"I know that my Redeemer lives" The words are from Job 19: 25. Job has turned upon the "comforters" who are blaming him for his own misfortunes; he has railed against the unfairness of his fate because he knows he is innocent of wrongdoing, and refuses to take the easy way out. E professes his everlasting faith in God - he does not know why God is doing this to him, or indeed why God allows the wicked to prosper and the good to be destroyed (it was widely believed at that time that if anything went wrong in your life you had displeased God, and if you were successful you had pleased him). Job knows that the criteria by which God is judged cannot be as simple as the ones we humans use. To us it seems unfair that evil prospers and good does not, but Job acknowledges that God is so much greater, so much more, than we are, that we can't use the same standards. We don't know how the heavens and all they contain were made, nor the earth with its myriad forms of life - only God knows. And only God knows why unharnesses and suffering occur - and even if we were told, we wouldn't be able to understand it, because next to our Creator we are nothing - and yet we and all creation are so beloved it is breath-taking. To Christians, the Redeemer is Christ - but we must never forget that Jesus is the Eternal God in human form, and that Job's Redeemer and hours are one and the same.