When Ethics and Aesthetics Collide
Job’s final response to Yhwh, as poetically wrapped up in Job 42:1-6, represents the culmination of Job’s transformative journey in his understanding Yhwh and himself. The poem is read in light of its literary framework as an attempt to prove that Job’s final stance displays a sapiential attitude which can only be properly understood when one takes into account the collision between the two essential viewpoints supported by the book as a whole, that is, ethics and aesthetics. Throughout the entire drama of Job’s situation from the prologue right to the epilogue, the author of the book of Job does not present the protagonist as a penitent, but rather as a righteous sufferer. Job’s final stance reflects a sapiential attitude deriving from a direct experience of the righteous sufferer with the aesthetic dimension of the mysterious God.
