We call these books instructive because they contain "the teaching of piety" [59, p. 16]. "Teaching books are primarily subjective, in contrast to the objective exposition of the truths of faith and piety in the law and the objective description of the life of the Jewish people in historical writings" [4, vol. 4, p. 3]. Their task is to make man's own thoughts, feelings, and wills through the objective laws and decrees given by God; show their agreement with human nature. They give us the experience and comprehension of these revealed truths in everyday life, as well as the response of the human spirit to the voice of God. Each of the teaching books does this in a special way; We will consider the rest of the features of teaching books in the sections dedicated to each of them.

Chapter 1.

The Book of Job

The book does not contain specific indications of the time of its writing and authorship. St. John Chrysostom considered it to belong to Solomon, or even to Moses. It should be noted that the everyday realities described in this book can be attributed to the era of the patriarchs, to the beginning of the second millennium before the birth of Christ. The peculiarities of the language and style of this book, its closeness in many expressions to the Psalter, rather testify to the fact that it received its final form during the heyday of the kingdom of Israel, that is, in the time of Solomon, at the time when other works of teaching literature appeared. One does not interfere with the other, since the ancient tradition could have received its final form much later. In other books of Holy Scripture Job is spoken of as a very real historical person (Ezekiel 14:14, James 5:11). In a postscript found in the text of the Septuagint, it is said that Job was a descendant of Esau, the fifth from Abraham.

1.1. Historical prologue

The first two chapters are an introduction or historical prologue. It tells us that in the land of Uz there lived a certain pious man named Job. There are many different considerations about where this land is located. One of the most common is that this is the northwestern part of Arabia on the border with Idumea. The Scriptures show us the riches and piety of Job, who was in the habit of offering sacrifices not only for himself, but also for his sons, interceding before God for forgiveness of their possible sins.

What follows is a scene in which, as the Scriptures say, "the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, and Satan also came among them" (Job 1:6) – a rather peculiar picture in its "naturalism", but it has, of course, its own interpretation.

This description clearly testifies to us that, despite the fact that Satan has fallen away from God and no longer stands among the other angels, nevertheless, "in his desire to resist the Divine plan..., in the end, he is forced to participate in its fulfillment" [33, p. 587].

Satan (or the devil, i.e. the slanderer) begins to slander Job, saying that this righteous man is not unselfish; that, of course, it is good to be pious when God cares for him so much, when he has everything, when he is protected on all sides by this care. If we were to take everything away from him, then we would see: is he really as righteous as everyone says he is?

Notice that Satan has no power. Wouldn't he have torn Job to pieces if he had it? But he says to God, "Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has—will he bless you?" (Job 1:11). And so Satan is given permission to smite everything that Job has, only not to touch Job himself.