Got Guardian Angels that Save from the Pits?

Job 33:23

The idea of a guardian angel - some sort of being, ancestor or good spirit looking out for us is comforting in a vague way and might be helpful during difficult days and years. It exists in many cultures.

In the Book of Job, Elihu believes in their power to help us through tough times. The young man who interrupted the conversation between Job and his three companions in the last chapter, now takes the stage with the second of six chapters in which he talks on and on, and yet brings an important idea home: Suffering is not a punishment but a test.

He rebukes Job for saying that God is not just, and suggests that God speaks to us through dreams and nightmares, as well as through suffering - all as ways to wake us up. As a side comment he also says that our good deeds will help us maintain the support of a guardian angel, a vague celestial concept of protection that will help us handle our lot.

It's an interesting ray of light in what is otherwise a dark depiction of our existence.

Suffering will drag us to the pits of despair and yet if we are lucky enough to have such an angel we will be granted access to the next phase of our evolution, recovery and renewal:

אִם־יֵשׁ עָלָיו  מַלְאָךְ מֵלִיץ אֶחָד מִנִּי־אָלֶף לְהַגִּיד לְאָדָם יׇשְׁרוֹ׃ וַיְחֻנֶּנּוּ וַיֹּאמֶר פְּדָעֵהוּ מֵרֶדֶת שָׁחַת מָצָאתִי כֹפֶר׃

If one has a guardian angel above,

One advocate against a thousand

To declare the person upright,

Then God has mercy on this person and decrees,

“Redeem from descending to the Pit,

For I have obtained ransom;

Job 33:23

“Malach Melitz” translated here as ‘guardian angel’ is also translated as ‘representative, advocate; Defending Angel; an advocate, intercessor. So what is this energy that will help us ‘be ransomed’ from the pit towards our better, brighter sense of being?

In Job: A New Translation, Edward Greenstein tries to figure this out:

“He seems to be alluding to some sort of guardian angel, perhaps one of the divine beings mentioned in chapter 1 who functioned as God’s council, who would intercede on a person’s behalf to elicit God’s forgiveness. Even as God has counselors like Satan to accuse humans of misbehavior, He has others who function as “defense attorneys” on our behalf. Maimonides, in his major philosophical-theological work, The Guide for the Perplexed, has a brief discussion of Job, and when he comes to Elihu and the guardian angel, he explains it in this way: “When a man is ill to the point of death, if an angel intercedes for him, his intervention is accepted.… The invalid is saved and restored to the best of states. However, this does not continue indefinitely, there being no continuous intercession. It takes place only two or three times” (Guide, book 3, chapter 23). Maimonides does not make it clear whether he personally believes this or is only explicating Elihu’s enigmatic reference.”

Another way to think of these angels - is that it’s us. Elihu is saying - if just one person was 100% your advocate - got your back, believes in you - you can make it back up.

Whatever this all means and it seems important-- it’s hardly the point of this chapter or of Elihu’s fiery speech - far from over. His suggestion that all suffering is some sort of test to help us get better at being who we are is not unique to him and yet its placement in this story of Job and its complex response to the meaning of sorrow is intriguing.

J.J. Kimche frames this perfectly -

“The ‘problem of evil’, as it is called in theological circles, has a neat philosophical formulation, first expressed by the Greek philosopher Epicurus over twenty-two centuries ago. He is reported to have stated the following:

“Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”

In other words, evil is inexplicable in a world in which God is both perfectly good and perfectly powerful. Evil can only exist if God doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or can’t act – whichever way, such a deity is hardly worthy of religious veneration.

Elihu, in this chapter, provides one of the classic, well-worn responses proffered by theologians under such circumstances. He points out that God’s perfect ‘goodness’ does not demand that he provide human beings with what they want at every point in their lives. On the contrary, such a state of affairs would produce a very pampered and immature species. Instead, we are to imagine God as a kind of educator, constantly erecting challenges and difficulties that humans must overcome in order to achieve maximal strength of character. Desirable traits such as patience, empathy, forbearance, kindness, and grit are all best developed under trying circumstances. As Elihu outlines, what we humans call ‘evil’ is merely God’s way of coaxing us into moral and spiritual growth. As such, travails upon this earth are perfectly consistent with an education-oriented conception of God’s goodness.

Such an answer is at once satisfying and unsatisfying. It provides an intuitively sound defence of God’s actions, and dovetails with the generally acknowledged truth that difficult moments are catalysts for great personal growth, fortifying the soul in its long trudge through a challenging world. Yet such an approach hardly accounts for catastrophes, for those devastating moments in life when something delicate and beautiful is snuffed out before its time. No amount of ‘education’ would be worth such a price. These two possible reactions to this ‘educational’ approach were exemplified in a televised panel discussion between two Oxford professors, the Christian theologian Richard Swinburne and the anti-theistic scientist Peter Atkins. Swinburne attempted to defend God’s justice by explaining that the Holocaust was an opportunity for Jews to display courage and nobility in the face of death. Atkins’ snarling reply was reflexive and unambiguous: “May you rot in hell.”

Such a response was probably swimming around Job’s brain upon hearing Elihu’s words. To inform an old man that the death of all his ten children presents a good opportunity for character building displays a moral shallowness of breathtaking proportion. It is little wonder that Job does not deign to respond.”

Elihus’s ideas are important and interesting, and yet most readers agree his tone, more than his message, seems brash and insensitive to Job’s feelings.

When theology fails to also make room for feelings, and when moral truth denies the messiness of the heart, words that come to comfort may end up hurting instead. Maybe that’s when the guardian angels, whatever they/we are, can help the most.

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