Job’s Intercession: Antidote to Divine Folly 467 The disasters that struck Job are not meant to represent everybody’s sufferings because Job, as the richest and most righteous person who ever lived in the East, is unique (39). Job has to be unique to be qualified as universal intercessor. The point of the entire book is not theoretical, whether Job or anyone else serves God for naught. Job is a practical treatise demonstrating how sinful people who are never in position to blame God with injustice when disaster strikes may nevertheless hope to survive the potential of folly inherent to God (40). 6. Holocausts and the Fear of the Lord YHWH prescribes holocausts alongside Job’s intercession (Job 42,8). Had the smell of burning flesh not tickled his nostrils, YHWH makes no secrets that the evil he brought upon Job would have struck his friends as well (Job 42,7-9). The holocausts may underline the friends’ culpability (41), but it is far from obvious where they erred (42) and the book does not delve on this issue because it has become irrelevant as well. The critical matter is that YHWH’s wrath is kindled and has to be placated before new disasters are unleashed. The reference to folly shifts the focus away from merit and guilt onto practical methods of dealing with divine wrath. Stated after a passage replete with the theme of ‘not knowing’ (Job 42,1-6), divine folly introduces the realm of mystery, a mystery with scary undertones. Job grapples with the recurrent issue which already preoccupied Ludlul bel nemeqi centuries earlier (43): What is proper to oneself is an offence to one’s god! What in one’s own heart seems despicable is proper to one’s god! Who knows the will of the gods in heaven? (39) CLINES, “Why?”, 20. (40) E.F. DAVIS, “Job and Jacob: the Integrity of Faith”, The Whirlwind (eds S.L. COOK – C.L. PATTON – J.W. WATTS) (JSOTSS 336; Sheffield 2001) 106. (41) According to I. KOTTSIEPER, “‘Thema verfehlt!’ Zur Kritik Gottes an den drei Freunden in Hiob 42,7-9”, Gott und Mensch im Dialog (ed. M. WITTE) (BZAW 345; Berlin 2004) 775-785, yla is not a preposition + suffix but a long form of the preposition (// 3,22; 5,26; 15,22; 29,19). Rather than having spoken incorrectly about YHWH, the friends did not speak according to how the situation stands “hinsichtlich dessen, was Sache ist” (// 1 Sam 26,4). J. VERMEYLEN, Job, ses amis et son Dieu (Leiden 1986) 32-64 argues that God defends the friends. (42) GOOD, Turns, 396. (43) “The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer”, II, 34-36. The text in W.G. LAMBERT, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford 1960) 41; W.W. HALLO (ed.), The Context of Scripture (Leiden 1997) I, 488.