Chesterton & Lincoln's Favorite Biblical Book

I heard the other day that GK Chesterton’s favorite biblical book was Job. As it was Abraham Lincoln’s.  So I picked it up again and read the last ten or so chapters. 

One of the chapters was Job thinking back on the good old days, and his self-depiction was remarkably similar to that of Jesus’s, i.e. he “delivered the poor who cried”, “caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy”, “was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame”, “father to the poor”, “my word dropped upon them like rain”, “my glory ever with me, and my bow ever new in my hand”.. Later, he said, he was persecuted and “spat upon” with his “reputation in shreds” due to his reversal of fortune. Sounds like Jesus’s public ministry followed by his crucifixion. 

But Job’s reaction to his fate was completely different than Christ's so that’s where the story is very different. Jesus did not complain to the Father of the injustice nor demand from Him an accounting for why the cup could not pass him by.  Obviously Jesus knew the book and I wonder if he thought “this is for me”.  Perhaps the book was mostly only for Him? And his mother? Because only they could say with certainty that they were as righteous and sinless as Job and that they would suffer unjustly but that they now - with the example of Job - could chart a different reaction. 

Anyway I read the ending in light of some of the really “hard cases”, as in impossible to fathom, like that of the killing of Alice Hochausler by the Cincy strangler. This is what a commentary says about Job’s repentance after God speaks: 

“His encounter with God's limitless power and wisdom has silenced his tongue and stilled the storms of his mind. Job has come to see (1) that God has ordered all things in the universe according to a divine wisdom that surpasses human understanding (42:3), (2) that God is not accountable to men or required to give an answer to their every demand (42:4), and (3) that wisdom consists, not in solving the riddle of suffering, but in humbling oneself before the Lord (42:6). • Be assured that whatever God ordains, even if its reason lies beyond us, is always the work of One who is wise. We should accept it, no matter how difficult it may be to endure, for God knows and appoints what is best for each of us (St. Basil, Letters 5, 2).”

There is a relief in knowing that you don’t have to know how, in St Basil’s words, how something like Alice’s death was what is in the end the best for us.