Dust on the Head
Job’s friends hear of his troubles and arrive as a trio offering sympathy and comfort. As part of this process, they ritualistically sprinkle dust over their heads. This action is a symbolic way of demonstrating an understanding of man’s lowly status in comparison to God through the metaphorical abasement of placing the head at the same level as the feet.
Grease Paint
Eliphaz the Temanite makes a series of rhetorical references to strange behavior in Chapter 15, but perhaps the ultimate in terms of a what the heck does that mean moment is when the imagery of covering one’s face with fat. It is a greasy condition and the symbolism is left unclear, but this is not the only occasion where such symbolism is found in the Bible. Greasing up one’s face with fat is a symbol of pride so haughty it attains the level of arrogance.
The Ostrich
Chapter 39 contains an extended set of verses which describe the behavior of an ostrich mother. The bird lays eggs on the ground seemingly without a care as to the potential for being stepped on by other animals. As a result, the ostrich becomes a symbol of bad parenting and by extension is unfavorably compared to God in His role as divine parent to humanity.
Leviathan and Behemoth
During God’s long impassioned defense of His greatness in comparison to the lowly Job, He points to two of His creations in a way that seems to implicate them as the ultimate handiwork of God’s creative jones. Of Leviathan God seems particularly proud: the mighty fear him, he laughs in the face of arrows and darts, and he stands as king above all the children of pride. Leviathan is the poster child of God’s ability to do all those things which Job cannot. Not that Job ever implies he could.
The Lion’s Roar
Elphaz the Temanite is filled with a taste for symbolic imagery. Chapter 4 has Eliphaz extolling on the nature of lions. Their roar can be quite powerful and terrifying, but it also be a great tool for their predators capable of taking advantage of proximity to attack now defenseless cubs. The zero-sum game here in which the lion ultimately is the loser situates the animal as a symbol of wickedness because of its failure to protect its own.
