Prophet Job most unlikely to have been a ruler of Egypt
by Damien F. Mackey
“Job is an Egyptian king who lives near a temple in which an idol is worshipped.
He wonders whether the god venerated in the temple is the true God.” Testament of Job
Given my recent article:
Tobit may have been King Shalmaneser’s Rab Ekalli – Library of Rickandria
then it is not unlikely, also, that Tobit’s son, Tobias, who is my Job – and who, as I showed in that same article, had obviously himself been a man of very high status – had served as an important official, say, during the reign of Esarhaddon.
Though there can be no question that an Israelite (Naphtalian) captive at the time had been raised up to become an actual pharaoh of Egypt, what is possible is that the Assyrian king could have appointed such a man to act as a governor for Assyria over at least a part of Egypt.
In this sense, such a one could be considered to have been a “king”.
Cf. Isaiah 10:8: ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’:
The Great King of Assyria.
According to the Testament of Job, the prophet Job was, in fact, “an Egyptian king”:
Although the Testament of Job (TJ, below) is clearly an interpretation of the Biblical book of Job (BJ, below), it is so much a story of its own that it is worth telling that story before comparing it to BJ.
Telling the story gives readers the opportunity to get a taste of the character of TJ over against that of BJ.
When the story opens, Job, having fallen ill, calls his sons and daughters to give them his final instructions and exhortations.
He introduces himself, his wife and children in the following way:
I am your father Job, engaged in endurance.
But you are a chosen and honored race from the seed of Jacob, the father of your mother.
For I am from the sons of Esau, the brother of Jacob, of whom is your mother Dinah, from whom I begot you. (My former wife died with the other ten children in a bitter death.) (, 5–6) 2
Then, Job begins to tell the story of his suffering.
Job is an Egyptian king who lives near a temple in which an idol is worshipped.
He wonders whether the god venerated in the temple is the true God.
One night, a voice in a very bright light appears, telling Job that the idol worshipped in the temple is the devil, whereupon Job asks the voice whether God would give him authority to destroy the temple:
“Who is there to forbid me, since I rule this region?” (III, 7)
The Lord grants authority to Job, but the light warns him that destroying the temple of Satan would raise a battle with Satan.
Satan will bring many plagues upon Job, although Satan will not be allowed to take his life.
If Job endures, however, the light promises him that he will receive twice of all that he will have lost.
Finally, Job will rise again in the resurrection.
“For you will be like a sparring athlete, both enduring pains and winning the crown.
Then will you know that the Lord is just, true, and strong, giving strength to his elect ones.”
And I, my little children, replied to him,
“Till death I will endure: I will not step back at all.”
After I had been sealed by the angel when he left me, my little children, then—having arisen the next night—I took fifty youths with me, struck off for the temple of the idol, and levelled it to the ground.
And so I withdrew into my house, having ordered the doors to be secured. ….
However, as is apparent from my article:
Apocryphal Testament of Job – Library of Rickandria
much of this Testament is quite fanciful and unreal.
Moreover, there are two instances in my reconstructed life of Job that might suggest, anyway, that he was a somewhat reluctant traveler.
The first instance is from the Book of Tobit, whilst the second concerns the prophet Habakkuk, in the Book of Daniel, Habakkuk being Job according to e.g. my article:
“Where shall I place Habakkuk?”
As young Tobias, always ready to obey his father, Tobit, he nevertheless reminded his father that he did not know where “Media” was: (Tobit 5:1-2):
Then Tobias answered his father,
‘I’ll do everything you told me.
But how can I get the money back from Gabael?
We have never even met each other.
How can I prove to him who I am, so that he will trust me and give me the money?
Besides that, I don’t know how to get to Media.
While much later, as Habakkuk, Job claimed never to have seen Babylon.
And this, despite the fact that he had lived much of his life in Nineveh to the north.
The holy man’s geography seems, therefore, to have been limited largely to Nineveh in the east and “Media” Midian, “Ecbatana” (Bashan) in the west (no doubt with visits to Jerusalem).
As I wrote in the above article:
A statement made by Habakkuk pertaining to geography had reminded me of a similar one made by the young Tobias (my Job).
At that particular time, I had been wondering if Habakkuk could have been Job.
Tobias (= Job), when asked by his father Tobit to travel to “Media” (corrected by Heb. Londinii to “Midian”) to collect money from a relative, dutifully replies (Tobit 5:1-2):
‘I’ll do everything you told me.
But how can I get the money back from Gabael?
We have never even met each other.
How can I prove to him who I am, so that he will trust me and give me the money?
Besides that, I don’t know how to get to Media’.
Likewise Habakkuk, when instructed by the Lord to take a bowl of stew and bread to Daniel in the den of lions in Babylon (Daniel 14:34-35):
“… the angel of the Lord said to Habakkuk,
‘Take the food that you have to Babylon, to Daniel, in the lions’ den’,
replied:
‘Sir, I have never seen Babylon, and I know nothing about the den’.”
In both instances, an angel of the Lord will intervene to guide the apparently travel-shy holy man to the intended destination, and then back home again.
The angel will be Raphael in the case of Tobias (= Job).
So presumably the angel who will dramatically assist Habakkuk (Daniel 14:36-39):
Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown of his head and carried him by his hair; with the speed of the wind he set him down in Babylon, right over the den.
Then Habakkuk shouted, ‘Daniel, Daniel! Take the food that God has sent you’.
Daniel said, ‘You have remembered me, O God, and have not forsaken those who love you’.
So, Daniel got up and ate.
And the angel of God immediately returned Habakkuk to his own place [,]
will be Raphael again.
Presumably this Raphael was Job’s very “Advocate” in heaven (Job 16:19), a possible reason for why Job had become a bit too familiar and forward in his dealings with the Lord.
Might it not seem strange, though, that Tobias (= Job), who had spent his entire youth in Nineveh, had, as Habakkuk, “never seen Babylon”?
Well, Babylon was apparently over 300 kilometers from Nineveh.
The geography of Tobias appears to have been of a westerly, rather than southerly, movement, namely, Nineveh, Haran, Bashan:
A Common Sense Geography of the Book of Tobit
His years spent in Assyrian Nineveh would also account for another aspect of Habakkuk, the prophet’s very Akkadian name:
“Habakkuk appears to derive from Akkadian ḫabbaququ, the name of a garden plant”
(J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah: A Commentary, 1991, p. 86). ….
SAUCE
Prophet Job most unlikely to have been a ruler of Egypt