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Job's Wife

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Biblical Character

The Resume

    Born in The Land of Uz
    Wife of the most prosperous citizen in the Land of Uz
    Lived during the time of Moses
    Famous for her brief appearance in the Book of Job, telling her husband 'Dost thou still retain thine integrity! Curse God, and die' (Job 2:9)

Why she might be annoying:

    Like Lot's Wife, she apparently wasn't deemed important enough by the book's author to warrant a name of her own.
    She is the earliest prototype of the 'nagging wife.'
    Her only line in the Book of Job has been carefully scrutinized for centuries; her basically telling Job to get it over with, tell God to shove it up his ass, and end his life of suffering.
    Theologians have expressed confusion as to why Satan destroyed everything in Job's life but left her alive.
    She is usually grouped with Job's three 'friends,' Bildad, Eliphaz and Zophar as 'comforters' who make Job's predicament worse by rubbing it in with unsolicited advice.
    Her response to the suffering elicited by Satan was the response he was hoping to get from her husband.
    She is conspicuously absent from the ending of the Book of Job, leading many to believe that she was punished by God for her defiance, even as her husband was rewarded.
    Her husband claimed that she couldn't stand the stench of his bad breath (19:17).
    Her husband's Book has inaccurately been pinned as the inspiration for L. Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.
    She has provided fodder for many sexist jokes about the worst thing happening to Job is his wife getting spared.

Why she might not be annoying:

    It is believed that her words were subject to a mistranslation in the King James Bible from the original Hebrew, leading Christians to cast her as the Devil's adjutant handmaiden ('barak' can translate either to 'blessing' or 'curse' and so she may have been telling Job to 'bless God and die').
    Many find her more relatable than her husband, who is seen as 'too-good-to-be-true.'
    She was the casualty of a bet between God and Satan over her husband, and lost her children and all material wealth as a result (and let's be honest - living with a leprosy-stricken spouse couldn't have been a joyride).
    Her husband was very indifferent to her fate, at one point saying 'let my wife grind for another,/and let other men kneel over her' (31:9-10).
    It is strongly implied that she bore Job several more children to him after his riches her restored to him.
    She is revered in Islamic tradition as the wife of a Prophet, as well as in many denominations of the Jewish faith.
    She has been reevaluated in the last century as an enduring woman who suffers alongside her husband and who loves him enough to not want him to suffer anymore.
    She has figured into centuries' worth of Biblical art, usually alongside her ailing husband, most prominently in William Blake's engravings.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 16 Votes: 93.75% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 17 Votes: 5.88% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 15 Votes: 46.67% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying