Job In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

with the finest furnishings, her clothes spun from the most expensive threads. Her children likely had everything they needed. In one really bad day, she lost it all. All their wealth, property, and way of life (Job 1:13-22) disappeared. She was not only bankrupt, but homeless, and forced to beg outside the city dump.

She also became a caretaker for her disease-ravaged husband. Although Old Testament scholars don't agree on the nature of Job's illness, clearly his pain was so excruciating that he asked God to take his life (Job 3). It distorted Job's appearance so dramatically that his closest friends could barely recognise him and when they approached, they fell to the ground in pity (Job 2:12). This last temptation brought by Satan was so severe, it nearly broke Job's soul. While we might weep with Job, we miss the faithful, steady presence of his wife. She put aside her own grief to care for her husband. Imagine the exhausting drain, caring for a suffering soul like

Perhaps her testimony is her simple presence during her husband's lowest moments. We read that his siblings and friends returned and consoled and comforted him because of all the trials the Lord had caused him (Job 42:11). It's easy to show compassion after the event, but during Job's lowest moments, they were nowhere to be found. Yet every single day, there was his wife, caring and enduring the trials Satan had inflicted, but seemingly without knowing why.

The trials that would destroy most marriages did not split up Job and his wife. They stuck it out together. And at the end of this story, we read of them having and raising another ten children! Was her attitude fine throughout the problems that engulfed her family? No. Did she say things she would later regret? Yes. But during it all, she endured and her faith in God stayed intact. Perhaps her service to her husband should be held up as a model of biblical character?

Catholic Exegesis of