An emphasis on the relationship between word and sin is present from the beginning of Job's test of virtue. Satan challenges God by telling him that if misfortune befell Job, he would “curse him to his face,” making Job's sin not psychological or physical, but rather verbal in nature (1:11). This equation between sin and speech is concretized in the rest of the text. By general consensus, the mouth is a den of iniquity; Job's friend Zophar explains this idea through a four-verse metaphor, saying that the wicked "have [wickedness] in their mouths... there is the poison of asps within them" (20:13-14). These verses are full of images that interpret evil mouths as boiling with this poison and perverse enjoyment. They seem intended to connote decadence, as if the wicked tasted, however briefly, the spoils of sin, mistakenly perceiving the poison as pleasant. Their mouths are presented as the location and crux of their sin. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Job, in pleading his righteousness, says, “I have not let my mouth sin by asking for their life with a curse” (31:30). Here as elsewhere, it is clear that the verbal act itself is not sinful, but that the sin lies instead in the meaning of the words spoken. This idea is repeated, in slightly different forms, several times in the Book of Job. When Job describes wicked people, he lists the actions that characterize them and then summarizes their sins: "They say to God, Leave us alone!" (21.14). Perhaps this statement is implicit in their actions, or perhaps Job means that the wicked literally say it, but either way this statement is the focal point of the sin. During his theophany at the end of the text, God interprets verbal sin differently; he says that its essence is words spoken without knowledge (38:2). This is a specific reaction to the speeches of Job's friends, which misrepresent the nature of God. What these definitions of verbal sin have in common is that each statement betrays the speaker's imperfect relationship with God. Job cursing other people would be unkind and would mean taking advantage of his position, the sinful people he describes turn away from God, and his friends pass off their speculations and rationalizations about divine truth as fact. Full of complexities and contradictions, the Book of Job makes two notable arguments against the equation of sin and word. The first occurs when Job turns to God, maintaining his innocence. «If I sin», he says, «you look at me», and since the actions are observed and the speech is listened to, this verbal choice and the contradiction it creates seems, at first sight, inexplicable (10,14). However, actions can be said to "speak," and perhaps Job is referring to this form of speech. It could also be that this is a slight, improvised expansion of the definition of sin beyond speech acts, not intended to fully blend with the message of the rest of the book, but either way the issue is sufficiently resolved. The second topic is found in the institution of prayer and its role in the verbal relationship between man and the divine. While the sin of Job's friends lies in the words they say, their salvation also comes from the words. God demands that, as recompense for their sins, “Job shall pray for [them], and I will accept his prayer” (42:8). Prayer is a thoughtful, formal variant of everyday speech, and this may be its chief virtue. In contrast to the speeches of Zophar, Eliphaz and Bildad, prayer presupposes nothing about God except hisexistence. The ritual nature of prayer, as well as the fact that it traditionally subjugates the person offering it before God, distinguishes it from ordinary and potentially evil speech. Although these arguments serve to complicate the equation between sin and speech, they do not undermine it at all. The content of the word, not the word itself, is interpreted as sin, silence is always represented as virtue. This idea, although ultimately confirmed by God, is expressed in most of the text only by Job. He articulates it on four different occasions. The first, and necessarily the longest of these examples, is an explanation in the form of a criticism of his three friends. “If you would only remain silent, that would be your wisdom!” Job tells them, and then goes on to explain, that every word God speaks risks offending him through deception or excessive partiality (13.5). “Your maxims are proverbs of ashes,” he concludes, metaphorically reducing their speech to a fragile construction of dust (13.12). Job later uses his own situation as an exemplary story: “Look at me and be amazed, and put your hand over your mouth” (21:5). Although on the surface this is addressed to the three friends, in reality it is also intended for the reader of the text, and could in fact be taken as the central message that this book intends to communicate to believers. The final iteration of this idea occurs near the end of the text and concludes Job's argument perfectly. Now, espousing near-total silence in the presence of the Lord, he says, “I have spoken once, and I will not answer twice, nor will I go any further” (40:4-5). Once his position has been validated, he can abandon the discussion and observe a code of virtuous silence. Silence is just a human virtue. «The voice [of God] roars; he thunders with his majestic voice and does not hold back the lightning when his voice is heard" (37,4). Throughout the book there is consensus that God's voice is not only loud, but it sounds so powerful that its ramifications on the physical world are both spectacular and destructive. The speech itself is usually equated with thunder and during the theophany God describes a sea monster called Leviathan which can be read as a metaphor for God and his power. The mouth of this creature is represented as an abyss of fire, and its every breath is accompanied by flames (41:21). The choice of fire – and thunder, which is closely related to it – as the physical corollary of God's voice is interesting, since humans need fire to survive and fear it as an agent of destruction. The metaphor of fire seems carefully chosen to explain in terms of connotation the right relationship of human beings with God, at least as the Book of Job defines it: it should be an intimate relationship characterized at the same time by both fear and submission to divine will . The meaning of God's words also has a direct impact on the world. God uses his voice, rather than an unexpressed will, to bring things to life. It is his verbal command that causes snow, rain, wind, and freezing weather (37:6, 9). The text interprets God's power as almost entirely based on his speech; for example, at the beginning of his theophany, God describes his creation of the oceans, initially with verbs such as "enclose" and "prescribed limits", but in the summary in 38:11, the binding of the ocean is represented as a speech act, when God directly commands the ocean: "Here your proud waves will stop." If the word is not the source of God's power, then it is certainly the vehicle of that power. For all its fiery magnificence and importance, the human characters in the Book of Job seem to conceptualize the voice of God, as well as His words. , at least in part as instructional tools. The first notable evidence of this is when Zophar criticizes what he believes to bethe impiety and sin of Job. He says to Job, “Oh, that God would speak, and open your lips, and reveal to you the secrets of wisdom!” (11:5-6). It is not only sinful friends who advance this conceptualization, for Job himself agrees with them when he says, “I would know what [God] would answer me, and understand what he would say to me” (23:5). Verbal and discursive teaching is entirely a linguistic act; it is the passage of concrete knowledge between minds on a bridge constructed with words. Teaching in this sense seems to necessarily involve human beings too, since if the Lord can be said to teach Satan the righteousness of Job, it is certain that Satan required a physical test rather than a simple lecture. Instead, Job's men attempt to instruct each other through words, and God will eventually echo their approach, effectively joining their theological debate, albeit with a more certain perspective. However, if isolated, this view on the nature of God's speech would seem to place the divine and the human too close on the rhetorical spectrum. God asks Job, “can you thunder with a voice like [mine]?” and the question clearly separates divine speech from the human equivalent (40:9). Elihu suggests some of the elements of God's voice that are overlooked in a purely didactic conceptualization. In fact, he ignores the teaching altogether and postulates that "God speaks one way and two, though men do not understand it" (33:14). The two ways he continues to name and explain are speech through dreams and through punishment, deprivation, and pain. The suggestions of Elihu, perhaps representative of the younger generations, are much more indirect; suggest that the Lord speaks through metaphors and encourage believers to read events as omens and representations of divine speech. Earlier in the Book of Job, Eliphaz postulates a similar idea, saying that “they that plow iniquity…by the breath of God perish” (4:8-9). However, God never confirms these ideas, and in fact the very reality of the situation seems to deny their truth. Job's misfortunes are not the voice of God incarnate, but rather random cruelties carried out at the hands of Satan. These erroneous speculations likely join much of the rest of Eliphaz and Elihu's speech as the body of their sin. Although the word, silence, and voice of God are aspects of the verbal relationship between the divine and the human, nowhere is this more directly expressed than in the human desire to speak with God. Elihu verbally defines the human relationship with commands of God, metaphorically equating listening with obedience and “opening their ears” with instilling faith (36:10-11). Despite a strong impulse to require this close verbal interaction, Job initially doubts its feasibility. “How then could I answer him,” he asks, “choosing my words with him…Though I am innocent, yet my mouth would condemn me” (9:14, 20). Indeed, the gap between the human and the divine seems too large to be bridged with words. This frustration does not destroy the impulse to talk to God, especially for characters like Elihu, who do not perceive it. Job, who has a more accurate and more nuanced sense of the divine, simply begins to call for a formalization of the discussion: the forum of the tribunal. He constructs the court as a place of verbal exchange: "I would explain my case to him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would like to know what he would answer me and understand what he would say to me" (23,4-). 5). Job's interest is not so much in receiving justice as in receiving education. This formal version of interaction with God is acceptable, in Job's mind, in much the same way that prayer is acceptable; since he exposes before the....