job (redirected from Book of Job)

Job (jōb), book of the Bible. The book is of unknown authorship and date, although many scholars assign it to a time between 600 B.C. and 400 B.C. A lament in narrative form, the subject is the problem of good and evil in the world: "Why do the just suffer and the wicked flourish?" In the prose prologue Satan obtains God's permission to test the unsuspecting Job, whom God regards as "a perfect and an upright man"; accordingly, all that Job has is destroyed, and he is physically afflicted. The main part of the book is cast in poetic form and consists of speeches by Job and three friends who come to "comfort" him: Job speaks, then each of the three speaks in turn, with Job replying each time; there are three such cycles of discussion, although the third is incomplete. The friends insist alike that Job cannot really be just, as he claims to be, otherwise he would not be suffering as he is. Nevertheless, Job reiterates his innocence of wrong. The sequence changes with the appearance of a fourth speaker, Elihu, who accuses Job of arrogant pride. He in turn is followed by God himself, who speaks out of a storm to convince Job of his ignorance and rebuke him for his questioning. The prose epilogue tells how God rebukes the three friends for their accusations and how happiness is restored to Job. The author did not intend to solve the paradox of the righteous person's suffering, but rather to criticize a philosophy that located the cause of suffering in some supposed moral failure of the sufferer. The texts are imperfect, and there may be serious losses, misplacements, or even additions to the original. The book contains many eloquent passages; among them are Job's declaration of faith in the "redeemer," his speech on wisdom, and God's discourse on animals. Job is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.

Bibliography

See N. C. Habel, Job (1985); L. G. Perdue and W. C. Gilpin, ed., The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job (1991); R. P. Scheindlin, The Book of Job (1998). See also bibliography under Old Testament.

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Job

Central character of the Book of Job in the Old Testament, known for his faithfulness to God despite his many afflictions. At the beginning, Job is a wealthy man with a large family. Satan challenges God to allow him to take away Job's blessings as a test of his faith. Soon Job is desolate, covered with boils, his wealth gone and his family dead. Three friends arrive to comfort him; he disputes with them, denying he has done anything to deserve this misery but maintaining his faith in God. At the end, in a confrontation with God, the power and mystery of the deity are memorably reasserted, but the problem of why the innocent suffer is left unresolved. The book dates from the 6th–4th century BC.

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job

A unit of work running in the computer. A job may be a single program or a group of programs that work together. Jobs can be batch programs scheduled to run at a specific time or programs that interact with users and stay in the computer all day. See also job descriptions and salary survey.

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job

Computing a unit of work for a computer consisting of a single complete task submitted by a user

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Job

Old Testament

a. a Jewish patriarch, who maintained his faith in God in spite of the afflictions sent by God to test him

b. the book containing Job's pleas to God under these afflictions, attempted explanations of them by his friends, and God's reply to him

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job [jäb]

(computer science)

A unit of work to be done by the computer; it is a single entity from the standpoint of computer installation management, but may consist of one or more job steps.

(industrial engineering)

The combination of duties, skills, knowledge, and responsibilities assigned to an individual employee.

A work order.

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Job

maintains his faith despite severe trials, is finally rewarded by God. [O.T.: Job]

See : Faithfulness

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Job

abases self in awe of the Lord. [O.T.: Job 40:3–5; 42:1–6]

See : Humility

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Job

underwent trial by God at Satan’s suggestion. [O.T.: Job]

See : Patience

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Job

lost everything he owned to Satan. [O.T.: Job]

See : Poverty

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Job

beset with calamities. [O.T.: Job 1:13–22; 2:6–10]

See : Suffering

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Job

tormented to test devoutness. [O.T.: Job 1, 2]

See : Test

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(operating system)

job - All activities involved in completing any project on a computer from start to finish. A job may involve several processes and several programs. This term originates from a time when a user would manually submit a job as a deck of punched cards which would typically include source code interspersed with job control language instructions to guide phases of the job such as compilation, linking, execution and printing.