Meaning & Analysis
To exhibit a supreme and unwavering level of patience and endurance in the face of extreme suffering, just as the biblical figure Job did.
Insights
Ideal of Fortitude
The proverb symbolizes the highest ideal of fortitude, representing the capacity to withstand severe and unjust adversity without losing one's composure or faith.
Virtue in Suffering
It frames patience not as passive waiting, but as a profound moral and spiritual virtue that is demonstrated and tested through immense trials and suffering.
The Limit of Endurance
The phrase is often used to define the very limits of human endurance, serving as a cultural standard against which ordinary patience is measured and typically found wanting.
Biblical Allusion
The proverb's meaning is entirely derived from the biblical Book of Job, where a righteous man endures catastrophic losses of family, wealth, and health as a divine test of faith. This story is a foundational text in Western culture for exploring themes of theodicy (the problem of evil) and undeserved suffering.
Literary and Cultural Archetype
The figure of Job serves as a powerful cultural archetype for unwavering resilience. Shakespeare's Falstaff humorously inverts this, claiming to be 'as poor as Job... but not so patient', which underscores how deeply the ideal of Job's patience was embedded in the popular imagination.
Psychological Benchmark
The proverb establishes an almost superhuman benchmark for patience, often used hyperbolically to praise extreme forbearance. It implicitly raises psychological questions about the limits of human endurance and the role of faith in maintaining composure through profound trauma.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is a classic simile, using the structure 'as...as' to create a direct and powerful comparison to a well-known figure.
Biblical Allusion
Its entire meaning relies on a shared cultural and religious knowledge of the story of Job from the Old Testament, making it a form of concise cultural shorthand.
Hyperbole
In most modern contexts, applying the proverb to everyday frustrations is a form of hyperbole, exaggerating the difficulty of a situation by comparing it to Job's legendary trials.
Transcription
Quotations
Let the guide of an Inne, or hee that harboureth guests, be as mery as Hector, as patient as Job, and as wise and discreete as Sibylla.
It had overcome the patience of Job.
This Would wrong, the patience of a Job.
Shakespeare Citations
I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.
Cross References
- See St., no. 1026.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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