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Job איוב

The book of the suffering of a righteous man — the Tanakh's hardest text and its most honest argument about justice.

Iyov is a blameless, wealthy and happy man who in a single day loses his property and all his children, and then his health. Three friends come, sit with him silently for seven days — and then begin to explain. Their explanation is simple: if you suffer, you sinned. Iyov refuses it and demands a trial; he will not confess to guilt he does not have.

Most of the book is poetry of extraordinary power. The Talmud debates whether Iyov was a historical figure or a parable, and when he lived — from the age of the patriarchs to the return from Babylon. The answer he receives from the whirlwind is not an explanation but a question: «where were you when I founded the earth?»

At the end the friends are rebuked for not speaking rightly, as Iyov did — the one who argued is vindicated.

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