of “the married woman” (Zion) who was deserted by her hus
band, but to whom Yahweh will restore his commitment; e.g., Hos 1:6; 2:21,
25//Isa 54:7-8, 10; Hos 2:20//Isa 54:10 (mi); Hos 2:18 0*7jn)//Isa 54:5
(7*6^1)); in addition, he argues that the name H orn in Hos 1:6 and 2:25
“may also
1 7 f\
have influenced Deutero-Isaiah’s phraseology” HDR!!
T T •.
in Isa
54:11. Sommer interprets these resemblances as “a reversal (of Hosea’s
prophecy of doom)” (Hos 2:6; Isa 54:1, 13), “a conformation (that a disaster
indeed concurred)” (Hos 2:19; Isa 54:8), and “a reprediction (of Hosea’s
prophecy of reconciliation between YHWH and Israel)” (Hos 2:1). How
ever, it is important to notice that those affinities between Hos 2 and Isa 54
could be found in Lamentations and Ps 89. Though a few similarities be
tween Deutero-lsaiah and Micah (Isa 51:3-5; Mic 4:1-4 (cf. Isa 2 :l-4 ))1761879 or
Hosea (Isa 43:10-11; Hos 13:4)180 are proposed, it would be hard to maintain
a certain literary reference, but instead it would be reasonable to consider an
influence of prophetic tradition.
G. Other Wisdom Books
Literary relations between Job and texts of Proverbs/Ecclesiastes have been

widely studied in the framework of the wisdom literature. However, inter
preters have hardly discussed similarities between Deutero-lsaiah and texts of
Proverbs/Ecclesiastes;181 by contrast, attention has been paid to the literary
influence between Proverbs and First Isaiah.182
I. Jo b a n d P roverbs
It has been said that what the book of Proverbs among the wisdom corpus
teaches and states is quite different from Job’s view. For instance, Suzanne
Boorer regards Proverbs as forming the dualistic view between life and death,
176 Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 416-7.

178 Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 416-7.
180 Sommer suggests Ginsberg’s example as a questionable case of allusion; Ibid., 256.
181 Willey and Sommer do not particularly mention the inner-biblical connections with
Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes.
1X9Johannes Fichtner, “Isaiah among the Wise,” in Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom,
ed. James L. Crenshaw, LBS (New York: Ktav, 1976), 434-6; also see J. William Whed-
bee, Isaiah & Wisdom (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971).
1
but Job as having the non-dualistic notion. According to Boorer, on the one
hand, Prov 1-9 may be described from two groups of words of “life/living”
On, rm; Prov 3:2; 7:2), and of “death/dying/Sheol” (niD, VlN#; 2:18; 5:5;
7:27); they are also symbolised as the personified Wisdom (or the “Woman
Wisdom”) (3:18, 22; 8:35; 9:6) and as the “Strange Woman” (2:18; 5:5; 7:27;
9:18). On the other hand, she argues that Job has no symbol of the “Strange
Woman”, but instead embodies the idea of chaos into “Sea”, “Behemoth”,
“Leviathan” (Job 3:8; 7:12; 38:8; 40:15-41:34); Yahweh’s speech in terms of
symbols of life and death reflects “a universe and view of reality that is para
doxical and non-dualistic”.183184185
Also, similarities between Job and Proverbs have been found to maintain
the literary relationship by commentators. At first, the most frequently
mentioned parallel occurs between Prov 3:11-12 and Job 5:17 (e.g., Cheyne,
Dhorme, Hartley, and Crenshaw):
vxnn-bx loini nibx larov mix nwa nan
Behold, happy is the man whom God reproves; therefore do not reject the discipline of the
Shaddai. (Job 5:17)
p-na n*oi rrov mm nn*r num nx innmnn yprr*?Ki vxnn-bx m mm noin
mrv
My son, do not reject the discipline of Yahweh nor despise his reproof, for Yahweh re
proves him whom he loves, as a father does to the child in whom he delights. (Prov 3:11 —
12)
Dhorme argues from this parallel that the passage of Job depends on or
quotes the text of Proverbs; Prov 21:17//Job 18:5-6; Prov 8:39//Job 38:10-
11.186 However, Crenshaw proposes that those recurring similarities are
probably derived from a common traditional source about divine discipline
inherited from earlier texts (Job 5:17-18; Prov 3:11-12; Deut 32:39), because
these connections express the general subject-matter of divine favour and
love in suffering (cf. Job 33:15-30 and Deut 8:5).187
Secondly, scholars suggest the connection between the hymns, exalting
“personified Wisdom” in Prov 3, 8 and the poem of wisdom, praising values
of incomparable and inaccessible wisdom in Job 28 (e.g. Prov 3:14-15; 8:11,
19//Job 28:15-19; Prov 3:19-20; 8:22-31// Job 28:23-7).188 Shimon Bakon,
183 Suzanne Boorer, “A Matter o f Life and Death: A Comparison o f Proverbs 1-9 and
Job,” in Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor o f Gene M. Tucker, ed. Stephen B.
Reid and Gene M. Tucker, JSOT 229 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 187-204.
184 Ibid., 196.
185 Cheyne, Job, 85; Dhorme, Job, clxv-clxvi; Hartley, Job, 11.
186 Dhorme, Job, clxv-clxvi.
187 James L. Crenshaw, “Divine Discipline in Job 5:17-18, Proverbs 3:11-12, Deuter
onomy 32:39, and Beyond,” in Reading Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013),
176-89.
188 Dhorme, Job, clxvi; Hartley, Job, 11.
comparing two hymns in Prov8 and Job 28, points out, from two final verses
about the admonition of wisdom and evil (Prov 8:13; Job 28:28), that the
answer “to the ultimate question is almost identical”.189 Especially, Prov 8
has remarkable linguistic links with passages of Job (Prov 8:14//Job 12:13;
Prov 8:25b//Job 15:7b; Prov 8:27b//Job 26:10b; Prov 8:29//Job 38:10); see
this instance:
Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, 1 was brought forth ( m j n j ''izh
TlVrin) (Prov 8:25)
"Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills? (
nbVin m pna) (Job 15:7)
Lastly, correspondents may be found in expressions in the saying of Agur -

Prov 30:4//Job 26:8; 38:5; Prov 30:14//Job 29:17 - and in the motif of the
fate of the w icked-Prov 13:9; 18:5-6; 24:20//Job 20:26; 21:17. For instance,
Dhorme mentions that “Job 26:8 and 38:5 answer the questions of Agur in Pr
30:4, and that the image of Job 29:17 is inspired by that of Agur in Pr
30:14”.19019However, the possibility of the literary contact between Job and
Proverbs remains unclear in that they have different views on justice and
suffering.
II. J o b a n d E c c le s ia s te s
The book of Ecclesiastes which would have sceptical thoughts against

traditional “wisdom” has been treated as having resemblances with the book
of Job. For example, Dhorme proposes five shared imageries and one
proverbial form (Job l:21//Eccl 5:14; Job 3:16//Eccl 6:4-5; Job 9:12//Eccl
8:4; Job 14:2l-2//Eccl 9:5-6; Job 34:14//Eccl 12:7; Job 38:24//Eccl ll:5 ) m ;
Antoon Schoors notices three verbal connections (Eccl 3:20; 12:7a//Job
34:14-15; Eccl 5:14a//Job 1:21a; Eccl 8:4//Job 9:12);192and Thomas Kruger
interprets passages of Ecclesiastes in the light of the book of Job (Eccl 4:1-3;
5:12-6:6; 6:10; 7:15-20; 8:10-15) as a source text.193 The most frequently
189 Shimon Bakon, “Two Hymns to Wisdom: Proverbs 8 and Job 28,” JBQ 36 (2008):
229.
190 Dhorme, Job, clxvi.
191 Ibid., clxxii-clxxiii.
192
Antoon Schoors, “(Mis)use of Intertextuality in Qoheleth Exegesis,” in Congress
Volume (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 46-7.
193 Kruger, however, concludes that “reading Ecclesiastes intertextually” with Job “is
worth the trouble”. See Thomas Kruger, “ ‘And They Have No Comforter’; Job and Eccle
siastes in Dialogue” in Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually, ed. Katharine J. Dell and Will
Kynes, LHB/OTS 587 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 94-105.
cited verbal connection between the two books appears in Job 1:21 and Eccl
5:14 [Eng. 5:15] to describe the motif of “Mother Earth”:194
' it npb mrm in: mrv nn$ m#** onpi judd [tinst ] 'nsr Dip “iqnu
•jnnn mm
And he said, “Naked I came out o f my mother's womb, and naked I will return there. Yah-
weh has given, and Yahweh has taken; blessed be the name of Yahweh.” (Job 1:21)
“jbnp ibnpn hqindi niipd nsbb nitzb o n p idn ionn ksp mPtn
it i
As he came out of his mother's womb, naked he shall return to go again, as he came, and
will take nothing for his labour that he may carry away in his hand. (Eccl 5:14 [Eng. 5:15])
Recently, Richard Schultz has reexamined Dhorme’s parallel lists; Job

1:21//Eccl 5:14(15); Job 3:16//Eccl 6:3b-5; Job 9:12//Eccl 8:4; Job 34:14-
15//Eccl 12:7; 3:20 (cf. Ps 104:29b; Gen 3:19). Schultz on the one hand
proposes reading Job in the light of verbal parallels in Ecclesiastes, but on the
other hand he concludes that, though there is no reason to deny the
probability of the intentional use of a text by author(s), it is hardly possible to
demonstrate it. I admit Schultz’s reading; saying that Job and Ecclesiates
“stand in solidarity against overly optimistic views of the benefits of wisdom
and wise living.”195
H. Conclusion
The possible associations between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other books of the

Hebrew Bible have been considered, and it has been confirmed that resem
blances are many and varied. These correlations of Job and of Deutero-Isaiah
indicate that they are not restricted to any single source and to a literary tradi
tion. On the one hand, the book of Job has the closest resemblances with
Jeremiah and Lamentations in prophetic books and with Psalms, Proverbs,
and Ecclesiastes in Hebrew poetry. Among minor prophetic texts, except for
Amos, the overlapped links with Zechariah 1-8, Ezekiel, Joel 1-2, Hosea,
and Malachi are not enough to establish a literary relationship with Job. It is
interesting to note that Job does not evince many resemblances with the first
and third part of Isaiah. In addition, it should not be overlooked that the texts
of Deuteronomy and the priestly texts (esp. Genesis) have by far the broadest
194 Concerning the debate over “Mother Earth” formula, refer to Gregory Vail, “The
Enigma of Job 1,21a,” Biblica 76 (1995): 325-42; Dhorme, Job, clxxii; Schoors,
“(Mis)use,” 47; Richard L. Schultz, “Job and Ecclesiastes: Intertextuality and a Protesting
Pair,” in Reading Job Intertextually (New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 193-5.
195 Schultz says that both Job and Ecclesiastes together propose the theme of wisdom
and folly and “similar perspectives on the divine origin and relative but limited value of
wisdom”, where Job’s emphasis is on divine wisdom, and Ecclesiastes’ point is on “human
efforts” to employ it. See Schultz, “Job-Ecclesiastes,” 203.
influence on the formation of the book of Job; whether Job is supportive or
critical of their traditional theology. On the other hand, in the case of Deu
tero-lsaiah, linguistic and thematic affinities with First and Third Isaiah are
found overwhelmingly. But, as Sommer pointed o ut,196 parallels between
Deutero-lsaiah and Jeremiah are no less than those between Deutero-lsaiah
and First Isaiah. Passages in Lamentations, Nahum, Zephaniah, and Ezekiel
show considerable links with Deutero-lsaiah; verbal parallels with Micah and
Hosea would be too weak to say the literary relationship. Furthermore, the
intra-biblical study of Deutero-lsaiah has also concentrated on the Pentateuch
and the deuteronomic texts. Many have also focused on the commonality
between Psalms and Deutero-lsaiah, but differing with Job, literary associa
tions between Deutero-lsaiah and Proverbs/Ecclesiastes have scarcely been
treated.
Based on what we have observed, we need to ask: “Is the literary relation
ship between Job and Deutero-lsaiah more distinctive and different from the
relationships between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical books?”; “Can
we find the level of substantial commonalities between Job/Deutero-Isaiah
and other texts so that we can assume that each author of Job and Deutero-
lsaiah wrote them in common literary milieu rather than referring to an exclu
sively typical and individual book?” Let us see the following four points.
First, when comparing the amount and type of shared vocabulary between
Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other books, verbal connections between Job and
Deutero-lsaiah turn out to be in no way unusual and extraordinary at all. The
quantity of unique and rare verbal clusters shared by Job or Deutero-lsaiah
and other texts would be sufficient to claim that there might be distinctive
literary relationships between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical materials.
On the one hand, even more striking correspondences have been noted be
tween the Psalms and Job than verbal connections between Job and Deutero-
lsaiah so that we may say that the original association with the Psalmic texts
is much more distinctive than any other relationships. On the other hand,
Deutero-lsaiah primarily has the most dominant connections with Psalms in
the Hebrew Bible and coherently shares more terms with the prophetic books
than resemblances with the book of Job. It is apparent that the book which
has the most significant linguistic commonalities with Job and Deutero-lsaiah
by far is the book of Jeremiah, so much so that one might maintain that either
the relationship between Jeremiah and Job or between Jeremiah and Deutero-
lsaiah is more distinguishing than that between Job and Deutero-lsaiah. In
addition, Job and Deutero-lsaiah commonly designate a large amount of
shared phraseology connected with the priestly and deuteronomistic docu
ments.
196
Sommer, “New.”
Secondly, the same conclusion may emerge from the common literary
forms and styles between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. There is only a little dis
tinctiveness in forms and styles which Job and Deutero-Isaiah commonly
hold, compared with other connections. What we can affirm is that shared
foms and genres are not exclusive features, but that they are fashioned by
prevalent literary traditions which can be easily found in other materials. For
instance, technical forms of “lament” genre commonly appear in Lamenta
tions and Psalms as well as in Job and Deutero-Isaiah. The most frequently
mentioned genres may be found in the hymnic and the disputational forms,
but the form of a hymn is commonplace such as in Psalms, Lamentations, and
Amos, and the disputational and legal forms are broadly employed in pro
phetic books. It would be hard to determine which literary genres and forms
in specific texts of Job and Deutero-Isaiah are even more original than other
correspondents.
Thirdly, common motifs and themes intertwined with these verbal similari
ties can be considered. In fact, we have already confirmed in Chapter 2 that
common themes found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible cannot alone be evi
dence to indicate a literary connection between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. When
comparing amounts and types of common themes, it is certain in many cases
that there would be no distinctiveness in common themes between Job and
Deutero-Isaiah other than general themes which can be found in other asso
ciations. Many relationships between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other books
have as many similar motifs and themes as those between Job and Deutero-
Isaiah. For instance, the most prominently mentioned similarity in the two
books would be the imagery of the mythological figures (Rahab, Sea, Sea-
dragon, etc) in the divine battle and the creation account. However, they also
appear in passages of Gen 1-2 and the Psalmic texts, so that it would not be
possible to suppose that this shows a distinctive relationship between the two
books. Moreover, the subject-matter of the suffering individual seems to be
more distinct and original in the figure of the prophet Jeremiah than that in
Job and Deutero-Isaiah. Accordingly, while it is true that Job shares some
motifs and subject-matter with Deutero-Isaiah, both texts share the same
motifs and themes with other biblical materials as well.
To sum up, similarities between Job and Deutero-Isaiah are no more strik
ing and numerous than those between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical
books. It has shown that while linguistic correspondences of Job with
Jeremiah, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are more abundant than those
with any other books in the Hebrew Bible, Deutero-Isaiah exhibits more af
finities with Jeremiah, Psalms and First/Third Isaiah than with any other
books. Therefore, we can conclude that we have little reason to argue that the
relation between Job and Deutero-Isaiah is more remarkable than Job’s or
Deutero-Isaiah’s affinities with other writings. Furthermore, by looking at
overlapped links and associations in Job and Deutero-Isaiah, this study offers
a new perspective on interconnectedness in the Hebrew Bible. Namely, vari
ous resemblances may uncover a very wide-ranging network of links, which
may tie some books together closely, extending across almost all the poetic
materials, and even much of the prose of the Old Testament. In this sense,
“intertextuality” in biblical materials should not be a methodology to estab
lish direct literary relationships, but needs to be seen as a product of the com
pound knowledge which may appear in an infinite range of sources.
Scribal Culture in Job and Deutero-Isaiah
Scribes and Scribal Culture
The discussion of interconnections between biblical texts has often been

dominated by a perception, that resemblances or interrelations between wis
dom literature and other biblical texts are nowhere better illustrated than in
the long-running debates about “wisdom influence” on other literature. To the
extent that we focus on the particular groups that produced individual texts or
certain types of text, we also create a need to explain literary interconnections
in terms of interactions between those groups or circles. In this chapter, I
wish to propose that it is more helpful to consider our texts in terms of their
origin within a broader context: that a relatively small proportion of the Juda-
hite/Judean population and of the diaspora community used and produced
literature. This is sometimes called the “literate elite”,1 and conforms broadly
to what Egyptologists and Assyriologists would call the “scribal class”, and
those terms provide a useful shorthand - so long as it is clear that they do not
denote a specific economic or professional class in the modern sense: mem
bers of the scribal class in Egypt and Mesopotamia could occupy many roles,
from priests and senior civil-servants down to more humble amanuenses and
foremen. My purpose in using this terminology “scribe”2 is not to describe
the nature and parameters of the class historically, but to emphasise the com
mon ground between its members, and to suggest that textual interconnec
tions offer us insights into commonalities that give a broad coherence to
scribal culture, whatever the different interests or beliefs of individual scribes
or of particular groups. In addition, this discourse about a “scribal class”
needs to be distinguished from conversations about “scribes” who appear as
1 In this thesis, when talking about a scribe, I will use expressions such as a scribal
“elite” or a literate “expert”. Also, in some cases, I use “a scribal class”, but I do not use
this phrase in the sense that it is used in the model o f social and political stratification
indicated in modern sociological theory. Jewish scribes, as I suppose, may mean literate
elite and in a broad sense, the leading literati. Ehud Ben Zvi, “Prophetic Memories in the
Deuteronomistic Historical and the Prophetic Collections of Books,” in Israelite Prophecy
and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation o f a History, ed.
Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person, SBL ancient Israel and its literature 14 (A t
lanta: SBL, 2013), 75, also uses this term “literati” .
There is significant and general overlap between two words, Israelite/Judean and Jew.
In this study, when dealing with scribal culture during the late Second Temple period, I
call scribes “Jewish” scribes rather than “Israelite” or “Judean” scribes.
individuals or groups in the Old Testament itself: it is a scholarly classifica
tion which does not necessarily correspond to the ways in which ancient writ
ers would primarily have defined themselves, and certainly does not corre
spond to particular jobs or job-descriptions. The issue has also been compli
cated significantly by the scholarly association of wisdom literature in par
ticular with “scribes”, but if we avoid the term “scribe”, that potentially
leaves us without any term to describe the literati responsible for writing
other types of literature.
Here, the working hypothesis in this chapter is that a “scribal class”,
broadly conceived, was primarily responsible for the composition of biblical
documents, and that scribal culture played an important role in preserving and
disseminating them in the Second Temple period. Now I will present such
claims in terms of the scribal culture of the Hebrew Bible, with critical
evaluation of those arguments, and then will state the significance of scribal
culture in biblical literature. My key questions are: “Is there a literate group
of scribes and, if so, are they involved with the formation of biblical litera
ture?”; “Can we confirm a scribal culture in making the Hebrew Bible?”;
“Why have we focused on separate professional circles and why should we
consider scribal culture?”
A. Scribes as the Literati

I. T he E x te n t o f L ite r a c y
Before discussing this scribal class in ancient Israel, it is necessary to say

something about the extent of literacy to avoid confusion. The dominant view
amongst scholars today is that literacy was confined to a small proportion of
the population, at least until the Greco-Roman period and possibly beyond.
Principally on the basis of internal evidence from the Bible, a few have ar
gued that literacy in ancient Israel was not limited to the minority, but was
prevalent at all levels of Israel society which would make Israel highly un
usual in the ancient context.34 Aaron Demsky argues that while literacy and
3
See e.g. David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet o f the Heart: Origins o f Scripture and
Literature (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2005), 172-3; van der Toorn, Scribal, 81-2;
Christopher A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World o f Ancient Israel: Epigraphic
Evidence from the Iron Age, ABS 11 (Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 88-90.
4 See Alan R. Millard, “An Assessment o f the Evidence for Writing in Ancient Israel,”
in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings o f the International Congress on Biblical
Archaeology Jerusalem, April 1984, ed. Janet Amitai (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Soci
ety, 1985), 301-12; “Literacy: Ancient Israel,” in ABD, ed. David N. Freedman, vol. 4
(New York: Doubleday, 1992), 337-40; Aaron Demsky, “On the Extent of Literacy in
Ancient Israel,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings o f the International Congress
education to some degree were limited to professional groups, “within the
framework of the family or the occupational unit, the child did learn the fun
damentals of writings”.5 From biblical and some epigraphic evidence, he
argues that “during the last two hundred years of the monarchy”, “ancient
Israel can be termed a literate society” “where literacy was not limited to a
closed group of professional scribes”.6*8The interpretation of biblical sources
involved in such claims, however, has been challenged as inconclusive and
n
questionable. For instance, amongst the examples of supposedly widespread

literacy, two cases are frequently mentioned; in Judg 8:14, a captured “young
man” (IpJ) from Succoth “wrote down for him a list of officials and elders”
“seventy-seven men”; and in Isa 10:19, the prophet declares that “the rest o of
the trees of his forest will be few, and then a boy will write them down”. It
would be hard, however, to generalise from these two cases to a nationwide
level of education for children, even if we accept that this is not simply a case
of writers projecting their own literacy onto others.9 Moreover, what both “a
young man” of Succoth and “a boy” in Isaiah write would not require a profi
cient writing ability, but rather it is simply a long list of names (in Judges),
and the total number or at most names of trees which is so few (in Isaiah).
Consequently, these records do not mean that two young men were equipped
with the sort of literacy involved in the composition or even the reading of
literature. In the same way, the passage of Jer 32:12 (“Jeremiah’s witnesses
who signed the deed of purchase”) means no more than sealing their signa
tures.10 Such as, discussions of literacy require an appreciation that people are
literate at different levels and in different ways.11 This level of literacy in
on Biblical Archaeology Jerusalem, April 1984, ed. Janet Amitai (Jerusalem: Israel Explo
ration Society, 1985), 349-53; “Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism: Part One:
The Biblical Period,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading & Interpretation o f the Hebrew
Bible in Ancient Judaism & Early Christianity (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004),
2 20
- .
5 Demsky, “On the Extent,” 350.

6 Ibid., 351.
Menahem Haran, “On the Diffusion of Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel.,”
VTSup 40 (1988): 81-95; Ian Young, “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: P arti,”
VT 48 (1998): 239-53; “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: Part2,” V T 48 (1998):
408-22; Edward Lipinski, “Royal and State Scribes in Ancient Jerusalem,” in Congress
Volume Jerusalem 1986, VTSup 40 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 157-64.
8 See Robert M. Adams and Carl H. Kraeling, eds., City Invincible: A Symposium on
Urbanization and Cultural Development in the Ancient Near East (Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago, 1960), 119, 123.
9 Young, “Israelite Literacy 1,” 239 asks; “just because one ‘young lad’ was able to
write, does that mean that every ‘young lad’ was similarly able?”
10 Haran, “Diffusion,” 84.
11 Rollston notes that “the capacity to scrawl one’s name on a contract, but without the
ability to write or read anything else is not literacy, not even some sort of ‘functional
ancient Israel and Judah, as elsewhere, was probably restricted to a limited
group or class of educated individuals, while the culture of the substantial
majority remained essentially oral.1213
II. S c r ib e s in A n c ie n t N e a r E a s t a n d I s r a e l
In general, the majority of members of other ancient Near Eastern societies

were similarly illiterate and existed in an oral world, and most Egyptologists
and Assyriologists agree that in ancient times literacy was limited, although
they might have a different view as to how much it was restricted. In an
cient Babylon and Egypt, scribes came to constitute a social class, with liter
acy serving as a central social mark for the elite,14 because it was not avail
able to most Egyptians.15 Reading and writing scrolls was the responsibility
of this literate group, but their literacy was also a sign of social status,16 even
if women and even kings could belong to that elite without the ability to write
and read.1718Similarly, literacy in Mesopotamian culture was deeply rooted in
a scribal elite, many of whom would have been involved in the production
and distribution of texts; a Sumerian-Akkadian proverb says: “The scribal art,
1R
receiving a handsome fee, is a bright-eyed guardian, the need of the palace”.
literacy” ’ and that “those with this level o f aptitude should be classed as illiterate”. See
Rollston, Writing, 127. This, perhaps, goes too far in the other direction, by excluding a
measure of literacy widely used in other historical disciplines.
12 Stuart Weeks, “Literacy, Orality, and Literature in Israel,” in On Stone and Scroll:
Essays in Honour o f Graham Ivor Davies, ed. James K. Aitken et al., BZAW 420 (Berlin;
Boston: de Gruyter, 2011), 465-78.
13 For literacy in cuneiform texts, see A dolf L. Oppenheim, “The Position of the Intel
lectual in Mesopotamian Society,” Daedalus 104 (1975): 37-46; Dominique Charpin,
Reading and Writing in Babylon, trans. Jane M. Todd (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2010);
Giuseppe Visicato, The Power and the Writing: The Early Scribes o f Mesopotamia (Be-
thesda: CDL, 2000). For Egyptian literacy, see John Baines, “Literacy and Ancient Egyp
tian Society,” Man 18 (1983): 572-99. For the Syro-Hittite scribes, see Yoram Cohen, The
Scribes and Scholars o f the City o f Emar in the Late Bronze Age, HSS 59 (Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2009). For literacy in ancient Israel, see Rollston, Writing; Emanuel Tov,
Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert,
STDJ 54 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), searches scribal activities in the Dead Sea Scroll.
14 Laurie E. Pearce, “The Scribes and Scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia,” CANE, Vol 4
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995); See Edward F. Wente, “The Scribes o f A n
cient Egypt,” CANE, Vol 4 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995).
15 Baines says that “several lines of reasoning suggest that in most periods no more than
one per cent, of the population were literate.” Baines, “Literacy,” 584.
16 John Baines, Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford UP,
2009), 43.
17 Ibid., 79.
18 Pearce, “ Scribes,” 2265.
Now, the general consensus that “scribes”, a literate elite in both ancient
Mesopotamia and Egypt, were in charge of ancient documents as actual pro
ducers, may be applied in the social context of ancient Israel, although this
reasoning may not be generalised in all cases. It is a reasonable assumption
that Israel and Judah inherited or evolved systems similar to those in other
nearby cultures and that biblical literature was composed and transmitted by
scribes understood in this sense.1920On such an understanding, it is likely that
the educated members of this class acquired their education at least in part
through engagement with existing texts, which gave them a familiarity with
such things as literary style, genre, and poetic techniques, and which explains
the relative coherence and consistency of such things in the biblical corpus.
To what extent this engagement took place within the formal structures of a
school system is unclear, but that issue need not detain us here. It is perhaps
more important to observe that the result, at least in other countries, was a
level of coherence in the literary culture, but not simply uniformity, so that to
speak of such an educated class is not to exclude the possibility that its mem
bers may have had various opinions and interests. It is not my concern here to
exclude the possibility even of distinct groups and circles within the scribal
class, but rather to emphasise that, whatever diversity there may have been,
there would also have been a shared literary and cultural heritage. Given that
concern, it is not my intention to attempt a detailed analysis of the scribal
class, and it is doubtful that the evidence exists even to make such an attempt.
I shall attempt to clarify and explain a few related issues in terms of the iden
tity of the scribes which this project deals with, however, in the rest of this
chapter.
19 Lipinski, “Royal”; Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canonization o f the
Hebrew Scriptures, LAI (London: SPCK, 1998); Carr, Tablet:; van der Toorn, Scribal;
Weeks, “Literacy”. There has been some criticism of this idea. Van Seters objects to van
der Toon’s idea in terms of the role of scribes in the Second Temple period. See John Van
Seters, “The Role of the Scribe in the Making o f the Hebrew Bible,” JANER 8 (2008): 99 -
129; also see William M. Schniedewind, “In Conversation with W. M. Schniedewind, How
the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge, 2003),” ed.
David M. Carr et al., JH S 5 (2005): 44-56.
20 Interpreters insisted upon the existence of a formal educational system in Israel which
could be a form of a school, and this left many controversial issues. On the one hand, some
suppose that there was a type of school as a standardized institute in ancient Israel. See
David W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-
Archeological Approach, JSOTSup 109 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991); Andre Lemaire, Les
Ecoles et la Formation de la Bible dans L ’ancien Israel, Orbis biblicus et orientalis 39
(Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981); Rollston, Writing, 91-113. On the other
hand, others do not see affirmative evidence of the existence of schools. See Friedemann
W. Golka, “The Israelite School or ‘The Emperor’s New Cloths,”’ in The Leopard’s
S p o ts: Biblical and African Wisdom in Proverbs (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 4-15;
Stuart Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom, OTMs (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999).
III. T h e Id e n tity o f S c r ib e s
1. T he C o n tin u ity o f S c r ib a l C u ltu re
Before looking at critical reflections on the idea of scribes, there is an issue

that needs to be clarified. As discussed in Chapter 1, if realising that the
present forms of Job and Deutero-Isaiah have been produced in a similar
cultural milieu during the long span of the exilic and post-exilic periods, one
may find that the linguistic dating would not readily prove the direction of
literary references. And, the idea of scribal culture which I am dealing with
perhaps would not create the same problem, because the origin of the two
books can be substantially explained by the cultural environment of a scribal
class appearing in continuous periods from the exilic to the post-exilic period,
not in a discrete time. Accordingly, the Persian period, as I suppose, would be
a reasonable era, encompassing the extent of the scribal culture related to our
discussion; scholars have, in fact, considered that Judahite culture after the
Babylonian conquest and during the subsequent rule of the Persian Empire
(539-332 BCE) underwent a great change and that the Judahite culture after
Exile seemed to have evolved into a new phase of Jewish culture.212However,
the scribal culture is not intended to be placed into a stage evolutionized and
advanced from the primeval to the civilized, but one needs to consider the
scribal culture which had not dramatically changed between the Babylonian
and Persian reigns.
2. C r itic a l R e fle c tio n s

The next significant question to be considered is the social identity of scribes
in the Persian period. For this, most scholars have supposed that the produc
tion of religious writings in ancient Israel was likely to be controlled by the
powerful circle of the state. In fact, it has been common ground among such
scholars as William Schniedewind, David Carr, Karel van der Toorn, and
Philip Davies, that scribes as biblical writers were closely related to the cen
tral administration. What they commonly argue is that, as in other ancient
Near Eastern cultures, a professional group of scribes employed by Judah’s
government wrote, read, and preserved religious documents on behalf of the
royal family or temple officials.
On the one hand, some argue that biblical texts were written by royal
scribes. Edward Lipinski claims that scribes in Israel and Judah were re
stricted to the “royal and state scribes” as bureaucrats, although non-
professional and ordinary scribes existed. Schniedewind maintains that the
21 John M. Efron, The Jews: A History (Upper Saddle River, NJ; London: Pearson
Prentice Hall, 2009), 26-9.
22 .
Lipinski, “Royal”; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 158-71.
biblical materials were exclusively preserved and extended by the Judean
royal family during the Babylonian exile, and after the return to Jerusalem by
temple priests and scribes.23 On the other hand, some suppose that the scribal
activities which produced the Hebrew Bible occurred in the temple of Jerusa
lem. Van der Toorn doubts that royal scribes were involved with professional
writings and that royal scribes which some (Lipinski, Weinfeld, and
Schniedewind) noticed, were, in fact, merely court secretaries. According to
van der Toorn, scribes who wrote most of biblical literature were temple
scribes, maybe Levitical scribes attached to Jerusalem, because the Jerusalem
temple in ancient Israel was regarded as “an annex of the royal palace”;24 as
the centre of education, worship, and written law.
Other scholars do not strictly distinguish temple scribes from palace
scribes, but they describe scribes as being related to occupations of govern
mental institutes. Davies mainly designates the scribal class as “servants of
ruler or temple” and as public officials “sustained from the revenues of palace
or temple”.25267*Based on this definition, Davies regards the roles of scribes as
professionals as explaining the composition of biblical materials in the Sec
ond Temple period; although Davies recognises the existence of the private
scribes. Carr, in the same way, notices that although all the writers were not
necessarily restricted to literate officials and scribes, biblical and non-biblical
evidence present “the foregoing picture of limited literacy” and “clear signs
of having been produced by professionals, literate specialists”. 2 7 In Carr’s
model, Judean scribes until the exilic and the later Persian period were con-
fined to the members of ruling classes. Schams’ detailed analysis of the
possible model of Jewish scribes in the Second Temple period is not different
from Carr and others. She argues that scribes in the Persian period functioned
as high officials and intellectuals and occupied administrative positions and
“outside the Temple and the Achaemenid administration few or no independ-
ent scribes could be found”. According to her, evidence of village/town
23 •
' William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization o f A n
cient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004), 139-94.
24 van der Toorn, Scribal, 85.
25
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 17.
26 Ib id , 36.
27 Carr, Tablet, 118, 122.
98 He argues that “though it is probable that some of Jehoiachin’s retinue were masters
of the tradition and we now have inscriptional evidence that scribes were active elsewhere
in the Jewish Diaspora, it is unclear how such groups would have access to written ver
sions of the tradition”. Ib id , 168.
9Q
Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second-Temple Period, JSOTSup 291 (Shef
field: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 311.
scribes outside Jerusalem and of the growing number of independent scribes
is found only at the end of the Hellenistic period.
3. Id e n tity a n d D e fin itio n o f S c r ib e s
In this sphere, most scholars tend to use the meaning of the “scribe” in a nar
row definition and are inclined to visualise a circle of vocational scribes
working for the bureaucratic centres in Jerusalem. Of course, this social posi
tion of scribes could be acceptable in a general sense, and the notion of royal
or temple scribes engaging with the upper class could be easily imagined in
the period of monarchy before Exile. Christopher Rollston, for instance, no
tices from Old Hebrew epigraphic evidence:
Israelite scribes were the recipients of formal, standardized education. Furthermore, in the
terms of aegis, I believe that the mechanism most responsible for the standardized educa-
| ' i
tion of professional scribes was the state.
Not only in the pre-exilic period, but also in the Second Temple period, there
would be scribes working in the national apparatus. Until the Hellenistic and
Roman periods, a major increase of literacy and the popularity of literate
education in Israel would not occur, and we may see in the end of the Sec
ond Temple period a high percentage of village/town scribes and independent
private scribes alongside all the levels of official scribes.
Nevertheless, it is questionable whether scribal activities in the Persian pe
riod should essentially appear in professions attached to Judean governmental
institutions such as temples, palaces, schools, and libraries. If, as many pre
sume, the definition of “scribe” has to be applied exclusively to the literate
elite within administrative or religious centres, what do we call those who
were highly literate and had the same intellectual background of scribal train
ing from the temple, but who did not serve in the temple? The idea that
scribes belonged solely to either the royal or temple service needs to be quali
fied by the observation that, whatever their national loyalties, not all ancient
scribes were employed directly in this way. The evidence from Mesopotamia
is constrained by the fact that most of our texts come from royal or temple
archives, but from as early as the Middle Kingdom in Egypt we find the in
volvement of scribes in purely commercial transactions. This makes sense, of
course, in contexts where to become a scribe was a hereditary calling, since it
cannot be presumed that the number of official posts would increase in line
with the inevitable growth in the number of scribes.
Let us see more evidence available relating to Egyptian and Mesopotamian
scribes, in order to confirm that Jewish scribes are not restricted to a formal3012
30 Ibid., 320-1.
31 Rollston, Writing, 113.
32 Carr, Tablet, 173.
occupation attached to the palace and/or the temple. Of course, in ancient
Mesopotamia there are temple/palace scribes who function in bureaucratic
and governmental positions. While “palace scribes” work with archives, writ
ing and preserving records which are associated with the affairs of kings and
royal families and with matters of court and administration, “temple scribes”
function as high officials and helped to manage temple archives.33 However,
there were individual scribes employed by small-sized personal enterprises;
for instance, Laurie Pearce notes that in ancient Mesopotamia “distribution of
scribes across various specialties is estimated as follows: 70 percent adminis
trative; 20 percent private; and 10 percent scientific and quasi-scientific ac
tivities.”3435Whatever their professions and job descriptions are, their social
status could be regarded as scribes.
In ancient Egypt, what makes the issue complicated is the fact that most
evidence about scribes comes from the self-presentation of dignitaries who
speak mainly of their public and professional identity. However, although
there are various titles or roles of individuals shown in the Egyptian texts,
they do not illustrate what precisely are their professions. There is evidence
in the New Kingdom that would prove that “scribe” stands for a social iden
tity for elite members, but there is no strong evidence for limiting literacy to
temple-trained scribes before some time in the first millennium BCE. Al
though Egyptian scribes served in administrative roles, doing kings ’ business
as preservers and writers of a complex form of script, they could participate
in the enterprises of any individuals. Of course, from the introduction of de
motic literacy, Egyptian scribes seem to have become much more profession
alized, but in the creation of texts in Egypt there is little evidence to posit an
exclusive relationship with the temple/palace sphere until the later periods. In
recent research, Chloe Ragazzoli, interestingly notices in the New Kingdom
where writers of graffiti “chose to present themselves as scribes as the sign of
a certain status, not of a function”.36 Thus, there is little reason to suppose
that in Egypt and Mesopotamia, “scribe” had been understood only as a voca
tional title related to state.
Moreover, Jewish literate groups who could have produced biblical mate
rials lived in circumstances quite different from Mesopotamian and Egyptian
literates. After the destruction of Judah, a crucial change to the Judean com
Pearce, “ Scribes,” 2273-4.

34 Ib id , 2273.
35 From the document in “the Ramesside village of Deir el Medina”, he maintains that
“ ‘scribes’ was used as a courtesy title for all literate members of the community.” See
Christopher Eyre, The Use o f Documents in Pharaonic Egypt (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013),
233.
36 Chloe C. D. Ragazzoli, “The Social Creation o f a Scribal Place: The Visitors’ In
scriptions in the Tomb Attributed to Antefiqer (TT 60),” in SAK 42 (H. Buske Verlag,
2014), 51.
munity was the relocation of the literate elite into many different locations
and afterwards, they remained a coherent community in foreign countries;
there would be continuing communities of people in important social posi
tions who were not working for the Judahite or the Persian government. This
means that centres of the Judean elite in the Persian period could exist outside
the territory of Judah. When educated scribes were deported to Babylon, all
the evidence of cultural continuity within that community - and subsequently
also in Alexandria - suggests that they continued to act and to educate their
sons as members of the scribal class, although few of them are likely to have
served in official positions at foreign courts. In particular, recent archaeologi
cal discoveries have confirmed that the Babylonian and Egyptian Jewish
communities successfully became members of foreign countries and they
produced a number of documents; Jewish documents in the diaspora commu
nity have been found in various places since the Neo-Babylonian epoch. I
here give evidence to suggest that Jewish scribal activity in the Second Tem
ple period may be a widespread phenomenon, not limited to a single geo
graphical location.
The first proposed evidence comes from texts recording the financial deal
ings of a Jewish family who lived in Babylonian Nippur in the fifth century
BCE. The discovery of the so-called Murashu archive (650 cuneiform tablets)
from Nippur ranging in date from 454 to 404 BCE informed us of the life of
the Babylonian Diaspora in this period. The Murashu texts show that signifi
cant numbers of deportees settled and remained as Judeans in Babylon after
the Exile, and they describe many individuals bearing Yahwistic names.
The corpus, in particular, presents a large amount of documents - such as
contracts, loans, transactions, etc - which “loaned money, held mortgages,
leased and subleased land, collected taxes and rents, and was engaged in
other operations related to the
■>o
management of land property, the mainstay of
the Babylonian economy”. This Jewish community in Babylon indicates*
In the Murashu archive, many Jews at Nippur had no Yahwistic names, but instead
Babylonian and Aramaic names. However, it is not neccesary for them to take the form of
an Yahwistic name. We have much evidence that these Judeans in the region were deeply
integrated in Babylonian society. See Michael David Coogan, “Life in the Diaspora: Jews
at Nippur in the Fifth Century B.C.,” BA 37, no. 1 (1974): 6-12; Lester L. Grabbe, A His
tory o f the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, LSTS 47 (London: T&T Clark,
2004), 316-8; Pearce suggests new evidence for Judean deportees in Babylon. See Laurie
E. Pearce, “New Evidence for Judeans in Babylonia,” in Judah and the Judeans in the
Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
2006), 399-411; “ ‘Judean’: A Special Status in Neo-Babylonian and Achemenid Babylo
nia?,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period, ed. Oded Lipschits et al. (Wi
nona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 261-11.
Elias J. Bickerman, “The Babylonian Captivity,” in The Cambridge History o f Juda
ism, ed. William Davies and Louis Finkelstein, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984),
345.
the possibility of the presence of scribes which continued their identity as a
highly intellectual group.
Secondly, there was a particular group of mercenaries - maybe with their
families - settled in a Jewish military colony in Egypt. This community
possessed a considerable number of written works during the reign of the
Persian Empire; these works have been known as the Elephantine papyri,
which are mostly written in Aramaic.3940 It has been argued that there would be
religious and spiritual life by a confessional Jewish community around the
Elephantine Temple, although we have no definite clue to the date of the
building their Temple to God.41 This archive (dated from 495 to 399 BCE)
includes a massive number of documents relating to the ownership of prop
erty and the temple of Yahweh, preserved in the form of letters, contracts,
and historical/literary works.42 Bezalel Porten notices that the legal docu
ments by Jewish scribes “testify to diverse social and economic activity on
the one hand and to a developed scribal craft on the other” and that individual
scribes developed their personal characteristics in writings.43 The Jewish
scribal texts in Elephantine indicate that scribal activity was prevalent in the
Egyptian diaspora; some Jews in the military colony were literate and could
transmit at least one literary text, S a y in g s o f A h iq a r , which is the earliest
copy of it.
What is more, evidence that Jewish “scribalism” was assigned not only to
the Jews residing in Yehud province, but also to all the diaspora communities,
is found in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. We have known that there was
a Hellenistic diaspora in Alexandria, Egypt which wrote the Septuagint, the
Greek version of the Hebrew Bible - dated to the third century BCE, and
from the legend in the L e tte r o f A r is te a s which refers to King Ptolemy II
39 James D. Purvis, “Exile and Return: From the Babylonian Destruction to the Recon
struction of the Jewish State,” in Ancient Israel: A Short History from Abraham to the
Roman Destruction o f the Temple, ed. Hershel Shanks (Eaglewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall,
1988), 164; Lester L. Grabbe, Introduction to Second Temple Judaism: History and Relig
ion o f the Jews in the Time o f Nehemiah, the Maccabees, Hillel, and Jesus (London: T&T
Clark, 2010), 4-5.
40 See Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine: The Life o f an Ancient Jewish M ili
tary Colony (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1968).
41 Edda Bresciani, “Egypt, Persian Satrapy,” in The Cambridge History o f Judaism, ed.
William Davies and Louis Finkelstein, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984), 368.
42 See Grabbe, Judaism, 318-9; Bresciani, “Egypt, Persian Satrapy,” 1:366-8; Purvis,
“Exile and Return,” 164-5.
43 See Bezalel Porten, “The Jews in Egypt,” in The Cambridge History o f Judaism (ed.
William Davies and Louis Finkelstein; vol. 1; Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984), 393-400;
“ Settlement o f the Jews at Elephantine and the Arameans at Syene,” in Judah and the
Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp; W i
nona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 451-70.
Philadelphia (283-246 BCE).44 This would mean that those literate people
who wrote and translated them did not work in the Jerusalem temple. Scribal
activities which are observed in the texts in the Judean desert ( “the Dead Sea
Scrolls”) also confirm that biblical materials are probably not limited to the
temple.45 Moreover, we see different literate groups in Galilee and in Babylon
which created two literary traditions of the Talmud which are significant texts
of Rabbinic Judaism left in the Amoraic period (200-500 CE). Interestingly,
both Amoraic schools produced two independent versions of the Talmud
using the first written Torah Mishnah; Babylonian Talmud (“Bavli”) and
Jerusalem Talmud (“Yerushalmi”); it is difficult of course to determine which
version is more original and primitive in the Talmudic tradition.46 From these
different Talmudic versions, what we may confirm is that independent liter
ary traditions would exist in foreign countries, outside the Jerusalem temple.
The descriptions and titles of the scribes may be varied in the texts, and the
Judean scribes substantially worked in the royal office and the temple, but it
is unnecessary to make a division between the royal administration and the
temple, in that the temple was also owned by a king. Scribes are unlikely to
correspond to any single job, but perhaps are depicted as continuing their
social position while having different professions. To that extent, the vocabu
laries and descriptions of the scribes in the Hebrew Bible - which we will see
in the next section - are comparable with those of the scribes that we use in
Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the identity of the scribes in Judah may corre
spond approximately to the general category of a scribal class in Egypt and
Mesopotamia.
We, therefore, need to avoid viewing scribalism in the framework of pro
fessionalism and to understand that “15b represents a high level of education
and enculturation. The extent of “15b possibly could be extended to a whole
circle of learned literati who were competent in their skills, but who did not
use them either to earn a living or to be employed. In this research, when I
speak of the “scribe” as a biblical author, it refers to all the skilful literate
who could read and write texts, whether they were educated in the temple, at
school, or in the home and whether later on they had jobs in public institu
44 There are debates of the date of Septuagint, but it is certain that LXX confirms A lex
andrian Jewish diaspora who could read and interpret the Hebrew sacred texts. See Law
rence H. Schiffman, Understanding Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Jersey City:
Ktav, 2003), 127-30. Clancy claims that none of LXX occured before 150 BCE. See Frank
Clancy, “The Date of LXX,” SJO T 16, no. 2 (2002): 207-25.
45 Tov, Scribal, 7-30.
46 In its comparison, the sugyot of Bavli are “more long-winded and discursive” than
the sugyot o f Yerushalmi, so that it might be reasonable to say that “the Yerushalmi was
redacted at least one hundred years before the Bavli”. However, there are many differences
between them. See Louis I. Rabinowitz and Stephen G. Wald, “Talmud, Jerusalem,” EJ,
vol. 19 (Detroit: Macmillan & Keter, 2007), 484.
tions, private business, or were unemployed. All the biblical writings could
be composed and conducted by these scribes, the literati. Accordingly, I un
derstand the term “l£JD as the “literate person”, who regarded themselves as
members of a class, including but not confined to vocational specialists who
were in temple/royal service.
B. Scribes as Biblical Writers

Researchers such as Carr, van der Toon, Rollston, and Schniedewind at
present who study the process of the literary growth of the Hebrew Bible
have maintained with internal, external, and comparative evidences that
scribes contributed to the present form of biblical literature, whether or not
the pre-stage of the present form partly existed in oral or written forms;
although there are differences in identifying the role and position of scribes.
However, unfortunately, even adherents of the theory about the existence of
literate elites have recognised the scarcity of textual evidence from the He
brew Bible.4748It is true that examples to signify that authors of the biblical
literature were scribes are rare. This insufficient proof might prevent us from
agreeing with the supposition that scribes were biblical writers. But in spite
of this difficulty, there are significant biblical vestiges in terms of scribal
activities; it would also be difficult to prove that Egyptian and Babylonian
texts were written by scribes, if we did not have early copies with the names
of the copyists on them.
I. “l£Db in th e H e b r e w B ib le
Let us first start looking at how the Hebrew Bible uses the term “l£)b trans
lated to “scribe”. In The D ic tio n a r y o f C la s s ic a l H e b r e w , the term “l£)b
(DH3b) (in a form of qal, participle) means “one who counts” and is ren
dered in five different ways: (1) “scribe, scholar”, “as copying the Law”, “or
writing documents”; (2) “military officer, commander of army”; (3) “(civil)
officer, official, administrator”; (4) “tribute or tax collector”; (5) “one who is
counting days of impurity”. The H e b r e w a n d A r a m a ic L e x ic o n o f th e O ld
T e s ta m e n t suggests four meanings: (1) “scribe”, “secretary”; (2) “state
scribe”, “secretary”; (3) “secretary for Jewish affairs”; (4) “conversant with
the scriptures”.49 With these references, the meaning of “12b can be divided
by four cases. Firstly, “12b in a broad sense means a “writer”, or a “copyist”;
the man with a “writing case” (“l£30n HOp; Ezek 9:2, 3, 11); “the pen of

48 David J. A. Clines, ed., “DCH” (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), VI: 185-6.
49 HALOT, 2:767.
scribes” (D‘H 2D...Dp; Jer 8:8); “iron pen and lead” *7T"D"OP; Job
19:24; cf. Jer 17:1); a “scribe’s knife” (“12DPI “iyn; Jer 36:23).50 Secondly,
the connotation which is the closest to the root verb “12D is “tax collector” in
Isa 33:18; “where is the tax collector?”; “where is the one who counts?”
Thirdly, the term “12b in many biblical narratives is linked to the role of
high state official including civil servants and priests. Historical narratives in
the Israelite monarchy include some lists of these royal and temple adminis
trators. These scribes as a profession have emerged in “family-like guilds” in
the Israel monarchy (2 Sam 8:17; 20:25; 1 Kgs 4:3; 1 Chr 18:16) and in the
Judean monarchy (2 Kgs 22:3, 12, 14; 25:22; Jer 26:24; 36:11, 12).51 On the
one hand, they occupied a rank of a governmental official in the palace. For
instance, Seraiah as a scribe is included in the list of David’s high officials
and “12b may refer to “royal secretary” (2 Sam 8:17; 20:25).5253In 1 Kgs 4:3,
Elihoreph and Ahijah in Solomon’s cabinets are described as “secretaries”,
and “12b is tied up with recording the activity (TOTOH) of Jehoshaphat (cf. 2
Sam 20:24). In the same way, in 2 Kgs 18:18, 37, Shebnah “12b is accompa
nied with the royal administrator Eliakim who is in charge of the palace and
the recorder Joah, and in 2 Kgs 19:2 is dispatched to the prophet Isaiah. On
the other hand, the activity of scribes is more likely to be associated with the
priesthood in the temple. For instance, Shemaiah, the son of Nethanel, a Le-
vite, as *12b is involved in making records (1 Chr 24:6), and some Levites
were scribes (2 Chr 34:13). Finally, this term appears in the meaning in
volved with military officers and commanders. In 2 Kgs 25:19 and Jer 52:25,
“12b which is the proper title of “the commander-in-chief’ (Nl^H “IW) can be
interpreted as “secretary” or “officer” in the army. “12D (in “I2D D2W “the
staff of an officer”) is parallel with D'ppnO (“commanders”) in Judg 5:14.
Whether “12b contains the sense of commander or simply a writer in these
verses, this term seems to hold a position in the military context.
Fourthly, “12b is used in the sense of a “scholar” producing and writing the
Law and all sorts of documents (Ezra 7:6, 11; Neh 8:1, 4, 9, 13; 12:26, 36).
The book of Jeremiah introduces Baruch as a copyist and writer of Jeremiah’s
prophecy (Jer 36; 43:2-3), and describes scribes as wise men who have the
Law of Yahweh (8:8). In Jer 36:10 (cf. vv. 12, 20-21), the expression “the
chamber (J"DW^2) of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe” denotes the
possibility that there would be a group of scribes in the temple forming the
advisory group of the king and Baruch as a temple scribe might go through
50 James P. Hyatt, “The Writing o f an Old Testament Book,” BA 6 (1943): 78-9.

51 Aaron Demsky, “Scribe,” ed. Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum, Encyclopaedia
Judaica (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA in association with Keter Publishing House,
2007), 212.
52 Arnold A. Anderson, 2 Samuel, WBC 11 (Dallas: Word Books, 1989), 137.
53 Trevor R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, WBC 13 (Waco: Word Books, 1985), 365; DCH, VI: 185.
the scribal training (Jer 36:18, 26, 32).54 Another word “1D£J0, which is seen
as a loan-word from Akkadian tu p s a r r u (“tablet-writer”) and which only
appears in Jer 51:27 and Nah 3:17, can commonly be translated as a “scribe”;
in Nah 3:17, it may mean an “administrative official” and in Jer 51:27, a
“conscription official” in the military background.55
II. S c r ib e in th e S e c o n d T e m p le P e r io d
The definition of *l£)b in the connection with making biblical literature ap
pears more frequently in the Second Temple period. Of course, we lack rec
ords of the history and life of Jews in this period to understand the social
position of scribes. It is not easy to affirm how the meaning of “l£?b in the
Hebrew Bible was semantically changed after the exilic period. However, it
was probably not until the Persian period that “ISO tends to be more presented
as literary experts or scholars who learned the Torah and other biblical
texts.56 Clues about the status and function of scribes in the Persian period are
drawn from passages in Ezra and Nehemiah;57 although there remain contro
versial issues as to the authorship, the historicity, and the composition of
those books.58
Ezra’s title in Ezra-Nehemiah has been used to explain the scribe as a
scholar of the Torah. The title of Ezra in the Artaxerxes’ letter (Ezra 7:12-26)
written in Aramaic is given as frTftW nt7N"H NITT “ISO NJPD (“the priest, the
scribe of the law of the God of heaven”) in vv. 12, 21. Other than this, part of
the narrative (vv. 1-11) exhibits it as:
btnim mbx mm inrmtfx nmm mna “i?b_iom
He was a scribe skilled in the Torah of Moses that Yahweh the God of Israel had given (v.
6)
rpm vpm mrrimn nm isb nabn pan
Ezra, the priest, the scribe, scribe, in matters o f commandments of Yahweh and his laws
for Israel (v. 11)
Stylistic differences in the title between the narrative and the letter have been
suggested; e.g. in narrative, the use of tetragrammaton, the awkward repeti
54 Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 257.

55 Herbert Niehr, “ id 'd,” TDOT.X (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); Tryggve N. D. Met-
tinger, Solomonic State Officials: A Study o f the Civil Government Officials o f the Israelite
Monarchy (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1971), 51.
56 TLOT vol.2, 809; TDOT vol.2, 324.
57 Schams, Jewish, 44-71; Rollston, Writing, 89-90.
58 To some degree, there seems to be a scholarly consensus that the composition of
Ezra-Nehemiah went through several redactional stages with literary sources such as “Ezra
Memoir”, “Nehemiah Memoir”, and “Ezra 1-6”. See Hugh G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Ne
hemiah, WBC 16 (Waco: Word Books, 1985), xxiii-xxxv; Lester L. Grabbe, Ezra-
Nehemiah, Old Testament Readings (London: Routledge, 1998), 93-109; Jacob M. Myers,
Ezra, Nehemiah, AB 14 (New York: Doubleday, 1965), xxxviii-lii.
tion of "12b in v. lib, and some additions (“skilled in the Torah of Moses”) to
modify “scribe” in v. 6. Though the sceptical view about the historical au
thenticity of this letter has been suggested,59 this title “12b is widely under
stood in the context of the Achaemenid Empire as “an official Persian title”
derived from the view of Han Heinrich Schaeder;60 following him, many
could view Ezra’s position as the “minister/secretary of state for Jewish af
fairs”.6162
With this supposition, scholars have suggested that the oddity of the title in
the narrative was due to the reinterpretation of the title “scribe” presented in
Ezra 7:12, 21, and was “influenced by the use of comparable words in the
Ezra memoir itself’. The specification of Ezra’s title as a skilled expert and
student of Torah in vv. 6, 10, and 11 may possibly reflect how the editor of
Ezra considered his role in the Persian period. For this issue, Schams moder
ately argues that, irrespective of the authenticity of the commissioning letter,
there is enough evidence to believe that Ezra historically “was an official
scribe in the Achaemenid administration”.63 She, however, concludes that
Ezra’s official title in 7:6, 11 may have reflected the editor’s theological view
in the Persian period, and that “the author may have wanted to trace back the
authority of priestly scribes in matters of the law to the early restoration in
order to legitimize their role in his contemporary society”.64 Thus, if the in
terpretation about Ezra’s titles is acceptable, the figure of Ezra could be
viewed both as a high governmental officer working under the Achaemenid
Empire - although this still leaves uncertainty in discerning the official posi
tion of Ezra from the titles - and as a “scriptural scholar”,65 which may reflect
59 Lester L. Grabbe, “What Was Ezra’s Mission?,” in Second Temple Studies: 2. Temple
Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, JSOT
117 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 294 mentions that he cannot see “any evidence of such a
concept as a commissioner for Jewish affairs from anything we know about Persian ad
ministration”. Also see Lester L. Grabbe, “The ‘Persian Documents’ in the Book of Ezra:
Are They Authentic?,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits
and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 531-70.
60 Hans H. Schaeder, Esra der Schreiber, Beitrage zur historischen Theologie 5
(Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1930), 39-51.
61 Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, 100; Myers, Ezra, Nehemiah, 60-1 also supports this
view.
62 Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, 92, 98.
63 Schams, Jewish, 54.
64 “ [I]t cannot be known what Ezra’s official position and his mission were. The texts
are taken to reflect the author’s notion of priests and scribes at a later time instead of the
realities in the early postexilic period. The author may have wanted to trace back the au
thority of priestly scribes in matters of the law to the early restoration period in order to
legitimize their role in his contemporary society.” Ibid., 56.
65 Niehr, “325 ” ,-|?'D.
the editor’s view concerning the role of scribes in the Persian period (cf. Ezra
7:10; Ps 45:2).
Another record about Ezra’s role as "lflb appears in the expression “l£)bn
m rr m sr-iuw nwra m i n nao-nN Rnrf?, (“the scribe to bring
the scroll of Torah of Moses that Yahweh had given to Israel”) in Neh 8:1,
when the assembly in Jerusalem completed building the walls and then ap
pealed to Ezra to read the law of Moses (v. 3). In v. 13, the figure of Ezra is
described as the scholar of the Torah, teaching religious leaders such as the
priests and the Levites and the people; m in n VownVl 3£)bn (“the
scribe to understand the words of the Torah”). The commitment of Ezra, as
the scribe and priest (vv. 1-6, 9a) reading and studying “the scroll of the
Torah of Moses” to the assembly is more likely to reflect the reality of the
scribe in the Second Temple period. In particular, van der Toom notices that
from this record in which the Levites helped Ezra during the temple service
(Neh 8:7-8), “the Levitical scribes were teachers of Torah” (2 Chr 17:9).6 66768In
addition to these cases of the use of 3£)b in the Second Temple period, the
author of Nehemiah identifies Zadok as a scribe for the purpose of the suit
able distribution of the tithe (Neh 13:13). *"l£)b then could refer to an account
ant and a recorder, and the appointment of the scribe was likely performed as
part of reforming the temple. Finally, the passage of Ezra 4:17 exhibits the
scribe Shimshai which is possibly a letter-writer to King Artaxerxes.
In the Hellenistic period, there is a noteworthy description of scribes from
the Wisdom of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), where the author describes and
praises an ideal “scribe” as a true wise man, in contrast to manual workers
(Sir 38:24-39:11). According to Ben Sira, scribes throw themselves
completely into studying the law, the wisdom, and the prophecy (Sir
38:34cd-39:3), preserving and surveying texts which have been handed down
from their ancestors:
How different the person who devotes him self to the study o f the law o f the Most High! He
explores the wisdom of all the ancients and is occupied with the prophecies; He preserves
the discourses o f the famous, and goes to the heart o f involved sayings; He seeks out the
hidden meaning o f proverbs, and is busied with the enigmas found in parables. ... He will
pour forth his words of wisdom and in prayer give praise to the Lord. (38:34cd—39:3,
6cd)69
It is quite important to see that scribes in the Hellenistic period could engage
a variety of scriptural knowledge and literary skills as an expert and artisan
(Sir 39:1, 4). Rollston notes that “according to Ben Sira, the life of the scribe
66 Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, 287.

67 van der Toorn, Scribal, 79-80.
68 Schams, Jewish, 59.
69 I use the translation o f Jeremy Corley, Sirach, NCoBC 21 (Collegeville: Liturgical,
2013), 107-8.
is far superior to that of the populace” and that “he himself was the head of a
school located in Jerusalem (Sir 51:23)”.70 One thing which I need to mention
is that there is the interchange of two terms, “wise men”/”sages” and
“scribes”, in Sir 38:24-39:11. By this, it could be argued that sages were
equal to scribes in their social function and role (cf. Jer 8:8-9). In a broad
sense, scribes might be regarded as clever men in the level of their intellec
tual capacity. However, scribes as scriptural scholars should not be equalled
to sages or wise men from the reference in Sir 3 8:24.71*73The change of the role
of “12b in Jewish community was a drift in the later Second Temple period; in
the Roman period, especially by the influence of the rabbinic movement,
scribes were “either designated by others with different names or titles, or
79
they themselves chose to adopt new titles.”
III. In te r p r e ta tio n o f B ib lic a l E v id e n c e
So far, we have discussed a variety of biblical links concerning the term “15b
from the early monarchic period to the Second Temple period. Though those
references are too limited to affirm the existence o f a literate elite as scrip
tural authors, the evidence I have presented to some extent may suggest that
the term “150 is connected with the literate who can read and write texts, and
especially with a special upper group in palace and temple. However, when
considering the list - kings, priests, levites, prophets, commanders, and other
high officials - who are said to write and read biblical books, our working
hypothesis of scribes as writers might remain unproven. However, in this
respect, we should pay attention to how to interpret biblical records about
literacy.
The authenticity of some biblical narratives in terms of “writing/reading”
has been questioned with the possibility of later redactions. Carr claims that
although there is prevalent evidence for literate specialists from various pro
fessions in the history of Israel, “many narratives are almost certainly not
70 Rollston, Writing, 90.

71 van der Toorn, Scribal, 81-2 argues without any evidence that “the accomplished
scribe” “is an expert and a scholar”, and a sage. However, Schams, Jewish, 106 notes that
“although the text remains fuzzy with regard to scribes and wise men they should not be
identified.”
79' Schams, Jewish, 325.
73 The composition of the Hebrew Bible, apart from that being understood as “the word
of God”, has been attributed to “king”, “community leader”, “prophet”, “royal official”,
“scribe”, and “priest”, e.g., Moses (Exod 17:14; 24:4; 34:28; Num 33:2; Deut 31:9, 22);
Joshua (Josh 24:26); Samuel (1 Sam 10:25); David (Ps 3, 7, 18, 34, etc; probably origi
nated by late additions); Solomon (Prov 1:1); Ezra (Ezra 7); Isaiah (8:1; 30:8); Jeremiah
(Jer 30:2); Baruch (Jer 36:4); Ezekiel (Ezek 24:2); Daniel (Dan 7:1). See Young, “Israelite
Literacy 1,” 245-7.
historically reliable”.74 Though we may reserve judgement about the authen
ticity of a given text, it is required to comprehend what it means, when the
text says that biblical figures like prophets and kings wrote and read.75 Seen
in the relationship between Jeremiah and Baruch in Jer 36, it should be noted
that the prophet who was commanded to write (31"D) God’s words was not a
real writer, but he dictated to Baruch the scribe. From this instance, Carr
maintains that “examples like this - however fictional - of putative read-
ing/writing versus ‘actual’ reading/writing raise questions about other in
stances in which a king (e.g. David), other major figures (e.g. Jezebel in 1
Kgs 21:8-11), or a group of people (e.g. Neh 9:3) is described as writing or
reading”.7678That to write a text means to make scribes write, can be confirmed
in Esther 8:8-9. The King Ahasuerus commands Esther and Mordecai to
write the king’s edict and then the king’s scribes are immediately summoned
for writing. With regard to “reading”, there is a noteworthy example in 2 Kgs
22. Though Huldah the prophetess said that “the king of Judah has read” “all
the words of the scroll” (2 Kgs 22:16), the person who read the book of Law
(v. 10) was not the king Josiah, but Shaphan the scribe. Shaphan is por
trayed as reading it “in the front of the king”, so that “reading (oneself)” is
identified as equal to “having something read to one”.79* Thus, when someone
in the Bible is portrayed as writing and reading a text, it does not necessarily
orv
imply that he/she directly wrote and read it or was a literate person.
IV . J e r e m ia h , B a ru c h , a n d S c rib e : J e r e m ia h 3 6
The most complete illustration to describe the writing process of biblical

literature is found in Jeremiah 36 indicating how the oral statement becomes
the written scroll. Jeremiah is commanded to prepare a scroll and to write
prophetic messages from Yahweh about “Israel, Judah, and all the nations”
(Jer 36:2b). Baruch is summoned to write what Jeremiah dictates on the scroll
with ink, and then the scribe writes the first scroll (v. 4). However, because of
hostility from unknown sources against Jeremiah, he is prohibited to enter to
the temple, and consequently Baruch is immediately sent to read the scroll in
the temple (vv. 5-6). Afterwards, when officials invite Baruch to read the

75 Young, “Israelite Literacy 1,” 248 provides useful analysis for biblical passages
which speak of who read and write texts. He notices that “this conception of God as the
writer” “probably reflects the prestigious connection of writing with government, priest
hood and nobility”. Carr, Tablet, 119-20.
77 Young, “Israelite Literacy 1,” 248.
78 Ibid., 248-9.
79 Ibid., 249.
o/\
Young says that “being read to was a normal way o f ‘reading’ in antiquity and im
plies nothing about the literacy of the person being read to”. Ibid.
scroll and ask with startling reaction how it has been written, Baruch wit
nesses: Jeremiah “dictated all those words to me, and I wrote them down on
the scroll with ink” (v. 18). After the first scroll is burned by the king Jehoi-
akim, Yahweh comes up on Jeremiah again and commands him to write the
second scroll which includes the same content in the first scroll (v. 28), and
consequently Baruch reproduces the second edition with many additions (v.
32). No other places in the Hebrew Bible describe how prophetic oracles
come to a recorded document like Jeremiah 36, and though we cannot pre
sume that the writing process of other biblical books went through the same
steps, it may be presumed that it would not be much different. Here, it is
surprising that the role of the scribe is not restricted into copying a text as a
penman, but is expanded to adding a supplementary to the initial oracle (Jer
36:32b). What is more, this example may be in all probability linked to por
traying the function of scribes involved in producing biblical literature in the
late period. This does not mean that this story is fictitious. Rather, there is
credible evidence to consider that the description of Jeremiah’s dictation may
have been based on a factual event between the two historical figures.81 How
ever, at the same time, we should be cautious in accepting all the details of
the story at face value. What we need to see behind this text is that this narra
tive could have reflected the scribal practice in the exilic and post-exilic pe
riod in preserving and inventing scriptural texts. Let us at first see the theory
of the compositional process of the book of Jeremiah.
Yahweh’s words in Jer 36 at first come to the prophet in 605 BCE (“in the
fourth year of Jehoiakim”) to prepare and write the oracle, while in Jer 1:2
(“in the thirteenth year of Josiah”), the time of oracle dates back to 627 BCE
and the record continues until the eleventh year of Zedekiah in 587 BCE (cf.
Jer 39:2). Namely, Jeremiah’s life and ministry in the book cover the time of
the reform of king Josiah, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587, and beyond.
But the theory of composition of the book of Jeremiah has evinced a growing
possibility of a long-duration editorial process by reorganising and expanding
the prototype of Jeremiah. From the description of Jeremiah’s first two scrolls
in chap 36, interpreters have in general agreed on the fact that Jeremiah un
derwent extensive editions until the Persian period, although they have sug
gested different modes of redaction. Like Isaiah and Ezekiel, the book of
Jeremiah has been regarded as “an anthology of anthologies” (Craigie) or as
“a book of books” (Lundbom), rather than as “a single book”: for example,
see references in 25:1-14; 30:1-2; 46:1.82 Moreover, the diversity of genres
81 Joachim Schaper, “On Writing and Reciting in Jeremiah 36,” in Prophecy in the Book
o f Jeremiah, ed. Hans M. Barstad and Reinhard G. Kratz, BZAW 388 (Berlin; New York:
de Gruyter, 2009), 137-47.
82 Peter C. Craigie, Page H. Kelley, and Joel F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25, WBC 26
(Dallas: Word Books, 1991), xxxii.
such as “poetic oracles”, “biographical narrative”, “discourses”, and “histori
cal appendix”, and the change of the abrupt literary styles have led scholars to
suppose that there were later redactors.83
In such a possibility of a long-term redaction, it is widely accepted that
there was the earliest scroll of the prophet Jeremiah - possibly, Jer 1-6 about
the first scroll and 7-10 about the second scroll - although it is impossible to
delimit its core extent from later material, and that this prototype might be
known to the Israelite community.84 The earliest part which was written down,
after Jeremiah delivered it in public, would probably go though additions and
editions by Baruch and later anonymous editors (cf. Jer 32); in particular, part
of the biographical accounts about Jeremiah. Then, later editors as Deuter-
onomists may have reconstructed the poetic and narrative of Jeremiah, adding
new portions to it (e.g., Jer 52). Winfried Thiel argues that Jeremiah 1-45
was once redacted by “a Deuteronomistic book of Jeremiah” around 550 BCE
(excluding foreign nation oracles in Jer 46-51).85*The adherents to support
the hypothesis of deuteronomistic edition have developed Thiel’s theory with
o/:
challenging alternatives. For instance, Rainer Albertz modifies Thiel’s the

ory and divides deuteronomistic redactions into two major stages: (1) several
deuteronomistic redactions in the exilic period (587-520 BCE); (2) the post-
deuteronomistic additions in the post-exilic period (5th- 3th BCE).87 Finally, it
should be noticed that there are two different ancient versions of the book of
Jeremiah; Greek LXX and the MT. The Septuagint version of Jeremiah is
one-eighth shorter than the Hebrew MT - they are different in the arrange
ment of 26-45 and 46-51 - so that the Greek version has been accepted as
being older than the MT, because of its longer passages.88 This probably pre
83
' Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature o j the Sixth Century
B.C.E., SBL 3 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 304.
84 e.g., see Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 16-20.
Of
See Albertz, Israel in Exile, 304. Winfried Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion
von Jeremia 1-25, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 41
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973); Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von
Jeremia 26-45, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 52
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981).
Holladay, Jeremiah 2; Hermann-Josef Stipp, “Probleme des redaktionsgeschicht-
lichen Modells der Entstehung des Jeremiabuches,” in Jeremia und die “deuterono
mistische Bewegung,” ed. Walter Gross, Bonner biblische Beitrage Bd. 98 (Weinheim:
Beltz Athenaum, 1995), 225-62.
87 Albertz, Israel in Exile, 311. For the post-deuteronomistic addition, see Erhard Ger-
stenberger, Israel in the Persian Period: The Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. (Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 327-37.
go
David M. Carr, An Introduction to the Old Testament: Sacred Texts and Imperial
Contexts o f the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 160-1. Albertz, Israel in
Exile, 312, however, claims that “since the two textual traditions did not diverge until the
sents the existence of at least two different revisions that were rewritten and
restructured by different editors. Therefore, from this history of the growth of
Jeremiah, it would be reasonable to suppose that the present form of Jeremiah
was to a great extent different from the authoritative prototype of Jeremiah’s
scrolls. Namely, if the early part of Jeremiah has been compiled by the work
of the later editors who was strongly influenced by deuteronomistic texts, the
context of the large scale of Jeremiah would be more likely to go back to the
later theological reflections than to the earliest part spoken/written by the
prophet.
With theories about the compositional history of Jeremiah, the authenticity
of the narrative in Jer 36 has been called into question. Scholars have used
this chapter to explain the origin of the book of Jeremiah and to determine the
extent of two scrolls which might be written by Baruch (Dhum, Weiser, and
Holland).89 In particular, although the book of Jeremiah gives significant
references to Baruch (Jer 32, 43, and 45), Baruch has been regarded as a
fictional figure developed in the later period. For instance, Robert Carroll
regards Baruch as “a deuteronomistic creation in order to carry certain ele
ments in the tradition”.90 He argues that Jeremiah’s writing process with Ba
ruch is “part of a symbolic act” and concludes that “the thesis that 36 repre
sents the taking over of the tradition by the Deuteronomistic scribal school
cannot be ruled out altogether”.91*Ernest W. Nicholson likewise argues that
“it is a mistake to interpret it merely as biographical” and the literary purpose
of this narrative is “theological”, and that this “was composed by a Deuter-
onomic author”. On the contrary, other scholars have advocated its historic
ity. William Holladay says that “the presumed Deuteronomistic phrases in
this chapter are clearly part of Jeremiah’s diction”. Jack Lundbom says that
“the chapter is filled with precise times and locations, numerous names and
patronyms, and other circumstantial details that only an eyewitness or some
one having spoken to an eyewitness could report”.94 Gerald Keown also ar
fourth or third century, the LXX does not lead us directly to the ‘original’ text in any
case”.
89 Refer to Gerald L. Keown, Pamela J. Scalise, and Thomas G. Smothers, Jeremiah
26-52, WBC 27 (Dallas: Word Books, 1995), 202.
90 Robert P. Carroll, From Chaos to Covenant: Prophecy in the Book o f Jeremiah (New
York: Crossroad, 1981), 151.
91 Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary, OTL (London: SCM, 1986), 665-6.
Q9
Ernest W. Nicholson, ed., The Book o f the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 26-52 (Lon
don: Cambridge UP, 1975), 104.
Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 253.
94 Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36: A New Translation with Introduction and Com
mentary, AB 21B (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 584.
gues that this chapter “gives Baruch a major role and should not be passed
over too quickly”.95
Considering the debate of the historicity of Jer 36, we should not readily
reject the existence of Baruch as a royal scribe. Nevertheless, this story
should not be exclusively identified as an account of a series of historical
events relating to Jeremiah and Baruch. As Carroll mentioned, Yahweh in Jer
36:2, 28 does not command Jeremiah to appoint Baruch to be an official
writer for the prophetic oracle. Then, all the questions come up. Why did the
prophet not interpret the divine order literally? Why did the scribe add some
thing into the original version of prophecy? The narrative in Jer 36 frequently
has been compared with 2 Kgs 22:3-23:24 that deals with the finding of the
book of Law in the temple (2 Kgs 22:8), in that both passages express the
unexpected publication of unknown or unwritten materials to the nation and
to the king. Charles Isbell gives literary links between these two materials
and concludes that the author of Jer 36 had “a literary document chronicling
the events” stated in Kgs 22-23 and that he “would design his own descrip
tion of the reaction of King Jehoiakim to portray such an obvious contrast to
King Josaiah”.96978While he rather seems to jump to a hasty decision, Isbell’s
analysis shows possible clues that Jer 36 is a well-structured account by a
deuteronomistic editor. But, neither does this mean that all the editions
were done by a circle of deuteronomists nor that all the redactors were exclu
sively full of the theology of the Deuteronomistic history. What we need to
notice is that this may well affirm that the author of Jer 36 could have an
individual theological concern of Yahweh’s judgment of Judah and of poten
tial forgiveness.
More interestingly, it is likely that Baruch’s role in Jeremiah’s dictation
could provide important hints about the activity of scribes, apart from the
issue of its authenticity. For instance, Van der Toorn maintains that the
narrative in Jer 36 “has been designed as proof of the authenticity of an early
scroll of Jeremiah oracles”.99 He applies three observations concerning pro
ducing the prophetic text in Jer 36 to a general model into which prophetic
95 Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52, 202.

96 Charles D. Isbell, “2 Kings 22:3-23:24 and Jeremiah 36: A Stylistic Comparison,”
J S O T 8 (1978): 43.
97 Cf. Carroll says: “Such structured accounts are literary and theological constructs
rather than eyewitness reports of historical events. The roots o f the creation of the figure of
Baruch are to be found in the Jeremiah tradition (as are those o f Jeremiah), but that figure
develops considerably in later literature” . Carroll, Jeremiah, 45.
98 John A. Dearman, “On Writing and Reciting in Jeremiah 36,” JBL 109 (1990): 403-
4.
books emerged.100 In other words, Baruch “represents a larger community of
followers and sympathizers” of the prophet, “many of whom were scribes by
profession” (36:26; 36:32; 43:2-3).101 He doubts that Baruch wrote the ora
cles that the prophet delivered - “over a period of some twenty years” (Jer
36:2) - and holds that “prophets were not in the habit of writing their mes
sages”, nor “they were accustomed to dictating them to others”.102103Then, van
der Toorn argues that “his scribal education had trained his powers of memo
rization, and it is quite possible that for much of what he wrote he could con
sult his own memory” and that “it was part of a group culture in which the
acts and oracles of Jeremiah were an important topic of conversation and
discussion”. Finally, he says that the fact that the second scroll is written
up with many supplementary words (36:32), implies that “the legitimizing
narrative of Jer 36:27-32 is a witness to the textual growth of the Jeremiah
tradition”.104
Many points van der Toorn suggests are more or less convincing, and if we
admit this approach, the narrative of Jeremiah and Baruch in Jer 36 may be
appreciated as reflecting the characteristics of the scribal activities such as
“transcription, invention, and expansion”.105 This is a highly possible reading
of Jer 36, without dismissing the authenticity of the story of Jeremiah’s dicta
tion. If scribes were the literati knowing authoritative sources of the tradition
of Jeremiah and involving the production of the book of Jeremiah, this story
of the description of scribal practice is most likely mirroring how scribes
function in manufacturing biblical literature.
C. Education, Textuality, and Enculturation
In this argument of scribes, furthermore, one may find the substantial notion
of scribal culture in which the literate experts are educated and enculturated
and in which they produced and disseminated texts by utilising and reflecting
a wide range of cultural memory in their own time. Namely, “scribal culture”
is not only about working as a “scribe”, but also about having the intellectual
100 (1) The composer “is a professional scribe from the entourage of the prophet”; (2)
the oracles “are the written recollections o f oral performance of the prophet”; (3) the w rit
ten collection “that survives is not the original scroll but a rewritten one to which many
things have been added”. See ibid., 184-5.
101 Ibid., 185.
102 Ibid., 186.
103 “The oral tradition that Jer 36:2 might imply does not exceed twenty years.” See
ibid., 186.
104 Ib id , 187.
105 Ib id , 188.
capacity and practising them for the purpose of general education. For this, I
will present two researches raised by David Carr and Karel van der Toorn.
I. D a v id C a rr
Carr in W ritin g on th e T a b le t o f th e H e a r t , citing Susan Niditch’s critique of

documentary hypothesis using literary sources (J, E, D, P), challenges redac-
tional theories about the textual production and transmission of biblical books,
and then argues that the Hebrew Bible has been formed in the intricate oral-
literary process, as engraving the heart of a literate elite in the educational
context where students memorized, studied, and discussed biblical materials.
The main issue in this book is to testify that “the element of visual presenta
tion of texts is but one indicator of the distinctive function of written copies
of long-duration texts like Bible”, and that “both writing and oral perform
ance fed into the process of indoctrination/education/enculturation”.1061078Con
trary to the Parry-Lord school, Carr insists that “societies with writing often
have an intricate interplay of orality and textuality, where written texts are
intensely1r\n
oral, while even exclusively oral texts are deeply affected by written
culture.” Based on this symbiosis of textuality and orality from the ancient
Near Eastern world, he asserts that “scribal recollection of early traditions
was ensured partly through teaching students to read and reproduce written
copies of the key traditions”. Furthermore, he emphasises the “cultural
memory” in a social group that “consists of a body of recollections transmit
ted in organized ways to participants in a given group, recollections of values
and views that shape each individual into a member of the group”.109 In this
broad picture, he says that the social group which used such a cultural mem
ory in this dynamic transmission and production of biblical texts belongs to a
literate community; he says that “although many elite leaders might not
achieve significant mastery of the oral-written tradition, we would still rec
ognize that the scribe/priests/teachers who stood at the top of the educational
pyramid did achieve such mastery”.110
As comparative evidence, Carr examines how literal and oral traditions in
several ancient Near Eastern cultures function in inscribing the minds on
learners and in shaping the identities of literate experts; the explorations of
education and textuality in each culture present the existence of the group of

107 Carr says that “cultures interested in preserving the integrity of the tradition can use
a variety of means to preserve it, including both different uses of writing and intense im
plementation of older means of aiding recall - formulae, rhyming, link of text to music and
movement, use of overarching themes, memory techniques, and so on.” Ibid., 7.
108 Ibid., 9.
109 Ibid., 11.
110 Ibid., 288.
the intellectual elite. He compares the educational system and textual produc
tion in other cultures with those of Israel, and concentrates on the educational
context in pre-Hellenistic Israel, confirming how a literate group used the
prototype of the Hebrew Bible for the purpose of educating young elites. He
says:
[S]uch biblical texts only joined the stream o f long-duration usage when they were used to
educate and enculturate young elites, a usage relatively consistent with later Jewish educa
tional use o f the Bible. From the earliest period of their use “as Scripture”, such
(proto)biblical texts served as authoritative reference texts for use in education of literate
elites in Israel.11112
According to Carr, both the epigraphic and textual clues from the Hebrew
Bible demonstrate in the pre-Hellenistic period the existence of professional
scribes, and the Bible having “a complex collection of texts from widely
different periods” is regarded as “a form of cultural reproduction that is in-
tensely textual”. More cautiously, he attempts to refine the model of scribal
education; while education in Judah and Israel would take place in a small-
scale environment such as in the family, rather than in the large scale envi
ronment of separate schools, he strongly maintains that such small kingdoms
like Israel and Judah “did maintain a scribal-education apparatus”.113 Build
ing on this theory, he states the connections between scribal educa-
tion/textuality and biblical materials; from wisdom literature (esp. Proverbs)
to Deuteronomy/the Deuteronomistic history, prophetic books, and Torah,
Psalms, etc. As these books were used as the educational curriculum to encul
turate young elites, scribes in this framework rewrote and revised them dur
ing a long period. At this point, his view of the development of the Hebrew
Bible would be in line with the direction of my research; suggesting that
overlapping elements between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other biblical texts can
be best understood in the model of scribal writing and that such a process of
textuality gives a reason to alert the traditional theory of literary reference.
He says:
[I]t is increasingly clear how much of Israelite literature is likewise “intertextual.” But it is
not intertextual in the sense that early Israelite authors were constantly engaged in a proc
ess of visually consulting, citing, and interpreting separate written texts. ... The literature
bears clear marks of this process, and these marks have provided the basis for theories such
as the documentary hypothesis for the creation of the Pentateuch or the multiple authorship
of books like Isaiah. Yet such “sources” generally were not incorporated in written form,
nor did editors juggle multiple copies of manuscripts in the process of producing their
conflated text. It is possible that a scribe may have worked with a given manuscript on
occasion. ... Nevertheless, well-educated scribes often could write out a verbatim, memo
111 Ibid., 112.

112 Ib id , 112.
1,3 Ib id , 115.
rized form of an older authoritative text, so faithfully reproducing it that its borders and
clashes with other material would still be visible in the final product.114
Although scribes might consult earlier written sources, the scribal skills
learned by verbatim memorization and recitation “having multiple texts ‘in
scribes on [his or her] heart’” , 115 do not necessitate visual consultation of
other copies, and scribes “would have drawn on their verbatim memory of
other texts” in alluding to, quoting, and echoing them .116178Carr extensively
outlines several examples of how biblical literature as educational and encul-
turational texts emerged in the history of Israel over several centuries. Con
cerning the time of writing of the major form in the Pentateuch, he proposes
“the Davidic-Solomonic period”, “as the time of emergence of city-state
structures” and there would be “literate bureaucrats from pre-Israelite Jerusa-
lem”. Nevertheless, he says that “there is no indication of special efforts
toward stabilizing the tradition”, and concludes that “the exilic period was
hardly the time for a radical expansion of Israel literacy”, and that “any ex
pansion in percentage of literacy probably came more from the postexilic
redefinition”, “of what constituted as “Israelite” rather than major increases
in access to literate education”.119120
II. K a r e l va n d e r T oorn
Other research has been done by Karel van der Toorn who, in his book,
S c r ib a l C u ltu r e a n d th e M a k in g o f th e H e b r e w B ib le , more directly focuses
on the writing activity of the literate elites in the Second Temple period.
Similar to Carr’s view, he argues that the Hebrew Bible has been formed by
the writing group of the professional scribal elite; providing internal, external,
and comparative evidence of Hebrew scribal activity. He notices that
114 Ibid., 159.

115 Ibid., 160.
116 Ibid., 162.
117 e.g., “the song of Deborah, the emergence o f an early Israelite corpus of royal and
Zion Psalms, the development of early collections of poems like the often-cited book of
Yashar (Josh 10:12-13; 2 Sam 1:18)”, “parts of Proverbs”, “early forms of the creation-
flood narratives and narratives centering on figures like Jacob, Moses, and David.” Ibid.,
163.
118 Ibid., 164.
119 Ibid., 172-3. Even Carr supposes that “the Mosaic Torah traditions at Qumran testify
to an ongoing, highly dynamic process of oral-written use and transmission of the Torah” .
Ibid., 171.
120 Internal evidence is “associated with the redaction criticism of the Bible: editorial
expansions, scribal annotations, seams and incongruities in the text, and the like”. External
evidence is related to extrabiblical material like “epigraphic discoveries”, “the accounts of
later writers” like Josephus, evidence in the Qumran scrolls, Septuagint, and Apocrypha.
scribal culture in Mesopotamia and Egypt indicates that scribes, whose of
fices were mostly hereditary, were scholars working in temple institutes
(“workshop” and “library”) and they possessed expertise in their own ar
eas.12112In the same way, scribes in Israel were wise men and royal officials,
secretaries, and scholars as well as composers of literature and possibly
worked in the temple as the centre of literacy rather than in the royal pal-
____122
ace.
In particular, van der Toorn deals in Chapter 4 with the role of scribes in
the production of biblical literature and proposes six techniques in which
scribes revised and made biblical books: (1) “transcription of oral lore”; (2)
“invention of a new text”; (3) “compilation of existing lore”; (4) “expansion
of an inherited texts”; (5) “adaptation of an existing text for a new audience”;
(6) “integration of individual documents into a more comprehensive composi
tion”.123 However, this approach of scribal skills in producing texts seems to
presuppose that Hebrew scribes could have access to written and separate
sources from a sort of central archive like a temple library. He presents an
example of the scribal mode of integrating literary sources; e.g., the story of
N o a h a n d th e F lo o d in Gen 6-9 integrates “narratives from a Yahwistic
document (J) and a priestly source (P)”.124 In this point, van der Toorn’s opin
ion of scribal activity is to some degree different from that of Niditch and
Carr saying that although scribes might use those visual copies and might
carry out separate scrolls for adding new materials to their training curricu
lum, they were more likely to produce them from the internalised memory of
earlier oral-written texts.1251267
In order to demonstrate scribal culture in biblical materials, van der Toorn
looks at the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Jeremiah to reflect theo-
logical concerns of the scribes during the centuries. He holds that Deuter
onomy is “the end product of more than 200 years of scribal activity” and
went through four major revisions/editions. In the case of the prophetic
books, there would exist the earliest collections (in Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah)
in the pre-exilic period; with extra-biblical evidence like “the book of Balaam
discovered in 1967 at Deir Alla”.128 However, he insists that “their purpose in
Comparative evidence is derived from the date on the scribal culture which appeared in the
ancient Near Eastern texts, van der Toorn, Scribal, 1-8.
121 Ib id , 52-71.
122 Ib id , 75-108.
123 Ib id , 110.
124 Ib id , 140.
125 See Carr, Tablet, 159-60; Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Is
raelite Literature (London: SPCK, 1997), 113.
126 van der Toorn, Scribal, 143-204.
127 Ib id , 144.
128 Ib id , 175.
writing” “was confined to communicating a message to their contemporaries”,
but that the prophetic books “were composed for an audience that would
consult them after the prophets had gone”.129
The nature of scribal activity which van der Toorn presents is similar to
Carr’s view, in that both explain the textuality and production of biblical
literature in the framework of professional training and an educational system,
and highlight the long cumulative process of writing texts. The cultural and
shared memory transmitted and trained by the Persian literati about the his
tory of Israel, narratives, instructions, and oracles functions in reproducing
and producing biblical texts. Carr’s view, however, is more distinguished
by highlighting the dynamic interplay between “textuality”, “education” and
“enculturation” than that of van der Toorn. Such an emphasis not only on the
function of a scribal class in making literature, but also on the idea of encul
turation, that scribal education cultivates the hearts/minds of learners, in
creasingly may allow us to regard biblical literature as cultural texts of the
literati.
D. Conclusion
What I have discussed is that scribes were possibly the literati of oral-written
texts who were equipped to transmit and produce literature. Although many
have mentioned the professional group of scribes employed around the Jeru
salem temple or palace, scribalism in the Second Temple period does not
have to be only limited to the governmental power. This picture of scribal
culture considerably corresponds to scribal activity and textuality in Egyptian
and Mesopotamian culture; though there are differences between them. It is
also important to recognise that since Jews in the fifth century BCE were
already located in Egypt and Babylon, the great centres of the learned literati
would be outside Israel. Furthermore, one could argue that because of this
rarity of textual evidence of scribal activity, the biblical literature does not
belong to scribes. Nonetheless, it should be stressed that when the biblical
text speaks of “to write” and “to read” by someone, the interpretation of those
records calls for a great deal of attention. First, literacy in Israel and Judah*130
Ibid., 182.
130 For instance, Ehud Ben Zvi discusses prophetic memories in “Persian period
Jerusalem-centered literati”. He says that Deuteronomic and prophetic collections served
“as tools for didactic instruction and socialization among the literati who produced, read,
and reread them, and likely - through the intermediation o f these literati - for other groups
in Yehud as well” and that “these collections could serve such a role because reading these
collections brought to the present of their rereading communities memories of the past and
of the characters that populated it”. See Ben Zvi, “Prophetic Memories in the Deuterono-
mistic Historical and the Prophetic Collections of Books,” 75.
was generally limited to a small literate group and was not widespread until
the Hellenistic period. Secondly, although biblical texts like Jer 36 are partly
dependent on historical events and figures, it is quite possible to confirm the
existence of scribes as scriptural writers from the narrative.
Consequently, scribal culture in writing texts and in educating the next
generation could be appreciated as diversified traditions, behaviour patterns,
and values performed by the literati. As Carr highlighted, the scribal practice
in collecting and producing texts was developed in the dynamic process of
textuality and enculturation. Nevertheless, the view of the scribal culture
should be no reason to overlook the primeval context before the formation of
a biblical book. This study is not intended to exclude the fact that the biblical
texts existed in earlier forms whether oral or written texts, before scribes
manufactured the present form of biblical materials; i.e., the early form of the
Deuteronomistic history, the early prophetic oracle (e.g., Hosea, Amos, Mi-
cah, Zephaniah, Nahum, and Jeremiah), the royal Psalms, the early form of
wisdom corpus (Proverbs collections, the prose-tale of Job, part of Ecclesias
tes), etc. However, what I am concerned with is how scribes in their “cultural
memory” integrated them in a new context for their contemporises, recre
ated them with their theological agenda, and expanded them with new materi
als. If a biblical literature named as a book may not have been the product of
a single author, but necessarily may have undergone extensive modifications
and revisions over many centuries, scribes in making biblical literature could
utilise their knowledge of what they had read, learned, studied, and memo
rised from their authoritative collections. In this respect, what I treat here has
not been related to the context of the prototype in the earlier materials, but to
the broad context which the literati shared and entertained.
E. Further Discussion: Sages, Prophets, and Scribal Culture
Much of what has been discussed in terms of scribal culture as the principal
explanation of making biblical literature has been accepted among a few
scholars. Nonetheless, a large number of interpreters have kept a traditional
approach, so that this has resulted in many debates in looking at the context
behind biblical literature. If this is so, what has prevented them from realising
the significance of scribal culture? Why has the notion of scribal culture not
been widely adopted?
In discussions of the cultural background of the Hebrew Bible, scholars
used to suggest literary traditions inherited in a priestly, a prophetic, and a
wisdom context. Related to our concern in Job and Deutero-Isaiah, both
“wisdom” and “prophecy” have become key factors in defining each literary*
131
I use this term from Carr, Tablet, 10.
characteristic. Until now, it has been generally accepted that “wisdom” lays
out a way of life or refers to all sorts of skills, while “prophecy” refers to the
1TO
divine message “received and transmitted by the prophet” to recipients.
Doubtless, it has been assumed that each literary tradition has different
vocabularies, forms, styles, and themes, because each was written by
different social groups. The wisdom tradition is considered as a literary
genre/form inherited by the group of sages (or “wise men”) and the prophetic
tradition is demonstrated as the conventional literary style used by prophets
or the followers of prophetic teachings. So, understanding the wisdom and
prophetic context has been a conventional method of explaining the
intellectual setting in wisdom and prophetic books. Such a notion about these
literary traditions divided by seperate social groups has made it difficult to
adopt the social background of scribes. Although this does not mean that this
conventional approach of two literary traditions is wholly unnecessary, the
long-standing notion has been challenged in recent researches, and there are
many reasons for putting more emphasis on the contribution of scribal culture,
rather than on the wisdom and prophetic tradition.
I. S a g e s a s B ib lic a l W riters
The existence of the sages as a professional class in Israelite/Judean society

has been challenged, and the view that a sage group was potentially involved
with writing activities of the wisdom corpus may be questionable. It has often
been supposed that the author of Job was a sage, an educated graduate of an
exiled community. Leo Perdue maintains that Job and his three friends were
sages deeply rooted in the wisdom tradition and that “the book appears to be
the composition of a sage”.132133 In this way, scholars have maintained that a
group of “wise men” represented a professional social group in the palace or
temple trained in a wisdom school. Moreover, it has been noted that many
similarities between prophetic texts and the wisdom corpus arise out of the
social activity of the sage group, and that prophets might be in contact with a
group of sages, or might be well acquainted with the classical teaching in the
“wisdom circle”. 134 Johannes Fichtner claims that the group of sages was
associated with the group of royal consultants, and that even the prophet
132 See Martin A. Shields, “Wisdom and Prophecy,” ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter
Enns, DOTWPW (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008), 876-7.
133 Perdue, Wisdom Literature, 90-1; Sword, 140, 147; Also see Samuel L. Terrien,
“Job as a Sage,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. John G. Gammie and
Leo G. Perdue (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 242.
134 This is results of Lindblom’s investigation on this issue; Johannes Lindblom, “W is
dom in the Old Testament Prophets,” in Wisdom in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed.
Martin Noth and David W. Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 192-204; Fichtner, “Isaiah”;
Whedbee, Isaiah.
t'lZ
Isaiah originally was one of the sages. William McKane, furthermore, as
serts that there were two groups derived from an idea suggested by the two
Hebrew words, H2V and “ITT from 2 Sam 16:23; the secular group of sages
who had “counsel” and the prophetic group who sought advice from “the
word of God”. From the definition of “old wisdom”, he argues that there
was an assault on secular sages in the royal court from a prophetic group like
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (Isa 40:12-17, 28-31; 46:10-11);135*137138the Hebrew
words, □'’QDn in Isa 44:25 and “[HEDri in 47:10, seem to become important
indicators to support this assertion.
Examining all the claims and examples about the existence of sages as a
professional social group is beyond the scope of this study. But, there are
several reasons to make us question this supposition. Opposition to this
traditional view, for instance, was advanced by R. N. Whybray. He examines
passages including words DDn or D'QDn and other cognate terms in the
Hebrew Bible which are likely supposed to denote a designated professional
class of “the wise man”. The analysis is given to the relation to three official
professions of state; “the counsellor” of kings, “the teacher”, and “the author”
of “wisdom literature”. He notices that the existence of the professional class
of wise men in any designation is improbable, though it is not totally
impossible. Stuart Weeks similarly claims that the term “wise men” “is never
used as a technical term for a group of Israelites, and although ‘wise’ is found
on a number of occasions in association with foreign royal officials or coun-
I
sellors, no official Israelite counsellor was ever explicitly called ‘wise’”.
To some interpreters, this view might have been far from satisfactory, be
cause we can observe a definite example from Jer 18:8 which is likely to
signify a class of sages alongside priests and prophets:
-m i DDnn mm iron min man-Kb ^ nnwnn im rrb y nnwmi irib nnN'i
mrrrbrrbN nrrwprbNi pnPbn iron irf? anjn
Then they said: “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for law shall not perish
from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor oracle from the prophet. Com and let us
strike him with the tongue, and let us not listen carefully to all his words.” (Jer 18:18)
For instance, Crenshaw sees “an allusion to three classes of leaders in ancient
Israel” from Jer 18:8 and supports that from the derivatives of the Hebrew
word DDfl, there was a professional leadership of sages in Israel, aside from
135 Fichtner claims the “dual-orientation” o f Isaiah that the prophet Isaiah belonged to a
class of the wise, but after the divine calling he turned against the human wisdom of the
political class and assailed it. See Fichtner, “Isaiah,” 436.
1
See chapters 3-5; William McKane, Prophets and Wise Men (London: Trinity,
1984).
137 Ib id , 48-54.
138 Weeks, Early, 90.
1OQ
highly-trained scribes. However, designating sages as a social class from

Jer 18:18 could be highly problematic. Jer 18:18 is located between two liter
ary units in which Yahweh challenges Judah who had misbehaved (vv. 13-17)
and Jeremiah pleads with Yahweh to punish the prophet’s enemies and their
families (vv. 19-23). However, neither unit seems to fit in with the middle
statement in v. 18, though this verse could be included in the tradition of
Jeremiah. In v. 18:18a, “they” possibly mean “people” referring to residents
of Judah in v. 11-12, rather than Jeremiah’s adversaries in v. 19 or the triad
(“the priest”, “the wise”, “the prophet”) in v. 18.139140 They “the Judean” here
are making a scheme in opposition to Jeremiah. The difficult part is the inter
pretation of the subordinate clause with conjunction 'D. The most probable
interpretation is that Jeremiah is attacked and threatened by the Judean people
saying that law, counsel, and oracle shall not cease, because Jeremiah has
condemned the official and religious groups (priests, wise men, and prophets)
of the nation in his early prophetic messages; king, officials, priests, prophets,
and wise men have been under accusation in Jer 4:9 and 8:9.141
Then, from this approach, is it possible to verify that Jeremiah is attacked
by the professional class of “wise men”? If this expression denying the cessa
tion of the law (rmn) from the priest (fro), of the counsel (H^y) from the
wise (nnn), and of the word (“OT) from the prophet (frÛ) is intended to
remark the professional class of “wise men”, this should be applied to other
similar expressions. A similar pattern is found in Ezek 7:26 - “though they
seek a vision from the prophet, the law perishes from the priest, and counsel
from the elders” - but, “wise men” in connection with “counsel” in Jer 18:18
appears as being replaced by “elders” (D73pT).142 Thus, biblical texts concern
ing this threefold expression do not give consistent evidence to support the
social class of “wise men”.143 Interpreters at this point have often argued that
this threefold phrase said in opposition to Jeremiah is most likely to be a
well-known saying to be quoted, rather than refer to three kinds of social
classes.144
139 James L. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2010), 24-5. Furthermore, there is the strong tendency for
Crenshaw to think of sages as “educators” or “teachers” and to see the works of scribes as
fundamentally educational; when he speaks about a sage group, he consistently thinks
more of biblical writers. James L. Crenshaw, Education in Ancient Israel: Across the
Deadening Silence, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1998).
140 Carroll, Jeremiah, 378.
141 Roger N. Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament, BZAW 135
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974), 25-6.
142 An example from ibid., 29.
143 Also refer to Weeks, Early, 87-90.
144 Whybray says: “The conspirators in Jer 18:18 reflect this attitude of contempt, and
quote the saying to persuade themselves that they have nothing to fear from Jeremiah
What is more, Jer 18:18 has been treated as a later addition introducing the
next unit of lament (vv. 19-23).145 If this verse echoes a later idea about three
social classes, we might read it in the post-exilic situation as well as in the
late pre-exilic condition. Carroll in this threefold statement views Jeremiah
“as a solitary figure standing for the divine word in opposition to the social
structures which constituted the normal media of teaching authority in the
community”, and concludes that “v. 18 should be read as a fragment of strug
gle between different parties and opposing ideologies of a later period” (cf.
23:9-12). 146 Apart from Carroll’s reading in the post-exilic setting, it is
likely that the adversaries’ schemes in this verse portray the situation after
king Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah’s first scroll,147 so that there might be a pro
fessional class of sages in a late pre-exilic period. Nevertheless, as Carr ar
gues, no firm evidence for this appears from other biblical texts “in the peri
ods preceding or following the late pre-exilic”.148 Accordingly, treating “wise
men” as a professional class, alongside prophets and priests in the early his
tory of Israel and in the post-exilic period would be less persuasive.
Besides, there is little evidence to support the claim that the professional
class of wise men produced wisdom literature. Whybray searches all the rele
vant passages which are associated with “wise men” denoting a specific
group of authors; the plural form with a definite article (Exod 36:4; 2 Chr 2:6;
Eccl 9:1), with the suffix (Gen 41:8; Esth 6:13; Isa 19:12; Jer 50:35; 51:57;
Ezra 27:8, 9; 2 Chr 2:13; Isa 29:14),other cases which cannot decide whether
it is noun or adjective (Exod 7:11; Esth 1:13; Eccl 9:11; Prov 24:23).149 But,
he does not find any internal evidence in the Hebrew Bible to consider sages
as a distinct writing group of biblical books like wisdom corpus; saying that
the link between “wise men” and wisdom literature (Prov 1:6; 22:17; Job
15:17-19) does not mean that they were “professional authors or teachers”.150
Disproving such an assumption, he maintains that the wisdom corpus was
composed in an intellectual tradition transmitted by an educated and
words.” Whybray, Intellectual, 30. Also see Craigie, Kelley, and Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25,
253.
145 Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Com
mentary, AB 21A (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 824; Carroll, Jeremiah, 378-9. On the
contrary, Craigie, Kelley, and Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25, 252.
146 Carroll, Jeremiah, 378-9.
147 William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book o f the Prophet
Jeremiah Chapters 1-25, ed. Paul D. Hanson, Hermeneia - A Critical and Historical
Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 530.
148
David M. Carr, The Formation o f the Hebrew Bible a New Reconstruction (New
York: Oxford UP, 2011), 406.
149 Whybray, Intellectual, 48-54.
150 Ibid., 53-4.
intellectual society.1511523Again, one may claim that the wisdom corpus was
written by sages from the linguistic connection between “wise men” and
“counsel” (H^P) in Jer 18:18. However, another reference found in Jer 8:8
associates “wise men” with “the law of Yahweh” (HUY m in ), which is
linked with “priests” in Jer 18:18. This evinces that the link between “wise
men” and “counsel” is not so consistent that we can designate a group of
sages to composing the wisdom books. The simple use of the noun DDn or
nQDn therefore would not prove the existence of a professional class of “wise
men” in Israel, nor would present sages as writers of a wisdom corpus.
II. P r o p h e ts a s B ib lic a l W riters
It is certain in Israelite history that there were writing “prophets”, plausibly a

class of prophets as biblical writers, and followers of prophetic teaching who
supposedly preserved and transmitted prophetic tradition. Crenshaw main
tains that there were self-sustaining disciples of classical prophets who could
transmit prophetic oracles to future generations, just as the group of “wise
men” plays an important role in preserving and transmitting the wisdom cor-
pus. A prophetic group which would make the transcription of prophetic
oracles and preserve them could probably be treated as a social context in
prophetic literature. Differing from the critique of a professional class of
“wise men”, we may postulate the existence of a prophetic group in and after
the monarchy.
However, the traditional view that prophets were writers of prophetic
books has increasingly been challenged. There are difficulties in pinning
down the precise social setting of given prophetic books, in that as scholars
argue, there were textual redactions and expansions from earlier prophetic
collections.154 There seems to have been confusion in recognising the differ
ence between the social setting which prophetic books present at face value
151 Ibid., 54, 70. On the contrary, Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, “The Sage in the Pro
phetic Literature,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. John G. Gammie
and Leo G. Perdue (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 295-306 holds the position of
McKane.
152 Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 530.
153 See James L. Crenshaw, “Transmitting Prophecy across Generations,” in Writings
and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and M i
chael H. Floyd, SBLSS 10 (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 31-44.
154 Davies disagrees with a G unkefs model that considers “prophecy” as the result of
transcriptions of prophetic oracles. See Philip R. Davies, “ ‘Pen o f Iron, Point of Diamond’
(Jer 17:1): Prophecy as Writing,” in Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near
Eastern Prophecy, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Michael H. Floyd, SBLSS 10 (Atlanta: SBL,
2000), 70-1. Gunkel’s model continues in John Van Seters, “Oral Patterns or Literary
Conventions in Biblical Narrative,” Semeia 5 (1976): 139-54; Michael H. Floyd, “Proph
ecy and Writing in Habakkuk 2,1-5,” ZAW 105 (1994): 462-81.
and the later context in which prophetic collections were actually edited and
reproduced. Recent scholarship is more inclined to accept as true that the
notion of “prophetic message” and “prophecy” lies at the root of the emerg
ing literate group in the Persian period.155 Of course, it would be valid to say
that there were some writing prophets (Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel) who
had the intellectual ability to read and write texts, and that the prophetic ora
cles were recorded by them or their guild. Nonetheless, that does not always
mean that prophets were writers of biblical prophetic books or were involved
in making a prophetic literature. We cannot go back to all the details of this
discussion about who the writers of prophetic texts were. Simply put, in dis
cussion about the nature of prophecy and prophets, the view of the classical
“prophets” of Israel has been changed, and historical figures of prophetic
books should certainly be distinguished from real writers of prophetic litera
ture. Many regard prophetic literature as a literary phenomenon and prophets
as created and constructed figures in a later period, probably, not earlier than
the Persian period.1561578Davies, for instance, argues that prophetic oracles were
possibly edited
1 "7
c
with historical narratives and revised in the national context
of Israel. He also argues that the original prophetic oracles delivered and
sent to kings were preserved in archives of temple or palace (2 Chr 21:12)
and then those collections were filed and copied under the name of the same
individual or of an intermediary. To the question “who were the writers of
prophetic literature indicated in the present form”, he conclusively says that
they were scribes;
I have suggested, finally, that the emergence of the notion o f “prophecy” as a social and
theological institution (a series of men sent by God to remind his people of their covenant
obligations and warn them of impending consequences) was a result of scribal activity in
both the Deuteronomistic history and some of the prophetic scrolls (e.g., Zechariah and
Amos).159
It would be more realistic to consider that the original prophetic scrolls in the
process of textuality were contextualized into the historiographical sense and
155 See Erhard Gerstenberger, “Persian-Empire Spirituality and the Genesis of Prophetic
Books,” in The Production o f Prophecy: Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Ye h ud,
ed. Diana V. Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi, BibleWorld (London: Equinox, 2009), 111 -30;
Gerstenberger, Persian.
156 See Robert R. Wilson, “Current Issues in the Study of Old Testament Prophecy,” in
Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor o f Herbert B. Huff-
mon, ed. John Kaltner and Louis Stulman, JSOT (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004),
39-41.
157 See Davies, “Pen.”
158 See ibid., 71-5.
159 See ibid., 80; also, refer to Philip R. Davies, “The Audiences of Prophetic Scrolls:
Some Suggestions,” in Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor o f Gene M. Tucker, ed.
Stephen B. Reid, JSOT 229 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 48-62.
were fitted into the “prophetic literature” in the Second Temple period.160
Again, it would be hard to find the comprehensive evidence about the scribal
practice in prophetic literature. Nonetheless, as seen in the compositional
process of Jeremiah, if most prophetic books had gone through the redac-
tional process for centuries and their later authors had been the well-educated
literates who possessed a high level of textual knowledge, those editors of
prophetic books might be described as scribes.
III. F o r m C ritic ism a n d S c r ib a l C u ltu re
Let us take one more step in pointing out the weakness of understanding that
sages and prophets were two separate groups. From where does the concep
tion originate? Why does the majority still hold the long-standing view of two
separate traditions? That there should be social contexts for different types of
compositions that distinct professional groups as biblical authors produced is
the foremost principle of form criticism. According to Hermann Gunkel,
different genres are necessarily related to specific groups:
Rather, literature was an integral part of the people’s daily life, and must be understood in
this context. Thus, in order to understand an ancient genre, one first has to inquire about its
context in the people’s life (Sitz im Volksleben): for example, a law would be cited by a
judge in order to explain a certain legal decision in court, while a victory song would be
sung by young girls at the return of the victorious army. Very frequently a particular genre
was associated with a specific social group (Stand), which ensured the purity of the genre,
such as the priests and their Torah, or the prophets and their oracles.161
Gunkel’s “genre” necessarily comes along with distinct professional figures

of ancient Israel who are involved with manufacturing biblical materials such
as priestly documents, prophetic literature, and wisdom literature. It is true
that those who adopt this theory are frequently used to describing a group of
scribes as a literate group. However, when mentioning the scribal writings,
they seem to distinguish the professional groups of priests, prophets, and
sages from the scribal group. For instance, they, by and large, isolate a group
of scribes from a group of sages and are likely to see the “scribes” not as
160 This argument that earlier forms of prophecy were reformulated in written forms has
been supported by various comparative studies with Egyptian and Babylonian prophecy.
See Ehud Ben Zvi and Michael H. Floyd, eds., Writings and Speech in Israelite and A n
cient Near Eastern Prophecy, SBLSS 10 (Atlanta: SBL, 2000).
1A1
The original version was first published in 1906 and reprinted in 1925 and 1963. See
Hermann Gunkel, Die Israelitische Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-
schaft, 1963). The English translation offered here is quoted from “The Literature of An
cient Israel by Hermann Gunkel: Introduced and Translated by Armin Siedlecki,” in Relat
ing to the Text Interdisciplinary and Form-Critical Insights on the Bible, ed. Timothy J.
Sandoval et al., JSOT 384 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2003), 30.
genuine authors of the wisdom corpus, but as the official administrators,
1CO
clerks, or a subordinated group of sages. Leo Perdue notes:
The scribes and sages of Israel and Judah comprised a professional social class of intellec
tuals, composers, officials, and clerks from their origins in the monarchic period until the
emergence of Rabbinic Judaism during the early centuries of the Common Era ... As
writers, the sages also composed a number of texts that have survived as canonical and
deuterocanonical literature, including Proverbs, Job, the Wisdom Psalms, Qoheleth, Ben
Sira, and the Wisdom o f Solomon. As officials and clerks the scribes participated in the
administration of courts and temples that were central to the socio-religious lives of ancient
Israel and early Judah. ...the sages and scribes were responsible for the editing of canoni
cal and non-canonical literature and likely served as archivists preserving texts in librar-
• 163
ies.
Put differently, although biblical materials are marked as “scribal”, interpret

ers are highly likely to treat them in the intellectual background of the model
in which prophets, priests, and sages consist of different groups. Such a para
digm of three separate groups of biblical authors is influential, but this has to
be challenged.
For instance, let us consider a famous Egyptian text, the In s tr u c tio n o f
A m e n e m o p e , whose author, as the text claims, is considered as “a resident of
Akhmin named A m e n e m o p e ”. From internal evidence of formal titles and
described jobs in A m e n e m o p e , we might regard the author as a priest, a scribe,
or an overseer.16213164 However, we could normally classify it as wisdom literature
or as instruction literature by a group of “wise men”, and we usually classify
it neither as a priestly document which reflects the specialised priestly con
text nor as an overseer document which speaks of the overseer’s context. The
same distinction can be made in Israelite literature. Even if Job may be por
trayed as offering sacrifices for his children and friends prominently, we do
not call the book of Job a priestly document, nor the author a priestly writer.
In the same way, the literary features in the book appearing as “sages” does
not demonstrate that the author of the book was a sage, nor that Job was a
162 Concerning the social group of sages in ancient Israel and in the ancient world, refer
to John G. Gammie and Leo G. Perdue, eds., The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East
(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990); Perdue, Sword; Leo G. Perdue, ed., Scribes, Sages,
and Seers: The Sage in the Eastern Mediterranean World, FRLANT 219 (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008); Blenkinsopp deals with the three primary social groups
of Israel; sage, priest, and prophet. See Joseph Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet: Reli
gious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel, LAI (Louisville: Westminster John
Knox, 1995).
163 Leo G. Perdue, “ Sages, Scribes, and Seers in Israel and the Ancient Near East: An
Introduction,” in Scribes, Sages, and Seers, ed. Leo G. Perdue, FRLANT 219 (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 3.
164 James R. Black, “The Instruction of Amenemope: A Critical Edition and
Commentary Prolegomenon and Prologue” (PhD, Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin, 2002),
274-80.
sage.165 The significant point in understanding the social context is that the
designations such as “sages”, “prophets”, and “priests” are not descriptions of
the authors’ professions as presented in texts. A literate person, who was not
a Levite, would be interested in the priestly content and context, and could
have written the book of Leviticus. Even so, it would not be necessary for
him to be a priest, in order to write the priestly document. In the same way,
there is no reason why a writer should be a prophet - though there might be
prophets who could write their oracles by themselves - in order to write
specified books of a prophetic genre, and why a writer should be a sage, in
order to write texts which belong to wisdom instruction or collections of
proverbs.
However, this does not imply that the historical context of priests, prophets,
and sages, who appear in ancient Israel, should be dismissed. The approach of
form-criticism has provided us with the original setting of the biblical world
which is useful in tracing the life and thought of the Israelites. However, that
may not say that writers of wisdom books were necessarily different from
those of prophetic literature. If we accept that all the literate elite in the late
period belonged to a circle of scribes and that they were involved to a signifi
cant extent in producing biblical literature as a valid inference, there would
be no reason for us not to accept that all the biblical writers, including groups
of priests, prophets, and possibly sages, could belong to the circle of scribes.
IV . S u m m a r y
The common belief, that the wisdom and prophetic books were produced by
sages and prophets, has a limit, though it should not be totally dismissed.
Form criticism, which is influential in the development of the two separate
groups, goes in a particular direction to create the specific social setting. The
supposition is that the composition and tradition of prophetic book were
shaped by prophets, and the wisdom literature and tradition were fashioned
by sages. Different professional groups are engaged with specific literary
types, and this is what scholars generally deduce from the literary genre of
form-criticism. This, however, does not mean that there is no connection with
the historical phenomenon of “prophecy”, and there might plausibly be a
literary “wisdom” movement in the early monarchy period; although whether
there was a wisdom movement in the monarchy period cannot be easily de
termined. 166 Also, there were a significant amount of prophetic oracles in
Terrien, “Job as a Sage.”

166 Donn F. Morgan, Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions (Atlanta: Westminster
John Knox, 1981), 142-6 proposes several different kinds of the nature of “wisdom” using
the interrelationship between other literary traditions and its literary patterns: (1) the
“popular wisdom” in the form of proverbs, parables, and riddles, and the “clan/family
wisdom” concerning the law or legal practices derived in the pre-monarchical period; (2)
earlier forms which could be written by prophets who performed the act of
prophecy, while a group of sages could possibly exist in the late pre-exilic
period and might be involved in writing the earliest collections of wisdom
books. Nevertheless, both the wisdom and prophetic traditions lack some
thing to reflect the real life of ancient Israelites which the correspondent texts
describe. Even if wisdom corpus such as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of
Songs is likely to have verses attributed to King Solomon, those books are
i
not dated to the early monarchy and they are usually regarded as coming
into being in the later period. Though there are the earliest forms of prophetic
oracles, the prophetic books may have been regarded as products of the later
redactions in the Second Temple period. If what those biblical texts present
are the cumulative work of the literate experts, reflecting real-life situations
which scribes were interested in, it would be pointless to exclusively apply
what sages and prophets did and performed into wisdom and prophetic books.
F. Conclusion
We need to distinguish between the surface context, as it appears at an osten
sible level from text, and the context in which the intellectual literati read,
wrote, and studied collections of former texts across several centuries. Under
standing what scribes used and memorised in their hearts from early oral-
written sources would help us to know the origin of various interconnections
between different types/genres of biblical materials, and to see their particular
interests reflected in biblical literature. The proposed approach of scribalism
thus does not sweep away form-criticism, but makes up for its weak points,
without dismissing the existing model of sages and prophets. Coming back to
our concern of Job and Deutero-Isaiah, because the final form of Job and
Deutero-Isaiah are generally dated to approximately the same period, the
Persian period - although we cannot point to a specific date for this - it
seems reasonable to suppose that the social context which the two different
books share is the Jewish scribal culture in the Persian period.
the “clan wisdom” in the early monarchical period which is characterized by “monarchical
institutions”, including Genesis 2-3 (4-11), the “Joseph story”, the “succession narrative”,
“Solomon”s wisdom”, “Moses birth narrative”, and the “ Song of Moses” ; (3) the “pro
phetic wisdom” before and after the exilic period. He then emphasises that the Israelite
wisdom tradition, as a literary movement reflecting on the wisdom corpus of the Hebrew
Bible, was begun in the early years o f monarchy by a group of “wise men” and by
“schools”, and afterwards was developed in the prophetic movement.
1f\l
Carr, Introduction, 73-8.
Chapter 5
Intellectual Background of Job and Deutero-Isaiah
Unquestionably, ancient Israel did not remain completely detached from its
ancient Near Eastern milieux, because it emerged from the Palestine region
close to Canaanite civilization and was geographically located between the
ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations which had already
produced a variety of ancient literatures for more than a thousand years
before the history of Israel. Accordingly, it is necessary to explore and
appreciate the possible connections with ancient Near Eastern texts. Having
carried out possible associations with non-Israelite literatures, biblical
scholarship has maintained that foreign influences have impacted on the
formation of biblical materials and that biblical writers used specific extra-
biblical sources. This tendency is found in the literary relationship between
Job/Deutero-Isaiah and foreign texts. Scholars have appreciated the direct
dependence as an alternative way of explaining similarities, or some have
addressed the literary influence from a specific ancient civilization, based on
the belief that biblical materials did not arise from a vacuum. This, in fact,
may complicate our inquiry into the intellectual environment of scribes.
If that is the case, how should we understand the literary links between
foreign compositions and Job/Deutero-Isaiah? We may postulate three
different ways. A first possiblity is that biblical writers directly knew and
depended on specific foreign texts. The author of Job referred to lawsuit,
theodicy, or pessimistic texts, while Deutero-Isaiah knew Neo-Babylonian
royal inscriptions or Neo-Assyrian prophetic oracles. That would give an
alternative explanation for the resemblances between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and
non-Israelite texts, but this explanation does not necessarily require any broad
background of scribal culture which we have looked at. A second possibility
is that both of them emerged from a common cultural influence and their
authors picked up interesting ideas from a widespread intellectual background.
This possibility is similar to the first, since foreign compositions with texts
which also appear in the Hebrew Bible must be related. However, the
difference is that resemblances may result from combinations of broad
religious and societal ideas, rather than from the use of specific non-Israelite
references. In this case it is not important whether the biblical authors have
prior individual knowledge about the earlier works which are regarded as
similar with each book. A third possibility is that neither of the books is
significantly related to the influence of foreign literature. In that case, all the
literary features of the two books may be understood in terms of a Israelite
culture which is distinct from other cultural milieux.
Among these possibilities, the third option would fail to acknowledge the
significance of the considerable interrelationship between Israelite and for
eign culture. It would be difficult to exclude the influence of extra-biblical
materials at all, although it is true that the degree of relationship with foreign
materials should be observed with caution. With regard to the first possibility,
when we consider that scribes were quite likely employed in many walks of
life and in various diaspora communities, there is little evidence that
Judean/Jewish scribes had no knowledge of foreign languages, or did not
actually read some of the ancient Near Eastern literature. However, it would
be also misleading to imagine that when producing Israelite writings, scribes
from their archives could have easily referred to all the Egyptian, Ugaritic,
and Akkadian sources. These two extremes, in fact, could not prove anything
in terms of the influence of scribal culture which appears in common between
biblical literatures. If considering that scribes generally were surrounded by a
varied oral-written literary culture, the second option would be more realistic
than those two extremes. I thus support the claim that these resemblances
with non-Israelite sources may be understood as cultural knowledge and
common literary techniques which scribes possessed and practised. These are
issues and arguments which I will explore, when discussing the ancient Near
Eastern compositions which are supposed to have similarities with the two
books.
A. Literary Dependence of Job on Foreign Literature

Most commentators on the book of Job have noticed its broad association
with non-Israelite materials, although they differ in the degree of similarity
discerned and in its interpretation.1Among a considerable number of texts in
foreign literature, the following are the most frequently cited texts.
I. S u m e r ia n L ite r a tu r e
It is taken for granted that the book of Job has literary parallels with ancient
Mesopotamian documents which go back as far as Sumerian work. Particular
1 Refer to Dhorme, Job, cx-cxi; Gordis, Man, 53-64; Hartley, Job, 6-11; Terrien, Job,
56-62; Balentine, Job, 5-12; Gray, Job, 5-20; “Book o f Job in the Context of Near Eastern
Literature,” ZAW 82 (1970): 251-69; James L. Crenshaw, Reading Job: A Literary and
Theological Commentary (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2011), 7-10; Tremper Longman III,
Job, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2012), 45-51; Seow, Job, 47-65.
attention has been given to the Sumerian M a n a n d H is G o d which is well-
known as having Job’s motif of a man who seems to be given an undeserved
punishment from his deity. All five pieces of this manuscript were excavated
at Nippur and are possibly dated to 1700 BCE. Since S. N. Kramer, in his
earliest paper, put a subtitle “a Sumerian variation of the Job m otif’ upon this
text,2*4 most interpreters have treated this document as the earliest work which
parallels the book of Job. This remarkable work takes the poetic genre of
lamentation and deals with the theme of suffering and comfort. A young man
who suffered sickness, but did not commit any evil and deceit is introduced
by the poet (ANET, lines 10-20). He, finally, confesses his sins before a deity
and in the lament, recognising his sins with wailing, he humbly pleads with
his god for restoration and forgiveness (lines 117-120). Although this man in
the beginning of the text does not seem to break any of god’s rules, the cause
of his suffering is finally placed on the man:
My god, now that you have shown me my sins ...,
In the gate of ..., I would speak ...,
I, the young man, would confess my sins before you. (lines 111-3)
Finally, the god accepts his supplication and withdraws his hand upon him,
and this leads him to glorify his god and to turn lament into joy. Clearly, the
prayer and the petition of the man led his personal god to grant the
compassion and joy that human reaction induces. This supports the
conventional belief that the sinless man does not exist.5 However, this is
nothing more than the typical lesson of inescapable human suffering and sin,
and the book of Job is unlikely to produce distinct affinities with this compo
sition.
II. B a b y lo n ia n L ite r a tu r e
The literary motif of human misfortune and suffering indicated in Sumerian

M a n a n d H is G o d has its counterparts in Babylonian literature in the same
way; there are four Babylonian texts which are associated with Job.
2 James B. Pritchard, ed., ANET, 3rd ed. with supplement. (Princeton: Princeton, 1969),
589-91; William W. Hallo, ed., The Context o f Scripture, vol. I (Leiden; New York; Koln:
Brill, 1997), 573-5.
7
“The date of the original composition o f the poem may have been as early as the Third
Dynasty o f Ur, about 2000 B.C.” See Samuel N. Kramer, “ ‘Man and His God’: A Sumer
ian Variation on ‘Job’ Motif,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East, ed. Mar
tin Noth and David W. Thomas, SVT 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 170.
4 Kramer, “ ‘Job’ Motif.”
5 Jacob Klein refers to verses from biblical literature (cf. Job 4:17-18; 7:20-21; 15:17—
18; Gen 6:5-7; Ps 51:7), but this merely reaffirms it was a prevalent idea. See COS I,
1:574.
1. D ia lo g u e b e tw e e n a M a n a n d H is G o d
After Jean Nougayrol at first edited this fragment “Une version du ‘Juste
Souffrant’” (Tablet AO 4462) - which is generally dated to the late Old
Babylonian period (late 17th century BCE) - it has been frequently entitled
the poem of the “Just Sufferer” or the D ia lo g u e b e tw e e n a M a n a n d H is G o d
(abb., M a n a n d H is G o d ).6 This foreign text has been compared to the book
of Job, in that its framework is similar to Job’s prose-tale; it begins with the
pleading of a person in agony and ends with the description of the restoration
of his prosperity and health. W. von Soden maintains that this is the earliest
cuneiform text which includes Job’s motif of accusing his deity. 78In terms of
this affinity, John Gray compares specific expressions between Job and M a n
a n d H is G o d , and remarks that both state the motif of the sufferer’s innocence;
(1) the role of god or friends in Job 6:14ff and the expression, “Brother does
not despise his brother, Friend is not calumniator of his friend” (BM, lines
14-15); (2) the divine vindication and declaration in Job 42:7 and lines 48-
o
57. The structure of this cuneiform document consists of a short dialogue

between the sufferer, who mourns his loss, and his personal god.
2. T he B a b y lo n ia n J o b
The text, L u d lu l b e l n e m e q i, “I will Praise the Lord of Wisdom” (abb., L u d lu l)

- which is also known as “The Babylonian Job”, or “The Poem of the
Righteous Sufferer” - is another composition which is compared to Job.9 This
Akkadian poem consists of four tablets (approximately 500 lines) known
from the libraries of A s h u r b a n ip a l at N in e v e h in the seventh century BCE,
and its original text probably can be dated to the fifteenth century BCE, as
three kings are named who lived in the Kassite period (1550-1155 BCE),
although this is somewhat doubtful.10 It takes the form of a monologue
addressed by a dignified man, Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan, who is struck by
illness and calamity, asking why the gods allow him to suffer, and finally
whose health and good fortune are reinstated by Marduk. The first tablet
opens with a hymn of praise to Marduk the god of wisdom (Tablet I, lines 1-
6 Jean Nougayrol, “Une Version Ancienne du ‘Juste Souffrant,’” RB 59 (1952): 239-50;

Benjamin R. Foster, BM, 3rd ed. (Bethesda: CDL, 2005), 148-50; Hallo, COS I, 1:485.
7 Wolfram von Soden, “Das Fragen nach der Gerechtigkeit Gottes im Alten Orient,”
MDOG 96 (1965): 41-59.
8 Gray, “Near,” 259.
9 1 use the translated text by Benjamin Foster. See Foster, BM, 392-409; For other ver
sions, see Wilfred G. Lambert, BWL (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 21-62; Pritchard,
ANET, 434-7, 596-600; Hallo, COS I, 1:486-92; For a new edition, see Amar Annus and
Alan Lenzi, Ludlul Bel Nemeqi: The Standard Babylonian Poem o f the Righteous Sufferer,
SAACT 7 (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2010).
10 Gray, “Near,” 254; Lambert, BWL, 26.
39) and immediately the man wails that his gods forsook him, and he became
regarded as a social pariah by his friends, slaves, and families (Tablet I, lines
41-44, 79-104). In Tablet III, he laments his suffering under the oppression
of the almighty Marduk:
Heavy was his hand upon me, I could not bear it!
Dread of him was oppressive, it [me]. (Tablet III, lines 1-2)
He dreams three times and in the third dream, the sufferer meets two messen
gers sent from Marduk who orders his deliverance (III, lines 29-38). By this
sign, he is assured that his prayers are accepted, so that his pain is ended and
his illness is cured. In the healing process, his transgressions are forgiven and
Marduk’s wrath seems to be appeased by his petition (III, lines 51-59). Tab
let IV lines l ’-5 0 ’ begins with the hymn of Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan in
praise of the wondrous work of Marduk as a saviour and as a mighty warrior
who defeated his enemies and is returning to the “Gate of Sunrise” from the
grave. Then, this sufferer spells out how ungrudgingly he offered offerings
with prayers. Finally, in the Babylonian feast, they look at the power of Mar
duk who is able to restore human well-being and bring the dead to life (IV,
line fragment C 11’).
Scholars see L u d lu l as having closer verbal correspondences with the book
of Job than any other work of foreign literature, so that this has been treated
as the source text of Job.11 However, because of the prevalent literary features,
it is also argued that both texts reflect a common literary tradition that existed
in Mesopotamia and Israel. For instance, Gray proposes that the sufferer, like
Job, is portrayed as being punished under divine oppression in Job 19:13-17
and Tablet I lines 82-92, and then claims that Job (also texts in the Psalms)
and the Mesopotamian theodicy compositions including the B a b y lo n ia n
T h e o d ic y “reflect the conventional language of the Plaint of the Sufferer in
fast-liturgies in Mesopotamia and Israel”.12 C. L. Seow sees the genre of the
hymn as the common source where sufferers praise their deities in their hard
ship for the sake of the gods’ beneficence: According to Seow, the affinities
in expressions between Eliphaz’s hymn in Job 5:18-20, L u d lu l , and “a Suf-
i
ferer’s Salvation” (RS 25.460) - the Akkadian hymn praising Marduk - are
11 Dhorme, Job, lxxxvi; Weinfeld for instance, points out the similarity between the pat
tern of Ludlul and Elihu’s speech in Job 33. Moshe Weinfeld, “Job and Its Mesopotamian
Parallels - A Typological Analysis,” in Text and Context, ed. Walter Claassen (Sheffield:
JSOT, 1988), 218.
12 See Gray, “Near,” 255. Gray in another place notices that Job’s text would be devel
oped in the Israelite literary tradition of the “Plain of the Sufferer” from Ps 73. See 261.
11Nougayrol supposed that both Ludlul and B.S. 25.460 would probably be from the
fourteenth century BCE. See Jean Nougayrol, Ugaritica 5: Nouveaux Textes Accadiens,
Hourrites et Ugaritiques des Archives et Bibliotheques Privees d ’Ugarit, Commentaires
“suggestive” of this and he concludes that the source of the similarity is the
genre of the hymn like in Eliphaz’s hymn and in other Akkadian “exemplary-
sufferer texts”.*14
3. T h e B a b y lo n ia n T h e o d ic y
(abb., BT) called the “Babylonian Ecclesiastes”,

T he B a b y lo n ia n T h e o d ic y
“the dialogue about human misery”, and “the sufferer and the friend” is an
other composition which to some degree resembles Job.15 The possible date
of the tablets is not earlier than 800 BCE, while its general style falls into the
Kassite period.16 This work uses the form of an acrostic dialogue which
consists of twenty-seven stanzas of eleven lines each between a sufferer and
his unnamed friend. Because of the literary form of dialogue, this work is
considered as the composition most similar to the dialogue in the book of
Job.1718The poet’s name in acrostic is recorded as: “I, Saggil-klnam-ubbib, the
incantation priest, am adorant of the god and the king.” In Tablets II and IV,
the point that friends make is that the pious life always results in being
wealthy and leads to divine protection and favour:
He who looks to his god has a protector
The humble man who reveres his goddess will garner wealth. (21-22)
On the contrary, to the sufferer, the situation which he faced as a result of the
loss of his assets and health makes his life’s system uncertain (III) and even
the regular rites before gods are useless as both the human and animal world
demonstrate (V). What the friend clings to is the mysteriousness of the divine
purpose and the sure belief of rewards granted by a personal god (VI). The
sufferer in BT like Job is terribly distressed by the general collapse of
religious and social justice and by his unfair treatment by his personal god
(VII):
Those who seek not after a god can go the road o f favor,
Those who pray to a goddess have grown poor and destitute. (70-1)
Indeed, in my youth I tried to find out the will o f (my) god,
des Textes Historiques (premiere Partie), Mission de Ras Shamra t. 16 (Paris: Geuthner,
1968), 265-73; Foster, BM, 410-1; Hallo, COS 1 ,1:486.
14 Seow, Job, 53-4; Weinfeld sees “Thanksgiving Psalms” as a common source. Wein-
feld, “Mesopotamian.”
15 I use Foster’s translation. Foster, BM, 914-22; For other versions, see Lambert, BWL,
63-91; Pritchard, ANET, 438-40, 601-4; Hallo, COS 1 ,1:492-5.
16 See Lambert, BWL, 66-7.
17 See Karel van der Toorn, “The Ancient Near Eastern Literary Dialogue as a Vehicle
of Critical Reflection,” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval
Near East, ed. Gerrit J. Reinink and Herman L. J. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Departement
Orientalistiek, 1991), 59-75.
18 Lambert, BWL, 63.
With prayer and supplication I besought my goddess.
I bore a yoke of profitless servitude:
(My) god decreed (for me) poverty instead of wealth. (75)
In spite of a great deal of discussion between them, no agreement is reached

as to the connection between the religious attitudes to the deities and their
consequences for mankind (VII-VIII). The sufferer wants to escape the pain
of everyday life (XIII) and complains that the destinies of the king and the
poor cannot be exchanged (XVII). A friend claims that “he who bears a god’s
yoke” will never lack food (XXII) and that human beings cannot understand
the will of the god(s) (XXIV). Human suffering is caused by individual sin
which is part of human nature created by the god(s) (XXVI). The sufferer
indeed observes that the present miserable situation comes from a divine
action (XXIII) and further he is startled when he finds social injustice and
inequality (XXV). Finally, he pleads for help from a friend, urging him to
think of his suffering, and ends up with his prayer to the gods (XXVII).
Substantial affinities, in this way, are observed between the dialogue of Job
and BT in cases of common expressions and the motif of the sufferer.19
4. A P e s s im is tic D ia lo g u e b e tw e e n M a s te r a n d S e r v a n t
The title “a Pessimistic Dialogue between Master and Servant” - known as

“the Dialogue of Pessimism” (abb., P e s s im is m ) - is occasionally compared to
Job.20 It would date from a comparatively early part of the Kassite period
excluding the Old Babylonian period, because of the particular use of the
“iron dagger” (line 52).212Scholars have claimed that P e s s im is m adopts the
form of Babylonian satirical dialogue, but it would probably be hard to con-
sider the trial of suicide simply as a parody. The master in this literature
speaks to his servant of the many undertakings which he is about to carry out,
but after flattering lip-service to the master’s idea, the servant outlines the
negative consequences which the master’s action will bring. Then, when the
master changes his plan, the servant reports equally other depressing conse
quences which would follow from his actions. Finally, after the master ad
dresses all the desires and when he asks the slave what is the right thing to do,
the slave answers that ultimate goodness in life is suicide and the master
determines to kill his slave. This composition that talks about the futility of
19 See Gray, “Near,” 256-8; Weinfeld, “Mesopotamian,” 222-5; Balentine and

Crenshaw indicate several differences between two compositions. See Balentine, Job, 4-6;
Crenshaw, Reading Job, 8-9.
20 BWL, 139-49; ANET, 437-8; BM, 923-26; COS 1 ,1:495-6.
21 Lambert, BWL, 140.
22 Lambert disagrees with Speiser’s view of satire and notes that “in a normal person a
desire for death and an abundance of wit would be incompatible”. See ibid., 139-41; Eph
raim A. Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” JCA 8 (1954): 98-105.
life has not as many similar features with the book of Job as texts examined
above except for the common form of dialogue.
III. U g a ritic L ite r a tu r e
Modern scholarship has discovered many linguistic similarities between Uga

ritic literature and the book of Job;232425Job’s dependence on Ugaritic texts has
been investigated as being more original and direct. In particular, among
those Ugaritic texts, The E p ic o f K e r e t (abb., K e r e t)2627is suggested as repre
sentative literature related to Job. This composition appears on three clay
tablets discovered during the archeological digs at Ras Shamra (1930-1931
CE), and each tablet has six columns on both sides. The colophon of this
work records that its writer was a scribe Elimelek during the reign of a
Ugaritic king, Niqmadd in the fourteenth century BCE (KRT C).28 According
to John Gibson, though this story is ideological, both Keret who was “the
typical sacred king of ancient Near Eastern belief’ and the Udum’s king Pabil
might be historical figures.29
K e r e t is the story of a king whose seven wives suddenly perished so that
this king lacks an heir. In deep grief, he has a dream in which the god El
appears to him and asks why Keret cries. In response to the instructions of El,
Keret offers sacrifices to El and Baal, prepares provisions for a campaign,
23
' Crenshaw, Reading Job, 10.
24 For “Ugaritisms” in the book of Job, See works o f Dahood and his proponents.
Mitchell J. Dahood, “Some Northwest Semitic Words in Job,” Biblica 38 (1957): 306-20;
“Some Rare Parallel Word Pairs in Job and in Ugaritic,” in The Word in the World, ed.
Richard J. Clifford and George W. MacRae (Cambridge: Weston College, 1973), 19-34;
Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job', Anthony R. Ceresko, Job 29-31 in the
Light o f Northwest Semitic: A Translation and Philological Commentary, BO 36 (Rome:
Biblical Institute, 1980); Grabbe, Comparative.
25 Charles L. Feinberg, “The Poetic Structure of the Book of Job and the Ugaritic L it
erature,” BS 103 (1946): 283-92; Peter C. Craigie, “Job and Ugaritic Studies,” in Studies in
the Book o f Job, ed. Walter E. Aufrecht (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 1985), 28-35;
Daniel O ’Connor, “The Keret Legend and the Prologue-Epilogue of Job,” ITQ 55 (1989):
1-6; Lowell K. Handy, “The Authorization o f Divine Power and the Guilt of God in the
Book of Job : Useful Ugaritic Parallels,” JSO T 60 (1993): 107-18; Johannes C. de Moor,
“Ugarit and the Origin o f Job,” in Ugarit and the Bible (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1994),
225-57; Robert S. Fyall, Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images o f Creation and Evil in the
Book o f Job (Leicester: IVP, 2002), 191-4.
26 Other vocalizations of the word “Keret” are possible; e.g. Kirta, Karrate, Kuriti,
Karta. See n. 3 in Hallo, COS 1 ,1:333.
271 will use Ginsberg’s version from ANET. See Pritchard, ANET, 142-9; John C. L.
Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1978), 19-23, 82-
102; Hallo, COS I, 1:333-43.
28 See the end o f KRT C. Pritchard, ANET, 142.
29
Gibson, Canaanite, 23.
and marches his army into Udum the Great in order to find a wife who may
beget his heir (KRT A, lines 154-194). He successfully takes Huray Pabul’s
daughter in marriage and subsequently, in the assembly of gods, El blesses
and exalts Keret with the promise of eight sons (KRT B, lines 1-28).
However, the vow Keret made during the battle is not fulfilled, and illness
immediately strikes him and this results in crop failure. After the ceremony
held in the temple, divine intervention miraculously cures his impaired health
(KRT C, v. lines 6-32, 42-53).
Similarities with Job noted by scholars usually centre around the entire tale
that describes the sudden loss of the sufferer’s household, his long illness,
and the restoration of his health (e.g. Job 1:13-19; 42:10-45; esp. Job
TO
42:10). Both Peter Craigie and Daniel O ’Connor maintain that the author of
T1
the prologue-epilogue of Job consciously used this prose-tale of Keret;
O’Connor concludes that “the true cultural homeland for the prose of Job is
likely to be the stretch of coastline from Ugarit to Tyre and Sidon”.30312*
IV . E g y p tia n L ite r a tu r e
There seems to be considerable consensus ”5”5

on the dependence of Israelite
wisdom literature on Egyptian literature; e.g., the similarity between Prov
22:17-24:22 and T he In s tr u c tio n o f A m e n e m o p e . Egyptian compositions,
which are frequently mentioned in relation to the book of Job, largely date to
the Middle Kingdom period (Eleventh-Fourteenth Dynasty; 1975-1630 BCE),
and literary discourses in that period deal with much emphasis focused on
individual agony as well as on national disasters.34 The main similarity
between them would probably be that human evil and world disorder are
30 See O ’Connor, “The Keret Legend and the Prologue-Epilogue o f Job,” 1-3; Victor H.
Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, OTP (New York: Paulist, 1991), 201-5.
31 Craigie, “Job and Ugaritic Studies”; O ’Connor, “The Keret Legend and the Prologue-
Epilogue of Job”; Matthews and Benjamin, OTP, 201-5.
32 O ’Connor, “The Keret Legend and the Prologue-Epilogue of Job”; Parker notes that
“in particular, 1.14.12-21 recalls Job 1:13-22.” See Simon B. Parker, The Pre-Biblical
Narrative Tradition: Essays on the Ugaritic Poems Keret and Aqhat, RBS 24 (Atlanta:
Scholars, 1989), 145-216.
'X 'X
Shupak maintains that “the Hebrew authors were closely acquainted with at least part
o f the Egyptian wisdom literature.” See Nili Shupak, Where Can Wisdom Be Found?: The
Sage’s Language in the Bible and in Ancient Egyptian Literature, OBO 130 (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993). Also see Glendon E. Bryce, A Legacy o f Wisdom: The
Egyptian Contribution to the Wisdom o f Israel (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1979).
34 Richard B. Parkinson, “Individual and Society in Middle Kingdom Literature,” in
Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms, ed. Antonio Loprieno, Probleme der
Agyptologie 10 (Leiden; New York: Brill, 1996), 150-1.
never blamed 'ycupon god, and suffering is seen as the consequence of human
wrongdoings. John Baines says:
The relation between inequality and theodicy is stated explicitly in a Middle Kingdom
apologia of the creator god, who distances him self from human wrongdoing, saying: “I
made every man like his fellow. I did not ordain that they do wrong (izfet, “disorder”). It
was their desires that damaged what I had said” (his creative word that brought the world
into being?). ... The creator is not responsible for the origin of evil.
The fact that no humans are born sinless significantly explains human
wrongdoings in Egyptian literature. This can be indicated in many arguments
between Job and his friends (Job 4:12-21; 15:14-16; 25:4-6; cf. 9:2-3) as
traditionalists who have the belief that the world is driven by moral laws.
1. T he D e b a te b e tw e e n a M a n a n d H is S o u l
The first composition is T h e D e b a te (o r D is p u te ) b e tw e e n a M a n a n d H is

S o u l (B a ) (abb., D e b a te ) - also known as “Dialogue of a Man with His Soul”,
“A Dispute over Suicide”, or “The Man Who was Tired of Life” - and its
manuscript (Papyrus Berlin 3024) is dated to the Twelfth Dynasty in the
Middle Kingdom and has a poetic dialogue form.35*3738*A dialogue between the
tired man caused by suffering in life and his b a (usually translated as “soul”)
which “is one aspect of the personality” (or “the manifestation of a person
after death”) expresses the conflict of a sufferer with “the heart that serves
to personify one side of an internal conversation”. This work consists of
three symmetrical speeches between the man and his soul, ending up with the
soul’s final speech. The first part of this manuscript is missing which may
include the short setting of the introductory scene in the discussion between a
35 See Bricker, “Innocent Suffering in Egypt,” 89-90.

See John Baines, “Society, Morality, and Religious Practice,” in Religion in Ancient
Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice, ed. Byron E. Shafer (Ithaca: Cornell UP,
1991), 163.
371 here use Allen’s translation. See James P. Allen, The Debate Between a Man and
His Soul: A Masterpiece o f Ancient Egyptian Literature, Culture and History of the A n
cient Near East 44 (Leiden: Brill, 2010); For other English translations, see Pritchard,
ANET, 405-7; William W. Hallo, ed., The Context o f Scripture, vol. Ill (Leiden; New
York; Koln: Brill, 2002), 321-6; Miriam Lichtheim, AEL, vol. 1 (Berkeley: Univ. of Cali
fornia, 1973); For the study of this, see Richard B. Parkinson, The Tale o f Sinuhe and
Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, 1940-1640 BC (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 151-65; Rich
ard B. Parkinson, Poetry and Culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt: A Dark Side to Perfection
(Oakville: Equinox Pub. Ltd, 2010), 163-9.
38 Parkinson, Sinuhe, 151.
TO
See Allen, Debate, 3. The intellectual background of this literature comes with the
composite dialogues in different speeches of death and life, but its main style is a mono
logue to represent the inner struggle. See Parkinson, Culture, 218.
man and his soul.40 In this fictional setting, the man, suffering and overbur
dened, wishes to die, but his soul warns and threatens to leave him, which
will finally lead to his total destruction.41 The soul in the third speech inter
rupts the sufferer, advising him not to desire death by referring to the misery
of death and challenging him to stop worrying:
As for your bringing to mind burial, it is heartache; it is bringing tears by saddening a man;
(56-7)
Follow a good time, forget care. (68)
The soul then takes the imagery of two parables: a little man who loses his
wife and children (68-80), and a little man who lacks patience (80-85). Then,
the man addresses him in a lengthy poetic speech (85-147) with several re
frains - “Look, my name is reeking”, “to whom can I speak today?”, and
“death is in my sight today” - and he in each refrain expresses the misery of
life in his individual experience, his alienation from society, and death as an
ultimate release from a disastrous life.42 The man in the concluding lyric -
“surely, he who is there will be...” - anticipates the judgment of a living god,
making the contrast between the suffering in the present world “here” and the
future ideal world “there” (140-9). Finally, the soul urges the man to con
tinue his life and to “reject the West for yourself’, but to “desire too that you
reach the West when your body touches the earth”, (151-2) and this is the
final reply to him.
This composition, according to Parkinson, speaks of the two contrasting
aspects of “death” pointing to “its horror and its blessedness”.43 Death would
be welcome to the sufferer, but death to his soul may not solve all the prob
lems, so that the soul urges him to accept the present life (151-2). When
looking at the whole dialogue, we may compare this attitude to death with
Job’s speeches that long for the place of S h e o l and desire to escape life.
2. T h e P r o te s ts o f th e E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t
The complete manuscript of T he P r o te s ts o f th e E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t (abb.,
P e a s a n t) is preserved on four Middle Kingdom papyrus copies (Papyrus Ber
lin 3023, 3025, 10499; Papyrus Butler 527 or British Museum 10274) from
Thebes dating to the middle of the Twelfth or the Tenth Dynasty.44 This
work consists of the basic narrative of a prose-tale and of nine poems as de
40 Parkinson, Sinuhe, 160.

41 The total destruction means “the second and final death known from other Egyptian
texts.” See ibid., 152.
42 Parkinson, Culture, 221-4.
43 Richard B. Parkinson, Voices from Ancient Egypt: An Anthology o f Middle Kingdom
Writings (London: British Museum, 1991), 132.
44 I use Parkinson’s translation. See Parkinson, Sinuhe, 54-88; Pritchard, ANET, 407-
10; Lichtheim, AEL I, 1:169-84; Hallo, COS 1 ,1:98-104.
bates before the court, resembling the structure of Job. In it, a peasant Khu-
nanup, who was robbed by Nemtinakht, desperately appeals to Rensi, the
High Steward, the son of Meru, who was a deputy to the king. In spite of the
continuous rejections from Rensi, the peasant, in order to appease his bitter
ness, does not stop pleading his case and urging social justice to the magis
trate, and finally, he wishes for death as a place where genuine justice is ful
filled. In his personal petition, the creator-god Maat is eulogized and the poet
addresses the imperfect world in the absence of Maat:45
Making defects lessens Truth:
So measure well!
For Truth has not been damaged, nor has overflown. (B1 282-3)
In the discourse, the distinction between Rensi and Maat is somewhat am
biguous and Rensi is then honoured as a god’s representative.46 The peasant
laments:
Has Truth (Maat) not addressed him (Rensi)? (B1 307)
At the end of the tale, Rensi breaks his silence and orders that the peasant
returns to the court and presents his case to the king Nebkaure as well as to
the public (B2 129). According to the judgment of the Pharaoh, Nemtinakht is
immediately summoned, judged in front of the court and all the stolen proper
ties are immediately returned to the peasant. Though the tension between the
despairing speeches of the peasant and the silence of the magistrate is conse
quently resolved as the peasant receives rewards, the tale ends without any
mention of the punishment meted out to Nemtinakht for his wrongdoings and
any vindication for the indifference of corrupted authority. Balentine suggests
probable connections between P e a s a n t and Job in terms of the request for
social justice addressed to God (esp. Job 21:7-26; 24:1-25; 30:9-15).47
3. T h e D ia lo g u e o f I p u u r a n d th e L o r d to th e L im it
“The Admonitions of Ipuur” or “the dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord to the
Limit” (abb., Ip u u r ) which is known as a work related to Job is preserved on
the fragment (Papyrus Leiden 344) dating from the Nineteenth or Twentieth
Dynasty; the original composition possibly belongs to the early thirteenth
Dynasty.48 This composition has conventionally been classified as “Egyptian
Oracles and Prophecies”;49 there is no need to categorise it as “prophetic”
45 See Parkinson, Culture, 169.

46 Ibid., 171.
47 See Balentine, Job, 6-8.
48 Pritchard, ANET, 441-4; Lichtheim, AEL I, 1:149-63; Parkinson, Sinuhe, 166-99;
Hallo, COS I, 1:93-8.
49 COS classifies four works - Ipuur, Peasant, Neferti, Khakheperreseneb - into proph
ecy genre, and ANET place two works - Ipuur, Neferti - into Egyptian oracle.
genre because this has more similarities with the biblical wisdom corpus and
has no prophetic words and indeed the role of the main addresser is far from
that of a prophet. In this discourse, Ipuur is standing before people, maybe in
a royal court, and is addressing “the Lord to the Limit” who would be a king
as a divine representative rather than a god (16.11-17.2).50 The basic theme is
a pessimistic lament about the wretched status of the land, and it is not refer
ring to any real historical disasters, although the text’s setting is likely to
reflect national calamities of the time.51 Like the speeches of Job, Ipuur dis
approves of the king as the deputy of the creator-god who brings all the disas
ters and chaos (1.1-14.5):
There is no Pilot in their hour of duty - where is He today?
So can He be sleeping? Look, no sign of His power can be seen (12.5)
Then he expresses with a parable the unfairness of innocent suffering against

the Lord’s reply (15.3-16.5).
V. E v a lu a tio n : J o b ’s R e fe r e n c e to F o r e ig n L ite r a tu r e
Having considered these different sources, we are better able to assess

whether the book of Job has any literary relationships with foreign texts.
Firstly, it is unlikely that the author of Job directly and intentionally used
any specific non-Israelite texts which are mentioned above, even if those
similarities are substantial and compelling.5253 Recent biblical scholarship
seems to be very cautious in speaking of direct dependence on non-Israelite
sources. Some, when giving an example, would point to affinities with the
tale in T h e E p ic o f K e r e t and would assume direct connection between them.
However, because such a motif and general linguistic affinities are very
prevalent and conventional in Ugaritic, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian
materials, there is no reason to consider a specific composition as the original
source of Job. For instance, Job’s wailing in Job 3 in which he curses his
birth and prefers to die could be considered as deriving its origin in expres
sions from specific Egyptian texts C'i
such as T h e D ia lo g u e o f Ip u u r and T he
D ia lo g u e o f a M a n w ith H is S o u l. However, these references are not unique,
since the most striking parallel is also found in the biblical texts like Jer
50 I use Parkinson’s translation. See Parkinson, Sinuhe.

51 Lichtheim, A EL /, 1:149-50.
This does not mean that I completley deny the possibility o f the literary dependence
o f Job on non-Israelite texts. However, the better explanatation from what we have, as I
suppose, is that the author of Job might be aware of prevalent ancient Near Eastern coun
terparts and related motifs.
53 See Georg Fohrer, Das Buck Hiob, 1. Aufl., KAT 16 (Giitersloh: Giitersloher Verlag-
shaus G. Mohn, 1963), 116; Shupak notices the literary echo between the Dialogue of a
Man with His Soul, Ipuur and Job’s texts (cf. 3:3ff., 20-22; 10:18-19; 13:15; 14:13;
17:13-14). See Hallo, COS 1 ,1:95.
20:14—18.54 It is thus reasonable to conclude that the common expressions in
the cursing in Job 3 were prevalent among scribes.
Secondly, it is not always correct to say that they referred to the older and
already established literary tradition of a particular ancient civilization; al
though it is almost certain that wisdom literature probably was more heavily
influenced by the literary traditions of foreign texts than biblical books.
Moshe Weinfeld argues that Mesopotamian parallels with the book of Job
remind us of several psalms of Thanksgiving in biblical literature and that
those similarities reflect common “liturgies of thanksgiving of the sufferer to
his god”.55 Literary resemblances between the texts of Job/Psalms and the
two Mesopotamian compositions - M a n a n d H is G o d and L u d lu l - are sug
gested as important evidence of literary dependence; e.g., “the descriptions of
God’s saving of the sick and afflicted” in Job 33:18 and the description in
“the river Hubur of L u d lu F .56 Weinfeld concludes that the Babylonian liter
ary tradition produced “typological affinities” with the book of Job.57*59Simi
larly, Gray claims that the book of Job adopted the literary tradition common
CO
to Mesopotamia and Israel (cf. Ps 73). In a broad sense, it is true that Meso
potamian texts like L u d lu l show significant resemblances with Job, but sub
stantial references with Egyptian texts make it too difficult for us to suppose
that the author of Job directly utilised only the Babylonian literary tradition.
B. Literary Dependence of Deutero-Isaiah on Foreign Literature
This section discusses the foreign texts which are compared to, or might have
influenced, the texts of Deutero-Isaiah.
59
I. B a b y lo n ia n In s c r ip tio n s
It has been by and large claimed that the language of Deutero-Isaiah was
influenced by the style and pattern of “Babylonian royal inscriptions”; 60
54 See Clines, Job 1-20, 83.

55 Weinfeld, “Mesopotamian,” 217.
56 Ibid., 218.
57 Ibid., 222-5.
“The anticipated relief suggests again the theme of his suffering, and here the lan
guage is reminiscent of Job and the Plaint of the Sufferer in the Psalms.” (p. 263) “The
affinities o f the Book of Job with the sophisticated sapiential tradition of Mesopotamia are
not to be denied.” (p. 265) See Gray, “Near.”
59 Babylonian inscriptions here mainly refer to materials which correspond to the Neo-
Babylonian period (1000-539 BCE).
David S. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter
Prophets, HSM 59 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1999); Shalom M. Paul, “ Deutero-Isaiah and Cunei
form Royal Inscriptions,” in Essays in Memory o f E. A. Speiser (New Haven: AOS, 1968),
based on this argument, it is widely recognised that the anonymous writer
Deutero-lsaiah might have lived in Babylon during the exile. R. Kittel at first
claimed that Deutero-lsaiah might know the work of the Cyrus Cylinder,61623
and Jacob Behr similarly argued that “Deutero-Isaiah’s writings are the
product of a Babylonian cultural environment” and the influences “were
direct and immediate rather than indirect and remote”. In the same vein, a
detailed examination of this theory by Shalom Paul attempted to show the
literary influence with cuneiform texts, and took into consideration the motifs
of “predestination” and the “designation of the king’s legitimacy by a divine
call” stemming from the Sumerian period;6465with similarities such as receiv
ing a divine task (Isa 42:6-7), /1C
opening one’s eyes (49:9), and describing the
designation of seven kings. A more detailed study of Babylonian influence
on Deutero-lsaiah was carried out by Stephen Peterson, arguing that Deutero-
lsaiah would have been aware of Babylonian court style from royal docu
ments. 66 Then, he introduces parallels between Babylonian hymns (esp.
E n u m a E lis h ) and the texts of Deutero-lsaiah (Isa 40:3-5; 40:12-16; 41:9ff;
41:22ff; 43:10-11, 13; 44:24; 52:7) into the discussion, and indicates two
common similar forms of “self-predication form” and “the hymn of self-
praise”.67 These analogies, according to Peterson, indicate that Deutero-lsaiah
was probably aware of Babylonian mythologies and liturgies. Moreover, it
has recently been argued by David Vanderhooft that Mesopotamian royal
inscriptions directly shaped Deutero-Isaiah’s thinking and that Deutero-lsaiah
used Babylonian practices and ideas in his literary framework to contrast the
living God of Israel with the futility of the Mesopotamian deities.68 In this
assumption, he explains three passages giving “satirical descriptions of the
Babylonians’ construction and worship of divine images” (Isa 46:1-2; 47;
48:18-20) which are not evident in any other prophetic texts in the Old
180-86; Jacob W. Behr, The Writings o f Deutero-lsaiah and the Neo-Babylonian Royal
Inscriptions: A Comparison o f the Language and Style, PUP 3 (Pretoria: B. Rubinstein &
Company, 1937); Stephen L. Peterson, “Babylonian Literary Influence in Deutero-lsaiah:
A Bibliographic and Critical Study” (PhD, Nashville: Vanderbilt Univ., 1975); Nahum M.
Waldman, “A Biblical Echo of Mesopotamian Royal Rhetoric,” in Essays on the Occasion
o f the Seventieth Anniversary o f the Dropsie University (Philadelphia: Dropsie Univ.,
1979), 449-55. Merrill does not support the literary dependence on specific Babylonian
texts; Eugene H. Merrill, “The Language and Literary Characteristics of Isaiah 40-55 as
Anti-Babylonian Polemic” (PhD, New York: Columbia Univ., 1984).
61 Rudolf Kittel, “Cyrus und Deuterojesaja,” ZAW 18 (1898): 149-62.
62 Behr, Neo-Babylonian, 30-1.
63 Paul, “Cuneiform”; Isaiah 40-66, 61-3.
64 Paul, “Cuneiform,” 181.
65 Ibid., 181-6.
66 Peterson, “Babylonian,” 75.
67 See ibid., 78-134.
68 Vanderhooft, Neo-Babylonian, 169-88.
Testament. 69 The following summarises the suggested literary influence of
Babylonian texts on Deutero-Isaiah.
1. T h e C y ru s C y lin d e r
The most frequently discussed text about the Babylonian influence on Deu
tero-Isaiah is the Cyrus Cylinder (British Museum 90920) issued by Cyrus
the Great of the Persian Empire.70 The fact that Nabonidus, the last king of
Babylon, is portrayed as the evil king and Cyrus as the conqueror summoned
by the god Marduk may imply that this was used for propaganda by Cyrus the
Great in the rise of Persia and the fall of Neo-Babylon. The role of Cyrus as
the great king in restoring the mistreated cultic function in the nation and
liberating imprisoned Babylonians could then be used by biblical writers
(Ezra 1:2-4; 6:2-5).71723Lexical and thematic similarities between the Cyrus
Cylinder and Deutero-Isaiah were proposed by many scholars during the past
century (Kittel, Haller, GrePmann, Behr, Paul, Stephen, etc). For instance,
Kittel paid attention to the linguistic analogy between Isa 44:28-45:3 and
lines 12, 22, and then argued two possibilities: that Deutero-Isaiah knew the
Cyrus Cylinder or that the writer of the Cyrus Cylinder was aware of Deu-
tero-Isaiah. The fact that Deutero-Isaiah puts the emphasis on Cyrus as an
important political and religious figure may leave the possibility of literary
link between them. However, such a claim has been challenged because of
similar patterns widespread in other Mesopotamian royal inscriptions; even
Kittel has acknolwedged the possibility of a well-known literary tradition like
the “Babylonian court style”.74
2. B a b y lo n ia n R o y a l In s c r ip tio n s
The influence of Neo-Babylonian literature on Deutero-Isaiah can be ex
tended to include all the Mesopotamian royal inscriptions in general. Behr
finds parallels in the inscriptions of the kings - Nebuchadnezzar and Nab
onidus. Shalom, unlike former researchers, takes more extensive examples,
not limited to the Neo-Babylonian period. According to Paul, the motif of the
king’s designation by “divine call” plays an important role in comparing the
language in the cuneiform with Deutero-Isaiah; “I have called you by name”
(Isa 43:1); “he designated my name” (49:1); “my beloved” (41:8); “my cho-
69 See ibid., 171.

70 William W. Hallo, ed., The Context o f Scripture, vol. II (Leiden; New York; Koln:
Brill, 2000), 314.
71 Amelie Kuhrt, “The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy,” JSO T 25
(1983): 83-4.
72 See Kittel, “Cyrus.”
73 See Behr, Neo-Babylonian, 19.
74 Kittel, “Cyrus,” 160.
sen one whom I desire” (42:1); “shepherd”, “servant” (44:28); “to open blind
eyes, to liberate prisoners from confinement, (and) dwellers in darkness from
prison” (42:7);75 see this example:76
Su-um- su ki-ni-is iz-ku-ru “they favorably designated his name” (Nabonidus)
zi-kir sumi-ia ke-nis im-bu-u “they favorably called my name” (Esarhaddon)
“I, Yahweh, have graciously called you” (Isa 42:6a)
This motif is widely spread throughout royal inscriptions during the Assyrian
and late Neo-Babylonian period. Shalom furthermore presents the king’s list
in royal inscriptions that shows the motif of “the divine predestination”:
Assur-res-isi I (1130-1113 BCE), Sennacherib (705-681 BCE), Esarhaddon
(681-669 BCE), Assurbanipal (669-632? BCE), Samassumukin (652-648
BCE), Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BCE), and Nabonidus (556-539 BCE).77
He points out that concerning the subject-matter of predestination, Deutero-
lsaiah (Isa 49: 1, 5; cf. 42:6; 49:5-6; 49:8) may use either the inner-biblical
reference of Jeremiah (Jer 1:5), or royal inscriptions.78
II. A s s y r ia n P r o p h e tic O ra c le s
The Neo-Assyrian archival corpus has not been well-known to the majority of
biblical scholars, while a number of Assyriologists made efforts to publish it
at the beginning of the 20th century.79 Though this corpus had received little
attention until the 1970s,8081interest in Assyrian religion and culture, however,
has been increasingly promoted by scholars such as Martti Nissinen, Herbert
Huffmon, Manfred Weippert, and Simo Parpola. Generally speaking, the
Neo-Assyrian sources fall into two major corpuses: the twenty-nine individ
ual oracles and reports written in the eleven tablets addressed to the Assyrian
o1
kings and the other twenty references alluding to prophets or prophetic
75 Paul, “Cuneiform,” 181-2.

76 Ib id , 182.
77 Ib id , 184-5.
78 However, he supposes that Jeremiah is more influential and inspirational to Deutero-
lsaiah than the royal inscriptions. “The specific m otif o f being ‘called’ while yet in the
womb is a feature which Deutero-lsaiah shares only with his Mesopotamian prototypes.”
See ib id , 185,n.64.
7Q
Assyrian prophetic oracles were first introduced by George Smith in 1875 and the
translated version was published by T. G. Pinches in 1878 and 1891. Then, Alphonso
Delattre, “The Oracles Given in Favour of Esarhaddon,” Babylonian and Oriental Record
3 (1988): 25-31 at first raised its significance; most parts of the work were accessible to
readers in different languages by 1915.
on
See Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, SAA 9 (Helsinki: Helsinki UP, 1997), x iii-
81 Parpola, Assyrian.
09
works. In particular, Neo-Assyrian prophecy has been significantly com-
pared to texts of Deutero-Isaiah; although resemblances with Neo-Assyrian
oracles to some extent overlap with Neo-Babylonian prophetic literature.
Several scholars laid the foundation of this research. On the one hand, the
possibility of direct dependence of Deutero-Isaiah on this corpus was sug-
gested by Hugo Grepmann. On the other hand, form critical scholars (Be-
grich, Westermann, Schoors, Melugin, etc) viewed the influence of Assyrio- or
Babylonian sources in the genre of the “salvation oracle” (H e ils o r a k e l ).

Philip Harner claims that Deutero-Isaiah adopted the form of so-called “sal
vation oracle” as “existing models of the oracle as well as other forms of
Ox-
prophetic speech” from Neo-Assyrian sources. Furthermore, Meindert

Dijkstra finds similar patterns with Mesopotamian documents, and traces
on
their S itz im L e b e n as a cultic function. These researches are likely to as
sume that Deutero-Isaiah is dependent on specific styles and genres drawn
from Assyrian literature. On the contrary, Manfred Weippert supposes that
this similarity comes00 from the adoption of the same genre “the king oracle”
{h e t h o n in g s o r a k e l), but he thinks that this genre was not connected to the
Assyrian oracles, but was developed in the old Israelite literary tradition,; e.g.,
Isa 45:1-7, 2 Sam 7:4-17 and 1 Sam 10:1b, 7b.8283456*89 There are two Assyrian
prophetic sources related to our interest.90
82
Martti Nissinen, References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources, State archives of
Assyria studies (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998); Simo Parpola, Letters
from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, AOAT Bd. 5/1-5/2
(Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1970); For the complete list, see Martti Nissinen, Prophets
and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, ed. Peter Machinist, WAW 12 (Leiden; Boston:
Brill, 2003).
83 For the overview of similarities between Neo-Assyrian sources and Deutero-Isaiah,
see Russell Mack, “Neo-Assyrian Prophecy and the Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Analy
sis” (PhD, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 2010), 23-5; Matthijs J. de Jong, Isaiah
among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets: A Comparative Study o f the Earliest Stages o f
the Isaiah Tradition and the Neo-Assyrian Prophecies, SVT 117 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 3 2 -
3; Manfred Weippert, “ Tch bin Jahwe’ - ‘Ich bin Istar von A rbela’: Deuterojesaja im
Lichte der neuassyrischen Prophetie,” in Prophetie und Psalmen, ed. Beat Huwyler et al.
(Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2001), 31-59.
84 See Hugo Grefimann, “Die Literarische Analyse Deuterojesajas,” Z A W 34 (1914).
85
See Schoors, I Am God Your Saviour, 32-275.
86 Philip B. Harner, “ Salvation Oracle in Second Isaiah,” JBL 88 (1969): 419.
I referred to the English summary in the book. See Meindert Dijkstra, Gods
Voorstelling: Predikatieve Expressie van Zelfopenbaring in Oudoosterse Teksten en
Deutero-Jesaja (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1980).
88 This article is written in Dutch and I utilised the translator programme. See Manfred
Weippert, “De herkomst van het heilsorakel voor Israel bij Deutero-Jesaja,” N TT 36
(1982): 10-1.
OQ
Ibid., 9-11; Manfred Weippert, “Assyrische Prophetien der Zeit Asarhaddons und
Assurbanipals,” in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological and
1. O r a c le s o f E n c o u r a g e m e n t to E s a r h a d d o n
The first noteworthy Assyrian prophecy is the oracles which encourage the
king of Assyria Esarhaddon (681-669 BCE) and which have striking resem
blances with the OT prophecies as well as with Deutero-lsaiah (SAA 9 l).9091
This collection consists of ten different prophetic oracles, and there are two
oracles (SAA 9 1.6, 1.9) which do not record the names of the
prophet/prophetess.92 The first oracle addressed to Esarhaddon with the en
couraging word “fear not” is likely to be spoken “before the decisive battle
fought in 681-XI”:93
[Esarhjaddon, king of the lands, fear [not]! What wind has risen against you, whose wing I
have not broken? Your enemies will roll before your feet like ripe apples. I am the Great
Lady; 1 am Istar o f Arbela, who cast your enemies before your feet. What words have 1
spoken to you that you could not reply upon? I am Istar of Arbela. I will flay your enemies
and give them to you. I am Istar of Arbela. I will go before you and behind you. Fear not!
You are paralysed, but in the midst of woe I will rise and sit down (beside you). (SAA 9
1. 1)
After this, the subsequent seven oracles (1.2-8) describe the journey to the
capital city Nineveh after the battle and the final two oracles (1.9-10) refer to
the glorious celebration of their victory and the kingly ruling in the palace.94
In particular, Parpola indicates the allusion between SAA 9 1.1 i 22ff (“I am
Istar of Arbela. I will go before you and behind you”) and Isa 45:2 (“I (Yah-
weh) will go before you (Cyrus) and level the swelling hills”).95 Other com
parable texts are:96
Historical Analysis: Papers o f a Symposium Held in Cetona (Siena) June 26-28, 1980, ed.
Frederick M. Fales, OAC 17 (Roma: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1981), 108-9.
90 Parpola in the State Archives of Assyria series (SAA 9) introduces the new transla
tion of the oracle collections - “Oracles of Encouragement to Esarhaddon” (1), “Oracles
Concerning Babylon and the Stabilization of the King”s Rule” (2), “The Covenant of
Assur” (3), “Fragment of a Collection of Encouragement Oracles” (4) - and of oracle
reports - “Reports to Esarhaddon” (5-6), “Reports to Assurbanipal” (7-13). There, he
proposes structural and thematic elements o f Assyrian prophecies which would be com
pared to biblical prophetic forms, although each oracle does not completely reflect the list
of elements; (1) “Word of Istar” (2) “address”, (3) self-identification, (4) “fear not” for
mula, (5) past support, (6) “present/future support”, (7) “demand for praise”, and (8) “cul-
tic demands”. Parpola, Assyrian, Ixiv-lxvii; I mainly refer to Parpola’s work in title and
translation.
91 For the text, see ibid., 3-11; Nissinen, Prophets and Prophecy, 101-11; Pritchard,
ANET, 449-50.
92 See Parpola, Assyrian, 9-10.
93 Ibid., lxviii.
94 Ibid., lxviii-lxix.
95 Ibid., 5.
96 See Manfred Weippert, “Aspekte Israelischer Prophetie im Lichte verwandter Er-
scheinungen des Alten Orients,” in A d bene et fideliter seminandum: Festgahe fu r Karl
What words have I spoken to you that you could not rely upon? (SAA 9 1.1, i 15-17)
“Could you not rely on the previous utterance which I spoke to you? Now you can rely on
this later one too.” (SAA 9 1.10, vi 7-12)
Long ago 1 announced what would first happen, I revealed it with my own mouth; suddenly
I acted and it came about ... I told you o f these things long ago, and declared them before
they came about, so that you could not say, “This was my idol’s doling ... he ordained
them.” You have heard what I said; consider it well, and you must admit the truth of it.
Now I show you new things, hidden things which you did not know before. (Isa 48:3-6;
Parpola’s translation)
Harner directed his attention to five Arbela oracles in the time of Esarhaddon
and then divided similarities into four points; “the direct address to the recipi
ent”, “the reassurance, ‘fear not’”, “the divine self-predication”, and “the
07
message of salvation”. Agreeing with Begrich’s view, that Deutero-Isaiah
used these patterns and forms of the priestly salvation oracle, Harner main
tains that Deutero-Isaiah utilised this widespread form in Isa 41:8-13, 14-16,
43:1-7, and 44:1-5, and that this “priestly salvation oracle” was learnt and
adopted in the Jerusalem temple.9798
2. T he C o v e n a n t o f A s s u r a n d R e p o r ts to A s s u r b a n ip a l
Another important text can be found in the sources of Assur’s covenant with
Esarhaddon which possibly was recited in “Esarhaddon’s enthronement festi
val in Esarra, the Assur temple of Assur”,99 and which is dated as the earliest
source among three Collections (SAA 9 1-3).100 Parpola regards this Collec
tion as oracles spoken by a single prophet L a - d a g a il- ili and divides them into
two parts: tripartite prophecy by Assur and divine words “of Istar of Arbela to
Esharhaddon”.101 Especially, he mentions the connection between Isa 45:5ff
and SAA 9 3.3 ii 24; also the similarity with Ezek 38:23; 13:13ff; Jer 16:21;
Isa 12:1.102
With oracles or reports addressed to Esarhaddon, reports to Assurbanipal
(668-627 BCE) are significant as having similarities with Deutero-Isaiah
(SAA 9 7-11). The “Prophecies for the Crown Prince Assurbanipal” (no. 7) is
heinz Deller zum 21. Februar 1987, ed. Ursula Magen and Gerlinde Mauer, AO AT Bd.
220 (Kevalaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), 316-7;
Parpola, Assyrian, 4, 10.
97 Hamer also gives examples of other oracles addressed to his son Ashurbanipal (668-
633 BCE), and the inscription of King Zakir of Hamath. See Harner, “ Salvation,” 419.
QO
This conclusion of Harner is similar to that of other form-critical scholars (e.g.,

Westermann), noting that Deutero-Isaiah considered it as “a distinct, self-contained form
of speech” associated with royal figures. See ibid., 433-4.
99 Nissinen, Prophets and Prophecy, 119.
100 Parpola, Assyrian, lxx.
101 Ibid., lxiii-lxiv; On the contrary, de Jong rejects the first part belongs to prophetic
oracle. See Jong, Isaiah, 173-4.
102 See the corresponding footnote. Parpola, Assyrian, 24.
a report to the king Assurbanipal delivered by the prophetess Mullissu-kabtat
from the goddess Mullissu, the wife of Assur. It consists of some structural
elements of addressing the receiver, the “fear-not” formula, and divine sup
port for the kings; the “Words of Encouragement to Assurbanipal” (no. 9)
contain the address and divine support for the kings. In particular, the reports
in nos. 7 and 9 have affinities with the oracle in SAA 3 3 (“Assurbanipal’s
Hymn to Istars of Nineveh and Arbela”), and no. 9 has resemblances with
SAA 3 13 (“Dialogue of Assurbanipal with Nabu”). Weippert also com
pares several passages between the passages of Deutero-lsaiah and Neo-
Assyrian oracles. He links Assyrian oracles in the “Second Oracle of Salva
tion” of “the Covenant of Assur” (SAA 9 3.3) and “Prophecies for the Crown
Prince Assurbanipal” (SAA 9 7) with texts in Isa 48:12a-16d, 42:5-9, 41:21 —
29, and argues that these cases are probably quotations from, or references to,
other texts.103104
III. E g y p tia n P r o p h e tic L ite r a tu r e
Egyptian texts have not been compared with Hebrew prophetic literature to
the same extent as Mesopotamian prophetic oracles. The existence of Egyp
tian prophecy or prophetic tradition, which parallels the conception of bibli
cal prophecy, has been subject to controversy, and Egyptologists in fact have
hardly spoken of the prophetic genre in recent studies.105*The main reason for
this is that, unlike biblical prophecy, the words of the messenger in Egyptian
literature do not come from divine authority, although they in a general sense
include observations of the political and social corruption and threaten com-
ing judgment arising from the failure of cultic practices. For example, T he
W ord s o f K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b laments the despair in the land, but does not
predict the course of coming events; most of the prophetic works in Egypt
seem to imply deliberate political propaganda, and are not pure prophecy in
the biblical sense.
Moreover, Egyptian prophetic literature has frequently become muddled
with the categorisation of wisdom literature. For instance, the following five
books might probably be treated in the range of Egyptian prophecy: (1) T h e
103 See Parpola, Assyrian, lxx-lxxi.

104 See Manfred Weippert, “ ‘Das Friihere, siehe, ist eingetroffen...’: Uber Selbstzitate
im altorientalischen Prophetenspruch,” in Oracles et Propheties dans I ’Antiquite, ed. Jean-
Georges Heintz (Paris: De Boccard, 1997), 160-1.
105 For a noteworthy study o f the literary genre in the Middle Kingdom Egypt, see Rich
ard B. Parkinson, “Types of Literature in the Middle Kingdom,” in Ancient Egyptian Lit
erature: History and Forms, ed. Antonio Loprieno, Probleme der Agyptologie 10 (Leiden;
New York: Brill, 1996), 297-312.
IA /
John H. Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey o f

Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1990), 213.
P r o p h e c y o f N e fe r ti , (2) T h e W o rd s o f K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b , (3) T h e D ia lo g u e
o f a M a n w ith H is S o u l , (4) T h e P r o te s ts o f E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t , and (5) T he
D ia lo g u e o f I p u u r a n d th e L o r d to th e L im it. However, in general these pro
phetic texts have been compared with biblical wisdom books like Job, Prov
erbs, and Ecclesiastes.107 Nonetheless, Egyptian texts have a few resem
blances with biblical prophetic books at some points, in that both deal with
the motifs of sufferings and deliverance and with criticism of contemporary
society. At least two compositions - th e P r o p h e c y o f N e fe r ti and th e W o rd s o f
K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b (though no element of prediction) - are likely related to
Deutero-Isaiah.
1. T he P r o p h e c y o f N e fe r ti
The Egyptian composition associated with Deutero-Isaiah is what is generally

called “the Prophecy of Neferti” or “the Protocol of Neferti” (abb., N e fe r ti )
and a single complete manuscript is preserved in a papyrus St. Petersburg
1116B in the Eighteenth Dynasty.108 This text is probably related to a national
calamity which precedes a deliverance by a future king called Ameny who
may be King Amenemhet I of the Twelfth Dynasty, but, generally scholars,
based on the eulogy of King Amenemhat I (1990-1960 BCE), assigned this
text to his reign or afterwards.109 This work, like I p u u r , could be classified as
“prophecy” - of course, whether Neferti’s words may be grouped as
“prophecy” is doubtful - and deals with national disasters, but is neither a
real prophetic form nor is it related to historical events known to us. By
describing king Amenemhat I (1991-1962 BCE) as an ideal king, rather, the
text seems to contain royal propagandic elements.110
This discourse begins with the words of King Sneferu (2575-2551 BCE)
of the Fourth Dynasty who summoned the chief lector-priest named Neferti
who foretells what will happen and who will tell him “a few perfect words”
(P 8) in the Old Kingdom. Neferti then, before the king, speaks of his
prophecy and the coming disasters arising from the drought:
107 Nili Shupak, comparing Egyptian prophetic literature with biblical prophecy, argues
that “there was no prophetic tradition in Egypt that corresponded to the prophecy of the
Old Testament” See Nili Shupak, “Egyptian ‘Prophecy’ and Biblical Prophecy: Did the
Phenomenon of Prophecy, in the Biblical Sense, Exist in Ancient E gypt?,” JEOL, no. 31
(1989): 18. Furthermore, she argues after broad research of the literary features of Egyp
tian prophetic texts that the five Egyptian texts suggested above should be considered as
Egyptian wisdom literature. See Nili Shupak, “Egyptian ‘Prophetic’ Writings and Biblical
Wisdom Literature,” BN, no. 54 (1990): 81-102.
108 Pritchard, ANET, 444-6; Lichtheim, AEL /, 1:139-45; Hallo, COS /, 1:106-10; Park
inson, Sinuhe, 131-43. I use the translation of Parkinson.
109 Parkinson, Culture, 304.
1,0 See Lichtheim, AEL /, 1:139.
And the river of Egypt is dry, so that water is crossed on foot. (P 26)
And he foretells the social chaos and the geographical confusion resulting
from invasion, and the lament of the prophet is stopped by the emergence of
the victorious king Ameny; he says that this redeeming king will bring
political reunion and moral recovery to the country. Finally it ends up with a
eulogy for the king and the restoration of order.
In fact, a king from the south will come, called Ameny. He is the son of a woman of
Bowland; he is a child of Southern Egypt. (P 57-58)
The people of his time will be joyful, and the gentleman will make his name, for eternity
and all time! (P 61)
2. T he W o rd s o f K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b
This text is preserved in a writing board (British Museum EA 5645) which is

dated to the early Eighteenth Dynasty, while the original text is likely to
belong to the Middle Kingdom, and would not be earlier than the late Twelfth
Dynasty,111 since the name Khakheperreseneb seems to be derived from the
royal name of king Khakheperre Senwosret II of the Twelfth Dynasty.11213This
work is a monologue in the form of a lament, and shows an inner dialogue
between a man and his heart like the E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t and the D e b a te b e
tw e e n a M a n a n d H is S o u l. In it, the priest (also called Ankhu) meditates
upon the destroyed land, and sees mourning and grief amongst the people.
This work is closely associated with N e fe r ti and Ip u u r , in that both address
the destruction of the land and express its wailing, but K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b
neither reflects a political situation nor predicts things to come in the land.
Instead, this composition is usually related to the wholly personal thoughts
from the author’s observations and to the heartfelt agony from his past and
present experience; K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b is certainly standing on the intersec
tion of inner suffering and of external turmoil in the uncertainty of reality.
To what extent does Deutero-lsaiah overlap with these two Egyptian texts?
We have few commonalities in linguistic expressions and literary structure
between them. But, there are some general similarities in themes which we
can confirm. Shupak mentions two common motifs between biblical and
Egyptian prophecy - (1) “the disasters-redemption m otif’, (2) “the portrayal
of a redeemer” - and in particular, the motifs of “admonitions” concerning
the perversion of social order, and “deliverance and consolation” which have
significance in the comparison between Egyptian prophecy and Isaiah 4 0 -
111 See ibid., 1:145.

1121 use the translation of Parkinson. See Parkinson, Sinuhe, 144-50; Pritchard, ANET,
421-5; Lichtheim, AEL /, 1:145-9; Hallo, COS /, 1:104-6. For a detailed study, see Parkin
son, Culture, 200-4, 304-5.
113 Lichtheim, AEL /, 1:145.
66,114 but we may also see these similarities in other Hebrew prophetic litera
ture as well.
IV . E v a lu a tio n : D e u te r o - I s a ia h ’s R e fe r e n c e to F o r e ig n L ite r a tu r e
Was Deutero-Isaiah aware of the collections of specific foreign texts which

are discussed above? This statement may not be readily sustained when one
realise such widespread sources similar to Deutero-Isaiah. Let us look at the
case for literary dependence on a specific text. The customary pattern which
exists in the Cyrus Cylinder about political propaganda and deliverance from
national distress is not limited to the region and time of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire. We have many parallels concerning the divine election of the king by
his gods and the king’s role as divine envoy in Ugaritic and Sumerian royal
inscriptions and in the Hebrew Bible. Hans Barstad in several places has
supported the idea that detailed information about Cyrus would have been
well known to those who lived in the Syria-Palestine region as well as to the
Jewish diasporas in the region of Babylon.115 Especially, he examines two
cases of Babylonian literary influence from the Cyrus Cylinder and the form
of divine self-predication.116*
Firstly, there are several examples where reference to Cyrus was common
in Babylonian literary heritage. The most frequently cited parallel with
Deutero-Isaiah appears in the expression, “Thus Yahweh said this to his
anointed one, to Cyrus, whom I have taken hold of (TlpTnn) by the right
hand, to subdue nations before him” in Isa 45:1a (cf. 42:6). From this parallel,
it has been argued that the idea of divine election in Marduk’s relationship
with the Cyrus Cylinder was the origin of Deutero-Isaiah’s text. However,
as Barstad points out, in Oppenheim’s translation, the phrase q a -ta s a b a tu in
the foreign counterpart of Isa 45:1 has no meaning of “appointment”,
“designation” or “election”; Oppenheim translates it as “He scanned and
looked (through) all the countries, searching for a righteous ruler willing to
114 See Shupak, “Egyptian ‘Prophecy’ and Biblical Prophecy,” 31-2.

1,5 See Hans M. Barstad, “On the So-Called Babylonian Literary Influence in Second
Isaiah,” SJO T 2 (1987): 90-110; The Myth o f the Empty Land: A Study in the History and
Archaeology o f Judah during the “E xilic” Period (Oslo: Scandinavian UP, 1996); The
Babylonian Captivity o f the Book o f Isaiah: “E xilic” Judah and the Provenance o f Isaiah
40-55 (Oslo: Novus, 1997).
116 He notices that “the language of the Cylinder, both with regard to phraseology and
content, represents common Babylonian style, and must have been well known all over the
Ancient Near East” and that ‘the message of the cylinder is so Marduk/Babylonia oriented
that it is highly unlikely that any Yahweh prophet could take inspiration from it.” See
Barstad, “So-Called,” 94.
1,7 Paul, Isaiah 40-66, 188, 252; Kittel, “Cyrus,” 160.
11X
lead him (i.e. Marduk)”. The divine election further is a fairly usual
concept in other texts such as Ps 2:7 and 110:1-7, and the hiphil form of verb
pm is not referring to such a particular implication in the present context and
is no more than a general term (cf. Job 8:20; Jer 31:32; 41:9, 13; 42:6); in
addition, this may be viewed as referring to “the so-called Zakir inscription,
an Aramaic inscription from the 8 century B.C.E.” and “the Moabite Mesha
inscription”.118119*Barstad also sustains Kuhrt’s claim, that there is no historical
linkage between the record of the Cyrus Cylinder and Cyrus in Deutero-
Isaiah. According to Rainer Albertz, although the coming divine messenger
described in Deutero-lsaiah (Isa 44:24-45:7) generally has been seen as
referring to Cyrus the Persian king, the figure in some oracles such as Isa
45:4-7, 45:11-13, and 48:12-15 may refer to King Darius.1211234
Secondly, one can argue from the “self-predication formula” (“I am God”)
in Deutero-lsaiah, that this form was influenced by cuneiform texts like
199
E n u m a E lish and O ra c le s o f E s a r h a d d o n . However, we have little evidence
to suppose that this idiom was borrowed from specific Neo-Babylonian texts;
although there may be a high possiblity. Barstad, for example, disagrees with
Grepmann’s claim that the instance of the “self-predication” formula in a
form of “hymnic praise” (Isa 48:12-13) is the consequence of Akkadian
parallels, and instead he notices that this formula “is found not only in
biblical or Aramaic texts, but it is known in several Ancient Near Eastern
cultures.” Such literary traces of Babylonian influence on Deutero-lsaiah
must be seen in respect of the cultural inter-relationship in the ancient Near
East. For example, literary custom can go back to the earlier period of
Akkadian civilization or to the other cultural background of Egyptian or
Ugaritic literature. When literary affinities between B a b y lo n ia n r o y a l
in s c r ip tio n s and Deutero-lsaiah appear repeatedly in ancient Near Eastern
literature, it is important to accept that those sorts of myth, creation narrative,
and court scenes appearing in Babylonian documents are what can easily be
found in the oldest Sumerian inscriptions, and even in the Assyrian
inscriptions; i.e., Grayson, in his book A s s y r ia n R o y a l I n s c r ip tio n s ,
118 ANET, 315; Adolf L. Oppenheim, “Idiomatic Accadian(Lexicographical Re

searches),” JA OS 61 (1941): 251-71.
119 See Barstad, “ So-Called,” 97-9; Peterson, “Babylonian,” 32.
19H
Kuhrt, “The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy.”
191
Rainer Albertz, “Darius in Place of Cyrus: The First Edition of Deutero-lsaiah
(Isaiah 40.1-52.12) in 521 BCE,” JSO T 27 (2003): 371-83.
122 Pritchard, ANET, 60-72, 449-50, 605.
123 See Barstad, “ So-Called,” 101-10.
124 Ibid., 106.
19 5
See Peterson, “Babylonian,” 60-77; Also refer to Stephen H. Langdon, Building In
scriptions o f the Neo-Babylonian Empire. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1905); Albert K. Grayson,
Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Records of the Ancient Near East (Wiesbaden: O. Harras-
maintains that the origin of royal inscriptions in Assyria and Babylon
probably lies in the earliest Sumerian inscriptions.
Over all, literary resemblances between these ancient documents do not
have to be interpreted as the direct knowledge of a particular composition or a
single literary tradition which biblical authors knew, but they need to be dealt
with as the mixed influence of prevalent well-known oral-written texts and
styles.
C. Job and Deutero-Isaiah in Ancient Near Eastern Culture
I. G e n e r a l In flu e n c e
Although some of the arguments, which propose that the two books were
dependent in literary terms on non-Israelite writings, do not have sufficient
evidence to carry conviction, it may be reasonable to notice that those claims
have valid points in their favour - though not, indeed, as much as their pro
ponents would wish. The diversity shown in resemblances with foreign texts
implies how many and varied scribes utilised probable knowledge of ancient
literatures and reflected their concern on their writings; the broad influence of
the prevalent non-Israelite works would not be wholly cut off. If the foreign
literature sheds light on aspects of the relationship between Job and Deutero-
Isaiah, what sorts of influence of foreign sources can we find from texts?
1. P e r s o n a l a n d N a tio n a l S u ffe r in g
Foreign texts in Egypt and Mesopotamia relating to the book of Job and
Deutero-Isaiah are generally bound up with the issue of human suffering and
misery in the individual life and in the world. In Job, suffering and injustice
occupy a central theme, although the text of Job is unlikely to give the
rational explanation of the innocent sufferer. Let us consider four different
literatures: T h e B a b y lo n ia n J o b , T h e P r o te s t o f th e E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t , T he
E p ic o f K e r e t , and Sumerian M a n a n d H is G o d . These compositions are
dealing with issues of individual tragedies (e.g., individuals, peasant, king);
though there are national calamities in the case of T h e D ia lo g u e o f I p u u r a n d
th e L o r d o f th e L im it. In these texts, restoration of loss and reconciliation of
the conflict at the end of the stories are given to sufferers; an exception is in
A P e s s im is tic D ia lo g u e b e tw e e n M a s te r a n d S e r v a n t. Although the detailed
literary descriptions are diverse and they do not all deal with the case of the
sowitz, 1972); Paul R. Berger, Die Neubabylonischen Konigsinschriften. Konigsinschriften

des Ausgehenden Babylonischen Reiches(626-539 a. Chr.), AOAT 4/1 (Kevelaer: Butzon
& Bercker, 1973).
purely innocent sufferer, all of them are engaged with the sufferer’s motif
which is the same as in the book of Job.
Likewise, the most analogous motif which Deutero-lsaiah shares with the
foreign texts concerns human suffering and affliction, although the suffering
in Deutero-lsaiah is different from the undeserved suffering of a pious indi
vidual like Job. Its main social content is linked with the national disaster and
chaos that the Judean community suffered during Babylonian exile, and this
is certainly combined with the theme of the suffering servant in Isa 52:13-
53:12. Its fundamental background in terms of nationwide pandemonium and
suppression by natural, political or military forces already appeared in most
non-Israelite compositions like T h e C y ru s C y lin d e r , T he O ra c le s o f E s a r h a d -
d o n , T he P r o p h e c y o f N e fe r ti , and T he W o rd s o f K h a k h e p e r r e s e n e b , where
they all reflect the chaotic social situation. Moreover, in those texts such as
the N e fe r ti and Assyrian prophetic oracles, the earnest desire for a new king-
ship to deliver the nation from chaotic conditions is present, and is contained
in a divine promise to support their kings against their enemies.
2. L ite r a r y D ia lo g u e in J o b
The literary genre shared by Job and non-Israelite sources, we say, is “dia
logue”, which usually consists of the debate or discussion between two
speakers and which explores questions of human suffering. It is tempting to
assert that the author of Job was familiar with the idea of using the frame
work of dialogic form to draw attention to individual suffering and social
chaos. Although it accordingly seems to be a prevailing form shared in an
cient Near East culture, this form cannot be simply compared with the struc
ture of the Platonic dialogue in Greek culture or with the modern dialogic
genre.126 What we can confirm is that the author of Job seems to be aware of
the dialogic format and to adopt it in the text and context of a complicated
Israelite literature.
Except for the dialogic form, there is almost nothing which can link texts
in Job to the Babylonian compositions - D ia lo g u e b e tw e e n a M a n a n d H is
G o d , the B a b y lo n ia n J o b , the B a b y lo n ia n T h e o d ic y , and P e s s im is m - and
Egyptian texts - the D ia lo g u e o f a M a n w ith H is S o u l , the P r o te s ts o f E lo
q u e n t P e a s a n t , and Ip u u r . Van der Toorn for instance, proposes the literary
“dialogue” as the one of prevalent genres, comparing three ancient texts,
“The Man Who Was Tired of Life”, “The Babylonian Theodicy”, and the
1
Denning-Bolle regards a literary dialogue in Akkadian literature as an established
genre in the disputation and ritual setting. See Sara Denning-Bolle, Wisdom in Akkadian
Literature: Expression, Instruction, Dialogue, Mededelingen en verhandelingen van het
Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux” 28 (Leiden: Ex Oriente Lux,
1992), 85-133.
1"77
Book of Job. According to van der Toorn, the dialogue genre in each litera
ture is placed in various literary settings such as “legal metaphors”, “judicial
trials” or “wisdom disputation”, and further it combines the subject-matter
of theodicy with other pessimistic literatures which reflect the mood of an
individual’s chaos and distress in its own right. On the contrary, the structure
of T h e P r o te s ts o f th e E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t seems to escape the dialogue genre
and to adopt “tale” as a prominent genre, but in the core petitions it seems to
adopt the “internal dialogue” (or monologue) where the correspondent is
silent. The literature most similar to the book of Job, the Sumerian M a n
a n d H is G o d likewise lacks the dialogic form, but instead includes the long
monologue expressed to his deity. The Ugaritic composition T h e E p ic o f
K e r e t has less dialogue than other compositions, but it also includes a dia
logue between Keret and the supreme god El.
Dialogue was the literary tool used to reflect the many voices of ancient
writers. Such a literary dialogue was very popular in the Middle Kingdom
Egyptian (1980-1630 BCE), in the Babylonian - both in the Old Babylonian
(2000-1595 BCE) and Kassite (1550-1 155 BCE) period - Sumerian, Ugarit,
and Hebrew texts. For Middle Egyptian compositions, Parkinson says:
The complaint-and-answer character of theodicy is particularly suited to the form of a
dispute, and theodicy themes are most fully articulated in the discourse and dialogue gen
res, although the narratives often embody the issue of divine justice through anomic ex
periences, and the teachings assert Maat by guiding the audience through pragmatic prob
lems of social behavior.130
Those non-Israelite texts wholly or partly revolve around the literary genre of
dialogue in its own right, as they are applied into different contents and dif
ferent styles, and forms. Indeed, it may be supposed that scribes were aware
of a literary genre of dialogue common in other cultures.
3. S e lf-P r e s e n ta tio n F o r m in D e u te r o -Is a ia h
Numerous studies about the relationship between the Deutero-Isaiah and non-
Israelite sources discussed above have indicated the shared form of “self
presentation” (or “self-predication”) - “I am X”. This includes the basic and
derived forms where the subject, the divine “I” becomes god(s) or king(s) as
representatives of gods. This kind of study has in particular focused on Assyr-
127
In conclusion he says that “on the strength of these formal and material resem
blances, one is led to posit the existence of the literary dialogue as a distinct literary genre
in the ancient Near East.” See van der Toorn, “Dialogue,” 71.
128
See ibid., 62-5.
129
Parkinson points out that “Khakheperreseneb”, “Sasobek”, and “the Eloquent Peas
ant” fall into this pattern. See Parkinson, Culture, 200.
130
Ibid., 137-8.
1^1
ian and Babylonian hymns that are related to the form in Deutero-lsaiah.
Friedrich Stummer in his 1926 article argued that the Babylonian hymns to
Shamash and Marduk are associated with the Hebrew Psalms and with Deu-
tero-Isaiah’s hymns; in particular, E n u m a E lis h is the most significant
composition in parallel with Deutero-Isaiah’s hymnic forms. Hyacinthe Dion
representatively claims that there was influence of hymnic forms in Mesopo
tamian literature on Deutero-lsaiah with regard to the divine self-predication
that would range from the i -> ”5
Old Babylonian period to the Neo-Babylonian and
Neo-Assyrian periods. So, there is little reason to think that the divine self
predication form was exclusively developed in the Israelite tradition as an
integral part. The self-presentation form definitely was a prevalent literary
device in the time of Deutero-lsaiah.1312134 Except for the Egyptian compositions,
the non-Israelite sources, discussed above, are almost all linked with this
form of self-presentation.
Let us consider three ancient Near Eastern resources: the Z a k k u r S te la of
the early eighth century which was discovered in the city Hamath of Syria,135
the Neo-Babylonian source T h e C y ru s C y lin d e r , and the Neo-Assyrian oracle
S in q is a -a m u r o f A r b e l a (SAA 9 1.2). Not surprisingly, all these examples
have the element of the self-presentation form, which corresponds to the
phrase “I am Yahweh” in Deutero-lsaiah and which in many cases combines
with the promise of deliverance and support, and with praising their deities;
this form to some extent is more prominent in Sumero-Akkadian literature
than Egyptian literature. This commonality may attest that the author of Deu
tero-lsaiah was aware of these prevalent forms and adopted them to highlight
the divine power among other deities and to assure suffering people of future
help.
131 For the entire summary of the self-presentation formula in Deutero-lsaiah and Meso
potamian sources, see the following two references; Peterson, “Babylonian,” 105-34;
Eugene H. Merrill, “Isaiah 40-55 as Anti-Babylonian Polemic,” GTJ 8 (1987): 11-8. For
early works, see Friedrich Stummer, “Einige keilschriftliche Parallelen zu Jes. 4 0 -6 6 ,” JBL
45 (1926): 171-89; Walther Zimmerli, “Ich bin Yahweh,” in Geschichte und Altes
Testament: Albrecht Alt zum 70. Gehurtstag dargebracht (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1953),
179-209.
132 Stummer, “Einige Keilschriftliche”; For the parallels with the Hebrew Psalters, see
Friedrich Stummer, Sumerisch-Akkadische Parallelen zum Aufbau Alttestamentlicher
Psalmen, SGKA 11. B d.,l./2. Hft (Paderborn: F. Schoningh, 1922).
133 See Hyacinthe M. Dion, “Le genre litteraire sumerien de l’‘hymne a soi-meme et
quelques passages du Deutero-Isaie,” RB 74 (1967): 215-34; “Patriarchal Traditions and
the Literary Form of the ‘Oracle o f Salvation,’” CBQ 29 (1967): 198-206.
134 For instance, oracles of Mari (fifth Mari letter) already contained this form. See
Claus Westermann, Basic Forms o f Prophetic Speech (London: Lutterworth, 1967), 125;
Morgan L. Phillips, “Divine Self-Predication in Deutero-lsaiah,” BR 16 (1971): 36.
135 Nissinen, Prophets and Prophecy, 203-7.
II. D iffe r e n c e s in C o n te x t, Id e a , a n d T h o u g h t
Although authors of Job and Deutero-Isaiah would have a broad knowledge

related to those foreign texts, the two books may be differentiated from cer
tain religious ideas or interests emerged from non-Israelite resources. Each
book to some degree needs to be read and viewed against the different ideas
of other ancient cultures, since it reflects unique theological ideas in Israelite
scribal culture as well as the general worldview in the Mesopotamian and
Egyptian literature. The concept of divine justice is an obvious example of
this. The subject-matter of divine justice in the two books is certainly com
mon in Middle Kingdom Egyptian compositions. John Gray asserts that the
“Divine Order”, which is the general theme in the ancient Near East, is the
ultimate resolution of the questions proposed by humans in Job. Comment
ing on cases in the wisdom psalms, Gray states:
[T]he purpose of the text was not to accentuate the problem but to defend the belief in
God’s Order by seeking a solution beyond philosophy in religion. This is the solution also
in the Book of Job*137*
Nonetheless, we cannot regard the idea of divine justice - M a a t (“Order”,

“Justice” or “Law”) - in the literature of the middle Egyptian Kingdom as
similar to that of Israelite scribal culture. Generally, this is evident in the
issue of the concept of god(s). There is the thought of a single God Yahweh
in Israelite religion who takes control of all the nations including Israel, while
the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts believe in polytheism. So,
when the subject of justice in Israelite writings is compared to that in other
cultures, they are not identical with one another in their own ideas; though
later Egyptian literature is quite different.
Let us consider the Middle Egyptian text T he P r o p h e c y o f N e fe r ti. The rea
son why the world has gone wrong with great uncertainty in Neferti is be
cause M a a t is being compromised so much so that by the advent of a new
king, the national order will be finally restored. When M a a t is weakened and
then the world order begins to collapse, we may see fallen Egypt and the
chaos and turmoil of society (lines P 54-56). Finally, M a a t will be standing
by the future coming of Ameny the ideal king; “Truth will return to its proper
place, with Chaos driven outside” (lines P 67). This seems to be identical
with Israel’s propagandistic purposes, but there is no retribution and judg
ment by deities in Neferti. In Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, gods do not
automatically secure individuals’ prosperity in the world in response to their
130 See Gray, “Near,” 253, 268.

137 Ibid., 269.
17X
“ ‘Order’ is the fundamental religious, social, and abstract concept of m a'at, and
‘disorder’ is izfet, the opposite of m a'at, associated with the world outside creation.”
Baines, “Society,” 128.
behaviour, but they give security when humans co-operate with them in main
taining the order of the world. In many cases, humans can attempt to modify
the ways of M a a t or to turn to other deities. For instance, in th e P r o te s ts o f
th e E lo q u e n t P e a s a n t , Parkinson comments that the words of the peasant
highlight “the relativization of M a a t in this world once more, by expressing
the peasant’s need to turn to an otherworldly judge” (B2 113-15).139 Literary
features of early Egyptian compositions are not about divine retribution or
judgment on individuals, but that becomes a feature of late Egyptian literature.
Since right judgment, emphasised in the Middle Egyptian literature, comes in
the afterlife, retribution in the present life is treated as a trivial matter;140
while the position of the dead in “a land of the dead” in Babylonian literature
is uncertain, and the concept of judgment of the dead does not exist in
Sumero-Mesopotamian literature.141 Moreover, it seems that the book of Job
adopts the ancient notion of justice, but its implicit idea is distinct from the
concept of M a a t in Middle Egyptian literature; the concept of justice as found
in the book of Job is not in the hands of gods of the Old and Middle Kingdom
Egypt, but it may be in the New Kingdom (1540-1070 BCE) and late period
Egypt (715-332 BCE) which is contemporary in Israel.142
On the other hand, this idea of divine justice in Mesopotamia is understood
in a different way from that of the Israelite idea. For instance, we can take the
Gilgamesh Epic,143 the most famous Akkadian composition. Gilgamesh and
Enkidu slew the monstrous Humbaba and the Bull of Fleaven belonging to the
deities. Both figures offended gods and provoked divine anger by killing
animals and the gods decided to kill Enkidu inflicting retribution on him.
Then, what caused the sudden death of Enkidu? Was it the same divine retri
bution which we can see in Israelite literature? Rather than a moral decision
made as a result of just judgment, it is no more than an arbitrary reaction to
human misbehaviour. For another example, when considering both the book
of Job and th e B a b y lo n ia n J o b , they involve a human character who cannot
understand the reasons why he has to be punished by God, and the common
topics between them are the hidden divine motive and the problem of under
standing suffering. As discussed above, substantial Mesopotamian texts are
139 Parkinson, Culture, 170.

140 See Bricker, “Innocent Suffering in Egypt,” 96; R. J. Williams, “Theodicy in the
Ancient Near East,” in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. James L. Crenshaw, IRT 4
(Philadelphia: Fortress; London: SPCK, 1983), 48.
141 See Bricker, “Innocent Suffering in Mesopotamia,” 213; Helmer Ringgren, Religions
o f the Ancient Near East, trans. John Sturdy (London: SPCK, 1973), 4 6-8, 121-3, 175-6.
142 Cf., Assmann notices that “under various traditional names, especially Amun (and
then Isis in Greco-Roman antiquity), the single god became an object of popular piety and
the protagonist of magical texts, from Ramesside times down to the Greek magical papyri.”
Jan Assmann, The Search fo r God in Ancient Egypt (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001), 13.
143 Pritchard, ANET, 72-99; Hallo, COS 1 ,1:458-60.
interested in these shared themes, but it does not mean that they all belong to
a sort of “righteous sufferer” texts as the case of the pious Job; God’s justice
and moral retribution in Job is completely different from those described in
Mesopotamian literature.
Furthermore, Deutero-Isaiah may be differentiated from the wide-ranging
context of other non-Israelite texts, and from even Job. Deutero-Isaiah has
fewer affinities with earlier foreign literature than the book of Job and is
more associated with the contemporary non-Israelite sources such as the Neo-
Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian literature. In contrast to the book of Job which
does not draw upon literary sources about the history of Israel, Deutero-Isaiah
is drawing heavily on types of literature known in the Israelite context and is
much shaped by certain knowledge of Israelite prophetic texts. Moreover, the
theme of human suffering in Deutero-Isaiah occurs in the historical context of
the national disaster which had befallen Israel, and these are very Israelite
ideas found almost exclusively in biblical literature. It is hard to see other
contemporary texts which have similar religious ideology with detailed
events in human history; Deutero-Isaiah envisages the deliverance of all the
nations by Yahweh’s power, while B a b y lo n ia n r o y a l in s c r ip tio n s mainly
stress military conquest.
III. C o n s id e r a tio n s
Finally, there may be some individual points shared by Job and Deutero-
Isaiah that may offer insights into the date of those books; though we would
not trace back any particular dates from linguistic characteristic. Central to
the entire language in Job’s dialogue and Deutero-Isaiah’s speeches is the
prominent form of trial or disputation which commonly emerges in ancient
Near Eastern literature, in particular, in Neo-Babylonian literature. F. Rachel
Magdalene recently examined resemblances between Neo-Babylonian litiga
tion procedure and the book of Job, and she then proposed that suffering,
divine action, and lawsuit in the ancient context of theodicy are related to
Job’s legal disputation in disease, disability and disaster, and that there is a
“direct influence on that of Israel during the period when the author of Job
created this work.” 144 It is assumed by Magdalene that the author of Job
144 Magdalene alongside Dick, Gemser, Sheldon, Westbrook argues that “the author of
Job incorporated the worldview reflected in the Mesopotamian ritual incantations, hymns,
prayers, and theodicies in shaping his book”. F. Rachel Magdalene, On the Scales o f Right
eousness Neo-Babylonian Trial Law and the Book o f Job (Providence: Brown Judaic Stud
ies, 2007), 24, 28-9; F. Rachel Magdalene, “The ANE Legal Origins of Impairment as
Theological Disability and the Book o f Job,” PRS 34 (2007): 23-59; Michael B. Dick,
“Legal Metaphor in Job 31,” CBQ 41 (1979): 37-50; Linda J. Sheldon, “The Book of Job
as Hebrew Theodicy: An Ancient Near Eastern Intertextual Conflict Between Law and
Cosmology” (PhD, Berkeley: Univ. o f California, 2002); Berend Gemser, “The Rib- or
intentionally used litigation documents of the Neo-Babylonian period to
create Job’s text. In the same way, it has been maintained by many exegetes
that the lengthy speeches of Deutero-Isaiah aim at attacking Babylonian for
eign gods and they may be interpreted as using the polemic or lawsuit lan
guages of foreign texts, in particular Babylonian sources.145 If the arguments
of Magdalene and other researchers are correct, it would be appropriate to
conclude that these scribal texts were broadly shaped by legal language in
Babylonian texts, although scribes would not use a specific text nor collec
tions of cuneiform texts. Therefore, we may cautiously suppose that the Neo-
Babylonian period and the years following are the most probable times for
the formation of the two books.
D. Conclusion
The fact that both Job and Deutero-Isaiah have been closely associated with
non-Israelite texts does not mean that scribes read all these specific non-
Israelite texts and directly referred to them all; although we cannot com
pletely rule out the possibility. Nonetheless, each book contains significant
elements of literary influence from non-Israelite resources; they perhaps
shared common interests in the issue of personal and national suffering, and
had general knowledge of literary devices such as the dialogic form and the
form of self-presentation. Accordingly, we do not need to see either given
text as an “untypical” or “non-Israelite” book, but we may suppose from both
texts that scribes had some exposure to foreign texts and ideas. This lends
weight to the idea that scribal culture was neither isolated nor exceptional in
its character. It, however, should be noted rather that biblical writings such as
Job and Deutero-Isaiah are differentiated from other foreign texts by such
things as certain religious ideas or interests, and such differences might
affirm what we expect: that scribes may have had cultural knowledge of
ancient literature, yet preserving their distinct identity among other nations.
Controversy Pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near
East, ed. Martin Noth and David W. Thomas, SVT 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 120-37.
145 For the full study o f polemic language against Babylon, see Merrill, “The Language
and Literary Characteristics of Isaiah 40-55 as Anti-Babylonian Polemic.”
Chapter 6
Scribal Ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah
Job and Deutero-Isaiah are two different types of literature - the story and
dialogue of the innocent sufferer, and the prophetic texts about Israel and the
nations - but they actually end up speaking of cultural ideas with which
scribes were concerned. Building on the theory of scribalism, certain clarifi
cations should be made in terms of the relationship between Job and Deutero-
Isaiah. From now on, it would be necessary to express those similarities, not
as the “distinctiveness” of literary dependence, but as the “sharedness” in the
historical and social context. In this sense, when we consider where these
phrases come from and the reasons why biblical writers are using them, an
essential connection could be recognised beyond a set of similar linguistic
elements and in the common social and historical context from which these
two texts originate; for instance, the phrase - “non-violence” or “no-violence”
(Job 16:17; Isa 53:9b) - may provide an interestingly shared idea beyond
linguistic affinity. However, this is not to exclude the significance of formal
ised themes presented in most comparative studies in Job and Deutero-Isaiah,
nor to overlook verbal parallels between them which deserve our attention.
Rather, as we discussed in Chapter 2, proposed common subject-matters and
verbal parallels are likely to be commonplace and therefore may not prove
the literary and historical relationship between the two books, unless there is
precise analogy. Moreover, what we have learned from a variety of intercon
nections in Chapters 3 and 5 is that authors of Job and Deutero-Isaiah could
be aware of Israelite and non-Israelite sources prevalent in their literate
community. With the dynamic knowledge preserved in their learned memory
and in written collections of early texts, scribes could compose diverse litera
ture which reveal their growing values and interests shared and preferred in
their society, and could use them at their disposal in their writing activity.
Accordingly, we need to focus upon the interests, thoughts, and ideas which
are associated with the contemporary cultural knowledge which Persian pe
riod scribes shared.
In this chapter, in order to evince the distinguishing scribal ideas of Job
and Deutero-Isaiah, I will identify beliefs shared by the two books and then
will compare them with similar ideas in other biblical texts. Firstly, from the
two books, two concepts in general can be suggested in the relationship be
tween God and humankind: God’s control and God’s freedom. Breaking
those ideas down into smaller parts, I explore those ideas from the texts, ask
ing the questions: “How do they understand the concept of divine control
over the world?”; “How do they recognise the relationship between man and
God?” Basically it is not the primary issue here whether Jewish scribes had
the same views as the Egyptian and Mesopotamian scribes or had different
views, but the task is primarily related to the identification of the shared be
liefs among scribes of the Persian period. In this process, I exclude ambigu
ous and unrelated concepts derived from general ideas in the ancient Near
East and Israel. Secondly, scribal ideas in the two books will be compared to
other biblical materials. It is necessary on the one hand to compare them with
other texts which would have been composed, revised or would have existed
in the Persian period. On the other hand, I will compare the scribal views
with those of the Hellenistic period. For instance, if we see the same notions
from the late texts that are similar to scribal ideas found in the two books, it
would then be reasonable to suppose that those scribal concepts are a reflec
tion of views held widely in both the Persian and Hellenistic periods. How
ever, unless we find those ideas in the late texts, they are probably not com
monly held views in the Hellenistic period, but they are more likely to be
shared thoughts in the Persian scribal culture. So, when we look at shared
scribal ideas in the two books, we need to distinguish them from other gen
eral characteristics in different periods. It is, however, far from my intention
to prove in a systematic approach that the two books originated from scribal
culture in the Persian period. I will focus on describing that those shared
thoughts in the two different types of biblical literature may be interpreted
appropriately in the general context of the scribal culture which I have pro
posed.
A. Shared Ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah
What is interesting in Job and Deutero-Isaiah is the specific issue of unde

served suffering (Job 2:3; 9:17; Isa 40:2). For whatever reason, both texts
deal with the idea of a person who has suffered in a way that cannot be ex
plained simply by what they have done; though we have already noted that
the general theme of suffering servant cannot demonstrate a special relation
ship between the two books. In such a literary setting of undeserved suffering,
the two books share two common concepts of God’s control and freedom.
I. G o d 's C o n tr o l
The idea of divine sovereignty and control over the world is the scribal
thought prominently shared in Job and Deutero-Isaiah. This is not to be un
derstood in terms of an evolutionary process leading from polytheistic ideol
ogy to monotheistic ideology; rather, the two books highlight the uniqueness
of Yahweh in exercising boundless power and wisdom in the universe. In this
case, how do the two writings express the idea of divine control? What are
the differences with the similar ideas of “planning” and “determinism” in the
late texts?
1. G o d ’s C o n tr o l in J o b
In the book of Job, God intervenes in the life of a pious individual living “in
the land of Uz” (Job 1:1a) probably in Edomite territory, thus not part of the
history of Israel. In the prologue, even if God seems to be swayed by the
Satan’s challenges, he is definitely controlling much of them by limiting the
Satan’s power, when allowing him to bring all the disasters to Job. God,
throughout the dialogue (3:1-42:6), is described as the last authority involved
in the created world, and Yahweh’s power is exercised in the entire natural
world, not exclusively for the benefits of humans. The main conflict between
Job and his friends involves many thoughts and questions about how an indi
vidual in distress interprets incomprehensible divine actions. The discussion
on the just exercise of God’s power in the world shows the conflicting per
ceptions between Job and his friends, but what they all implicitly agree is that
whatever happens, God is holding the world and human incidents under his
control. Elihu, later on summarising the common belief of the three friends,
which is the same as their conventional interpretation of suffering, also as
sures us that God justly rules the world without partiality (34:18-20) and that
God’s power is then used as an instrument for punishing the unrighteous. In
Job 36-37, Elihu praises God’s power in nature and its greatness as an in
strument of divine government in which God manifests his majesty in the
universe as a teacher (36:22-23):
nbiy n b y s hdtt *rp£rm m i n m m m m m n w b * n n
Behold, God is exalted in his might; who is a teacher1 like him? Who has prescribed his
way of behaviour for him, or who has said, “you have done wrong?” (36:22-23)
The universal manifestation of his power has its instructive purpose during
three seasons (Job 36:23-37:24); autumn (36:26-37:4), winter (37:5-13), and
summer (37:14-24). For this, Yahweh’s power serves for the judgment over
people; the lightning as an instrument of judgment is used to punish human
misbehaviour (36:30-32).
For the phrase miQ inftD ’a (“who is a teacher like him”) in Job 36:22b, the MT is not
in agreement with the LXX rendering, which can be translated, “who is a master like him?”
LXX appears to have read the Hebrew noun m ia as 8nvdaip<; (“ruler”, “officer”) which
may represent Nitt in Aramaic (similarly, Gray, NJPS, Dhorme, and Tur-Sinai). The LXX
reading here is unnecessary, in that there are some examples of the reading mitt in the HB
(cf. Job 36:22; Prov 5:13; Isa 30:20 (twice; "pnft “Your teacher”; referring to God)). See
Clines, Job 21-37, 824; Hartley, Job, 473.
Likewise, Job considers that God is controlling the world with mighty
power. However, the divine control which Job experiences does not occur in
the predictable system of retribution in which the friends surely believe, but
in the irregular decisions which are beyond human expectation and regardless
of human good or bad behaviour. Such a great gap between what he has
known and what he is now experiencing about divine judgment is the main
reason for his despair. In this reasoning, what Job thinks about his God is
getting much closer to the nature of God found in Yahweh’s speech. That is
to say, the sovereign wisdom of Yahweh is unsearchable by any human
means, because his work is incomprehensible and inscrutable (cf. Job 28).
The world is not always maintained by the law of punishment for the evil and
reward for the good, but God is controlling it in inconsistent and contradic
tory ways. Without any direct answers for human justice, Yahweh rebukes
Job for obscuring God’s universal design:
npT'Vn pbnn *piz;nn nr '0
Who is this man who obscures design" by words without knowledge? (38:2)
Yahweh’s rebuke is that Job does not have the understanding necessary to
direct the universe along the right track and this immediately leads to the
visualization of the universe, while many questions about justice which Job
has persistently claimed are ignored in Yahweh’s speeches. The idea of di
vine control appears heavily in Yahweh’s speech which describes the man
agement of the physical world (Job 38:4-38) and animal life (38:39-39:30).
Yahweh’s speech is not concerned with the establishment of the world order
or the planning of future events, but is concerned with ruling and sustaining
the world. After mentioning the grand design obscured by human knowledge,
God challenges Job to take the position of the Judge instead of Him and to
manage the world by his power with better intent (40:8-14). He asks a ques
tion:
p“r*n fpnb •ojruhn nan t\xn
Will you invalidate my decision ? Will you indeed condemn me that you may be vindi
cated? (40:8)2
2 The keyword nsp has the meaning of the grand “design” o f the universe or “universal
project” (cf. Job 42:3) (Clines, 1096; Jensen, 452). Scholars have provided various m ean
ings for this term; “counsel” as “God’s intentions for the history of nations and its people”
(Terrien, 295; cf. Hartley, 490), “providence” in human history (Pope, 250; Dhorme, 574-
5), “purpose” (Gray, 48), “advice” (Longman III, 417). However, this term in the context is
not related to God’s providence or plan in the course of history nor to God’s advice or
counsel.
This term can be rendered in various ways; “my cause” (Clines), “my justice”
(Gordis, Hartley, Longman III), “my Order” (Gray, Good), “my judgment” (Dhorme, Pope,
LXX, JPS). It is unlikely in this setting to have the meaning of legal judgment, but is
A trivial creature like Job has no power to adjust and correct worldly chaos
and evil (Job 40:11-13). In this way, Yahweh’s entire speech, which high
lights how marvellously he controls the world, plays a significant role in
rebuking Job’s misunderstanding of divine design. There are five essential
characteristics in which Yahweh’s speech portrays the ways of the divine
control over the world,*4 and which show the diversity of his ruling over the
world.
Firstly, God skilfully controls the natural world like a planner and an ar
chitect. It is God who has established the complex structure of the world (Job
38:4-21), has operated various elements of the world (38:22-38) and has
sustained the world of animals (38:39-39:30). God has continued to sustain
the world by making “morning” follow night at its appointed time (38:12).
Secondly, the extraordinary power which only God possesses is highlighted.
By divine decree, the foundation of the earth is laid down (38:6) and the sea
water is restricted to its own place (38:8-11). By contrast, humans are por
trayed as powerless beings who do not have the authority to control the cre
ated world (40:9), nor the knowledge about the beginning of the universe
(38:4-7). Thirdly, ways of controlling the world are not inflexible, but are
varied according to their purposes. In the animal world, God’s action is not
following a uniform rule, as contrasted with the human expectation, in which
the reward of the good should be discriminated from the treatment of evil.
God cares both for a brutal carnivore like a lion and even birds, such as a
raven (38:39-41) and gives autonomy to undomesticated and untamed ani
mals such as a mountain goat, a wild ass, and a wild ox (39:1-12). Their
inherent characteristics are entirely different according to divine preference;
such as a foolish ostrich, a courageous war horse, and a wise hawk/vulture
(39:13-30).
Fourthly, although man is the primary object to which the divine council
paid attention in the prologue and God seems to speak to Job in Yahweh’s
speeches, surprisingly we cannot find any description of humans in Yahweh’s
cosmos. Its literary purpose is to depict Yahweh as being absorbed in his own
glory in the world.5 In it, there is no mention of human suffering and injus
tice in the world, and no attempt to defend the accusation of injustice raised
in the dialogue. This is noticeably stated in the description of two beasts in
Job 40-41, which are the most precious and valuable creatures on earth
(40:19), and humans at some points are described as the least valued, not as
simply God’s “decision” or “intention” by which Yahweh exercises his power over the
world.
4 I referred to ten significant reflections in Yahweh’s speeches from David J. A. Clines,
Job 38-42, WBC 18B (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 1089-91.
5 This contrasts with the issue of Genesis in creation in which the world is made for the
sake o f humans, but in Job the world has no association with humans. It is a place where
the divine power and beauty are revealed.
the head of all creatures (cf. Gen 1:26-29). Fifthly, in its description, the
world does not seem to have any problem and disorder through external chaos,
since God perfectly forces every element in the world to function in a proper
way. God does not need to rectify injustice and to mend his world. Every
thing in the universe is in its own place; nothing is out of its original setting
so that the world goes well. Under the faultless control of God, the created
world is what brings joy to its Creator and is the object of divine attention
and praise (39:5-8, 9-12, 19-25; 40:16, 19; 41:12).
2. G o d 's C o n tr o l in D e u te r o -Is a ia h
In Deutero-Isaiah, Yahweh is depicted as the Sovereign One acting vigor
ously in and beyond Israelite events and able to control effectively worldly
affairs, regardless of human errors and unfaithfulness (Isa 40:9-11). With the
long-standing national suffering, God appears already to have acted beyond
human expectation:
nUpN mpn 'nsp nnN nwN nnpDi nnnN rrw*nD tad
Declaring the outcome6 from the beginning and things which are not done from the ancient
time and saying, “My counsel will stand and I7 will do all my desire” (Isa 46:10)
Although Israelites have repeatedly failed to understand God’s concrete pur

poses in the conflict of international politics (Isa 44:26) and in the darkness
of God’s hiddenness (40:27; 45:15), the nature of God is certainly seen to be
acting in the punishment and reward of Israel and foreign nations. Then, the
texts do not seem to state that God has a plan of human history which outlines
the course of humanity moment by moment, but that God’s power is respond
ing to human behaviour in the world. In a series of human events, Israel as a
servant of Yahweh will play a divinely appointed role for nations and will be
ultimately rewarded and restored. God has many purposes and intentions to
change the world which are not revealed to human understanding. Let us
consider this in detail.
Regarding the first finding, God controls the natural world (Isa 45:12, 18)
and directly intervenes in it by transforming the existing natural order (40:3-
4). There God is portrayed as the Creator and builder of the world (40:22;
42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13, 16; cf. Job 26).8 But, the emphasis is not on
the creation of the world, but on the Creator who does what he desires to do
in the created world. On the one hand, Yahweh, for the purpose of presenting
the singleness of Israel’s God among all other gods (41:20), transforms nature
and when the poor and the needy thirst, he purposefully acts by watering the
6 LXX renders rmnN into id e<j%axa (“the last things”).

n
lQIsa renders this in the third person, “he” which probably refers to Cyrus. Two ver
sions lQIsb and 4QIsc supports MT “I”. Goldingay, Isaiah vol.2, 83.
8 See Habel, “He Who Stretches out the Heavens.”
desert and planting trees (41:17-20). On the other hand, God works in a vio
lent and destructive way upon the created world by reversing the natural or
der (42:15; 44:27). Thus, God’s intervention is expressed in two ways in
nature, either by extending prosperity, blessing, and goodness or by bringing
destruction, disaster, and evil (45:7). Chaotic power and all the evil forces are
prominently employed for divine purposes (50:2b; 51:9-10) for which God
will make a way and even wild animals ultimately will “honour” Yahweh in
response to the reconstruction of nature (43:19a-20). This is not occurring as
the response to the behaviour of people, but results from the act of divine
sovereignty and self-determination (41:17; 45:7-8; cf. 42:5; 44:24).
For the second finding, God controls the Israelite community either by
judging their iniquities or by bringing about security and safety (Isa 45:7-8).
The present suffering of Jacob-Israel in exile was the consequence of failing
to understand divine lessons and purpose (40:21-31; 42:23-25) in the running
of the world. But regardless of Jacob-Israel’s blindness and deafness, which
lead them into punishment (42:18-21), God continues to challenge them to
listen to Him, in order to make them recognise his divine intentions (42:25; cf.
51:1-8, 21). God controls the ways of the Israelite community in three ways;
by giving them deliverance and security from political bondage, by commis
sioning them for the nations as a servant of God, and by making Yahweh’s
servant carry undeserved suffering. Firstly, regardless of their disqualification,
Yahweh’s deliverance for Israel’s security (43:1-5) and liberation from po
litical bondage (43:6) will be given to Israel.9 The deliverance is totally de
pendent upon God’s purpose in which Yahweh seems to have absolute au
thority over Israel. Secondly, Israel, even though she sinned against her God,
still belongs to Yahweh as his servant and witness (44:21), and this will play
an important role in bringing nations to their God (43:8-13; cf. 44:8-9). This
is an unexpected response to human deeds because, even though the Israelites
seem hopeless in failing to keep the covenant, Yahweh will continue to en
trust the Israelites with the full privileges of witnessing among nations that
the God of Israel is the one true deity (43:10-13). Lastly, God controls his
agent through the undeserved suffering of Yahweh’s servant whose hidden
purpose is unknown to people, but which is used for the benefits of the many
as an instrument of restoration (52:13-53:12).
The third finding is that God controls foreign nations and their rulers. God
in Isa 40:12-26 declares the nothingness of nations (40:15-17) and the in
comparability of Yahweh compared to foreign idols (40:18-20; cf. 44:9-20).
All the idol-worshippers and their associations will finally slip away (44:11)
and God will make false prophets, diviners, and sages of foreign nations be
come frustrated and foolish (44:25). Deutero-Isaiah notices the uselessness of
9 The passage 43:1-7 begins with the conjunction nnyi (“but now”) which announce the
new division from the former speech concerning Israelite’s sin, blindness.
Babylonian gods and images such as Bel and Nebo, which would mean the
decline of the empire and its kings behind them (46:1-2). In particular, Cyrus
the Persian king is portrayed as being controlled by the God of Israel as
Yahweh’s anointed agent and “shepherd” (44:28; 45:1), to fulfil God’s desire
(44:26). He is the divine representative who executes God’s purpose by mili
tary actions which will lead to the defeat of the Babylonian Empire (45:2-
3).10 This notion of the divine election of a gentile ruler is a new way in
which God controls the history of Israel. Like the figure of Job, King Cyrus
cannot recognise the divine hand behind all these events (45:4b). Furthermore,
the purpose of calling Cyrus as a divine agent is for the sake of the universal
acknowledgment of all the people (45:5a, 6) who will worship Yahweh as the
ultimate controller and Creator of the universe. (45:7-8; cf. 40:13; 44:25-28;
55:8-9).
3. P la n a n d D e te r m in is m
The notion of God’s control in Job and Deutero-Isaiah might be considered as

having similarities with ideas such as God’s “plan” and the “determinism”
found in the late Persian and Hellenistic periods. Do the two books then in
clude those late ideas? Or, could these ideas be regarded as identical concepts
to those of God’s control? At first, what God is supposed to do in the world is
likely to be related to the concept of the “plan” of the future history. Scholars,
who have discussed the concept of “Salvation History” or “the saving action”
of God in the Hebrew Bible, have in general argued that there is a universal
fixed plan for the Israelites and for world history;11 i.e., Gerhard von Rad
says:
In this connexion, the present-day reader is well advised to lay aside all ideas of a general
guidance of history by divine providence; for when Isaiah speaks of “purpose,” he is think
ing of something planned for the deliverance of Zion, that is to say, o f saving work. Isaiah
sets this saving act of Jahweh in the widest possible historical context, namely that of
universal history.12
10 Conrad argued that xyVnsy is used for revealing Yahweh’s military strategy for all the
nations. Edgar W. Conrad, Reading Isaiah, OBT 27 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 52-82.
11 For the summary of discussion o f “divine plans” in the ancient Near East, see Robert
K. Gnuse, Heilsgeschichte as a Model for Biblical Theology: The Debate Concerning the
Uniqueness and Significance o f Israel’s Worldview, CTSSR 4 (Lanham; London: UP of
America, 1989), 59-62; Johannes Fichtner, “Jahves Plan in der Botschaft des Jesaja,” ZAW
63 (1951): 16-33; Joseph Jensen, “Yahweh’s Plan in Isaiah and in the Rest of the Old
Testament,” CBQ 48 (1986): 443-55; Walter Brueggemann, “Planned People/Planned
Book,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll o f Isaiah, ed. Craig C. Broyles and Craig A.
Evans, vol. 1, Studies of an Interpretive Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 19-37.
12
Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. David M. G. Stalker, vol. 2 (Louis
ville: Westminster John Knox, 1965), 162.
It could probably be said that divine purpose in the Hebrew Bible usually
implies a wide and forward-looking vision in a series of goals, but it is hard
to assume that all the biblical books present an unmovable and fixed “Plan”
in history. For instance, Bertil Albrektson investigates the nuance of God’s
definite plan(s) in history which many biblical scholars (e.g., Lindblom,
Cullmann, Fichtner, Jensen, etc.) have suggested in the Hebrew Bible.13 He
argues that although there are many Hebrew terms and expressions related to
God’s “plan” in prophetic books and Psalms (Isa 5:19; 14:26; Mic 4:12; Jer
23:20; 25:1; 30:24; 49:20; 50:45; 51:11, 29), those words “may come very
close to meaning ‘purpose, intention’” and “do not have a pregnant or a more
precise meaning, but are fairly vague and wide terms.”14 He concludes:
Now there is o f course a great difference between a plan in a limited sequence of occur
rences and a plan in History with capital H: the view that Yhwh acts purposefully in what
happens is not necessarily identical with the idea that history as a whole is heading for a
definite goal along a road laid out according to a fixed plan.15
God in the Hebrew Bible of course explicitly declares several purposes from
the creation of the world to the divine election of Israel and the establishment
of the covenant with her; however, they do not refer to a predetermined plan.
Divine actions need to be understood as purposeful acts of Yahweh in a series
of events which have different smaller aims, even if there is an exception
such as the book of Daniel which is supposed to have a fixed plan in his
tory. 16 Walter Brueggemann also rejects the undefined idea of “plan” in
Isaiah and takes a much weaker notion of purpose or intention.17 He main
tains that God’s plan “is one side of a dialectic, and that is why the term
cannot be stated flatly as a grand design”.18 He then observes that “there is no
external design that is all foreseen, ahead of time” and the book of Isaiah
“offers rhetoric, not metaphysics.”19
As for our present interest in the “divine plan”, the question is whether
God in Job and Deutero-Isaiah has a long-term plan for the world or not;
namely, “Is he ruling the world for a particular end or result?” or “is he
merely controlling it or responding to a series of events?” Strictly speaking,
in the book of Job, there are no texts which state a planning of future events
in history, not least in the prose-tale of Job, where we read of God’s sudden
13 See Bertil Albrektson, History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea o f Historical
Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel, CB 1 (Lund: CWK
Gleerup, 1967), 68-97.
14 Ibid., 76-7.
15 Ibid., 87.
16 Ibid., 88-9.
17 Brueggemann, “Planned,” 21-2, 24; also see Fichtner, “Jahves,” 42.
18 Brueggemann, “Planned,” 27.
19 Ibid., 36.
response to the Satan’s challenge and where God allows him to act in a way
that is different from what was originally intended (Job 1-2). In other words,
God takes an action, because he had an idea when being challenged by the
Satan, who suggests the new proposal of testing Job’s piety. Then, God in
Yahweh’s speech (Job 38-41) appears as the One running the cosmic world,
not as a deity who makes a future plan. Yahweh, from the beginning of his
speeches, is not taking issue with future plans and nowhere does Yahweh
speak of plans or a grand plan of world history, but the description is in
tended to portray Yahweh himself. Accordingly, human incidents described
in the book of Job are far from a predestined plan with fixed stages.
On the other hand, in Deutero-Isaiah, the lack of the concept of planning
the future is implied less clearly than in the texts of Job. In some ways, Yah
weh could be seen as having a plan in which Israel becomes Yahweh’s ser
vant, in order that all the nations ultimately take part in the Israelites’ com
munity to know, serve, and worship Him altogether (Isa 45:23b; 49:26b).
Nonetheless, this does not mean that Deutero-Isaiah is adopting the concept
of an immovable and unchangeable plan. The fact that Israel has been pun
ished in God’s response to their disobedience and even has been overpun
ished by divine wrath suggests that Israel is acting outside the predetermined
plan and that punishment comes upon her as a divine reaction, not as a proac
tive deed (Isa 42:24-25; 50:1). If there is any association with the divine plan
for the future, that is to emerge from divine reactions to human virtue and
vice, not from the output of an automated and mechanical programme by God.
In general, this can be seen in other prophetic books such as the book of Jo
nah, which highlights the fact that God, in response to human action, makes
some modifications to his original plan. This is the general concept indicated
in prophetic literature, since, if God’s planning in no way changes, all these
concepts concerning human repentance and God’s retribution would be point
less. A wisdom book such as Ecclesiastes could be considered as being inter
ested in divine planning, but it is incorrect to believe that God sets a particu
lar direction for the destiny of the universe in any books of wisdom literature.
Another point to be considered is the concept of “determinism” which is
quite similar to the notion of “planning”. Can we consider the divine control
in Israelite thought to be “determinism” which means that all human actions
are ultimately controlled only by external power or by divine decisions re
gardless of human freewill? Some would argue that we can see this idea of
determinism in texts from biblical history such as the Joseph story (Gen 37-
50), the Succession Narrative (2 Sam 9-24 and 1 Kgs 1-2), from the wisdom20
20 Rudman defines it as “the belief that human thought, action, and feeling is, to a
greater or lesser extent, controlled by a greater power and that human beings have little or
no free will of their own”. Refer to Dominic Rudman, “Determinism and Anti-
Determinism in the Book of Koheleth,” JBQ 30 (2002): 97.
literature such as Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, and from prophetic books. But, it
is doubtful that the Hebrew Bible in general develops such a deterministic
idea.
Let us start by looking at Joseph’s story. Joseph is sold to traders and
works in Egypt as a result of his brothers’ wicked conspiracy, and it is inter
preted later that all of the events effectively function as no more than part of
the divine plan (Gen 45:5b, 7a, 8a; 50:20). However, it is probably unlikely
that all the events within Joseph’s story happened in an arranged scheme. All
that we can observe from the texts is that God takes control of Joseph’s life,
and transposes evil acts into good for his purpose in various ways. In the
Succession Narrative, likewise, because of David’s crime, divine punishment
comes upon his household (2 Sam 12:10-11), but apparently it is not brought
about by predestined plan in which God has to punish David and his house
hold. A series of misfortunes is initiated by David who acts against God, so
that God simply changes his mind and consequently responds to his misbe
haviour. In Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, it could be argued that the determinis
tic idea appears in the actions and reactions between individuals and God,
although it is hard to assess how rigid this determinism is.212However, it is
difficult to conclude that God’s actions in those books only follow determi
nistic ways, since we discover in them many important ideas of divine judg
ment according to human deeds. For instance, Weeks talks about the diffi
culty in understanding Ecclesiastes’ concepts of determinism and free will,
and argues that “although a perception of determinism in the book was cer
tainly a problem for some later commentators, the practical implications of
any such determinism are limited so long as Ecclesiastes continues to assert
also the reality of divine judgment and the independence of human mo-
tives.” Furthermore, the prophetic books in general seem to indicate a de
terministic concept in passages which are associated with the last and es
chatological judgment on Israel and Judah. Yet, it does not mean that there is
no sense of real and immediate punishment on human wrongdoings and
throughout the history of Israel; it is basically observed that the divine act as
a response to human misconduct is so characterized by the language of judg
ing nations and Israel. In the same way, although Job and Deutero-Isaiah
evince a strong idea of divine sovereignty over the creature and the human
history, a set of events in the action and reaction between human and God is
not the unavoidable product of foregoing causes given by God.
21 Refer to Prov 16:1, 4 and Eccl 9:7. See Dominic Rudman, Determinism in the Book
o f Ecclesiastes, JSOTSup (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001); Stuart Weeks, Ecclesias
tes and Scepticism, LHB/OTS 541 (New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 152-9.
22
See Weeks, Scepticism, 159.
Consequently, the deterministic idea generally linked to Greek philosophi-
cal teachings in the Hellenistic period is not the same as that found in the
two books and the scribal idea of the divine control is quite dissimilar with
these late notions of “planning” and “determinism”.
II. G o d ’s F r e e d o m
Such an understanding of divine action in the world leads us to raise another

issue about God’s responsibility for human suffering. Questions that we ask
are what makes Yahweh determine to judge and restore Israel in Deutero-
Isaiah, what causes sufferings to a pious individual in the book of Job, and
why then is God so different from the general portrayal of God who always
responds beneficently to human piety and to devout prayer? All the relevant
questions, which we should suppose in this section, are related to the motive
for divine actions: “Does God have the responsibility to help humans who are
suffering to eradicate evil in the world?” and “does God have to intervene in
human affairs?” These questions necessarily call for re-examining the divine
nature in the light of God’s dealing with human beings and for considering
whether these reveal any limitation in his nature or actions. The relationship
between God and humans in the two books is definitely described in the idea
of God free from any human laws, not in the framework of the Deuteronomis-
tic theology or the retribution principles.
1. G o d 's F r e e d o m in J o b
What Yahweh’s speech in the book of Job achieves through poetic expression
is the announcement of divine freedom. The description of the animals’ world
(Job 38:39-39:3) suggests that humans cannot domesticate and tame the wild
animals (lion, mountain goats, wild ass, wild ox, ostrich, war horse, hawk,
vulture, etc), but Yahweh, without any other being involved, can master them.
Those creatures do not have to depend on any help from humans and their
deepest need cannot be satisfied by humans (38:39). They do not serve for
human business (39:9-12), and live by divinely-given rules and by their ani
mal nature, not by man-made principles.2324 References to all the animals men
tioned in this scene aim to highlight their freedom which humans are unable
to limit. While God is asking whether Job has the ability to control the world
and its creatures, the issue of judgment which Job raised - the suffering of the
righteous and the well-being of the wicked - is not on the table. The portrait
of the beauty of two beasts, Behemoth and Leviathan in Yahweh’s second
23 Rudman, “Anti-Determinism,” 79.

24 God’s ways for caring for wild animals (lion, raven, mountain goat, wild ass, wild ox,
ostrich, war horse, hawk, and vulture) show a colourful mode of existence (38:39-41;
39:29-30).
speech (40:15-41:26 [Eng. 40:15^41:34]), although, as God’s masterpiece,
they are far more overwhelming in appearance and more bizarre in behaviour
than other animals, has the same literary goal as that of the wild animals in
the first speech. The emphasis on Yahweh’s universal rule and freedom using
the independence and aggressiveness of wild creatures as illustration (38:39,
41; 39:5-8, 9-12) is repeated and expanded in Yahweh’s second speech.
Scholars have interpreted the monstrous figures in this text from two dif
ferent angles; mythological monsters or real animals;25 in a nutshell, what we
need to discern carefully is that the poetic expressions have imageries both as
mythological beings and as earthly creatures. The author of Job picks up
these literary figures as significant in order to present the idea of divine free
dom in the relationship between man and God. Let us see how the two beasts
are portrayed. Firstly, a glorious, but fearful appearance and character exists
in them. Yahweh introduces and praises the two beasts, which are not the
enemies of God, but the greatest masterpiece of God (cf. Job 40:15, 19b;
41:10-11). Behemoth is portrayed as the best creature of God’s works (“the
first of the ways of God” in 40:19a), while Leviathan is described as the fear
less one and “the ruler over all the kings” (41:33-34). In particular, Leviathan
is described as the most complete and glorious creatures which are self-
confident, self-governing, and self-sufficient; in contrast, humans are por
trayed as thoroughly alienated from the world of beasts. Secondly, these par
ticular beasts are not controlled nor tamed by humans (40:24; 41:1-9). They
have too much incredible strength and extraordinary physical bodies (40:15c-
18; 41:12-24) and furthermore, they are so wild, disruptive, and arbitrary in
physical strength and behaviour. Even though humans might utilise all their
weapons to subdue them and fishing techniques to capture them, all these
efforts would be useless. It is too risky to attempt to approach and subdue
them. It is so dangerous for humans to hunt (41:1-2, 7), enslave (41:4), enter
tain (41:5), and trade (41:6) Leviathan, since they are living in a different
habitat with different rules (41:1-11). The supposition that humans can hunt
them and can reach any formal relationship with these beasts is no more than
an illusion. Since they are not subordinate to the human world and are not
targets of transaction and negotiation, they must be segregated from humans
(41:10-11).
Now, in given texts, the beauty of the two beasts may be viewed as reflect
ing God’s nature. The writer of Yahweh’s second speech significantly por
trays the nature of divine freedom by describing the characteristics of the
beasts in relation to humans. Firstly, just as humans cannot control the two
beasts, Yahweh cannot be controlled by humans (Job 41:4, 7-9), so how
ridiculous are humans’ attempts to manipulate God and to resist him:
Nin-'b □•’awrrbD nnn □buwi 'jonpn nsm 'isb Kin imp 1 itidk-kV
25
Clines, Job 38-42, 1183-6, 1190-2.
There is none so bold as to rouse it, who is the man who can stand before it26?Who has
confronted it and survived2728? None under the whole heaven! (41:2-3; [Eng. 41:10-11])
Just as the two beasts are self-centred and self-confident, and are totally dis-
parate breeds living in a different world, apart from humans, the God of
Job cannot coexist with humans nor can he be relegated to the area of humans.
Secondly, Yahweh, as a result, is not restrained by human rules or obliga
tions, and humans cannot impose human justice on God (Job 41:1, 10-11).
Interestingly, in the description of beasts, God asks Job about the possibility
of imposing responsibilities on Leviathan, as required in the obligatory rela
tion:
Dbip -mpb unpn qnp nnn mmn
Will he make a contract with you to be taken as your perpetual slave? (40:28; [Eng. 41:4])
Indeed, Job has no ability to exercise control over monstrous animals and to
subdue them like domestic animals. Leviathan is seen as the representative of
an animal that is not capable of being tamed or disciplined. It is not a control
lable beast, but the object of praise. In the same way, the Creator God is not
influenced, nor cajoled, by human intercession. In this sense, Yahweh in Job
is presented as completely independent and free from any human restraints.
God cannot be appropriated for human benefits and human wisdom cannot be
used to negotiate with God. If humans can restrain God by some means and if
God loses the right to do what God wants, Yahweh might be a god enslaved
to human regulations and justice. But, the God of the Israelites is too untamed
and uncontrollable to be forced into making a contract or fulfilling any re
sponsibility to humans. In this aspect, God has no responsibility to respond to
Job’s questions about human suffering or to be obliged to execute the justice
which Job and his friends called for. Therefore, Yahweh’s challenge to con
sider two bizarre beasts is closely associated with the divine sovereignty to do
what God desires.
'yfs
The second half of 41:2 has some difficulties in translation. Some mss reads it as the
third person (“before it”) while MT reads it as the first person singular. If we read the
prepositional phrase as “before me” (Hartley, Good, Driver-Gray, Tur-Sinai; LXX,
JPS, RSV, NIV, ESV), it will highlight God’s outstanding power. Otherwise, if we see it as
"nab, “before it” which refers to Leviathan, rather than a person, it will highlight the ex
ceeding power of the monster (Dhorme, Pope, Gordis, Gray, Clines, Terrien, Longman III;
NRSV, NAB). In the present context, the reference to God is unlikely to be reasonable,
because it emphasises the meaninglessness of the human attempt to seize Leviathan and the
entire description is about Leviathan’s grotesque characteristics; of course, whether adopt
ing either interpretation, it accents that no one can encroach on the divine realm.
27 Many prefer the emendation nbum which means “and come out safe”, or “and re
mained safe” (Gray, Clines, NRSV) than the reading Db#Nl (piel obu>; “and I repay or
requite”) (Hartley, Good, ESV, RSV, JPS). I adopted the rendering Dbtzb'l. See Clines, Job
38-42, 1162.
28 Ibid., 1192.
In the epilogue, Yahweh simply rejects the traditional view which Job’s
friends claimed about an interrelationship between human suffering and di
vine punishment, and he even responds with fury and anger toward the
friends, because they witnessed to what are not confirmed and settled29 by
themselves (Job 42:7-8). On the contrary, Job’s empirical knowledge about
divine nature, that Yahweh is free from human rules and justice, and about
divine action, that suffering is not always related to the problem of divine
punishment and reward, is favoured and confirmed by God.
2. G o d ‘s F r e e d o m in D e u te r o -Is a ia h
In what ways is the God of Israel in Deutero-Isaiah free from all restraints
and rules? Does God have any responsibilities for the deliverance of his
elected people? The exiled community addressed by Deutero-Isaiah seems to
believe that Yahweh has forsaken them and that the political and religious
powers of Babylon and Persia are even more powerful than the God of Israel.
Because of the national disaster, the text then seems to pose the question
about the traditional belief of the God of Israel: “Is there Yahweh who is
beyond the power of the Babylonian gods?”; “In what ways is their God dif
ferent?”; “Does Yahweh still act in the sphere of the Mosaic and Deuterono-
mistic covenants?” If the old covenants are not still effectual in the relation
ship with God, to which different rules does God work in the world? This is
the individual theology of Deutero-Isaiah which is different from that of other
prophetic texts. The God of Israel will begin to work with the new rule in the
course of world history (Isa 48:6-11) where God’s wrath will be transformed
into forgiveness and God’s punishment into blessing (43:25; 48:9). Deutero-
Isaiah declares God’s freedom from all the human rules and impositions to
act. God’s independence from any human impositions can be summarised in
three aspects: in the new covenantal relationship, in the unconditional deliv
erance of Israel, and in the universalistic concern for all the nations.
Firstly, Yahweh is free from covenantal relationships that require two-
sided obligations (Isa 42:6; 49:8; 54:10; 55:3; cf. Jer 31:31-34; Ezek 34:34-
37). The relationship between man and God in Deutero-Isaiah is different
from the Mosaic covenant typically presented in Exodus and Deuteronomy,
which requires obligations on both parties (Exod 19:5-6; 23:20-24:3-8; Deut
7:12-26; 28:1-69); it is to some extent undisputed that Moses’ covenant is
bound up with a law code imposed by Yahweh on Israelites and this requires
29 The Hebrew word is much closer to the rendering of “what is established” or

“what is confirmed” (cf. Gen 41:32) than is used for “what is right” in the sense of “the
truth” (KJV, ESV, TNK, Clines). See Stuart Weeks, An Introduction to the Study o f Wis
dom Literature (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 67.
the oath of the God of Israel to keep them secure (Deut 29:11-12). In the
broken relationship between Israel and God, the old rules, which Israelites
have known and learnt through the Mosaic covenant, cannot influence the
independent decision of God any more. In this sense, the Mosaic covenant in
Deutero-Isaiah would no longer work, and there are no grounds why God
should follow the old rules which undermine divine freedom.
References in Isa 55:1-5 might recall and reaffirm the prophet appeals to
1
the Davidic covenant. The Davidic covenant is likely to be continued in

history and is assumed in all generations in that Deutero-Isaiah refers to the
expression of the eternal covenant of David; D 'JQ N Jn TTT H D n oV ip 1TH2
“an eternal covenant, the faithful mercies to David” (Isa 55:3b). However,
there is no explicit indication here that Yahweh’s intervention is for the sake
of the Davidic royal family, and the covenant with the Davidic descendants is
not a major theological issue, but is for all the nations who respond to Yah
weh’s calling (Isa 55:1). God’s new relationship with humans (DD*7; “with
you”) in v. 3b does not count on Jacob-Israel’s deeds and obedience, but on
God’s sovereign decision. Yahweh’s invitation to his banquet providing free
“wine” and free “milk” sets up the new lifestyle, and it definitely is uncondi
tional and is not dependent on the faithful commitment of humans. Of course,
Deutero-Isaiah urges them to “seek the Lord” and to “call upon him” aban
doning human plans and ways and turning to God (55:6-7b). But, the founda
tion of divine compassion and forgiveness does not count on their faithful
reaction to or disloyal breach of any covenant, but on what they have been
given (55:7c).*3132 God’s purposes are thought to contrast with human ideas, and
God’s sovereignty is not to be understood by human faculties:
inn; p p a n d 'r w in n r'n mrr dnj n n on'nnn n Vi onTniulnn ’nnttfnn vb 'n
Dn^nnwnQQ Tinwnm DDnnn n m
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares Yahweh. For
the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa 55:8-9)
In fact, God’s sovereign acting for his people in the preceding Isa 54:1-17 is
already described in the feminine imagery of an abandoned woman or city,
'JA
Frank H. Polak, “The Covenant at Mount Sinai in the Light of Texts from Mari,” in
Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studiesin the Bible and the Ancient
Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism, ed. Chaim Cohen et al. (Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2004), 119-34, notices the “bilocal ratification” processes in the narrative of
the Sinai covenant (Exod 24:4-8, 9-11).
31 Brueggemann, “Isaiah 55 and Deuteronomic Theology”; Isaiah 40-66, Westminster
Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 159; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah
40-55, 51-4, 369-70.
32 See Goldingay, Message, 552-3.
presumably Zion; Yahweh will be her husband, calling, gathering, and re
shaping Zion (54:1-8). He declares the new promises and the unshakable
“covenant of peace” to a hopeless infertile woman (54:10b; cf. 54:1). Her
shame and disgrace which were momentary is contrasted to the vastness of
divine mercies (54:7) and Yahweh’s anger and abandonment will immedi
ately be replaced by eternal commitment, nbip “TOmi (54:8).
7QD pn Tnnon “impa D^ru D'nmm Tnnrp PJnn
ny mra “inya num 'b nm m 'n-o mn1“t^n; ion T ram nViy lonm
triNQ Horn ruran rnynjim iiyin* nnnn ^ yby 'njniw p pan-bp
mn' *Tomn ion r a n ab 'mbw m m r a >_ab
For a little moment, I forsook you, but with great compassion, I will gather you. In flood
ing of wrath, I hid my face from you for a moment, and with everlasting commitment, I
will have compassion on you, your Redeemer Yahweh says. For this is the waters of Noah
to me; as I swore that N oah’s waters should not pass over the earth again, so I have sworn
that I will not be angry with you and rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the
hills may totter, but my commitment will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace
shall not totter, Yahweh, who has compassion on you, says. (Isa 54:7-10)
The reference to PIPE) (“the waters of Noah”) in Isa 54:9-10 is not intended
to relate to the confirmation of the Noahic covenant, but the covenant in Deu
tero-Isaiah involves the new action by Yahweh which has not been seen in
previous relations between God and Israel. This is to emphasise the eternity
of the new covenant and the assurance of blessing and prosperity for the sake
of Zion, and is to underline the irrelevance of human disloyalty to impositions
and laws.
Secondly, Yahweh is free to act in Israel’s deliverance. Will God deliver
his people, even though Jacob-Israel continually breaks the relationship with
God? The answer in Deutero-Isaiah is enough to say “yes”. However, God’s
deliverance of his people is not reserved in the past remembrance of the Exo
dus from Egypt - i m n r r b a rVPJmpT nutpfrn n D trrb a (“Do not remember
the former things, nor consider the ancient things”) in Isa 43:18 - and indeed
Yahweh further declares the new salvific action already started (42:9; 43:19a).
It is significant to recognise that even if the exiled community was still an
ticipating the former mechanism of deliverance, Deutero-Isaiah commands
them to forget “the former things” and declares “the latter things” (48:3-11).
Divine verdicts upon human behaviour are so inconsistent and arbitrary
(48:8-9) that they frustrate human prediction for their security (48:6-11; cf.
41:22-23). Further, although God has foreseen that Israel will break the rela
tionship, God declares that His judgment against Jacob-Israel’s rebellion will
be deferred because of his own glory:*
John F. A. Sawyer, “Daughter of Zion and Servant of the Lord in Isaiah: A Compari
son,” JSO T 44 (1989): 89-107.
Y?-DU>nN 'nbnm ' an T “>nn 'r w \y rb *\b *np juna pu>Ai m a n run n y T "o
im an
For I knew that you would keep breaking faith,34 and a rebel from the womb you have been
called. For my nam e’s sake, I will defer my anger, for the sake of my praise, 1 restrain it
for you, that I may not cut you off. (Isa 48:8b-9)
Yahweh runs the world in a new way, as a potter has freedom to make what
kinds of pots he wants to produce (Isa 45:9-10; 48:3-5). So, although they
failed in keeping God’s laws and covenant, God’s free act apart from any rule
will forgive their sins and restore his people (42:18-43:21; cf. 43:25).
Thirdly, the divine freedom in Deutero-Isaiah is suggested in “universal-
ism”, not in “localism”.35 Yahweh is portrayed not as a local deity committed
to a particular group, but as the cosmic God for everyone (Isa 45:22-25). As
the provision and deliverance Yahweh will grant are for the sake of all the
nations on the earth, people are invited to trust Yahweh, so that they will
perceive his power as their deliverer and will worship Him (45:22). Of course,
Israel, having a distinct role among all the nations, will last. However, the
divine purpose in Deutero-Isaiah is not limited to an ethnic and geographical
sphere, but is expanded to the cosmic community of those who follow and
trust Yahweh (45:24a). In fact, from the beginning of Isa 40, it has already
been announced that Yahweh’s glory will be revealed to “all flesh” (Isa 40:5).
Yahweh’s new action for all the people is exemplified in the mission of Yah
weh’s servant Israel where it becomes “a light for the nations” (49:6) and “a
covenant for the people” (49:8; 42:6). Yahweh’s justice and righteousness are
for the new community who will listen to Yahweh’s message (51:4-6, 22),
not only for Jacob-Israel.
3. M o s a ic C o v e n a n t
Let us evaluate the idea of divine freedom in Job and Deutero-Isaiah com
pared with the context of the Mosaic (or Deuteronomistic) covenant (cf. Exod
19:5-6; Deut 28:1-14), in which God would behave in a set of “imposition”,
“liability” and “obligation”. The primary concern of the Jewish community
during the exilic and post-exilic period under the oppression of foreign na
tions was whether the covenants which God made with the forefathers of
Israel were still in operation or were annulled. The tradition of Mosaic cove
34 The doubling of the verb “i n (qal infinitive abs; qal imperfect 2ms) which is trans
lated as “treat faithlessly”, “commit faithlessness” (BDB) emphasises the unfaithful Israel
which continually kept breaking the relationship with Yahweh. This reading is adopted
here. See Goldingay, Isaiah vol.2, 131-2.
35 Julian Morgenstern, “Deutero-Isaiah’s Terminology for ‘Universal God,’” JBL 62
(1943): 269-80; Robert Davidson, “Universalism in Second Isaiah,” SJT 16 (1963): 166—
85; Joel S. Kaminsky and Anne Stewart, “God o f All the World: Universalism and Devel
oping Monotheism in Isaiah 40-66,” HTR 99 (2006): 139-63.
nant was generally perceived in the framework in which all suffering usually
results from individual and communal misbehaviour and in which, whenever
they return to their deity in the midst of God’s wrath, God will restore the
breached relationship; it is common in the Deuteronomistic history that the
national restoration of Israel comes possibly by human obedience to the To
rah based on the covenantal thought, and there are significant parts of pro
phetic books which adopt heavily the ancient idea of Mosaic covenant (cf. Jer
29:11-12). In this regard, it may be accepted that this covenantal theology
drawn from the deuteronomistic texts is significantly adopted in Job and
'Xft
Deutero-Isaiah. Of course, both writers might be aware of the general no
tion of the Hebrew covenant or of a general royal treaty in the ancient Near
East, but they are unlikely to intend to sustain the orthodox view of covenant.
In fact, in these two books, the concept of the Mosaic covenant is considera
bly weakened and appears as being more feeble than that in other biblical
books. The deficiency of the idea of Israel’s covenant is all the more apparent,
when considering that there is little assured reference to the covenantal con
nection in either book. The Hebrew word ITH1 is rare in the two texts, though
there are a few examples - in Job 5:23; 31:1; 40:28; Isa 42:6, 49:8 (Dp m i b ,
“a covenant for the people”), 54:10, 55:3; a possible term associated with
“covenant”, “70)1 in Job 6:14; 10:12; 37:13; Isa 40:6; 54:8, 10; 55:3.
Firstly, the idea of “covenant” in the book of Job may be questioned. Ac
cording to Max Rogland, Job’s text has the notion of the covenantal bond
between God and Job from three elements; (1) languages of legal proceeding
(Job 13:8; 23:4; 31:35); (2) Job’s oath (Job 31:5-8); (3) the descriptions of
Job’s “blamelessness” (1:8; 2:3) and of blessings and curses in the reference
with Deut 28.*3738However, though there is an amount of linguistic overlapping
with Exodus and Deuteronomy, we could not infer that the literary structure
of Job as a whole is located in the theme of Israel’s covenant, nor the cove
nantal ideology is deliberately supported by its editor. This is a misleading
perception which appears in simplifying
oo
the diversity of the theological mes-
sages found in wisdom literature. Legal and juridical languages in Job are
too widespread in the Israelite and non-Israelite materials to be a distinct
element of covenantal language.39 Not all the languages of individual “oath”
demonstrate that there is a covenantal relation between humans and a deity.
For the association with covenant in the book o f Job, see Green, “Stretching”; Max
Rogland, “The Covenant in the Book o f Job,” CTR 1 (2009): 49-62. For Deutero-Isaiah,
see Anderson, “Exodus and Covenant.”
37 Rogland, “Covenant.”
38 Richard L. Schultz, “Unity or Diversity in Wisdom Theology? A Canonical and
Covenantal Perspective,” TB 48 (1997): 271-306.
39
Pietro Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice: Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in the
Hebrew Bible, JSOT 105 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1994).
In addition, as Rogland claims,40 the family language does not voluntarily
make all the divine-human relationship a covenantal bond; though kinship
covenant in the Old Testament may be advocated by many examples.41
Lastly, Job’s “blamelessness” before God and the pattern of blessings and
curses might confirm the Deuteronomistic covenant; at least, we may agree
that the book of Job shares many words and phrases in Deuteronomy (cf. Job
31). While all Job’s suffering is derived from the decision of the heavenly
council, not from the breach of law, God does not seem to have any responsi
bility to deal with the suffering of his pious sufferer (Job 2:3; 9:17). Job’s
friends interpret his suffering based on the Deuteronomistic covenant (4:6-9;
8:4) and advise that if Job seeks the Lord and keeps the Torah, his misfor
tunes will be reversed to prosperity (8:5-7; 22:21-23). In particular, we may
recognise the potential reference to the covenantal bond between God and
man in terms of the imposition of the Torah in Job 31.42 Yet, what the entire
structure of Job’s story evinces is that its theology is quite different from the
ideology of the Deuteronomistic covenant.43 The God of the innocent sufferer
in reality is not acting in accordance with the assumed general principle of
blessing to believers and of cursing to unbelievers. Job’s agony is no more
than part of God’s random control of the world and the text simply tells us
that Job is a weak creature who must accept divine determination without any
inquiries. The principles of controlling and caring for wild animals in Yah-
weh’s speech are not associated with Deuteronomistic covenantal relations,
but instead, they speak of the harmony of the animal world between carnivore
and herbivore and of sovereign wisdom and power. The emphasis in Yah-
weh’s speech is not on God’s caring for law-keeping people,44 but on the
mere management of the created world. In the presentation of the two sym
bolic beasts, Yahweh is not one who is limited to human laws and is able to
40 Rogland, “Covenant,” 56-61; Contra Jeffrey J. Niehaus, “Covenant: An Idea in the

Mind of God,” JETS 52 (2009): 226-7.
41 Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment o f G od’s
Saving Promises, The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven: Yale UP, 2009).
Anderson, “Typology,” 181-2.
42 See Oeming, “Hiob 31”; Witte, “Torah.”
43 For the similar view with this, see Markus Witte, “Does the Torah Keep Its Promise?
Job’s Critical Intertextual Dialogue with Deuteronomy,” in Reading Job Intertextually
(New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 62. He argues: The critical reception of Job about Deuter
onomistic theology “indicates a relativization of Deuteronomy and its theology in the
progression of the poetry;” “Job seems from this point of view to be a critic of this torah,
for it does not live up to its promise, as he know from his own experience and as God
acknowledges, and because Job’s God differs from and exceeds the deity described in
Deuteronomy.”.
44 Izak Spangenberg, “Who Cares? Reflections on the Story of the Ostrich (Job 39.13-
18),” in The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions, ed. Norman C. Habel and Shirley Wurst
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 92-102.
be controlled by human justice, but he appears as a self-governing and sover
eign God. Such an understanding of God’s freedom seems contrary to the
Deuteronomistic belief which probably appears in the close connection be
tween Job’s piety and blessings given by God in the prologue, and to the
retribution theology which Job’s friends maintained.
So, Yahweh’s speech is far from the conventional belief in the Mosaic
covenantal bond. God works in ways quite alien to human anticipation of
righteous judgment because he has the perfect freedom to perform his will.
Whether God discriminates against one group of people or not and he pun
ishes the wicked or not, is wholly contingent on divine decision. Not even the
final restoration of Job in the epilogue is confirmation of the Deuteronomistic
covenant, as many note that it is; the God of Job appears as not paying great
attention to judgment of human righteousness.45 At the centre of the book of
Job thus is that its author is probably antagonistic to the Deuteronomistic
covenant, rather than positively receptive to it.
Secondly, Deutero-Isaiah certainly does not mention the Mosaic covenant.
Bernhard Anderson argues analysing the references of the term “Torah” in
Deutero-Isaiah that in any cases, there is no clear allusion “to Moses, the
Sinai theophany, the decalog, or the conditional covenant”.46 Surprising that
Deutero-Isaiah must be aware of the Pentateuchal tradition, in that the
prophet includes overlapping imageries of Exodus tradition in the theme of
the new exodus (Isa 40:3-5; 41:17-20; 42:14-16; 43:1-3, 14-21; 48:20-21;
49:8-12; 51:9-10; 52:11-12; 55:12-13),47 Anderson maintains that “the
prophet ignored the Mosaic covenant altogether”, and “emphasized the ‘ever
lasting covenant’ typified” by Davidic and Noahic covenants.48 His view in
this regard is quite right. In addition, the themes of a second Exodus and of a
miraculous journey through the desert may all not be rooted in Israel’s na
tional story, which involves the notion of ITHn.
Importantly, the future hope in the Davidic covenant and the rehabilitation
of Davidic kingship from these references might have continued in the time
of Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 55:3). For instance, Ronald Clements argues that the
Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7; Ps 89) is still consistent in the prophetic tradition
of Isaiah and the divinely appointed action of Cyrus the Persian king as Yah-
45 According to Clines, the book of Job “marginalizes” the doctrine of retribution. See
the following articles of Clines, Job 1-20, xlvi; also see “Deconstructing the Book of Job,”
in What Does Eve Do to Help?: And Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament, ed.
David J. A. Clines, JSOTSup 94 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 106-23.
46 Anderson, “Exodus and Covenant in Second Isaiah and Prophetic Tradition,” 341.
For the similar expressions between Isa 48:17-19 and Ps 81:14-15, he notices that “unlike
Psalm 81” Deutero-Isaiah “does not think of Israel’s future salvation as being contingent
upon the renewal of the Mosaic covenant in the present”; Ibid., 342.
47 Anderson, “Typology,” 181-2.
48 Anderson, “Exodus and Covenant,” 343.
weh’s servant is understood as fulfilment for the sake of king David.49 None
theless, this link would not necessarily verify the continuous relationship with
Davidic covenant in Deutero-Isaiah; in Isa 55:3d, it is unlikely to mean the
specific reference to the Davidic promise in Ps 89,50 and to be linked to its
continuation. Yah weh’s new act in Deutero-Isaiah is probably different from
his commitment to the Davidic covenant in history, since Davidic promise
itself in other biblical references may require which obligations and statutes
Davidic successors must carry out; although it is more unconditional than
Mosaic covenant (Ps 89:31-34; 132:11-12; 2 Sam 7:14-15).5152Instead, the
reference of Davidic covenant in Deutero-Isaiah implies the dimension of the
new covenant (Isa 42:6; 49:8) which would mean the “democratization” of
the Davidic covenant. God determines the new task of Israel as being to
bring justice and to fulfil God’s will for the world (42:1) for the sake of his
own glory; this is different from the hope in the Davidic covenant (42:9; cf
48:9).53 Since divine promises in the exilic period are moving toward estab
lishing a new relationship based on unconditional protection and forgiveness,
the interpretation should be recognised in the new covenant as being for the
whole creation rather than the obligatory relationship with the Israelites.
Thus, the manner in which God related with man shown in the two books
therefore seems to be incompatible with the covenantal belief in the Deuter-
onomistic history. God there is unlikely to intervene in human affairs as being
49 See Ronald E. Clements, “The Davidic Covenant in the Isaiah Tradition,” in Cove
nant as Context: Essays in Honour o f E. W. Nicholson, ed. Andrew D. H. Mayes and
Robert B. Salters (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003), 39-70; Also see Steven L. McKenzie, “The
Typology of the Davidic Covenant,” in Land That I Will Show You, ed. John A. Dearman
and Matt P. Graham (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 152-78.
50 See Eissfeldt, “Promises.”
51 Scholars have not agreed about the debate whether Davidic covenant (also Abrahamic
covenant) should be viewed as “unconditional” and “unilateral”. It is noteworthy to review
the debate between Moshe Weinfeld and Gary Knoppers. Weinfeld designates covenants in
Exodus and Deuteronomy as the “obligatory type” and the covenants with Abraham and
David (Gen 5:17; 2 Sam 7; Ps 89) as “promissory type”. On the contrary, Knoppers dis
agrees with Weinfeld’s modelling of Davidic covenant as “ ‘royal grant’ so common in the
ancient Near East.” and claims that such a treatment based on the similarities between the
Davidic covenant and the ancient Near Eastern “land grants” is “too narrow a definition to
fit the evidence o f either vassal treaties or royal grants”. See Moshe Weinfeld, “The Cove
nant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient near East,” Journal o f the American
Oriental Society 90, no. 2 (1970): 184-203; Gary N. Knoppers, “Ancient Near Eastern
Royal Grants and the Davidic Covenant: A Parallel?,” JAOS 116, no. 4 (1996): 670-97.
52 Scott Hahn, “Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research
(1994-2004),” CBR 3 (2005): 277; Williamson notices that “the covenant with David is
here potentially transferred to the people as a whole.” Hugh G. M. Williamson, Variations
on a Theme: King, Messiah and Servant in the Book o f Isaiah, Didsbury Lectures 1997
(Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 177.
53 Goldingay, Message, 167.
contingent on human righteousness and the request for justice from humans is
unlikely to put any heavy burden on God’s side. In this sense, God is proba
bly viewed as having little moral and ethical responsibility to take charge of
any individuals or the nation (cf. Exod 24; Deut 4:13; 33:9; 2 Sam 7:13-15).
In fact, the Mosaic covenant shown in Deutero-Isaiah seemed to be already
broken by the Israelites’ idolatry, while the entire message of the book of Job
makes readers difficult to think of the portrayal of an ethical God.54
In addition, the theology of Deutero-Isaiah is better considered as an ex
tension to the theology of the book of Isaiah as a whole; though historical
critics in the past strictly stressed the distinction between the First, Second,
and Third sections of Isaiah. In this respect, Deutero-Isaiah reflects the over
all interests and assumptions of the book of Isaiah; First Isaiah has some
coherent sections with Deutero-Isaiah and there is evidence which show that
First Isaiah may be rewritten in the Isaianic tradition (e.g., Isa 36-39); Third
Isaiah is related to many of the concepts that we find in the book of Isaiah as
a whole.55 If it is right to see Deutero-Isaiah as a series of additions with other
parts of Isaiah, it would be reasonable to suppose that the book of Isaiah as a
whole has a theology distinguished from that of Deuteronomistic ideology.56
III. I m p lic a tio n s
1. P r o b le m s o f G o d ’s J u d g m e n t a n d J u s tic e
It is important for the authors of Job and Deutero-Isaiah that Yahweh is con
trolling the universe and that no other foreign gods are able to do it, so that
the God of Israel, with the supreme and absolute power over the world, is
able to do whatever he wishes. The emphasis on divine sovereignty and free
dom in the two books is indicated in the way they describe divine judgment
on human affairs. Although neither text rejects the traditional idea of God’s
judgment, both of them in different ways indicate that the divine treatment of
the world is not always geared to justice or human behaviour, but it is geared
to God’s determination whether that appears to be either highly reasonable or
unreasonable to the human intellect. On the one hand, in the book of Job,
there is a long-standing controversy about divine justice between Job and
Job’s friends where there are definite tensions in understanding the validity of
divine judgment. Although divine judgment is generally expressed in terms of
the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, the definition
54 David J. A. Clines, “Job’s Fifth Friend: An Ethical Critique of the Book of Job,” BI
12 (2004): 233-50.
55 Jacob Stromberg, Isaiah after Exile: The Author o f Third Isaiah as Reader and Re
dactor o f the Book, OTM (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011) proposes Third Isaiah as a redactor
of the book of Isaiah.
For instance, see Donald C. Polaski, “Reflections on a Mosaic Covenant: The Eternal
Covenant (Isaiah 24:5) and Intertextuality,” JSO T11 (1998): 55-73.
of who are the wicked and the reasons for human suffering are not clearly
spelled out throughout the dialogue. Job’s speeches intensely deny the princi
ple of right judgment and attest the prosperity of the wicked and the disas
trous reality of the righteous. On the other hand, in Deutero-Isaiah, punish
ment and reward seem to be more to do with the working out of the divine
will than anything else. Yahweh is the God who judges foreign nations and
their gods by the retribution principle, but the rules of judgment and restora
tion in the case of Jacob-Israel are reversed in many ways, and are not re
stricted by retributive rules.
In other words, the human suffering in Job and Deutero-Isaiah is not asso
ciated with the proportionality of divine punishment. In other words, their
authors suggest that God may punish people in a way that is not necessarily
in proportion to the offence. Job is apparently attacked by God for no good
reason (Job 2:3; 9:17). In Deutero-Isaiah, Israel, the servant of God is pun
ished more than is appropriate for his transgressions or possibly for no good
reason (Isa 40:2). The change from the traditional understanding of divine
judgment results from the ground-breaking theological view of divine free
dom which the two books show, and this is different from the orthodox prin
ciple of God’s judgment.
In addition, when considering the punishment of neighbouring nations out
side Israel, it is more obvious that Yahweh is not bound by any rules. For
instance, in the interpretation of ethics and justice in the Old Testament, ac
cording to John Barton, the covenantal principle is not the only means of his
ruling.5758He says:
Ethics as obedience to God’s expressed will certainly does occur in Old Testament litera
ture, but it is by no means the exclusive view. Natural law, both in the weaker sense of
moral principles supposed to be common to all men, and in the stronger sense of principles
built in to the structure of things, is also present, not just at the primitive or early stages of
Israelite thought, not just in peripheral literature, not just in material influenced by foreign
sources, but at the conscious level of the arguments presented by the prophets, and proba-
CO
bly also in some parts of the Pentateuch.
This judgment on foreign nations and gods in Deutero-Isaiah seems to be

seen as punishment by the natural law or the universal rule of the world, not
57 Barton claims that “the oracles on the nations in Amos 1 and 2 notoriously represent
a difficulty for any view of the ethical tradition in ancient Israel which sees it as exclu
sively tied to law and covenant, since the nations here accused o f war crimes cannot be
thought of as standing in a covenant-relationship with Yahweh such as would entail the
acceptance of Israelite norms of conduct in war.” See John Barton, “Natural Law and
Poetic Justice in the Old Testament,” JTS 30 (1979): 3; for the detailed study in the book
of Amos, see A m o s’s Oracles against the Nations: A Study o f Amos 1.3-2.5, SOTSMS 6
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980); “The Basis of Ethics in the Hebrew Bible,” Semeia 66
(1994): 15-7.
58 Barton, “Natural,” 13.
by the disobedience of God’s law shown in the Mosaic law.59 Since Babylo
nians are not under obligation to Yahweh who made the covenantal treaty
with Israel, there is no judgment following the violation of the sacrificial
system and the disobedience to God’s laws. The punishment of Israel’s ene
mies is not on account of the violation of the covenantal relationship, but the
reason for their punishment was no more than their self-worship and hubris -
ITQJ JTilN (“I will be queen forever”; Isa 47:7a). Thus, if the natural
law, as another rule which is built into the world, is the reason for the pun
ishment of foreign nations, this is another way of running the world. When
God helps the righteous by punishing the wicked by the most effective means,
he can choose the natural law for retribution as much as he wishes. He was
not under any compulsion to follow a fixed rule, because the ways in which
God works are various.
2. D iffe r e n c e s b e tw e e n J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h
The two books in themselves are not totally uniform. The role of God in Job
is emphatically portrayed as a deity in control of the created world, while
God in Deutero-Isaiah is seen as the deity controlling a series of religious,
social and political events. Both texts highlight the ruling over the natural
world, but in Deutero-Isaiah God’s control over the world is concentrated on
the dimension of Israel, foreign nations and their idols, while the book of Job
lacks control over human history, but focuses on individuals’ affairs. More
over, they do not indicate a fixed plan for the future, but while Deutero-Isaiah
remarks that God has divine intentions in human history, God in Job simply
presents a huge design for running the world. We cannot know why the au
thor of Job does not treat the issue of suffering in a historical timeline, but the
theological concern is not history, but universal relationships with an individ
ual.
Next, emphasis upon human-divine relationships in Job and Deutero-Isaiah
calls for a fresh recognition of God’s nature, not entangled in any obligations
and laws. However, in the two books there are important differences in God’s
behaviour to humans. While the relationship between God and humans in Job
is mainly concentrated on the life of an individual, not the whole of humanity,
just as in the other books of the wisdom corpus, Deutero-Isaiah takes a mac
roscopic view and presents the multiple relationships in individual, national,
and international dimensions. Furthermore, in Job the relationship between
God and an individual is little better than the relationships which God creates
59 According to Barton, Amos and Isaiah in Jerusalem representatively have the idea of
the natural law in the Hebrew Bible. See ibid., 7; Also see “Ethics in Isaiah of Jerusalem,”
JTS 32 (1981): 1-18; “History and Rhetoric in the Prophets,” in Bible as Rhetoric, ed.
Martin Warner (London: Routledge, 1990), 51-64.
with animals in the world; in particular, in the description of Behemoth and
Leviathan.
Finally, in the understanding of divine judgment there are significant di
versities between the two books. The ways in which God’s reactions to an
innocent sufferer and to the miserable community of the deportees are re
counted are not equivalent. The book of Job focuses heavily on the issue of
the unjust sufferings and fates of the individual, while Deutero-Isaiah talks
widely about the disasters and the destiny of the Israelites in an encouraging
way. With regard to the objects of God’s judgment and human suffering,
Job’s suffering was what an innocent man received, while the initial cause of
judgment in Deutero-Isaiah was the disobedience and sins of Israel against
Yahweh. Furthermore, there are some differences in God’s role in the two
books. God in the epilogue (Job 42:7-17) appears as an eyewitness of Job’s
integrity just as Job wanted his deity to be his “witness” (“TV, THlV; 16:19),
although God is seen in both books as ultimate judge over the world.
B. The Context of Job and Deutero-Isaiah

Considering those shared ideas observed above, let us compare them with
other biblical literatures. I here evaluate them on two levels; one is the com
parison between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and biblical materials in the Persian
period; the other is between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and biblical texts dated to the
Hellenistic period.
I. J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h in th e C o n te x t o f th e P e rsia n P e r io d
Scribal texts which will be compared here include the entire cumulative liter
ary heritage in the pre-exilic and exilic periods which can be considered to
have already existed or to have been composed in the Persian period. This
examination necessarily has to engage with the entire history of the formation
of the biblical canon, and with the complicated study of the transmission
history of biblical materials by multiple editors. Such a vast research, how
ever, is beyond our scope. In terms of broad research about this issue, I refer
to a few recent studies by Erhard Gerstenberger and David Carr.60 Let me add
a few more words for caution’s sake. It is not my intention to maintain either
that biblical texts other than Job and Deutero-Isaiah have no concept of di
vine control and freedom or that the two books have no interaction with ear
lier Israelite materials, but other biblical materials could have similar views
with the two books. What I am attempting to show is that the two books indi
/A
Gerstenberger, Persian; Carr, Formation; however, Carr’s work has been very con
troversial in dating texts.
vidually offer their own views on God’s control and freedom as contempo
rary scribal thoughts, while other biblical materials tend to accept and inter
pret divine justice and the Mosaic covenant in a conventional way.
1. H is to r ic a l L ite r a tu r e
What the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic texts generally describe about the
relationship between God and the world is slightly different from the shared
ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah. Firstly, they differ in the way in which they
describe the created world. The world that Gen 1:1 —2:3 a portrays is one
where creation is gradually constructed stepwise culminating with humans,
and further the created world exists for the benefit of human beings and, sim
ply put, the first man “Adam” formed in the divine image becomes the head
of all the created world. By contrast, the two books do not speak of creation
in the way in which Genesis describes it. In Job, the created world is an in
comprehensible and mysterious sphere far away from humans and the knowl
edge of creation is completely unknown and inaccessible to humans. Deci
sively, the cosmos does not serve humans, but exists for Yahweh’s own bene
fit and pleasure (Job 38-41). In Deutero-Isaiah, the created world, including
humans, is depicted more as the heavenly and earthly agent, which fulfils the
divine will for the world (Isa 41:18-19; 44:3-5; 45:8; 55:12—13a) and its aim
is not limited to benefits for humans. The two books thus tend to reject an
thropologically formed creation theology in the priestly text and rather to
C\\
downplay the significance of human beings (cf. Ps 8).
Secondly, the scribal ideas in the two books, as discussed above, differ
from the general idea of Mosaic and Deuteronomistic covenant. In the his
torical books, the Deuteronomistic theology, in which loyal obedience to God
results in success and disobedience in disaster, occupies the substantial posi
tion (cf. Deut 8:6; 10:12; 11:22; 19:9). The message in historical literature
implies the balanced allocation of blessing and cursing following obedience
or disobedience to Torah. (Deut 5, 28). However, the lesson of the two books
goes beyond the confines of the retribution principle of the Deuteronomistic
theology. Even if biblical scholars have presented a number of interrelation
ships between Job and the Pentateuch/the Deuteronomistic texts, the frame
work of the book of Job neither describes Job as the ideal model of Torah nor
pursues the Deuteronomistic tradition by adopting the priestly document or
Decalogue as a theological remedy for the problem of evil. In this sense, the
nature of God portrayed in Job would be novel, although it is not utterly di-61
61 According to Weinfeld, Deutero-Isaiah rejects the creation account of Genesis: i.e. in

Deutero-Isaiah, God is the creator of darkness and chaos (Isa 45:7; 45:18; cf. Gen 1:2), any
earthly form cannot be compared to Yahweh (Isa 40:18, 25; 46:5; cf. Gen 1:26), God does
not need any help in creation (Isa 44:24; 40:13-14; cf. Gen 2:2-3), and God does not need
to take a rest (Isa 40:28; cf. Gen 2:2-3). See 3.2.1 of this thesis.
vergent from that in Deuteronomistic history. Likewise, the exiled commu
nity of Israel in Deutero-lsaiah is not challenged by the formulations of keep
ing Torah nor is Yahweh in Deutero-lsaiah restrained by any covenant, but
himself determines human events and acts for the sake of his own glory.
2. H e b r e w P o e tr y
Diverse aspects other than those found in Hebrew poetry (Psalms, Proverbs,
and Lamentations) are observed in the texts of Job and Deutero-lsaiah. Firstly,
the psalmist’s hope that the Davidic dynasty and its kingship will be restored
is based on the effectiveness of the Davidic covenant and reminds Israelites
of the Davidic promise to overcome their national tragedies (Ps 89:30-32;
132:11-12; cf. Isa 55:3). Most texts of the Hebrew Bible assume the resto
ration of Davidic kingship in the Messianic hope throughout all the genera
tions. But, the two books do not highlight the Davidic reference enough to be
reminiscent of the orthodox relationship with Yahweh; the divine promise in
Deutero-lsaiah is removed from the historical Davidic line to Israel and the
nations, and it is not dependent on the Davidic covenant and to anticipate the
restoration of its royal throne.
Secondly, the most telling aspect of how Job and Deutero-lsaiah deal with
the divine-human relationship can be compared to the book of Lamentations.
In Lamentation, the cause of the loss and pain of the city Zion that the poet
laments is indicated as Judah’s sin which brings Yahweh’s wrath and pun
ishment (Lam 1:8; 4:6). Such an explanation to why Israel suffered so much
is rooted in the Deuteronomistic belief of retribution and reward, and Lam
entations directs the nation to keep its faith in God (4:22; 5:19-22). However,
by contrast, the suffering of Job is not the same as that of normal people and
does not come as a consequence of human disobedience to a deity. Deutero-
lsaiah gives more emphasis to the restoration of the exiled community in
Babylon rather than to the national grief of Judah’s destruction in history. In
addition, in Lamentations, there are petitions for the restoration of the Israel
ites and complaints about the delayed answer from God (Lam 5:19-22), but*63
fO
Note that the Davidic covenant is less conditional, but has the conditional part (Ps
89:30-32).
63 O f course, in Lamentations, there seems to be a question of the excessive punishment
and pain to Israel. Gottwald notices “the discrepancy between the historical optimism of
the Deuteronomic Reform and the cynicism and despondency evoked by these reversals of
national fortune”. He concludes that though “Lamentations accepts the Deuteronomistic
theory”, it “senses an excess of punishment amounting to injustice”. Gottwald, Lamenta
tions, 51, 117. Bertil Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology o f the Book o f Lamenta
tions with a Critical Edition o f the Peshitta Text, Studia theologica Lundensia 21 (Lund:
CWK Gleerup, 1963), 230 emphasises the tension between the historical reality and the
confident belief of the Zion tradition, that Zion is inviolable in understanding its literary
purpose.
there is no clear answer from God. However, Deutero-Isaiah is full of the
message of “comfort” for his people and the declaration of the coming glory
of Yahweh and enunciates the assurance of divine control in human history
(Isa 40:1, 5).
Thirdly, the two books may be rather differentiated from the book of Prov
erbs which reinterprets the Deuteronomistic theology. The crucial message of
Proverbs is that divine wisdom will be granted to those who choose the way
of wisdom and accept the sayings of wisdom, i.e. to those who internalise the
instruction and teaching of the Torah (Prov 9). According to such instructions
and the laws of wisdom, life/death and blessing/cursing are given to the obe
dient and disobedient. The divine wisdom in Proverbs is accessible to who
ever seeks and loves her (Prov 8:17, 21), while in Job (esp. Job 28; also Isa
45:15; 54:8; cf. Prov 8:17) it is inaccessible to humans and her way is incom
prehensible to individuals, since God is a being who hides Himself. Although
the prologue of Job witnesses that Job already possesses the religious wisdom
that Proverbs speaks of, it ironically was his personal piety to God that
caused all the disasters and sufferings. In Deutero-Isaiah, God’s “thoughts”
and “ways” for nations go far beyond human expectations in orthodox belief
(Isa 55:8-9).
Nonetheless, Prov 1-9 is in many ways different from the Deuteronomistic
books as a way of understanding Torah and seems to develop its concern in
its own context.64 The writer of Prov 1-9, which would be formed in the late
Persian period, reinterprets the covenant in a new way, in order to allow di
vine sovereignty, just as other literatures in the post-exilic period do. Reading
and studying Torah will write the new covenant on people’s hearts and
change individuals (Prov 2:9-22; 9:7-12). It is very close to the ideas ex
pressed in the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel where divine wisdom in the law
enables those who study it to discern the word of God and what the sense of
right and wrong is. Then, the law does not exist for the purpose of a contract
between humans and God, but for the teaching and instruction of humans. It
is the divine revelation of how humans should behave, so that the task of
humans is simply not only to obey rules, but also to learn, embrace, and love
the law, so that humans can automatically perform what God wants them to
do.
3. P r o p h e tic L ite r a tu r e
Job and Deutero-Isaiah are different from the typical prophetic books which
are considerably influenced by Deuteronomistic theology.65 But, this does not
64 See Stuart Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1 -9 (Oxford: Oxford UP,
2007), 156-79.
£r
Four prophetic books (Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Zephaniah) seem to have existed in
the pre-exilic period, but they were revised in the late period. See Albertz, Israel in Exile,
mean that all the different theological concepts in the prophetic books can be
reduced to one particular theology. Each prophetic book raises its own differ
ent voice, although the literary heritage of the Deuteronomistic history obvi
ously exists in them. Jeremiah and Hosea, for instance, have much stronger
Deuteronomistic theology and Mosaic tradition than other prophetic books,
while Nahum, Habakkuk, Joel, and Jonah are less Deuteronomistic.66*68Let us
see an example from the book of Jonah which in the beginning predicts the
destruction of a wicked gentile city, Nineveh in Mesopotamia. The prophet,
who fears Yahweh (NT MN D'Q$n HIT; Jonah 1:9), but refuses his
calling as shown as being full of longing of justice and of the particularistic
belief throughout the whole story, is corrected and rectified by God who
repents (n p 'irrtp D',nt7Nn D m ; “And God repented the evil”, Jonah 3:10b)
his initial condemnation. In this response, God of Jonah thoroughly is free to
act from what Jonah expected in God’s command, and does what he pleased
to do in the human history, while humans are simply creatures like animals,
plants, and bugs (Jonah 1:17; 4:6-7). In this sense, its theological idea in the
perspective of law, justice, and judgment is quite different with classical
prophetic
/o
books which declare the strict judgment to destroy foreign na-
tions. So, we need to see the diversity of prophetic messages according to
their contexts. Let us compare the ideas of Job and Deutero-Isaiah to the
messages of the conventional prophetic books.
Firstly, Job and Deutero-Isaiah lack the idea of the divine election of a sin
gle nation and instead are much closer to the idea of universalism.69 In the
prophetic books, the two distinct ideas of “nationalism” can be understood in
the consistent framework of the covenantal relationship. However, universal
ism in Deutero-Isaiah is more explicit than in any of the other prophetic
books, and the hope for the restoration of the Davidic dynasty is extended
204-37. Haggai, Zechariah 1-8, Malachi, and Jonah are usually placed in the Persian
period. Twelve prophetic books are likely to have been revised by the Deutronomistic
construction in late time. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel would have been developed through
the late exilic and early Persian periods. See Gerstenberger, Persian, 187-200, 306-47.
66 Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 129-38, 320-70; Richard J.
Coggins, “An Alternative Prophetic Tradition,” in Isra el’s Prophetic Tradition, ed. Rich
ard J. Coggins et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982), 77-94.
Bolin states that “in Jonah the fundamental issue is the affirmation of the absolute
freedom, power, and sovereignty of Yahweh over all creation” and “these divine attributes
are beyond the bounds o f any human notions of justice, mercy or logic”. See Thomas M.
Bolin, Freedom beyond Forgiveness: The Book o f Jonah Re-Examined, JSOT 236 (Shef
field: JSOT, 1997), 183.
68 Ibid., 184-5.
69 But, in Deutero-Isaiah, the theme of “election” o f Israel is even more important on
the theme of “covenant”.
into all the nations.70 The focus on Israel’s fate is found in the “parochial
ism”71 of Ezekiel, while Deutero-Isaiah strongly emphasises the universalistic
concern of God as the Creator who dwells in a cosmic temple, not in the spe
cific territory of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the story of Job happens to a
non-Israelite individual and does not mention the security of the elected peo
ple at all. The relationship between man and God is largely unconstrained by
such concepts as the “election” of Israel, but interestingly, Yahweh elects two
beasts for his purpose, just as Yahweh in Deutero-Isaiah particularly chooses
the Persian king Cyrus for the salvation of the world.
Secondly, Job and Deutero-Isaiah announce the new age of a human-divine
relationship not entwined with Torah granted in the Mosaic covenant while
most prophetic texts are based on the ethical requirements of satisfying a
certain rule as a condition of divine forgiveness (e.g. Amos 5:15). By contrast,
the book of Job has an anti-covenantal mind-set which struggles against the
view of God restricted to the human-deity contract. The prologue of Job ex
amines the conventional relationship between humans and God and is even
averse to it as treaty or contract. The entire message of Job doubts that the
Creator is required to respond to human expectation and any obligation. On
the other hand, Deutero-Isaiah establishes the unprecedented relationship
between humans and God other than covenantal rules and obligations which
the forefathers of Israel made in Exodus.
Nonetheless, there are exceptionally late prophetic texts which are close to
the view of Job and Deutero-Isaiah; for instance, Jeremiah and Ezekiel high
light the new covenantal relationship with everyone (Jer 31:30-34; 32:40;
Ezek 37:26; Isa 55:3). The idea of the new covenant in the book of Jeremiah
(Jer 31:31-37), which is quite distinct from the Mosaic covenant, but closer
to the two books, would probably have emerged from the same scribal circle
as Job and Deutero-Isaiah in the Persian period. God will automatically make
a new covenant by putting Yahweh’s laws on their hearts (Jer 31:33), so that
they may not be broken. However, the way in which Jeremiah states the
covenant is different from that which Job and Deutero-Isaiah use. The author
of Job, if there is any view of covenants relevant to the book of Job, shows a
sceptical view of the idea of any covenants, while the book of Jeremiah pre
sents the transformation and enlargement of former covenants. The new
covenant in Jeremiah will be finally dispensed to people along with divine
70 In addition, Deutero-Isaiah extends the divine calling or appointment to all the na
tions opening up universalism. O f course, the similarity between Jeremiah’s calling and
commissioning the Servant of Yahweh who is the Israelite community exists with certain
shared vocabularies (Isa 49:5-6; Jer 1:5), but the mission o f Jacob-Israel surpasses the
national security and the reconstruction o f Davidic kingdom and is bound to serve the
universalistic purpose as “a light for the nations” (Isa 49:6b).
71 Daniel I. Block, The Book o f Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1997), 47.
judgment at the end (Jer 44:30; 52:1-34), but in Deutero-Isaiah, there is little
judgment as the consequence of human sins, and in Job it is not the underly
ing thought.
In sum, these shared ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah are more or less dif
ferent from the general commonalities of biblical texts which have been com
posed, edited, or reshaped in the Persian period. When investigating the two
books based on shared ideas, we may confirm that their theology denies the
confident belief that the world is unshakably governed by the Mosaic cove
nant with their God, and attacks the retribution theology which is especially
dominant in Deuteronomistic ideology. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that
both books are fairly similar to biblical books such as Proverbs, Jeremiah,
and Ezekiel.
II. J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h in th e C o n te x t o f th e H e lle n is tic P e r io d
It is time to consider whether some of those ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah

are found in biblical texts of the late Persian and Hellenistic period. If so,
they could be seen as also being Hellenistic ideas, or if not, we might say that
they are only Persian ideas. Books which belong to this period are Daniel, 1-
2 Chronicles, and Zechariah 9-14, and I choose two representative books,
Daniel and Ecclesiastes. Although the book of Daniel has its literary setting
in the sixth century BCE, events which are referred to are based on what has
happened in the past. In general, it has been claimed that in its final form Dan
2-6 belongs to the late Persian period and the remainder, including redaction
of the entire book, probably dates around the time of the Temple dedication
(164 BCE).7273 As regards Ecclesiastes, part of the book echoes the pre-exilic
materials, but the dating to the present form would not be earlier than the
Persian period and would probably belong to the Hellenistic period when
considering a significant amount of redacted parts and additional materials.7475
Again, not all the concepts discovered in Daniel and Ecclesiastes may belong
to those arisen in the Hellenistic period. However, true, in general, entitling
7^
the book of Daniel into the apocalyptic genre “as a distinct class of writing”
72 Ezra-Nehemiah and Esther are considered as belonging in the period of the Has-
monean uprising and Kingdom (167-63 BCE).
See John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision o f the Book o f Daniel, HSM 16 (Mis
soula: Scholars, 1977), 30, 32; Carr, Introduction, 252; Michael Knibb, “The Book of
Daniel in Its Context,” in The Book o f Daniel: Composition and Reception, ed. John J.
Collins and Peter W. Flint, vol. 1, FIOTL (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 18; John Goldingay,
Daniel, WBC 30 (Dallas: Word Books, 1989), 326.
74 See Choon-Leong Seow, “Linguistic Evidence and the Dating of Qoheleth,” JBL 115
(1996): 643-66; Weeks, Scepticism, 5-6; Carr, Formation, 448-55.
75
' John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic
Literature, The biblical resource series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 14; also see
may be widely acceptable, while the idea of determinism in Ecclesiastes is
possibly attached into the Hellenistic era. If these notions were widespread
throughout the Hellenistic period, it would be quite appropriate to dating
books of Job and Deutero-Isaiah by comparing Daniel and Ecclesiastes with
the two books.
1. D a n ie l
Let us consider whether the belief in divine control in Job and Deutero-Isaiah
is found in later books. Divine action as shown in the book of Daniel seems
to be similar to that of the Persian concept of divine control. It might be said
that because Deutero-Isaiah deals with human destiny, it certainly has a sort
of apocalyptic eschatology. However, the divine control of the world in Deu
tero-Isaiah needs to be distinguished from that of the apocalyptic genre in
Daniel which consists of a series of visions and dreams.76 God in Deutero-
Isaiah is not managing the world with a fixed timeline to fulfil his future plan,
but is simply reacting to human events. The idea of planning for the future in
the developed genre of apocalypse is not found until the Hellenistic period;
e.g., Daniel, 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Apocalypse of Baruch. There
fore, the divine control over the nations and nature is very different from the
sort of idea that we find in apocalyptic literature where everything is much
more mechanical, and history is working through a fixed pattern of events. In
the same way, the divine act in Ecclesiastes is much closer to the Hellenistic
eschatological view, rather than the simple reactions to human behaviour
shown in Job and Deutero-Isaiah (Eccl 12:13-14). Ecclesiastes demonstrates
that the natural phenomena are unceasingly no more than part of the continu
ing process (Eccl 1:2-11) and that in the world, God controls the pleasure of
eating and drinking (2:24), wealth and possession (5:19), and human behav
iour (9:1-2). The passage of Eccl 3:1-15 emphasises the “appointed time”
(np) for every business (f£3rrW?) and for human feelings (love and hatred)
which are controlled by God, and highlights God’s act which cannot be
changed by humans (Eccl 3:11, 14). These do not usually emerge from the
Daniel: With an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature, The Forms of the Old Testament
Literature 20 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984).
76 Collins opposes the claim of Paul Hanson about apocalyptic texts in post-exilic texts
and argues that “the hope for a new heaven and a new earth (Isa. 65:17) is certainly rele
vant to the history o f apocalypticism, but it should not be labeled ‘apocalyptic’ without
serious qualification.” See John J. Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expec
tation of the End,” ed. John J. Collins, The Encyclopedia o f Apocalypticism (New York:
Continuum, 2000); Paul D. Hanson, The Dawn o f Apocalytic: The Historical and Socio
logical Roots o f Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979). Also see
Michael E. Stone, “Apocalyptic Literature,” in Jewish Writings o f the Second Temple
Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran, Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus, ed.
Michael E. Stone, CRINT 2 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984), 383-441.
Persian scribal culture; Deutero-Isaiah and Job have neither such a strong
symbolic language nor a deterministic idea of a final judgment.
2. E c c le s ia s te s
Secondly, in later literatures, is the issue of God’s freedom from any rules
and human suffering likely to be considered as important as the early Persian
scribes stated? Certainly, there is little room in Ecclesiastes for the covenantal
relationship with humans in which God assumes obligations. Although God
in all ways acts in the present, humans cannot predict what God will do, and
all happenings are in the area of God’s knowledge (Eccl 3:11; 8:17; 11:5).
God is so unpredictable that human wisdom and knowledge are useless (Eccl
9:11-12) and he is free to determine where all gifts should be given; in this
sense, there is no distinction between good and bad laws (Eccl 2:26; 5:20). In
addition, the concept of divine judgment in Ecclesiastes is too murky in most
places, and it does not fit in well with Ecclesiastes’ other ideas; although the
author seems to be obliged to adopt the idea of judgment because of the gen
eral assumption in the context of Israelite literature. For instance, retribution
and judgment in this life are delayed and justice to sinners is not executed
(8:11—12a). The wicked are treated as if they were righteous, the righteous
are treated as if they are wicked (8:14). Ecclesiastes notices that humans
should not be overly wise or foolish, since life will end up in death and every
thing under heaven will become *72n (Eccl 7:15-16). Can we suppose that
such an idea of God’s freedom indicated in Job and Deutero-Isaiah is found
in Ecclesiastes? It is certain that Ecclesiastes shows little interest on the Mo
saic covenant and does not follow the Deuteronomistic theology of retribu
tion and reward. However, the concept of God’s judgment in Ecclesiastes
gets entangled in a fixed time and event which is already predestined (Eccl
3:17; 10:8; 11:9b).
Is this idea also found in the book of Daniel? Whether the God of Israel
delivers his people or not, three pious men resolve to keep their integrity and
loyalty to their God (Dan 3:17-18).77 Tales of Daniel and his three friends
(Dan 1-6) portray God who is always near to those who trust in His promise,
and who faithfully saves his people. The book of Daniel, influenced by late
Judaism, is strongly tied up with the religious impositions and ethical obliga
tions to their God - food laws (1:8), the rejection of idolatry (3:18), and regu
lar prayer (6:10) - and urges them to commit themselves to him.78 In some
ways, because the usage of the phrase UHp 1TH2 in Daniel 11:28, 30 (cf. 9:3,
77
John Barton, “Theological Ethics in Daniel,” in The Book o f Daniel: Composition and
Reception, ed. John Collins and Peter Flint, VTSup 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 663.
78 Ibid., 662.
"70
27; 11:22, 32) may attest the concept of rP“Q, one may argue that the rela
tionship in Daniel affirms the Deuteronomistic covenant. However, while the
texts of Daniel use the term “covenant” in some places, we should not misun
derstand personal piety as being the idea of the Deuteronomistic covenant.
Traditional ideas of Israel’s history in Daniel 9 are tied up with a further
apocalyptic divine plan. There is a solid development of personal piety going
hand in hand with the idea of divine plan. Of course, in the book of Daniel,
there might be a little space inside the divine plan which humans may change
through prayers and pious behaviour. However, the idea of a divine plan
would not come into being as the result of the prayer which might be theo
logically problematic (Dan 9:1-23), but rather from that point onwards, all
the humans are acting according to the divine plan which they cannot see and
fully comprehend. Humans can never force God to pay attention to their af
fairs in Daniel. So, the sort of personal piety in Daniel is dependent on the
notion that divine plans and processes are too enormous for individual hu
mans to comprehend.
In addition, what both Ecclesiastes and Daniel have in common is the no
tion of a divine “plan”, but the theological ideas in Ecclesiastes partly contra
dict those in the book of Daniel and they do not agree with what the plan is
and how it works. In Ecclesiastes, the idea of a divine plan is slightly differ
ent because Ecclesiastes supposes that every human action, however small, is
part of the divine plan. It is therefore much harder to find any part that hu
mans can change, so that Ecclesiastes has a more intrusive deterministic idea
than the book of Daniel; although neither has a clear philosophical idea of
“determinism”. On the contrary, to the writer of Daniel, God’s actions are at a
higher level dealing with nations and empires where God’s main interest is in
controlling happenings in order that the world might run according to his plan.
So, in both Ecclesiastes and Daniel, because the way in which he acts accords
with his plan, the concept of human petitions would be theologically prob
lematic in late scribal texts which emphasise God’s fixed plan over the world.
III. Im p lic a tio n s
It is time to consider reasons why the Mosaic (or Deuteronomistic) “covenant”

is accepted in some scribal literature and is rejected in other scribal texts, and
why the idea of “plan” emerges from some of them and is not found in others.
What do these discrepancies and differences among biblical texts attest about
scribes and the historical development of the biblical materials? Two impor
tant conclusions about these issues can be drawn; the one is that the diversity
in theological ideas hints at the different dating of books; the other is that the79
79 See Arie van der Kooij, “The Concept of Covenant (berit) in the Book of Daniel,” in
Book o f Daniel in the Light o f New Findings, ed. Adam S. van der Woude (Leuven: Leu
ven UP, 1993), 495-501.
diversity represents the degree of various ideas among the scribes. Let us
summarise these through two theological ideas: the Mosaic “covenant” and
divine “plan”.
Firstly, given that the book of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic his
tory are a product of scribal culture, what conclusions can one draw from the
fact that some scribal literatures subscribe to the law and covenantal theology,
and others do not? We have seen that Job and Deutero-Isaiah have a strong
interest and concern in God of Israel as Universal and as the sovereign Crea
tor who is free from human constraints and rules based on the Mosaic cove
nant. To some degree it has been agreed that the earlier edition of Deuteron
omy, possibly the “Josiah’s edition” has been dated to the pre-exilic period
after the political impact of Assyrian empire (722 BCE) and that its exilic OA
edition has been written in the reflection of the destruction of Jerusalem; the
“Covenant Code” in Exod 20:22-23:33 which covers Deuteronomy has been
treated as an earliest form of biblical law;8081 the Deuteronomistic history
would be produced in the exilic and the early post-exilic period.8283If this dat
ing is acceptable in our comparison, it could probably be a reasonable suppo
sition that these ideas - the universal character and supreme freedom of
Yahweh - probably remain concentrated in the scribes of the Persian period
compared to those of the Neo-Assyrian and exilic period. However, this does
not mean that Deuteronomistic editors did not continue to work and there was
the rapid cessation of Deuteronomistic ideology at a subsequent time after
Exile. In this regard, this dating of Job and Deutero-Isaiah compared to the
Mosaic and Deuteronomistic covenant might be problematic. Nevertheless,
such a critical discussion of the Mosaic covenant in Job or the new interpreta
tion of the relationship between humans and God in Deutero-Isaiah would not
appear before Exile and could most possibly emerge in a later period than in
the early period. For instance, the character of the God of Job and Deutero-
Isaiah in many aspects is similar with that of God in the books of Jeremiah
and Ezekiel; although Jeremiah to a great degree has been revised and ex
80
Carr, Formation, 307-17; Introduction, 132-51, 172-3; Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and
Restoration: A Study o f Hebrew Thought o f the Sixth Century B.C, OTL (London: SCM,
1968), 62-83; Albertz, Israel in Exile, 271-302.
81 Carr, Introduction, 79, 138.
82 Gerstenberger, Persian, 274-8.
83 The Deuteronomistic history with Deuteronomy continued to be read, transmitted and
revised, since they would be regarded as valuable because o f some theological reasons and
those ideas could be, in renewed ways, qualified in other Torah-centred writings. Certainly,
the law and covenant in Deuteronomistic history would have been reformulated further in
the situation of the Judean community after the exilic period, and later on with the emer
gence of Judaism, the significance of the Deuteronomistic theology which is tied up with
the Mosaic covenantal faith could have been accelerated in the Second-Temple Jewish
community.
panded by Deuteronomistic editors throughout the exilic and post-exilic pe
riod and Ezekiel describes the relation between Israel and God based on old
literary collections (Ezek 11:20; 14:11; 34:20, 30-31; 36:28; 37:23).84
Jeremiah and Ezekiel are closely engaged with the idea of a new covenant
that transform people’ hearts, where the Mosaic covenant is reinterpreted and
reformulated. In other words, what we find in Job and Deutero-Isaiah is not
different from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in that Job gives a critical view of the
covenantal theology and Deutero-Isaiah constructs a completely new rule for
the relationship between humans and God. For another example, we may see
the same theological shift in Prov 1-9 which reinterprets the covenant and
law in a new context in which Torah becomes less problematic; although
some may find linguistic clues to date part of Prov 1-9 in the pre-exilic pe
riod, and proverbial collections support the idea of retribution and reward
based on laws and commandments. Therefore, we may say that Job and Deu
tero-Isaiah seem to be attuned to the later texts by the indicator of Mosaic
“covenant”.
Furthermore, this comparison would certainly help us to understand why
Job and Deutero-Isaiah do not support the Deuteronomistic covenantal idea in
historical development, but criticise the moral order in retribution principles.
If the book of Deuteronomy and the ideas expressed in the Deuteronomistic
history had become problematic in the Persian period, some scribal texts
composed or revised in the Persian period could have reflected the shift in the
social and historical belief of the relationship between God and humans. That
is, the rise of an anti-covenantal notion and the growing emphasis on the
freewill of God and on the inability of humans to constrain God shown in the
two books would mark the substantial decline of Deuteronomistic theology.
Secondly, given that the biblical texts of the Hellenistic period originate
from a circle of Jewish scribes, what consequences can one suppose from the
fact that Deutero-Isaiah and Job have no concept of a divine plan for the
world and that the later texts such as Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and Zechariah 9-
14 do contain it? The concept of the human-divine relationship in Job and
Deutero-Isaiah which lacks any idea of plan is fundamentally different from
that found in all the apocalyptic materials. Ecclesiastes has a heavy idea of
“planning” and Daniel strongly portrays the same idea where God determines
the course of world history. But, texts of Job and Deutero-Isaiah have the
concept of a deity who does not have a fixed future plan. Thus, if the thought
of a divine plan and deterministic notion in Daniel and Ecclesiastes is the
later notion which is not seen in the two books, Job and Deutero-Isaiah may
be more attuned to earlier texts in the Persian period. Divine sovereignty and
freedom in the two would have been developed or transposed into the scribal
idea of “planning” shown in the late biblical materials.
84 Block, The Book o f Ezekiel, 48-9.

Consequently, Job and Deutero-lsaiah most probably reflect the scribal
ideas of the period between the critical reception of the Deuteronomistic
theology and the rise of the apocalyptic theology. Considering this implica
tion, one may allow for the diversity and discrepancy within the scribal class
in the Second Temple period and may consider the dynamic shift in their
cultural concern. We would observe the historical development of scribal
ideas, if considering that the scribal culture is evolving over time. We, how
ever, should never exclude the possibility that some earlier texts can have a
very high view of God, and some late texts can have an old-fashioned view of
God; if we properly understand that texts are the creative products of collec
tive memory and knowledge reflecting their cultural and historical situation.
Nevertheless, we may not deny that there is a general movement in biblical
literature from the concept of a personal and national God towards a supreme
God of the universe who has everything planned in advance.
IV . J o b a n d D e u te r o -ls a ia h in th e A n c ie n t N e a r E a ste rn C o n te x t
These shared ideas are part of a much broader picture of thought in the an
cient Near Eastern world and we need to discuss them in the relationship to
other neighbouring cultures.
1. D iv in e In te r v e n tio n
The notion of the gods’ intervention in human events is certainly not a dis
tinctive idea appearing only in the Hebrew Bible, although biblical texts were
particularly interested in the purposeful action of God. Albrektson, for in
stance, affirmed that it is not an idea found only in Hebrew thought, and he
gave many examples from Babylonian or
religions in which deities are interven-
ing in history and in human affairs. If his argument is right, we should be
careful in claiming that Israelite literatures are distinctive from foreign texts.
Nonetheless, in understanding God’s action and role in history - ways in
which he punishes or rewards humans and how God runs the world with di-
vine power - we see that there is a diversity of fundamental views between
Israelite and non-Israelite texts. The difference is not whether a god inter
venes in history or not, but the way in which the nature of a god is presented*
o<*
See Albrektson, History, 68-97; Saggs also supports Albrektson’s view. See Henry
W. F. Saggs, The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel, JLCR 12 (Lon
don: Athlone, 1978), 64-92.
OfL
For observations on the difference between Hebrew thought and ancient Near Eastern
ideas in terms of divine intervention and destiny, see Wilfred G. Lambert, “Destiny and
Divine Intervention in Babylon and Israel,” in The Witness o f Tradition: Papers Read at
the Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference Held at Woudschoten, 1970, ed. Adam
S. van der Woude (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 65-72.
on
in different cultures and literatures. The God of the Hebrews is the unique
God and the highest God who is all powerful in controlling the whole uni
verse and achieves all that he wishes.
For instance, Yahweh in Deutero-Isaiah works in the history of the exiled
community bringing forth Cyrus as Yahweh’s servant. The idea of divine
control there is indicated in world history as well as in Israel’s political and
religious situation. And, this is an idea of the book of Job where Yahweh
enables Job to become a wealthy person, protects him, and then makes him
go through disasters. Indeed God intervenes in casual daily ways in Job’s life
and even destroys and then restores his possessions and health. Job there
seems to be the faithful servant of God and shows complete submission as a
servant of God. Moreover, the Satan, who is acting for God, could bring dis
aster on Job using Sabeans, fire, Chaldeans, and wind to take his possessions,
and could strike with disease threatening his life.
By contrast, in Mesopotamian religion, gods may be asked to intervene in
the world, and humans can either give offerings and sacrifices to their deities
or pray to them for their intervention in human events. They, however, do not
pay a great deal of attention to bringing retribution and do not universally
confirm their roles in running human affairs and in changing history, but they
have other works to do and do not concern themselves with running human
life. Likewise, people in the Greco-Roman period believed oo
that their gods
frequently intervened in human affairs to judge humans. When considering
ancient Greek mythology, the religious concepts expressed in Greek litera
tures contain ideas of moral judgment, order, and law.87889 However, the justice
of gods in Greek texts is not dependent on a single system of moral law or on
the decision of an absolute God, but is no more than intermittent interventions
in terms of revenge, retaliation, punishment/reward, and wrath in interesting
human affairs. For instance, in Homer’s I lia d , Zeus’s intervention which is
carried out by a te , (“the eldest daughter of Zeus”)90 when she brings about
misfortunes in the human world is not the same as the divine control in Israel
ite writings. Therefore, while divine intervention in history in a general sense
is a common view in the writings of the ancient Near East and should not be
87 See Albrektson, History, 96.

88
See John G. Griffiths, The Divine Verdict: A Study o f Divine Judgement in the A n
cient Religions, SHR 52 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 47-109.
89 Cf., Dike (“Astraea” or “Justita”) which means “personification of Justice” punishing
injustice (OCD, 451-2); Erinyes which is “divine beings exacting retribution for wrongs
and blood-guilt especially in the family, often associated with disaster such as disease,
madness or serious pollution” (OCD, 535); Moirai (“fates”) which refer to goddesses to
control human destinies (OCD, 569).
90 Griffiths notices that “theologically the concept of ate is one of disturbing moral con
notation” . See Griffiths, Verdict, 59.
considered as a development exclusive to Judaism, it should be distinguished
by their individual ideas in their own literatures.
2. P e r s o n a l P ie ty a n d D iv in e S o v e r e ig n ty
Furthermore, it is possible to draw close parallels between attitudes to God in

Job and Deutero-Isaiah and attitudes to God that we find in a number of late
texts from other foreign countries. For instance, by the time of the New
Kingdom (1540-1070 BCE; 18th—20th dynasties) in ancient Egypt, a new
religiosity that is connected to a strong personal piety and to the notion of a
single and powerful god emerged particularly from the Ramesside period
(19th and 20th dynasties). Jan Assmann has argued that the “new solar theol
ogy” in the pre-Amarna period, was converted by the Amarna religion into a
new theology in the Ramesside age that emphasises “personal piety”.91923 By
the time of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman period, there are prevalent lit
eratures from demotic Egyptian script such as the instruction of P a p y r u s
I n s in g e r (the second century CE) which are full of sayings about the inabil
ity of humans to control individual lives; Qohelet as one of late Jewish writ
ings also highlights the impossibility of controlling human life and death with
a strong idea of God’s free will(Eccl 7:13; 8:7-8). It may also be seen in late
Mesopotamian texts, which include an elevated idea of personal piety. If we
look at late Babylonian literature such as the S a y in g s o f A h iq a r written in an
Aramaic papyrus which represents broad Mesopotamian ideas in the early
first millennium period (approximately 500 BCE), one may find a very high
idea of the gods controlling the world.
In this sense, although we have seen texts similar to the book of Job such
as T he D e b a te b e tw e e n a M a n a n d H is S o u l and L u d lu l b e l n e m e q i from the
early ancient Near Eastern literatures, the sort of scribal ideas found in Job
and Deutero-Isaiah, in terms of theology, is much more similar to those found
in later ancient texts; this is the point at which Judaism is interacting closely
with social and religious thoughts in other nations.94
91 Assmann, Search, 222; However, Assmann sometimes tends to put too much empha
sis on so-called religious changes and reforms. John Baines and Elizabeth Frood bring
interesting corrections, nuances to Assmann’s views. See John Baines and Elizabeth Frood,
“Piety, Change and Display in the New Kingdom,” in Ramesside Studies in Honour of'K.A.
Kitchen, ed. Mark Collier and Steven Snape (Bolton: Rutherford, 2011), 1-17.
92 Miriam Lichtheim, AEL, vol. 3 (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1980), 184-217.
93 James M. Lindenberger, The Aramaic Proverbs o f Ahiqar (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 1983).
94 Susan Niditch, The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature o f the
Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods (New Haven: Yale UP, 2015), 16 discusses assuma-
bly late biblical passages related to “personal religion among Yahwists of the Neo-
Babylonian and Persian period”. She concludes that “late biblical texts such as the confes
sions of Jeremiah, the soliloquies of Job, and the social critiques o f Qohelet, the charac-
C. Conclusion
There are many reasons to consider that both Job and Deutero-Isaiah share
common scribal ideas in the Persian period, but it is neither because one used
the other nor because they used specific literary traditions, but because they
are naturally emerging from the same social context which is “scribal”. Those
concerns and ideas would not emerge from an abrupt change of their world
view, but would be due to the new cultural agenda that the scribal experts in
the Persian period could adopt or would be interested in. Two consequences
can be summarised.
Firstly, these scribal ideas of divine sovereignty over the world and of the
arbitrariness of Yahweh in Job and Deutero-Isaiah differs significantly from
that in other texts. Those notions may more be attuned to the Persian texts
such as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Proverbs than to the idea of the Mosaic or
Deuteronomic covenant. And they are more in tune with the earlier texts than
the late texts such as Ecclesiastes and Daniel in the Hellenistic period which
contain the concept of “plan”. This indicates that the two books were possibly
formed between the waning days of Deuteronomic theology and the growth
of apocalyptic literature .
Secondly, we may confirm that although there are likely to be little possi
bility of direct reference to specific non-Israelite materials, there are Mesopo
tamian and Egyptian texts which deal with similar concepts found in the two
books; e.g., the issue of undeserved suffering, L u d lu l b e l n e m e q i (“the Baby
lonian Job”) where the speaker expresses his experience of abandonment and
over-punishment by his god; and P a p y r u s In s in g e r which contains the idea of
divine control. This claim with regard to Jewish scribal ideas growing up in
the cultural diversity of other ancient Near Eastern civilizations could help us
to affirm the significance of the broader cultural knowledge which scribes
possessed and developed.
terizations of and interactions between characters in Ruth and Jonah portray individuals’
emotions, disappointments, and doubts with greater attention to detail and urgency than do
classical texts. ... In this way, religious ideas and expressions are privatized and personal
ized, albeit always within the contours of traditional content, structures, and turns of
phrase.” Ibid., 134-5. What her research demonstrates in some points is similar to what I
have done here, in that the second part o f this project shows the change of scribal ideas
from the early period to the late Persian and Hellenistic period; as highlighting descriptions
of God’s control and freedom in the context of an individual’s suffering; such as pious and
innocent sufferers, Job and Suffering Servant in Isa 52:13-53:12.
Conclusion
We have confirmed that there are limitations in the previous comparative

researches on the relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. Although
every assertion made by biblical scholars on the relationship between the two
books does not stand up, there are more or less significant characteristics
shared by the two books which seem to go beyond the similarities that each
shares with other books in the Hebrew Bible. In this study, I have proposed
that the theory of the scribal culture is crucial in understanding the circum
stances surrounding the writing of the Hebrew Bible. What we have seen
from the cultural milieu of the ancient Near East is that scribes had a broad
knowledge of Israelite and foreign literatures and utilised this in their writing
activities. As the consequence of these arguments, scribal ideas in the two
books - God’s control and his freedom - have been proposed; it seems rea
sonable to propose that these shared ideas between the two books are the
result of cultural values and insights which the literati of the Persian period
inherited and practised.
Now let us consider several implications about the scribal culture and in
terconnectedness which Job and Deutero-Isaiah extensively testify in relation
with Israelite and non-Israelite sources. Firstly, the fact that linguistic con
nections between Job and Deutero-Isaiah do not necessarily attest the literary
relationship could be applied to studies of similarities between any biblical
materials. For instance, this is highly relevant to comparative studies between
the wisdom texts and other parts of Israelite writings; e.g., between Proverbs
and Deuteronomy; between Job and Amos/Deuteronomy; Ecclesiastes and
Isaiah/Pentateuch; Tobit/Ben Sira and Deuteronomy. One may observe over
lapping terms and expressions between two literary units, whatsoever they are,
and may argue either that there is a literary dependence between two corre
sponding books or that there is the particular influence of a literary tradition
such as the wisdom or the sapiential tradition. There may be sufficient reli
ability in those arguments, especially during the late Second Temple period,
and it is not impossible to trace earlier sources from a later source. But, cau
tion is needed in those studies of literary dependence/influence. If consider
ing that the text is reciprocally and intricately connected in infinite linguistic
webs, and that ancient scribes could use an abundance of cultural knowledge
without any restraint in unlimited intertexts, we may recognise that biblical
literature would not arise from a specific text or a single literary tradition.
Here, this study concerning the relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah
provides a hint as to the direction which the intertextual study in biblical
materials needs to take.
Secondly, the study of scribal culture may complement the limits of form
criticism which has related to the basis for the socio-historical background of
the Hebrew Bible. Again, far be it from me to claim that form criticism
should be dismissed, because of the latest hypothesis of the Hebrew scribes.
Rather, what I suggest is that the idea of scribal culture may fill a major gap
between the context in which separate groups of prophets and sages are
viewed as writers of their literary genres and the broader context in which
scribes are regarded as substantial composers and producers of biblical texts.
Whether or not a distinct group produced a particular type of literature, fa
miliarity with such a broad literary context explains the unlimited literary
interconnections and makes them an asset, not a problem. Indeed, what we
are reading and need to understand is not only historical background rooted in
“wisdom”, “prophetic”, and “priestly” elements, but also, more significantly,
scribal concerns and ideas reflecting their surrounding culture. If scribes had
possessed memorised verbatim knowledge about early collective writings,
they could have used and practised it to indicate their intellectual, religious,
cultural concerns and values. Commonalities between Job and Deutero-Isaiah
with other scribal texts of the Persian Period would reflect such collective
values, in order to educate scribal students and children and shape their
worldview. However, we should not think of scribal culture as a single set of
ideas, but should consider the diverse thoughts among the scribal experts.
One should avoid assuming that every biblical book subscribes to the same
theological ideas either of “covenant” or of “plan of history”, if we accept as
true that biblical literature arose over a period of some centuries. As we have
seen, different members of the scribal class, who in one set of circumstances
could write the book of Deuteronomy which uses covenantal language and
serves the Mosaic covenant, could, in other contexts, produce texts sceptical
of Israel’s covenantal faith.
In addition, recognising scribal values gives a new understanding to bibli
cal literature, which is traditionally classified into different types. No one
argues that Deutero-Isaiah belongs to wisdom literature or that Job belongs to
the genre of prophecy. Yet, if texts are only understood in this constant way,
there may be little that the two different literary types themselves can tell us
about similar theological ideas, because they are not generically similar ex
cept in terms of Hebrew poetry. On the contrary, the advantage in comparing
biblical texts on the basis of significant scribal thoughts is that it could give
us a real opportunity to consider the ideas of the scribal group in the texts.
Thirdly, the historical development within scribal culture could shed light
on further intertextual study of the Hebrew Bible, mentioned earlier in this
research. If as we have seen, the purely literary theory of “intertextuality” can
be taken as the literary technique derived from the cultural knowledge in the
unlimited network of texts, it could be considered as a sort of cultural dia
logue within the existent written or spoken texts where textuality reflects the
cultural structure or common worldview out of which the texts of Job and
Deutero-Isaiah were composed. In other words, if we apply this theory into
our concern, the relationship between the two bodies of literature cannot refer
to the simple author-oriented relationship and further the limited method of
source-hunting between specific texts or between books, but it more likely
involves recognising texts as the product of a cultural dialogue in a highly
complex literary environment. It is one of the areas where interpreters have
changed and replaced its meaning, but biblical scholarship needs to recon
sider the original significance of intertextuality; though we may still use it to
a limited extent. Thus, the process of understanding scribal culture indicated
in this study is much closer to the original idea of Kristeva and her supporters,
so that at some level what we are attempting to do here is a more convincing
intertextual study than former studies which I have criticised.
Over all, scribal culture in which the literati could memorise, educate, and
use their inherited oral-written texts could provide a useful tool for explaining
vast interconnections with the Israelite and non-Israelite literatures. This
study might resolve the old problems of an author-oriented approach and
might help the traditional intra-biblical exegesis which is still valuable in
biblical interpretation.
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Index of References
Old Testament
Genesis 12:31 76
1 6, 22, 29, 72 15:11 53
1:2 78 15:13 76
1:1—2:3a 210 15:16 76
1:1—2:3 72 19:5-6 1 98, 201
1-2 48, 107 20 75
l-2 :4 a 29, 78 20:13-15 75
1:l-2 :4 a 73, 78 20:22-23:33 219
1:1-3 78 22:3 74
1-11 44, 47 22:8 74
1:26 78 23:20-24:3-8 198
1:26-29 189 24 206
2:2 78 25-31 73
2-3 150 31:17 78
3:19 90, 105 35-40 73
6-9 78, 138 36:4 144
6:9-9:17 77
8:20 73 Leviticus
11:30 77 13:18-23 73
14 77
22:2 73 Numbers
25:8 72 1-10 73
25:27 72 14:14 77
30-32 77-8 26-36 73
35:29 72
37-50 193 Deuteronomy
41:8 144 4:13 206
45:5b 194 4:35 79
45:7a 194 4:39 79
45:8a 194 5 210
50:20 194 5:6-7 75
5:17-19 75
Exodus 5:22 75
6-8 77 6:4 75
7:11 144 7:12-26 198
12:11 76 8:5 103
254 Index o f References
8:6 210 16:23 142

10:12 210 20:24 124
11:22 210 20:25 124
19:9 210 22:10 59, 63
24:1-3 79 22:32 79
28 202,210
28:1-14 201 I Kings
28:1-69 198 1-2 193
28:12 74 4:3 124
28:35 74 8:23 79
29:11-12 199 8:60 79
30:3 74 21:8-11 129
30:3cf 74
30:9 74 2Kings
32:1 75 18:18 124
32:4 74 18:37 128
32:8 53 19:2 124
32:12 79 22 129
32:13b-14a 74 22:3 124
32:39 79, 103 22:3-23:24 133
32:43a 74 22:8 133
33:9 206 22:12 124
33:26-29 79 22:14 124
22:16 129
Judges 25:19 124
5:14 124 25:22 124
8:14 113 25:27-30 74
13:2-3 77
1Chronicles
1Samuel 18:16 124
1-4 74 21:1 97
1:11 74 24:6 124
2:2 79
2:9b 74 2Chronicles
2:25a 74 2:6 144
3:13 74 2:13 144
10:1b 168 17:9 127
10:7b 168 21:12 146
34:13 124
2Samuel
3:23 17 Ezra
7 92, 204 1:2-4 166
7:4-17 168 4:17 127
7:13-15 206 6:2-5 166
7:14-15 205 7:6 124
7:22 79 7:10 127
8:17 124 7:11 124
9-24 193 7:12 126
12:10-11 194 7:12-26 125
7:21 126 3-31 1
27:8 144 3 29, 60, 72, 163-4
27:9 144 3:1b 81
3:1-12 81
Nehemiah 3:1-13 29
8:1 124, 127 3:1-42:6 29
8:4 124 3:3 81
8:7-8 127 3:3-26 81
8:9 124 3:8 103
8:13 124 3:8a 81
9:3 129 3:16 104, 105
12:26 124 3:21 58
12:36 124 3:23 12-4, 16-7, 21
13:13 127 4:12-21 160
4:19 12
Esther 5 60
1:13 144 5:7 86
6:13 144 5:9 13, 1 5 -6 ,2 1 ,6 4 -5
8:8-9 129 5:9-16 96
5:10a 15
Job 5:10b 15
1-2 1 ,2 8 -9 , 73, 97-8, 5:12 13, 16
193 5:1 Of 15
1:1 72-4, 99 5:12-13 13
1:1a 46, 186 5:17 103
1:1-5 91 5:17-18 103
1:2-3 74 5:18-20 155
1:3 73 5:23 202
1:5 46, 73, 74 6:2 46
1:6 53, 98 6:3 46
1:6-9 97 6:9 14
1:7 98 6:14 202
1:8 14, 55, 72, 74 6:14ff 154
1:10 74 6:15 80
1:12 97 6:22-23 81
1:13-19 98, 159 6:28 80
1:20 73 7:1 17
1:21 104, 105 7:1-3 46
1:21a 104 7:1-19 90
2:1 53, 98 7:3 14
2:1-7 97 7:5 55
2:2 97 7:8 14
2:3 14, 72, 74, 207, 185, 7:12 16, 49-51, 90,103
203, 207 7:15 14, 57
2:7 55, 73 7:16 56, 91
2:7b 74 7:17-18 91
2:9 74 7:19 56, 91
2:12 73 7:20 14
2:13 14, 94 7:20b 56
7:21 91 12 60, 69
8-10 98 12-14 12
8:12 17 12:2-3 67
8:20 175 12:4-6 67
9 60, 69,81 12:4a 82
9-10 69, 99 12:7-8 67
9-12 12 12:7a 67
9:2-3 160 12:7-9 67
9:2-4 61,62 12:7-25 2 1 ,3 8 ,4 7
9:2-12 21,38 12:9 12-3, 1 6,21,60, 66,
9:2-13 60 68
9:2b-3 15 12:10 12, 17
9:3 15 12:13 85, 104
9:4 12-3, 1 6 ,2 1 ,6 0 ,6 1 , 12:17 13, 16, 17
68 12:17-21 73
9:5 90 12:19 73
9:5-7 15 12:21 17
9:5-10 96, 97 12:23 17
9:7-8 90 12:24-25 86
9:8 12-3, 16, 59, 62, 68 13:6-19 15
9:8a 62-3 13:8 202
9:8b-9 97 13:15 81
9:8-9 97 13:19 17
9:8-10 15,47 13:28 17
9:9 97 14:1 17, 46
9:10 12-3, 16,21,63, 14:2 46
64-5, 68 14:3 15
9:11 17 14:11 86
9:12 12-3, 16, 65-6, 68, 14:14 17
104-5 14:17 14
9:12a 13, 65 14:21-22 104
9:12b 13 15:7 104
9:13 16, 49, 50-1 15:7b 104
9:13-17 155 15:14-16 160
9:14-24 63 15:17-19 144
9:17 185,203, 207 15:35 86
9:24 52 15:35a 86
9:25 46 16 14
9:32 15 16-17 18
10:2 15 16-19 20, 55
10:7 16 16:7-17 55, 93
10:9 17, 59, 90 16:10 14, 18, 20
10:12 202 16:17 14, 18, 19, 20, 55,
10:17 17 184
10:18-19 81 16:19-21 55
10:21-22 58 17 14
11 97 17:1 14, 55
11:6 86 18:5-6 103
11:10 13, 16, 66 18:5-21 18,58
Index o f References 257
19 14, 18 27:13-17 2
19:6 93 27:13-23 2
19:6-12 25, 93 27:18-23 2
19:7 82 28 2, 28, 103-4, 187,
19:7-27 55 212
19:8 93-4 28:15-19 103
19:12 93 28:23-27 103
19:14 14 28:24 16, 59
19:21 14 28:28 104
19:24 124 29:6 74
19:25 17 29:17 104
19:25-27 55 30:1a 82
20:26 104 30:9 82
21 29 30:9-15 162
21:5 14 30:20 14
21:7 81 30:21 86
21:7-26 162 31 75, 203
21:17 104 31:1 202
21:22 16 31:5-8 202
22-27 90 31:15 75
22:14 16, 59 31:34 14
23:2-17 81 31:35 15, 75,202
23:4 202 32 2
23:6 15, 17 32:8 58
23:8 17 32-37 1,2, 5, 28
23:8-9 58 33:2-37 45
23:10 45 33:3 58
23:13 16, 66, 75 33:7 58
24:1-17 75 33:13 15
24:1-25 162 33:14 96
24:14-16 75 33:15-30 103
24:18-24 2 33:18 164
25 60 34:13 15
25:1-6 2 34:14 104
25:2 1 3 ,2 1 ,5 8 34:14-15 90, 104-5
25:2-4 13 34:18-20 186
25:4-6 160 35:5 15
25:6 17 35:6 66
26 189 35:9 82
26:7-10 15, 47 35:14 15
26:8 59, 104 36-37 186
26:10 16, 59 36:5-15 45
26:10b 104 36:22-23 15, 186
26:11-12 49 36:23 15
26:12 16, 19, 49, 51 36:23-37:24 186
26:13 19, 49 36:26-37:4 186
27:3 17 36:27-28 16
27:4 14 36:30-32 186
27:7-10 2 37:5-13 186
37:6 16 40:25 49
37:13 202 40:25-41:3 15
37:14-24 186 40:28 197, 202
37:17 16 41:1 15, 197
38-39 15, 16, 22 41:1-2 196
38-41 47, 193,210 41:1-11 196
38:1 72 41:1-19 196
38:1-42:6 1 41:2-3 197
38:2 187 41:4 196
38:2-3 17 41:5 196
38:4 16, 59 41:6 196
38:4-7 188 41:7 196
38:4-21 188 41:7-9 196
38:4-38 187 41:10-11 196-7
38:5 104 41:12 189
38:5-41 15 41:12-24 196
38:7 53, 74 41:15 14
38:8 103 41:33-34 196
38:8-11 22, 188 42:7 14
38:10 104 42:7-8 198
38:10-11 103 42:7-9 74
38:12 188 42:7-17 28, 29, 73, 209
38:22-38 188 42:8 55,73
38:24 104 42:8a 14
38:31-32 97 42:8b 14
38:39 195-6 42:8-9 46
38:39-41 188 42:10 55, 74, 159
38:39-39:3 195 42:10-45 159
38:39-39:30 188 42:17 72, 154
38:41 196
39:5-8 189, 196 Psalms
39:9-12 189, 195-6 1 89
39:19-25 189 2:7 175
40-41 188 7:15 86
40:2 17 8 90,210
40:7-9 15 8:5-7 91
40:7-14 17 18:19 59, 63
40:8-14 187 22:24-32 92
40:10-14 15 23 91
40:11-13 188 23:2 91
40:15 196 37 89
40:15-41:26 5, 196 37:31 92
40:15-41:34 22, 103 47 91
40:15c-18 196 38:5 59
40:16 189 39 91
40:19 188, 189 39:9 91
40:19a 196 39:12 91
40:19b 196 39:14 91
40:24 196 45:2 127
51:3-6 92 132:11-12 205, 211
68 91 144 89
73 89, 164 144:5 59, 63
74 6, 29 145:3 13, 65
74:12-15 93 147:4-5 92
77:6 93 145:19-20 65
77:17-21 93 147 21
81 92
81:6-17 92 Proverbs
81:14b 92 1-9 220
85 91 1:6 144
89 6, 29, 78, 92, 102, 2:9-22 212
204-5 3 103
89:2 92 3:2 103
89:31-34 205 3:14-15 103
89:4 92 3:19-20 103
89:11-12 93 7:2 103
89:25 92 8 103
89:29 92 8:11 103
89:30-32 211 8:13 104
89:40 92 8:14 85, 104
90-106 91-2 8:17 212
93 91 8:19 103
93:1-4 93 8:21 212
96 91-2 8:22-31 103
96:1 92 8:25b 104
96:7-8 92 8:25 104
96:11-12 92 8:27b 104
97 91 8:27 59
98 91-2 8:29 104
98:1 92 8:39 103
98:3b 92 9 212
98:3 95 9:7-12 212
98:7-8 92 13:9 104
98:8 77 18:5-6 104
103 89 21:17 103
103:15-20 92 22:17 144
104 90 24:20 104
104:2 59, 63 24:23 144
104:5 59 25:3 13, 65
104:29-3 0a 90 25:8 13, 66
104:29-30 90 30:1-4 15
104:29b 105 30:4 104
107 2 1 ,8 9 ,9 1 30:14 104
107:16 13, 92
107:35 92 Ecclesiastes
109:27 68 1:2-11 216
110:1-7 175 2:26 217
126 91 3:1-15 216
3:11 216,217 28:1-5 86, 87

3:14 216 28:29 86
3:17 217 29:14 144
3:20 90, 104-5 30:7 50
4:1-3 104 33:18 124
5:14a 104 34-35 4, 88
5:14 104, 105 36-39 206
5:20 217 40 19, 20, 84, 201
6:3b-5 105 40-45 12
6:4-5 104 40-48 14
6:10 104 40-55 1-4, 39, 88
7:7 13 40-66 4, 20,37, 87, 100,
7:13 223 173
7:15-16 217 40:1 95,212
7:15-20 104 40:1-11 86, 87, 94
8:4 13, 66, 104-5 40:2 17, 84, 185, 207
8:7-8 223 40:2-24 61
8:10-15 104 40:3 89
8:17 217 40:3-5 165,204
9:1 144 40:5 101,201, 212
9:5-6 104 40:6 202
9:11-12 217 40:6-8 92
10:8 217 40:7-8 17
11:5 104,217 40:9 87
11:9b 217 40:9-11 189
12:7a 104 40:10 89
12:7 104-5 40:10-11 58
12:13-14 216 40:11 83, 101
40:12 17
Isaiah 40:12-13 15
1-39 3, 4, 85, 87-8 40:12-16 165
1-55 4, 88 40:12-17 15-6, 142
2:1-4 87, 102 40:12-26 190
5:19 192 40:12-31 15,60
6:1-3 86 40:13 191
10:19 113 40:13b 54
11 87 40:13-14 54, 78
11:2 85 40:13-15 17
12:1 170 40:14 16
14-35 14 40:14a 54
14:26 192 40:15 15
14:27 13, 66 40:15-17 190
15:2 73 40:17 17
19:5 86 40:18 78
19:12 144 40:18-20 190
19:14 86 40:21-31 190
22:12 73 40:22 16, 59, 63, 189
26-35 14 40:22f 15
27:1 49 40:23 63
40:24 14 42:10-12 92
40:25 78 42:12 92
40:26 12-3, 15-6,21, 38, 42:14-16 204
61,68, 92 42:15 190
40:26-28 13,21 42:18-21 190
40:27 12-3, 16-7, 189 42:18-43:21 201
40:27-31 61 42:23-25 190
40:27a 12 42:24-25 193
40:28 12, 13, 16, 59, 63, 42:25 190
64, 68, 78 43-48 46
40:28ab 12 43:1 166
40:28b 64 43:1-3 204
40:28-31 142 43:1-5 190
40:29 64 43:1-7 170
40:29-31 12 43:6 190
41:1 16 43:10 79
41:2-3 77 43:10-11 102, 165
41:2a 17 43:10-13 190
41:4 17, 28 43:11 79
41:5 59 43:13 12-3, 16, 66, 165
41:8-13 170 43:14-21 204
41:9 59 43:16f 15
41:9ff 165 43:16-21 78
41:11 15 43:17 14
41:14 17 43:18 200
41:14-16 170 43:19 84
41:17 190 43:19a 200
41:17-20 68, 189, 204 43:19a-20 190
41:18 92 43:20 16
41:18-19 210 43:21a 76
41:18-20 16 43:22-28 77
41:20 12-3, 1 6 ,2 1 ,3 8 , 60, 43:25 84, 198, 201
66-8, 189 43:25-26 92
41:21-24 15 44:1-5 170
41:21-29 171 44:3-5 210
41:22ff 165 44:6 17, 79
41:22-23 200 44:6b 52, 54
41:25 59 44:8 14
42:1-9 46, 87 44:8-9 190
42:1-4 84 44:9 14
42:2-3 58 44:9-20 190
42:5 12, 17, 63, 189-90 44:11 190
42:5-9 84, 171 44:13 16, 59
42:6 83, 167, 174, 198, 44:18 17
201-2, 205 44:21 190
42:6a 167 44:24 12-3, 16-7,21, 38,
42:6-7 165 59, 62-3, 68, 78,
42:9 200 165, 189, 190
42:10 92 44:24-26a 15
26 2 Index o f References
44:24-45:7 175 46:25 78

44:24-45:13 60, 77 47 165
44:25 13, 16, 63, 142, 190 47:4 17
44:25a 13 47:7a 208
44:25-28 191 47:8 100
44:26 189, 191 47:8-10 100, 165
44:26b 12, 13 48:3-5 201
44:27 28, 77, 190 48:3-6 170
44:26b-28 15 48:3-11 200
44:28 191 48:6-11 198, 200
44:28-45:3 166 48:8b-9 201
45:1-7 168 48:8-9 200
45:1a 174 48:9 198
45:1 174, 191 48:10 45
45:2 92, 169 48:11 101
45:2-3 191 48:12a-16d 171
45:4-7 175 48:12-13 175
45:4b 191 48:12-21 92
45:5 79 48:12-15 175
45:5a 191 48:13 16,59, 63, 189
45:5ff 170 48:13f 28
45:6 79, 191 48:17 17
45:6-7 78 48:17C 92
45:7 13, 1 5 ,2 1 ,5 8 -9 , 78, 48:20-21 204
190 49 95
45:7-8 190-1 49:1 167
45:8 16,210 49:1b 83
45:9 12-3, 17, 59, 65,66, 49:1-6 14, 84
68 49:1-7 46
45:9b 65 49:4 55
45:9-13 65 49:5 167
45:9-10 201 49:5-6 83,167
45:11 12 49:5a 83
45:11-13 175 49:6 201
45:12 28, 59, 63, 189 49:6b 83
45:14 79 49:7 17, 55
45:14-19 79 49:8 167, 198, 201,205
45:15 17, 48,66, 189,212 49:8-12 204
45:18 15, 59, 78, 79, 189 49:9-10 83
45:21 79 49:9-13 83
45:22 79, 201 49:10 16
45:22-25 92, 201 49:13 95
45:23b 193 49:13c 95
45:24a 201 49:14-26 94
46:1-2 165, 191 49:14 96
46:9 79 49:15 84, 96
46:10 189 49:18 84
46:1 Of 15 49:26 17, 101
46:10-11 142 49:26b 193
50 20 52:11 95
50-53 21 52:11-12 76-7, 204
50:1 79, 193 52:12 76
50:1-3 94 52:13 13, 19
50:2 49, 77 52:13-14 55
50:2b 190 52:13-53:12 18, 2 3 ,4 5 ,4 6 , 84,
50:4 58 177, 190
50:4-5 58 52:14a 18,58
50:4-11 46 52:14a-b 55
50:4-9 14, 55, 84 52:15 14
50:6 18, 20,55 53 20
50:6-7 83 53:2 14
50:7-9 55 53:2-3 55
50:8 17 53:3 14, 55
50:9 17 53:3a 14
51 95 53:3b 14
51:1-8 94, 190 53:4 14, 55
51:2 77 53:4-6 45
51:3 95 53:4a 18,58
51:3a 95 53:4b 55
51:3-5 102 53:5 14
51:4-6 201 53:6 14
51:7 92 53:6b 56-7
51:8 17 53:7 46, 58
51:9 16, 22,49, 50-1 53:7b 83
51:9b 19 53:7-8 83
51:9-10 92, 190, 204 53:7-10a 55
51:9-52:12 94 53:8 18, 58
51:10 51, 77 53:8b 84
51:10a 19 53:9 14, 18-20,55
51:12 95 53:9b 55-6, 184
51:12-14 83 53:10 45, 58
51:13 15, 59, 63, 189 53:10-12 55
51:15 15-6, 49, 50-1, 84 53:11 14
51:16 59, 63,83, 189 53:11a 55
51:17-22 96 53:11b 13
51:19 95 53:12 14, 55
51:21 190 53:12b 57
51:22 17, 201 54 95, 102
52 95 54:1 77, 102
52-53 13 54:1-2 84
52:1 95, 100 54:1-17 94,199
52:1b 100 54:1-8 200
52:7-8 91 54:5 17, 102
52:7 100, 165 54:6-8 96
52:8 76-7 54:7 96
52:8-10 92 54:7-8 102
52:10 101 54:7-10 200
52:10b 92
oo
54:8 17, 66, 102, 200, 79
202,212 3:16-18 87
54:9 78 4:9 143
54:9-10 77, 200 4:20b 84
54:10 84, 102, 198, 202 8:8 124, 145
54:10b 200 8:8-9 128
54:11 95, 102 8:9 143
54:13 84, 102 9:6 85
54:14 14 10:6 79
54:16 59 10:12 59, 63
55:1 199 10:20 84
55:1-3 92 11:19a 84
55:1-5 92, 199 11:19c 84
55:3 84, 92, 198, 202, 11:19 83
204,211,214 11:19-21 83
55:3b 199 12:1-3 29
55:3d 205 12:1b 81
55:6-7b 199 12:1-6 81
55:7c 199 14:22b 68
55:8-9 191, 199, 212 15:10 81
55:10 16 15:17-18b 81
55:10-13 77 16:6 73
55:12-13 204 16:16-18 87
55:12—13a 210 16:21 170
56-66 3-4, 85, 88 17:1 124, 145
56:8 15 18:8 142
57:14 89 18:18 142, 144-5
59:4 86 18:18-20 80
59:4d 86 20:7-12 82
60:5-7 87 20:7b 82
60:7-13 87 20:8 82
62:10 89 20:9 83
62:11b 89 20:11 83
63:10 86 20:14 81
63:12f 15 20:14-15 81
66:2 68 20:14-18 29, 72,81, 164
21-36 132
Jeremaih 22:22 101
1-6 131 23:20 192
1-20 144 25:1 192
1-25 130, 144 26-52 132-3
1-45 131 26:24 124
1:2 130 29:11-12 202
1:5a 83 30:24 192
1:5 83, 167 31:8-9 83
1:9-10 83 31:8-10 83
2:4-13 81 31:10 83, 101
2:24 13, 66 31:16 87
2:32 84 31:22 84
31:30-34 214 1:8 211
31:31 84 1:9b-c 95
31:31-34 198 1:16b 95
31:31-36 84 1:17a 95
31:31-37 214 1:21a 95
31:32 92, 175 2:8 59
31:33 214 2:10 94
31:35 50, 84 2:13-19 96
32 131-2 3 65, 93
32:12 113 3:6-9 93
32:40 214 3:7 94
36 124, 129, 130, 132, 3:9 94
133-4, 140 3:44 93
36:2b 129 4:6 211
36:2 133 4:15 95
36:10 124 4:17 77
36:11 124 5:19-22 96,211
36:12 124
36:18 125 Ezekiel
36:23 124 5:8 101
36:26 125 7:18 73
36:28 133 7:26 143
36:32b 129 9:2 123
36:32 125 9:3 123
39:2 130 9:11 123
41:9 175 11:20 220
41:13 175 12:11 101
42:6 175 13:13 170
43 132 14 98
43:2-3 124 14:11 220
44:30 215 14:12-23 98
45 132 14:13-19 98
46-51 131 14:14 20
49:20 192 14:20 20, 98
50:35 144 20:9a 101
50:45 192 20:9 101
50-51 85 20:14 101
51:11 192 20:18 101
51:15 59, 63 20:22 101
51:27 125 20:41 101
51:29 192 21:2-12 87
51:57 144 21:4 101
52 131 21:10 101
52:1-34 215 22:16 101
52:25 124 28:25 101
29:3 50
Lamentations 30-31 220
1-2 95 30:17 101
1:2b 95 34:11 83
26 6 Index o f References
34:12 101 5:6 96

34:20 220 5:8 64, 96-7
34:34-37 198 5:8a 97
36:28 220 5:10 96
37:23 220 5:15 214
37:26 214 5:17 97
38:23 101, 170 7:8 97
39:27 101 8 97
8:10 73
Daniel 8:11-14 97
1-6 217 8:12 97
2-6 215 9 97
3:17-18 217 9:5-6 96
4:32 66
9 218 Jonah
9:1-23 218 1:9 213
10:1 17 1:17 213
11:28 217 3:10b 213
11:30 217 4:6-7 213
Hosea Micah
1-3 79 1:16 73
1:6 102 2:12 83
2 102 4:1-4 102
2:1 102 4:12 192
2:6 102
2:18 102 Nahum
2:19 102 2:1 95, 100
2:20 102 3:5 100
2:21 102 3:10 96
2:25 102 3:17 125
13:4 102
Hahakkuk
Joel 1:13 81
1-2 98, 105
2:12-14 99 Zephaniah
2:13-15 100
Amos 2:15 100
1-2 207 3:14-20 100
1:3 96 3:15 100
1:6 96 3:16 100
1:9 96 3:20 100
1:11 96
1:13 96 Zechariah
2:1 96 1 98
2:4 96 1-8 97, 105
2:6 96 1:10-11 98
4:13 96-7 1:16 59
4:13d 97 3 98
3:1-2 97 Sirach
6:5 98 36:10 66
9-14 9 7 ,2 1 5 ,2 2 0 38:24-39:11 127-8
12:1 59, 63 38:24 128
38:34cd-39:3 127
Malachi 39:1,4 127
3:16 99 43:12 59
51:23 128
Sources from the Ancient Near Eastern Texts

Sumerian Literature C, v. 6-32, 42-53 159
Man and His God
111-3 153 Egyptian Literature
Instruction o f Amenemope
Babylonian Literature 148, 159
Dialogue between a Man and His God
14-15 154 The Debate between a Man and His
48-57 154 Soul
56-7 161
The Babylonian Job 68 161
1, 1-39 154-5 68-80 161
1 ,4 1 -4 4 ,7 9 -1 0 4 155 80-5 161
III, 1-2 155 85-147 161
111,29-38 155 140-9 161
I I I , 51-59 155 151-2 161
IV, l ’- 5 0 ’ 155
IV, fragment C 11 ’ 155 The Dialogue o f a Man with His Soul,
I, 82-92 155 111
The Babylonian Theodicy The Dialogue o flp u u r and the Lord to

II, 21-22 156 the Limit
VII, 70-75 156 172
16.11-17.2 163
A Pessimistic Dialogue between Master 1.1-14.5 163
and Servant 12.5 163
VI, 52 157 15.3-16.5 163
Babylonian Inscriptions The Prophecy o f Neferti

Cyrus Cylinder P8 172
165-6, 174-5, 177, P26 173
179 P 54-6 180
P 57-8 173
Ugaritic Literature P 61 173
Epic ofK eret
A, 154-194 159 The Protests o f the Eloquent Peasant
B, 1-28 159 111
B1 282-3 162 SAA 9 1.1
B1 307 162 i 15-17 170
B2 129 162 SAA 9 1.10
B2 113-5 181 vi 7-12 170
The Words o f Khakheperreseneb The Covenant o f Assur and Reports to

173 Assurbanipal (SAA 9 7-11)
SAA 9 1-3 170
Assyrian Prophetic Oracles SAA 9 3.3
Oracles o f Encouragement to Esarhad- ii 24 170
don (SAA 9 1) SAA 9 7-11 170
SAA 9 1 169 SAA 3 3 171
SAA 9 1.6, 1.9 169 SAA 3 13 171
SAA 9 1.1 169 SAA 9 3.3 171
SAA 9 1.1 SAA 9 7 171
i 22ff 169
Author Index
Ackroyd, Peter R. 219 Bresciani, Edda 121

Adams, Robert M. 113 Bricker, Daniel P. 42, 160, 181
Aitken, James K. 94 Brinks, Christina L. 6, 12-3, 15-7, 20-1,
Albertz, Rainer 47, 131, 175, 212 23, 29, 37-8, 45, 55-6, 58, 60, 62-3,
Albrektson, Bertil 192, 211,221 65-6
Allen, Graham 30-4 Brueggemann, Walter 79, 191-2, 199
Allen, James P. 160 Bryce, Glendon E. 159
Allen, Leslie C. 68 Burrell, David B. 43
Anderson, Arnold A. 124 Buttenwieser, Moses 89, 91
Anderson, Bernhard W. 76, 202-4
Annus, Amar 154 Caquot, Albert 49
Assmann, Jan 181,223 Carr, David M. 24, 35, 36, 112, 115-8,
123, 128-9, 131, 135-8, 140, 144,
Baines, John 114, 160, 223 150, 209,215,219
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 30-3 Carroll, Robert P. 81,132, 133,143-4
Bakon, Shimon 103, 104 Cassuto, Umberto 70, 82-4, 100-1
Balentine, Samuel E. 47, 71-3, 152, 157, Ceresko, Anthony R. 158
162 Charpin, Dominique 114
Baltzer, Dieter 101 Chavasse, Claude L. 77
Baltzer, Klaus 56, 77 Cheyne, Thomas K. 4, 5, 13, 17-9, 30,
Barstad, Hans M. 174-5 45-6, 49, 55,70, 86, 97, 103
Barthes, Roland 32-3 Childs, Brevard S. 4, 88
Barton, John 207-8, 217 Clancy, Frank 122
Bastiaens, Jean C. 4, 14, 17, 18, 20, 45, Clements, Ronald E. 53, 86, 204-5
55, 58, 89 Clifford, Hywel 52
Behr, Jacob W. 165-6 Clifford, Richard J. 47-8, 51, 158
Benjamin, Don C. 159 Clines, David J. A. 1-3, 45-6, 49, 51,
Ben Zvi, Ehud 111, 139, 147 53, 55-7, 60, 62, 64-7, 93, 123, 164,
Berger, Paul R. 176 186-8, 196-7, 204, 206
Bickerman, Elias J. 120 Coggins, Richard J. 213
Black, James R. 148 Cohen, Yoram 114
Blenkinsopp, Joseph 4, 30, 88-9, 148, Collins, John J. 215-6
199 Conrad, Edgar W. 191
Block, Daniel I. 214, 220 Coogan, Michael D. 120
Blommerde, Anton C. M. 56, 158 Cook, Stephen L. 70, 91
Bolin, Thomas M. 213 Cooper, Alan 4, 13, 17-9, 20, 45-6, 55 -
Boorer, Suzanne 102-3 7
Bovati, Pietro 202 Corley, Jeremy 127
Braulik, Georg 73, 75 Craigie, Peter C. 130, 144, 158, 159
270 Author Index
Creach, Jerome 91 Fohrer, Georg 62, 163

Crenshaw, James L. 22, 44, 47, 96-7, Foster, Benjamin R. 154, 156,
103, 142-3, 145, 152, 157-8 Frevel, Christian 90
Curtis, John B. 15-6, 20, 45, 58 Frood, Elizabeth 223
Fyall, Robert S. 158
Dahood, Mitchell J. 158
Davidson, Robert 201 Gammie, John G. 148
Davies, Graham I. 87 Gemser, Berend 182
Davies, John A. 41 Gerstenberger, Erhard 131, 146, 209,
Davies, Philip R. 115-7, 145-6 213,219
Davis, Ellen F. 72 Gibson, John C. L. 158
Day, John 49 Ginsberg, Harold L. 92
Dearman, John A. 133 Gnuse, Robert K. 191
Delattre, Alphone 167 Goldingay, John 30, 46, 51, 56, 58, 64,
Dell, Katharine J. 21, 67, 70, 80-4, 89, 86, 101, 189, 199, 201, 205,215
91,99 Golka, Friedemann W. 115
Deming, Lynne M. 91-2 Gordis, Robert 26, 30, 45, 53, 56-7, 62-
de Moor , Johannes C. 42, 158, 3 ,6 6 -7 , 152, 187, 197
Demsky, Aaron 112-3, 124 Gottwald, Norman K. 94-5, 211
Denning-Bolle, Sara 177 Grabbe, Lester L. 65, 120-1, 125-6,
Dhorme, Edouard 1,2, 13, 17, 53, 57, 158
60, 65-6, 68, 70, 80-2, 86, 89, 91, Gray, John. 1, 25, 28, 30, 45, 54, 57, 60,
93, 97-9, 103-5, 152, 155, 186-7, 63, 65-6, 81, 152, 154-5, 157, 164,
197 180, 186-7, 197
Dick, Michael B. 182 Grayson, Albert K. 175
Dijkstra, Meindert 15, 168, Green, Douglas J. 91
Dion, Hyacinthe M. 179 Greenstein, Edward L. 22, 74, 80-2
Dobbs-Allsopp, Frederick W. 93 Green, William S. 71-2, 202
Douglas, Mary 72 GreBmann, Hugo 166, 168
Drinkard, Joel F. 130,144 Griffiths, John G. 222
Driver, Samuel R. 2, 29, 53 Gunkel, Hermann 51, 147
Gunn, David M. 77
Eakins, Joel Kenneth 101 Gwaltney, William 93
Efron, John M. 116
Ehrensvard, Martin 27 Habel, Norman C. 63, 189
Eissfeldt, Otto 92, 205 Hahn, Scott. 203, 205
Elliott, Ralph 5, 13, 19, 45, 48-9, 52, 54, Hallo, William W. 153-4, 156, 158,
58-9, 60, 62, 63, 160-3, 166, 172-3, 181
Emerton, John A. 49 Handy, Lowell K. 158
Eslinger, Lyle M. 37 Hanson, Paul D. 82, 144, 216
Eyre, Christopher 119 Haran, Menahem 113
Harner, Philip B. 168, 170
Farley, Fred A. 84 Hartley, John E. 1, 2, 17, 26, 30, 45, 49,
Feinberg, Charles L. 158 53, 56-7, 60, 66, 70, 86, 89, 90, 97,
Ferris, Paul W. 93 99, 103, 152, 186-7, 197
Fichtner, Johannes 102, 141-2, 191-2 Heckl, Raik. 74
Fishbane, Michael A. 29, 35-7, 72, 76, Hobbs, Trevor R. 124
78, 91 Holladay, William L. 82, 84, 125, 131 —
Floyd, Michael H. 147 2, 144-5
Hurvitz, Avi. 26, 98 Linafelt, Tod 94, 96
Hyatt, James P. 124 Lind, Millard C. 6, 52
Lindblom, Johannes 141, 192
lllman, Karl-Johan 43 Lindenberger, James M. 223
Isbell, Charles D. 133 Lipinski, Edward 113, 115-7
Longman III, Tremper 152, 187, 197
Jamieson-Drake, David W. 115 Loprieno, Antonio 44
Janzen, John G. 6, 16, 17, 22, 29, 49, 79 Ludwig, Theodore M. 59
Jensen, Joseph. 187, 191-2 Lundbom, Jack R. 130, 132, 144
Johns, Anthony H. 43
Jones, Gwilym H. 77 MacDonald, Nathan 52
Jong, Matthijs J. de 168, 170 Macintosh, Andrew A. 99
Joosten, Jan 26 Mack, Russell 168
Joyce, Paul M. 98 Magdalene, F. Rachel 182-3
Juvan, Marko 35, 40 Mandolfo, Carleen 94-5
Marlow, Hilary 97
Kaminsky, Joel S. 201 Matthews, Victor H. 159
Kapelrud, Arvid S. 78 McKane, William 142, 145
Kaufmann, Yehezkel. 30 McKenzie, John L. 30
Kelley, Page H. 130,144 McKenzie, Steven L. 205
Keown, Gerald L. 132-3 Meier, Sam 73
Kraeling, Carl H. 113 Melugin, Roy F. 15
Kim, Dong-Hyuk 26, 27 Merrill, Eugene H. 48, 168
Kittel, Rudolf 165-6, 174, Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. 25, 92-3, 125
Knohl, Israel 71-3 Michel, Walter L. 65
Knoppers, Gary N. 205 Millard, Alan R. 112
Koehl-Krebs, Helene 34 Miller, Geoffrey D. 33-4, 36-7
Koole, Jan L. 50, 61, 83 Mintz, Alan L. 94
Kramer, Samuel N. 153 Moberly, Walter 52-3
Kratz, Reinhard G. 84-5 Morgan, Donn F. 149, 179
Kraus, Hans-Joachim 68 Morgenstern, Julian 201
Kristeva, Julia 30-3, 36, 227 Morse, Jane 70, 91
Kruger, Annette 90 Mulder, Martin J. 113
Kruger, Thomas 70, 90, 104 Murphy, Roland E. 47
Kuhrt, Amelie 166, 175 Myers, Jacob M. 125-6
Kynes, Will 6, 12-3, 18, 2 0 -1 ,2 9 , 37-8, Newsom, Carol A. 3, 51, 66-7
39, 63, 65, 70, 90-1 Nicholson, Ernest W. 43, 132
Niditch, Susan 138, 223
Laato, Antti 42, 82 Niehaus, Jeffrey J. 203
Labahn, Antje 79, 80 Niehr, Herbert 125-6
Labov, William 27 Nissinen, Martti 167-70, 179
Lambert, Wilfred G. 154, 156-7, 221 Nogalski, James D. 98-9
Langdon, Stephen H. 175 North, Christopher R. 30, 46
Lehmann, Matthias B. 116 Nougayrol, Jean 154-5
Lemaire, Andre 115 Nurmela, Risto 12-3, 20-1, 37, 38, 60,
Lenzi, Alan 154 63, 66, 70, 86, 88-9
Leonard, Jeffery M. 37
Leveque, Jean 93, 98 O ’Connor, Daniel 159
Lichtheim, Miriam 160-3, 172-3, 223 O ’Dowd, Ryan 48
Oeming, Manfred 70, 73, 74-5, 203, Saggs, Henry W. F. 221
Ogden, Graham S. 77 Sandmel, Samuel 69
Oorschot, Jurgen van 3 Sama, Nahum M. 57
Oppenheim, A dolf L. 114, 174-5 Sarot, Marcel 42
Orr, Mary 30 Saussure, Ferdinand de 33
Oswalt, John N. 3, 30, 50, 51, 101 Sawyer, John F. A. 200
Scalise, Pamela J. 132-3
Paas, Stefan 47, 49, 59 Schaeder, Hans H. 126
Parker, Simon B. 159 Schams, Christine 117, 125-8
Parkinson, Richard B. 159, 160-3, 171— Schaper, Joachim 130
3, 178, 181 Schiffman, Lawrence H. 122
Parpola, Simo 167, 168-71 Schmid, Konrad 70, 71-4, 76, 89, 91
Patrick, Dale 76, 78 Schniedewind, William M. 115-7, 123
Patton, Corrine 70, 91 Schoors, Antoon 48, 104-5, 168
Paul, Shalom M. 30, 78-9, 82, 88, 92, Schultz, Richard L. 29, 105, 202
94, 100, 102, 164-6, 174 Seitz, Christopher R. 4, 30, 86
Pearce, Laurie E. 114, 119-20 Sekine, Seizo 89
Perdue, Leo G. 25, 28, 47, 141, 148 Seow, Choon-Leong 1-3, 45, 56-7, 152,
Peterson, Stephen L. 165, 175, 179 155-6,215
Pfeiffer, Robert H. 5, 12-6, 19, 23, 28, Sheldon, Linda J. 182
49, 52, 58-60, 62, 63, 65 Shields, Martin A. 141
Phillips, Morgan L. 179 Shupak, Nili 151, 169,172-4
Plett, Heinrich F. 34, 40 Smothers, Thomas G. 132-3
Polak, Frank H. 199 Snaith, Norman H. 25
Polaski, Donald C. 206 Soden, Wolfram von 154
Pope, Marvin H. 1-2, 24, 30, 66, 88, Sommer, Benjamin D. 20, 29, 35, 37, 70,
187, 197 77-9, 82-5, 87-8, 92-6, 99-102,
Porten, Bezalel 121 106
Porteous, Norman W. 94 Spangenberg, Izak 203
Pritchard, James B. 153-4, 156, 158, Stead, Michael R. 98
160-2, 169, 172-3, 175, 181 Speiser, Ephraim A. 157, 164
Purvis, James D. 121 Stewart, Anne 201
Pyeon, Yohan 37 Still, Judith 33
Stipp, Hermann-Josef 131
Rabinowitz, Louis I. 33, 122 Stone, Michael E. 216
Rad, Gerhard von 17, 191 Stromberg, Jacob 206
Ragazzoli, Chloe C. D. 119 Stummer, Friedrich 179
Rendtorff, Rolf 87 Syring, W olf-Dieter 2
Rezetko, Robert 27
Richter, Heinz 16 Terrien, Samuel L. 5, 12-3, 15-7, 19,
Ringgren, Helmer 181 28-30, 39, 44-5, 49, 57-65, 68-9,
Roberts, Jimmy J. M. 68 8 0 -1 ,9 6 , 141, 149, 152, 187, 197
Rogland, Max 202-3 Thiel, Winfried 131
Rollston, Christopher A. 112-5, 118, Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia 98
123, 125, 127-8 Tov, Emanuel 114, 122
Romer, Thomas C. 54 Tull, Patricia K. 4, 31-3, 35, 70
Rowold, Henry 17, 22 Turner, Mary D. 94-5
Rudman, Dominic 193, 194-5 Tur-Sinai, Naphtali H. 30, 53, 56, 60,
63, 65, 70, 71,81, 186, 197
Author Index 273
Weinfeld, Moshe 78-9, 116-7, 155-7,

Uehlinger, Christoph 70 164, 199, 205, 210, 213
Weippert, Manfred 167-8, 171
Vail, Gregory 105 Weitzman, Steven 116
Vanderhooft, David S. 164, 165 Wente, Edward F. 114
Van der Kooij, Arie 218 Westermann, Claus 4 ,3 0 ,4 8 ,5 6 ,6 1 ,
Van der Merwe, Barend J. 47 91, 168, 170, 179
Van der Toorn, Karel 24-5, 44, 112, Weyde, Karl W. 37
115-7, 123, 127-8, 133-5, 137-9, Whedbee, J. William 102, 141
156, 177-8 Whybray, Roger N. 54, 142-4
Vanhoozer, Kevin J. 34 Wildberger, Hans 52
Van Leeuwen, Raymond C. 99, 145 Willey, Patricia T. 29, 70, 76-8, 82-5,
Van Seters, John 115, 145 92-6, 102
Vassar, John S. 34 Williamson, Hugh G. M. 4, 86-7, 125-7,
Visicato, Giuseppe 114 205
Williams, R. J. 181
Wald, Stephen G. 33, 122 Wilson, Robert R. 146
Waldman, Nahum M. 165 Witte, Markus 73-5, 203
Walton, John H. 171 Worton, Michael 33
Watts, James W. 70, 91
Watts, John D. W. 50, 62 Young, Ian 26-7, 113, 128-9
Weeks, Stuart 114-5, 142-3, 194, 198,
212,215 Zimmerli, Walther 76, 179
Subject Index
Akkadian 44, 51, 125, 152, 154-6, 175, - Davidic covenant 199, 204-5, 211
181 - Deuteronomistic covenant 201, 2 0 3 -
- Sumero-Akkadian 114, 179 4 ,2 1 0 ,2 1 8 -9
Allusion 11,18, 20-1, 23, 25, 29, 35, - Mosaic covenant 198-9, 202, 204-6,
37-8, 76, 78, 88, 91,98, 142, 169, 2 1 0 ,2 1 4 -5 ,2 1 7 ,2 1 9 -2 0 , 226
204 - New covenant 84, 200, 205, 212,
Amarna 223 214, 220
Apocalypse 216 Creation
Apocalyptic - New creation 68
- genre 215-6 - Recreation 63
- eschatology 216 - Creation theology 47-9, 51,210
- literature 216, 224 Creator 5, 16, 51,59, 6 1 ,6 3 -4 , 66, 68,
Ashurbanipal 154 96, 160, 162, 189, 191, 197,214,
Assyria 100, 169, 176 219
- (Neo)-Assyrian prophecy 168-9 - Creator God 47, 88, 160
- (Neo)-Assyrian oracle(s) 168, 171, - Creator-god 162-3
179 Cult 72
Assyrian Royal Inscriptions 175 Cyrus 6, 63, 77, 165-6, 169, 174-5, 177,
Author-oriented 11, 30, 33-4, 36-7, 39, 179, 191,204,214, 222
227
Dating
Baruch 124, 129-34,216 - o f Deutero-Isaiah 28, 30
Babylon 63, 77, 85, 114, 120, 122, 139, - o f Job 28-9, 219
165, 166, 174, 176, 198,211, Deuteronomy 73, 75-6, 79, 105, 136,
- (Neo)-Babylonia literature 153, 166, 138, 198, 202-3, 219 -20, 225, 226
181-2, 223 Deuteronomistic
(Neo)-Babylonian Royal Inscriptions - history 133, 136, 140, 146, 202, 205,
152, 164, 175, 182 2 1 1 ,2 1 3 ,2 1 9 -2 0
Behemoth 103, 195-6, 209 - ideology 206, 215, 219
Biblical Hebrew (BH) 26 - texts 71, 73, 76, 79, 132,202,210
- theology 79-80, 195, 210, 212-3,
Canonical approach 88, 217, 220-1
Carr, David 36, 116-7, 123, 128-9, Dialogue 1,2, 22, 29, 31,38, 43, 45, 58,
135-8, 140, 144,209 67, 82, 90, 154, 156-8, 160-1, 173,
Chaos 49-51, 103, 163, 173, 177-8, 180, 178, 182, 184, 186, 188, 207
188-9 - Acrostic dialogue 156
Chronology 26-7 - Communicative dialogue 33
Cosmogony 48 - Cultural dialogue 227
Covenant - Dialogue genre 178
- Literary dialogue 177-8 Historical criticism 23
- Platonic dialogue 177
- Social dialogue 31 Idolatry 206,217
Daniel 98, 215, 216-8, 220, 224 Instruction of Amenemope 148, 159
- The book of Daniel 192, 216-7 Intertextual criticism 7, 30, 37, 39
Diachronic 21, 34, 37, 39, 91 Intertextuality 7, 11, 30-40, 108, 227
Diaspora 111, 120, 121, 152 - Biblical Intertextuality 6, 11, 35-6
Divine see also God’s - Dialogical Intertextuality 39
- judgment 17, 64, 187, 194, 206-7, - Structural Intertextuality 75
217 Intellectual background 118, 148, 151
- justice 42-3, 47, 64, 178, 180-1, 206, Intra-biblical exegesis 35, 40, 227
210 Isaiah
- sovereignty 185, 190, 194, 197, 206, - book of 3, 86-7, 192,206
212, 220, 224 - First 3-4, 86-8, 102, 106, 206
Documentary Hypothesis 135-6 - Third 3, 85-6, 88, 99, 106-7, 206
Echo 11, 1 8 ,2 0 -1 ,3 5 ,3 7 -8 Jerusalem 95, 98, 100, 117-8, 122, 127—

Education 113, 115, 117-8, 122, 134-7, 8, 130, 137, 139, 170,214,219
139
Egypt 25, 50, 111, 114-5, 118-9, 121-2, Kingship 177, 204, 211
138-9, 171, 173, 176, 180-1, 194,
200, 223 Lament 22, 62, 80, 82, 89, 93-4, 96,
- Egyptian literature 159-60, 171, 107, 144, 153, 163, 173
179-81 Leviathan 15, 49, 93, 103, 195-7, 209
- Egyptian Prophecy 171, 173 Literary
- Middle Egyptian 178, 180-1 - dependence 1, 5, 6, 12, 20, 23-4, 26,
- Middle Kingdom Egypt 180-1 37, 39-40, 49, 52, 69, 75, 81, 100,
Elephantine 121 164, 174, 184, 225
Enculturation 122, 135, 139-40 - influence 6, 32, 35-6, 39, 69, 78-9,
Exegesis 35, 40, 227 93-4, 102, 151, 165-6, 174, 183
Exodus
- Exodus motif 50-1, 78 Monotheism 6, 16, 4 1 ,4 7 , 52-5, 60, 72
- New exodus 76, 78, 204 Murashu archive 120
Form criticism 147, 149-50, 226 Neo-Babylonian period 166-7, 183
Genre Orality 135

- Disputation genre 15
- Prophetic genre 149, 171 Parody 6, 21, 33, 38-39, 74, 82, 89, 157
God’s see also Divine Pentateuch, Pentateuchal 71, 76, 77-8,
- God’s control 184-5, 191,208, 210, 106, 136-7, 204, 207, 210, 225
225 Persian Period 26, 30, 116-8, 120, 125—
- God’s freedom 184, 198, 204, 217 7, 130, 146, 150, 184-5,209,212,
- God’s independence 198 214-5, 219-20, 224-6
Greco-Roman period 112, 222-3 Polemic 35, 44, 54-5, 65, 78, 183
Prophecy 1, 84, 102, 124, 127, 133,
Hellenistic period 7, 118, 127, 136, 140, 140-1, 146, 149, 150, 170-1
185,206,215-6, 220, 224 - (Neo)-Assyrian Prophecy 168-9
Hermeneutics 34 - Biblical Prophecy 171
Subject Index 277
- Egyptian prophecy 171, 173 - palace 117, 119

Prophet 43, 46, 64, 68, 80, 83, 100, 107, - professional 113, 118, 136
113, 124, 129, 130-4, 141-3, 149, Second Temple period 7, 112, 117-8,
163, 169, 170, 173, 199, 204,213 120, 125, 127-8, 137, 139, 147, 150,
Prophetic 221,225
- lawsuit 22 Self-presentation 119, 179, 183
- literature 145-7, 149, 168, 171, 174, Suffering
193 - innocent 18, 43, 45, 163
Prose-tale 53, 140, 154, 159, 161, 192 - individual 177
Priest(s) 45, 125, 127, 142-3, 148-9, - national 183, 189
156, 172-3 Suffering servant 13, 17-8, 20, 41, 45-6,
Priestly 5 5 -6 ,5 8 , 60, 77, 177, 185
- Code 78 Sumerian 152-3, 165, 174, 178
- group 73 - inscriptions 175-6
- document(s) 72, 147-9, 210 Synchronic 2 1 ,3 2 -4 , 36-7, 39, 99
- scribes 126
- tradition(s) 71 Talmud 122
- Torah 72-3, 79 Textuality 32-4, 40, 135-6, 139-40,
146, 227
Qumran 24 Theodicy 41-4, 60, 151, 155-6, 160,
Quotation 11, 18-21,25, 37-8, 76, 91, 177-8, 182
95 Tobit 225
Torah 28, 69, 75, 122, 125-7, 136, 202-
Reader-oriented approach 33-4, 37 3 ,2 1 0 -1 ,2 1 2 ,2 1 4 , 220
Redaction 88, 130-1, 137, 215 - Priestly Torah 72-3, 79
Redemption 47, 61, 173
Righteousness 15, 76, 88, 98, 201, 204, Ugarit, Ugaritic 48, 51, 152, 158-9, 163,
206 174-5, 178
Sacrifice 45-6, 77 Van der Toorn, Karel 24-5, 116-7, 127,

Sage(s) 141, 148-9 133-5, 137-9, 177-8
- Sage group 141
Salvation Oracle 168, 170 Wisdom
Satan 45, 98, 193,222 - and prophecy 1
Scribal - corpus 102, 140-1, 144-5, 148, 150,
- culture 6-7, 111—2, 116, 134, 137— 163,208
41, 150-2, 180, 183, 185,217,219, - disputation 22, 178
221,225-7 - influence 86, 111
- class (group) 111-2, 115-7, 120, 122, - literature 22, 47, 96, 102, 111-2, 136,
139, 221,226 142, 144, 147-9, 159, 164, 171, 193,
- idea(s) 184-5, 195, 210, 220-1, 202, 226
223-4, 225 - tradition 97, 141
Scribalism 7, 121-2, 139, 150, 184, Wisdom of Solomon 148
Scribe(s) 7, 111-3, 118-9, 122-30, Wisdom Psalms 148
133-6, 148, 158 Wise men 63, 124, 128, 138, 141-5,
- Levitical 117, 127 148
- temple 117-9, 124

(Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 2.reihe) JiSeong James Kwon - Scribal Culture and Intertextuality - Literary and Historical Relationships Between Job and Deutero-Isaiah-Mohr Siebeck (2016)

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JISEONG JAMES KWON

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-154398-2

©2016 by Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, Germany, www.mohr.de

April 2016 JiSeong J. Kwon

I. The Book of J o b ........................................................................................ 1

Chapter 1. The Comparative Study between Job and Deutero-

I. Limits of Literary Reference.................................................................. 24

I. Theodicy and Suffering Servant.............................................................41

I. “Mighty in power” (Job 9:4; Isa 40:26)............................................... 60

I. Job and Pentateuchal/Deuteronomistic Texts....................................... 71

I. Job and Jeremiah.....................................................................................80

I. Job and First/Third Isaiah....................................................................... 85

I. Job and Lamentations.............................................................................. 93

I. Job and Prophetic Books..........................................................................96

G. O th e r W isd o m B o o k s ................................................................................. 102

Chapter 4. Scribes and Scribal Culture.................................... 111

B. S c r ib e s a s B ib lic a l W r ite r s ....................................................................... 123

C. E d u c a tio n , T e x tu a lity , a n d E n c u ltu r a tio n ................................................ 134

E. F u r th e r D is c u s s io n : S a g e s, P ro p h e ts, a n d S c r ib a l C u ltu r e ..................... 140

I. Sages as Biblical W riters...................................................................... 141

Chapter 5. Intellectual Background of Job and Deutero-Isaiah 151

B. L ite r a r y D e p e n d e n c e o f D e u te r o -Is a ia h on F o r e ig n L ite r a tu r e 164

C. J o b a n d D e u te r o -Is a ia h in A n c ie n t N e a r E a s te r n C u l t u r e ..................... 176

Chapter 6. Scribal Ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah.....................184

I. Job and Deutero-Isaiah in the Context of the Persian Period...........209

Index of References.......................................................................................... 253

Biblical Texts, Translations, and Versions

Monographs, Journals, Periodicals, Major Rej'erence Works, and Series

BP.AJCA BI: A Journal o f Contemporary Approaches

LBS The Library of Biblical Studies

A. The Scope of the Text

Before reviewing comparative studies between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, men­

3 Pope, Job, xxi-xxv.

discrete unit. However, this is neither meant to present Deutero-Isaiah as a

18 Cheyne, Prophecies, 2:264.

C. Assumptions and Methods

The Distinctive Relationship between Job

The Comparative Study between Job

As evidence of the distinctive relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah,

Most interpreters in the comparative study of Job and Deutero-Isaiah by no

24 Janzen, “Nature,” 469.

II. T y p e s o f E x p la n a tio n O ffe r e d

Given three sorts of similarities - vocabulary, style/form, theme/motif - pre­

they are called “echoes” when intentionality is absent. Definitions of vari­

27 Bastiaens, “Suffering,” 432.

33 Except for Elliott, “ Study.”

Similar with Brinks’ conclusion, Kynes using synchronic and diachronic

51 James L. Crenshaw, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,”

explaining simiarities between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. However, although

It would be plausible to trace an earlier source from later sources, by demar­

Firstly, if the textual reference by an author occurred in a specific period, the

Secondly, in order to show the literary connections, it is necessary to present

Thirdly, the dating of biblical texts and their arrangement in a chronological

69 Avi Hurvitz, “Date of the Prose-Tale of Job Linguistically Reconsidered,” HTR 67

The dating of Job and Deutero-Isaiah for the discussion of comparative

which Terrien already proposed. He suggests as theological features of Job

Terrien, relying on the probable date of the formation of Deutero-Isaiah,

Comparative studies have tended to appropriate intertextual criticism as a

Bakhtin claims that interrelationships in unlimited known and unknown texts,

Before reviewing comparative studies between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, men

Given three sorts of similarities - vocabulary, style/form, theme/motif - pre

they are called “echoes” when intentionality is absent. Definitions of vari

It would be plausible to trace an earlier source from later sources, by demar

The idea of Fishbane’s biblical intertextuality has been influential in estab

In addition, interestingly, Hebrew words, phrases, and expressions are sug

From this same phrase, Terrien speaks of “divine transcendence” as a com

Transformation of Lamentations’ messages by Deutero-Isaiah has been re

In relationships between Deutero-Isaiah and Nahum/Zephaniah/Ezekiel, in