Holy and Righteous Job the Much-Contested in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

1. The Righteous Job was from the land of Ausitis, which lay on the borders of Idumea and Arabia, and he was one of the descendants of Esau, so that he was of the fifth generation from Abraham. His father was named Zareth and his mother Bosorra. He had been given the name Jobab and he prophesied for twenty-five years. He lived around 1925 B.C. The Lord bore witness concerning him that he was a righteous and blameless man and better than all the people of his generation; for this reason the devil asked God to test Job. Indeed, after the permission given to him by God, the devil stripped Job of all his possessions, afflicted him with dreadful and unbearable sores, and finally departed in shame, because the righteous man proved unbending and unyielding in all the assaults of temptation. At the end of his struggles, God Himself rewarded him and restored to him what is revealed in the account concerning him. After his trials he lived one hundred and seventy years, which means that altogether he lived two hundred and forty-eight years.

Prologue in Sermons: January 24

 

Against Complaining

January 24

(A Homily on Job and Love for the Poor.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Some Christians, when some misfortune befalls them, instead of bowing before the inscrutable ways of God’s Providence, remembering their sins and repenting of them, and placing all their hope in God, usually begin to complain and say: “Why is God punishing me? Does He really not see my sufferings? It seems to me that I did good to everyone — so-and-so and so-and-so, at such-and-such a time and such-and-such a time,” and so on without end. This, brethren, is not good. Such complaining reveals in a person a lack of love for God, little faith, self-love, and perhaps pride. In misfortunes one should not act this way. How then, you may ask, should one act? In this way, we reply: as the Holy Fathers teach. And how do they teach?

Homilies on the Books of Holy Scripture: The Poetic and Didactic Books of the Old Testament (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Homilies on the Books of Holy Scripture 

The Poetic and Didactic Books of the Old Testament

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Sunday, August 3, 2025)

In previous Sunday sermons, we briefly looked at the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament. However, as we have emphasized, the Old Testament also includes a category of books called poetic, which refer to books written in a poetic manner. This category includes the Psalms of David, Job, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, that is, a total of seven books. As has been done so far, a brief analysis of these seven poetic books of the Old Testament will be made.

First of all, it should be emphasized that poetry is the oldest literary genre. Before the invention of writing, man expressed himself with wonder in hymns, laments, and outbursts of joy. After the invention of writing, he cultivated written prose. Thus, there is a difference between poetry and prose. Poems are letters in verse, the words have rhythm and meter, while prose consists of sentences that follow the rules of grammar and meanings are recorded in a logical sequence.

Thus, the Old Testament includes books that are written in prose, but it also has books that are written in poetic form, such as those mentioned above. They were called poetic books because they are expressed in poetic form. Poetry in the Hebrew language is divided into three categories: parallelism, that is, the thought of the first line is repeated with different phrasing in the other line; rhythm, as to the pronunciation of the words; and stanza, with the repetition of words or phrases, such as the refrain.

Job Was Faithful Because He Was Not Bound To This World

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

What can someone do to a person who has hope in God? Nothing!

What is fear? What is it that you fear? The fear of death? Christ abolished death! Where does fear lie? Where does the threat lie? There is only one threat for us. Our threat is one - to lose Christ. That is a threat.

If a person loses his relationship with Christ, indeed, whatever he acquires in his life is miserable. The person who has lost Christ in his life is miserable. And for the one who has found Christ in his life, everything else is secondary.

Righteous Job the Much-Suffering as a Model of Patience and Faithfulness for Saint Iakovos Tsalikes

The prayer that we say every Sunday at the end of the Divine Liturgy, "Blessed be the name of the Lord from now on and forevermore," comes from the much-contested Job. God took away everything from Job while he remained righteous and blameless, not laying the blame on God who allowed these trials, but patiently enduring whatever was sent and remaining firmly faithful to the Lord.

The Holy Elder Iakovos Tsalikes of the Monastery of the Venerable David in Evia also endured many trials in his life from early childhood, and no matter what tribulation he faced, he always remained righteous and blameless like Job, blessing God's holy name and enduring all things with patience and firm faith in the Lord. Concerning this he once said:

May: Day 6: Holy and Righteous Job the Much-Suffering

May: Day 6:
Holy and Righteous Job the Much-Suffering
 
(On Christian Patience)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Righteous Job, whose great patience is glorified in today's ecclesiastical hymns and readings, lived in Arabia 1900 years before the birth of Christ. He was a rich and famous man. He had seven sons and three daughters. His estate included seven thousand small cattle, three thousand camels, five hundred pairs of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and a great many servants. His children loved and honored him; all his neighbors and acquaintances paid him special respect. But this was not the glory of Job: he was rich in holy faith in God and good deeds; he was a merciful man and did much good to people. But in order to glorify the virtues of Righteous Job, the Lord allowed the devil to strike Job with the most difficult and bitter trial. And so Job was deprived of all his earthly wealth and happiness.

Homily Two on the Sunday of the Cross: The Passion of the Savior

 

Homily Two on the Sunday of the Cross

The Passion of the Savior

By Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov)

(Delivered in 1962)

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

"Oh, that my grief were fully weighed, and my calamity laid with it on the scales! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea" (Job 6:2-3).

So severe were the sufferings and illnesses of the great Old Testament sufferer - the righteous Job! But immeasurably harder and more terrible than the suffering of Job was the suffering of that great Man of suffering, of whom Job was only a prototype—the suffering of our Redeemer, the God-man Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that could make suffering unbearably cruel and impart unbearable severity to it - everything was united in the torment of the Sufferer of Golgotha.

Homily for the Thursday After the Sunday of the Paralytic - Let Us Imitate the Long-Suffering Job (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

 By St. Luke, Archbishop of Simferopol and All Crimea

(Delivered on May 27, 1948)

The Holy Apostle Paul says this about himself: "But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left" (2 Cor. 6:4–7). He is a holy example for all of us Christians. We must, like him, be true Christians. Take a look at the last words. It is known that there are people who equally own the right and left hand. The words "right" and "left" have a spiritual connotation. To the right is everything that is good, pure, true, and holy. On the left - everything evil, crafty, terrible, painful, deceitful. And we must have two spiritual hands, equally active.