While Job could console himself that at least he did not suffer in vain, Satan, who had made him suffer, remained inconsolable. Therefore, says one of the sages, Satan is more to be pitied than Job. Deceived by God, he found himself in the intolerable position of someone who must break the wine casket and save the wine; he was allowed to torture Job up to a clearly defined limit, yet Job was not to succumb; God wanted him alive.

Another text, more cruel toward Satan, denied his paternity of the project. According to that version, Job himself had chosen his role. God had asked him: Between poverty and illness, what would you choose? To which Job is said to have answered: I would rather suffer than live in deprivation. Though he appeared to be the grand master of the game, Satan was in fact only an instrument. Disgusted, he vanished from the scene. For good. Thereafter, he is not mentioned again in the Book of Job. His hurried departure led one sage to reintroduce him in the guise of a fourth friend, Elihu. Appearing unexpectedly, almost at the end, Elihu tried to drive Job to despair and, once again, failed. For Satan, one more failure. Poor Satan, disguised as friend, suddenly he is used by Midrashic legend in an attempt at black humor.

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The great pages that follow the prologue need few imaginary tales; they would be superfluous. The text suffices to let us participate in the drama. The dialogues between Job and his friends, and later between Job and God, are of striking clarity. Eternal questions, poignant replies. Heaven and earth provide the setting for man’s ultimate confrontation with himself and with his idea of God.

Listen to Job speaking: Granted, I am guilty, but why should that matter to You? In what way are You concerned by my deeds? And why did You designate me, who feel crushed by my own burden, as target? Are You pleased now, pleased to have opposed Your creation? I have garbed my body in sackcloth, I have rolled my head in ashes. My face is swollen from weeping and the shadow of death weighs on my brow . . . And then this outcry which, from generation to generation, through pogroms and massacres, reverberates from one end of exile to the other: Eretz al tekhasi dami—Earth, do not absorb my blood! Nature, do not shelter my despair! Job had nothing left in this world except words, but he knew how to use them; he made them quiver, he made them scream.

Up to that moment Job had been seeking support, a vantage point, but could not find them; he had been seeking someone to speak to—judge or avenger—and could find no such person. That was when the poorest, the most solitary man on earth—for he had possessed everything and lost everything—suddenly acquired unsuspected strength and decided to express his rebellion, deriving his courage and arguments from his very poverty, weakness and solitude. He rejected all easy solutions, all debasing compromises. He discovered within himself unequaled power and he reversed the roles. Though accused, condemned and repudiated, he defied the system that kept him imprisoned. He launched an inquiry and suddenly God was the defendant. Job spoke his outrage, his grief; he told God what He should have known for a long time, perhaps since always, that something was amiss in His universe. The just were punished for no reason, the criminal rewarded for no reason. The just and the wicked were subjected to the same fate—God having turned His back on them, on everyone. God had lost interest in His creation; He was absent.