Picture this: You’ve done everything right, by the book. You work hard every day, you pay your bills on time, you even let people merge in front of you—and God knows just how painful that can be. Then, out of nowhere, life punches you in the face. You lose your job. Your friends stop returning your calls—if you’re introverted, they stop returning your texts—and you break out in mysterious boils that form in the pattern of Orion’s Belt.
That’s pretty much what happens in Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, an ancient Mesopotamian text where a devout man suffers and questions the gods in vain, except that last part about Orion’s Belt, I made that up. Instead of losing his job and getting ghosted, this guy is trying to figure out which god decided to ruin his life for the heck of it. Because if there’s one thing the ancients understood, it’s that the gods were unpredictable. You could do everything right—burn the right incense, say the right prayers, donate the right sheep—and still wake up one day to find your life in ruins for no reason.
Ludlul’s lament is one of the oldest “Why is this happening to me?” texts in history. And if this sounds familiar, it’s because the Book of Job tells almost the exact same story—except this time, Yahweh is the one not returning messages. Two different cultures, same ancient frustration: Why does god allow good people to suffer?
Go ahead and toss out any sabbath school versions of Job or the mental gymnastics required to make this story fit neatly into whatever theological box you need it to. Job is not a neat morality tale—honestly, it reads more like a horror story where a man gets caught in a bet and rages at God, who never explains Himself. The story begins with ha-satan—not to be confused with the Satan later in the New Testament. Job’s ‘adversary’ isn’t the horned, pitchfork devil featured in every Halloween store; according to some biblical scholars, ha-satan (literally “the accuser”) is a title, not a name. Esther Hamori a Jewish professor, describes ha-satan as a divine prosecutor, apart of the divine counsel. He doesn’t tempt Job; he bets against him in a heavenly courtroom of sorts. And the most shocking part perhaps? God takes the bet. Fast forward 37 chapters of boils, bankruptcy, and burying every single one of his children—the kind of loss that makes a Greek tragedy look tame—and God finally shows up. Not to comfort Job, not to explain anything, but to honestly give what feels like the world’s longest and most condescending lecture of all time, this coming from a former middle school teacher.
It’s not an answer to suffering. It’s a reality check.
God spends an entire chapter on this Leviathan—a fire breathing sea monster that no one can control but Him. In other myths, the gods conquer chaos. Job’s God lets it exist. Chaos isn’t destroyed—it’s part of creation.
Then, happily never after, Job gets new kids and new found wealth. I’m sorry but what about his first children? They are still dead! His suffering is never explained. There’s no justice, explanation nor apology.
Ludlul and Job weren’t written in the same place, apart of the same religion, or in the same language. But they tell a similar story:
Both take a man who did right then wreck him, just to see what happens, which as it turns out is a fairly common practice of ancient deities. Both characters cry out for justice. Both are met with silence. And in both stories, when the gods finally respond, it’s not with an explanation.
Ludlul, like Job, is restored in the end. Sort of, but does it make up for what was lost? Does it ever?
These stories tell us something about ancient people and their fears—that suffering wasn’t fair, that their gods were unpredictable, and that faith and resilience had to exist without certainty. And somehow, thousands of years later, we’re still wrestling with the same questions.
Ludlul and Job don’t give us many answers, in fact I have a lot of questions. But maybe that’s what makes them feel real and relatable.
Because resilience—then and now—isn’t about understanding everything. It’s about holding on, even when the divine response is a sea monster, and hoping the gods don’t decide to make an example out of you.
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