Eric Ortlund argues that the Book of Job addresses a specific kind of suffering: a Job-like ordeal—extreme, inexplicable, and not caused by sin or intended for spiritual growth. Job suffers not because he is guilty, but because God allows his integrity to be tested before the accuser. The central question is: Will humans love God for God’s sake, even when all earthly blessings are stripped away?
Throughout the dialogues, Job and his friends misinterpret God. The friends assume Job must have sinned; Job assumes God has turned against him. Both are wrong. Unbeknownst to Job, God is actually proud of him and is using this ordeal to deepen Job’s capacity to know Him.
When God finally speaks “from the storm,” He does not humiliate Job but gently shows him two truths:
(1) Job cannot interpret the world rightly based on his limited perspective, and
(2) creation, though containing real chaos and danger, is upheld by God with joy, order, and care.
The climax is God’s description of Leviathan, not as a crocodile but as a symbol of supernatural evil—the true enemy. God reveals that He, not Job, will defeat this cosmic evil. Job realizes God was never his adversary but his defender, and he responds in humble worship: “Now my eye sees you.”
Ortlund concludes that Job points ahead to the cross, where God ultimately defeats the true Leviathan—Satan—on behalf of His suffering people.