Who speaks for Job's dead wives?

I listened to a minister of a major church yesterday talking about a story from the Old Testament, the story of Ruth. In the story the Israelites had had a number of years of poor crops and bad harvests. But they had prayed to God, who had "heard their prayers" and granted them a good harvest, for which they were ever so thankful.

I wonder, does anyone hear how absolutely bizarre this sounds? If all you want to hear is about the "goodness" of God, and how he responds to prayers, then you probably wouldn't see the huge contradictions built in to the story. Who gave the Israelites all the years of bad harvests in the first place? Why did He wait for years to give them a good harvest? Are we expected to believe that something was special in their prayers in the seventh (or whatever) year? Were they not humble enough before?

This story is like hearing about a bully who has for seven (or however many) years been mistreating and beating people up, but after a number of years the people he has been beating up beg him in a heartfelt way to stop, and he stops beating them up. Then the people are grateful and worship the bully.

Unless you believe that God was not in charge of the bad years. Then we have a different set of questions. Who was in charge of the bad years? Did God let that person be in charge or was God off having lunch with friends? Why did God let someone else manage the store? Why would he let the Israelites, his "chosen people", be managed by an incompetent or evil manager? And why would he wait for humility and prayers to resume his post?

Another example comes to mind. You will probably recall the story of Job. Job was a God-fearing man with a good farm, many wives and healthy children. He was doing just fine. However, God and Satan are chatting over a pint and a bet is made. The bet, by Satan, is that anyone could worship a God who does good stuff, but what happens when the going gets tougher? So God gives Satan freedom to do whatever he wants to poor Job, who is taking care of business and minding his farm and who doesn't see any of this coming. Satan destroys everything, killing everyone and everything in sight, and poor Job is next seen sitting in the ruins of his house with absolutely nothing, just sitting there scraping at his boils with a fragment of broken pottery. Long story short, Satan tries to get Job to renounce God, but Job refuses to do so, so Satan loses the bet and has to buy the next round. As a reward for his fidelity, God restores Job's farm, gives him new stock, wives and children to replace the dead ones.

What is usually overlooked here is how this story would play out if it were being told by the dead wives or the dead children. What kind of a deal is that for them? They get killed and replaced like poker chips in a GAME by God and Satan. I see a certain inequity in God's handling of his faithful, since one clearly has to assume that the dead wives and children were Israelites and believers.

My point is that few of the Bible stories make any sort of rational sense. People taking them as literally true are left with an arbitrary Universe in which neither faith nor fidelity make any sense or any difference. Is some modern Bible-story writer going to tell a story of how the Israelites in Nazi Germany were punished by God for something or another? Is it going to be their fault, and the survivors supposed to be grateful for being saved?

Who will speak for Job's dead wives and children?