17 GOD’S ANSWER AND JOB’S RESPONSE morning, he can do and does what the result clauses say. God’s chal- lenge to Job to trample down the wicked (40,12-13) likewise implies that God can do this, not that he too is helpless. In any case, if God is saying that he cannot defeat the wicked, he is presenting a form of theodicy that is not considered in Job or elsewhere in the Bible: the excuse of divine finitude. If, as Brenner says, the Theodicy demon- strates “the pained inability of God to control evil” 55, the book would be an apology for divine failure. But that would empty the book of meaning. The Prologue assumes that God has the option of not af- flicting Job, and Job’s complaints assume that God could do better. Moreover, God’s descriptions of his rule prove, as Job says in 42,2, that God “can do everything”. God says nothing about rewarding the righteous. There is a false symmetry between the two sides of the retribution equation, for it could be the case that God punishes the wicked yet sometimes re- fuses to give the righteous their due. This is, in fact, presumed in the Prologue. On the one hand, the Adversary is going around look- ing for the wicked to report to the divine judge, and on the other, Job is unfairly afflicted. In the Theophany, God affirms the first as- sertion of the equation, but does so almost en passant. The punish- ment of the wicked is not the concern of this book. Still, God’s beneficence toward his creatures somehow implies his punishment of the wicked. Psalm 104 ends, “Sinners will disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more. O my soul, bless the Lord. Praise the Lord” (v. 35). A connection of this sort seems to be in the back- ground of the Theophany speeches, but it is not emphasized. that Job cannot do — defeat Leviathan — without implying that YHWH actu- ally did or does them. This passage does not allude to the defeat of Leviathan at creation. The subjugation of Leviathan here is described by an array of in- compatible images: being caught by barbs and harpoons, with his carcass sold in the market, being forced into indentured servitude, and being tamed and toyed with like a pet bird on a leash. The mythological Leviathan is killed by blows from a club, and the other images in this passage are also clearly ir- relevant to him. BRENNER, “God’s Answer”, 134. 55 © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati