Job Chapter 27
The Wicked Will Pay...However...
Cabaret opens with the MC singing “Wilkommen bienvenue welcome! Fremde, etranger. Stranger,” It's a joyous decadent celebration of Weimer Germany. Everyone is poor. Anything can happen. Freedom and sexuality are on full display. It promises a wild evening. Two and a half hours later, the musical ends. The Nazis are in power. Relationships have broken. No one is safe. The MC sings the same lyrics. Only now, they are sinister invitations to genocide and war.
For many chapters, Bildad, Eliphaz and Zophar have been saying that G-d punishes sinners. Job has rejected them. Job refuses to shut up. As long as Job is alive, as long as G-d's breath is in him, he will speak. He will protest. He will reject their attcks. He might be broken but he's not going to accept their meshuggas.
Then what does he say?
Job affirms that G-d punishes the wicked. No matter how much the evil bastards prosper, they will vanish. Their children will die or abandon them. The Elon Musks and Putins of the world may hoard gold and silver and crypto and bonds, but their wealth will go to the innocent. A rich sonofabitch may go to sleep but open his eyes to desolation. The east wind carries him away and he is gone.
Didn't Job reject this belief? Was this a Zophar speech falsely attributed to Job? Some scholars believe it is. However, there's a better explanation.
Job believes that G-d punishes rapists, murderers and Andrew Tate. Unlike his friends, he's not being an asshole.
Sadly, we see too many like Job's friends every day. In fact, today's assholes are worse. Yes, Eliphaz and Bildad are responding to a friend who has lost everything – his house, his health, his children – by blaming him. Did your skin fall off? You deserved it. Did you lose everything? You probably neglected to give charity. Did your children die? What did you do? You must have been really nasty.
Only, Job's friends actually waited a week. They sat with Job. They let Job mourn. They waited for Job to talk. Second, they are working within standard theology. Do evil and pay the price. Swear at your mother and stub your toe. Get into a bar fight and feel a fist breaking your nose. Drive drunk and wreck your car.
Today's moralizing assholes aren't waiting. They aren't even making sense. Just look at the internet reactions to the Los Angeles fires. Leftists are celebrating, blaming Israel. Rightwingers are celebrating, blaming DEI, comparing Hollywood to Sodom and Gomorrah. Why do we have to point out that not everyone in Los Angeles has Paris Hilton money to keep our friends from posting schadenfreude?
Every major event and tragedy is followed by moralizing assholes. As soon as they knew that Israelis (Jewish and Arab) and tourists were being raped and murdered on October 7, evil shitbags like Hasan Piker and Mia Khalifa celebrated. The less crass leftist Nazis delivered lectures on decolonization with bad history lessons dedicated to enforcing the myth that Israel is always at fault. That way their friends could celebrate October 7 and spred blood libel without shame.
Job also says that miscreants will pay for their crimes, which is also true. In 2024 alone, we've seen the worst motherfuckers including Nasrallah, Sinwar, Raisi and Haniyeh die. Hezbollah terrorists were planning their own version of October 7 before their pagers blew up and their dicks fell off. Yet, Job is not saying “told you so” when he talks divine justice. He's speaking a warning.
See, now I'm thinking: maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here... he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. And I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.
- Jules from Pulp Fiction
There is divine justice, but there's also empathy, repentance and mercy. As much as we might want to see Hasan Piker have an aneurysm during one of his Twitch scream fests, we shouldn't actively hope for it. As long as Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar live, Job will reject their passive aggressive attacks. He will argue because he wants them to stop being shitty. We should hope for humility and empathy even among those who display none.
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