Job 21

Queering Divine Meritocracy

Job 21 features Job’s response to Zophar’s speech in the prior chapter. In particular, Job questions his friend’s assertion that the prosperity of the wicked is always short-lived. Reading into Zophar’s claims, we can see an underlying assumption that longstanding earthly prosperity directly equates to moral righteousness. And to Job, who just lost his property, children, and his good health, Zophar continues to imply that Job must be masking hidden sin since only the wicked suffer as he does.

Queer theology offers us an interesting lens to understand this back and forth between Zophar and Job. From a queer theory perspective, discourses are sets of language, metaphors, and other ways of communicating that shape how we understand and construct the world around us. Not only are they common cultural ways of communicating, but because discourses also help us construct our lives, they are bound up in systems of power. They define who is an insider or outsider, what type of life we should aspire toward, and what external markers define who is “wicked” or “righteous.”

When discourses become commonplace enough, they solidify into “common sense,” and the power structures they uphold become invisible to us.

Zophar’s assertion of the judgment of the wicked and prosperity of the righteous is one such discourse, grounded in assumed timeless wisdom (Job 20:4). I refer to this discourse as “Divine Meritocracy,” recognizing how God seemingly distributes earthly prosperity or punishment according to an individual’s righteousness before God. Zophar attempts to call Job back to this “common sense” view of the world, not realizing that this way of thinking is not only insulting to Job but also perpetuates harm—especially to those whose suffering is the result of injustice.

Job’s response in Chapter 21 takes what we might today consider a queer approach. Throughout his speech, he questions the normative discourse of Divine Meritocracy and Zophar’s assumptions. He draws attention to how the expectation of judgment of the wicked falls short by recentering his own experiences and those of the suffering.

Instead of the children of the wicked giving back their unjustly earned wealth to the poor and oppressed (Job 20:10), Job observes “their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes” (Job 21:8-9).

Instead of the corrupt being in distress and misery despite their “full sufficiency” (Job 20:22), Job watches them “spend their days in prosperity, and in peace go down to Sheol” (Job 21:13).

Instead of remaining in certainty that God will send his fierce anger to cause the immoral to suffer (Job 20:23), Job questions the expected judgment of God on those who prosper through injustice (Job 21:17–18).

Ultimately, Job questions the assumed purpose of serving God when the wicked acquire the “blessings” of prosperity on their own:

“What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’ Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?

The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.”

(Job 21:15–16, NRSV)

At the heart of Job’s response to Zophar is a searching question:

How can earthly prosperity reflect righteousness when so many wicked people prosper— amassing wealth, power, descendants, and security often by abusing the innocent?

Rather than the corrupt receiving divine justice, Job observes the opposite. Many generate wealth, power, and security for themselves by extracting it from others. Many who suffer are not living in sin, but on the receiving end of oppressive systems that deepen their suffering. If earthly prosperity, security, and health are divine blessings for living a righteous life, what point is there to serve God when the wicked acquire them through injustice? Perhaps prosperity should not be the moral good to which we aspire.

We should note that Job questions the common discourse of Divine Meritocracy because of his own suffering. Job knows beyond a doubt that he remained faithful to God, yet he lost everything. Because of his own experience of loss, he can see the suffering of others and begins to question whether the common wisdom of the day is truly just.

Prior to his own traumatic experience of loss, I can imagine that he, too, might have ascribed to Zophar’s belief that those who suffer are being punished by God for their wickedness. We might wonder what might have happened if Job had not experienced his intense season of suffering. Would listening to the voices of others suffering unjustly be enough for him to recognize the injustice upheld by the assumptions of his community?

The normative discourse of prosperity equating to moral righteousness may feel familiar in the United States today. The myth of meritocracy runs deep in the American consciousness and, like Zophar, we are so inundated with this discourse that it might even feel like common sense. The current understanding of the “American Dream” is that anyone, regardless of background, can achieve success and prosperity through hard work, self-sufficiency, and determination.

While this may not have the same religious overtones as Job, the ideals of hard work, self-sufficiency, and determination hold moral weight. This is what we have defined as “righteousness” as a society. One needs only to look at how millionaires and billionaires are held up as the ideal to which we should aspire to see how prosperity has once again become equated with goodness.

While the language of American meritocracy is not inherently religious, Christian churches are not exempt from the normalization of meritocratic discourse. Like Zophar, some theologies explicitly hold that God will bless faithful believers with wellbeing and wealth. Even innocuous phrases like “I am so blessed” when discussing wealth and good health add theological weight to the already ubiquitous discourse.

Yet what happens when people fail to achieve success as we have defined it in our culture?

People of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, people with disabilities, those in the working class, and many other communities outside the hegemonic norm know that simply pursuing hard work, self-sufficiency, and determination does not guarantee prosperity and well-being.

And so often, we are blamed for our own suffering.

Working-class people struggling to pull themselves out of medical debt are told that if they worked harder or had a more prestigious job, they could have afforded better health insurance. Unhoused individuals are stereotyped as “lazy” for their “moral failure” to afford stable housing. Queer and trans people with increased risk for mental health issues are told those same conditions are indicative of moral failings on their part rather than a result of discrimination.

Meanwhile, those who profit off the debt and cycles of suffering grow more and more prosperous, not from their own merit but by extracting wealth from those who suffer.

Like the cultural norms Zophar draws upon, the meritocratic discourse in the United States and elsewhere gives false justification to extractive systems of wealth, blaming suffering and lack of prosperity on the very people they oppress.

Job’s response to Zophar in chapter 21 questions the core assumptions of meritocracy—that those who prosper are morally righteous and those who suffer deserve their suffering.

Furthermore, Job’s speech calls us to listen to the voices of the oppressed who question the everyday discourses that uphold the unjust status quo.

Watch the Queering Job Writer Interview with Micah Melody Taberner here.

Micah Melody Taberner (she/her) is the Co-Executive Director of Community Engagement for Transmission Ministry Collective. As a transgender and bi-racial Latina follower of Jesus, her greatest passion is helping individuals and communities explore the intersection of their identities and faith. In all her work, Micah Melody loves using art, music, and storytelling to build relationships and stir cross-cultural dialogue. She is currently finishing her Master of Arts in Social Transformation and Master of Divinity at Pacific School of Religion, and was a 2023-2024 recipient of the On Being Social Healing Fellowship for her work in the gender-expansive Christian community.