God is all-good. God is all-powerful. Terrible things happen. Trying to reconcile these three things is what we call theodicy—an attempt to understand why God allows evil to exist in the world. To quote Abraham: “Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen 18:25).  Click here to read this article on Bible Odyssey website.

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/people/related-articles/theodicy-in-the-hebrew-bible

Contributor

James Crenshaw

Emeritus Professor, Duke University

James Crenshaw is the Robert L. Flowers Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at Duke University. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including Old Testament Wisdom (Westminster John Knox 2010), Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil (Oxford University Press, 2005), Qoheleth (University of South Carolina Press, 2013), and Reading Job (Smyth & Helwys, 2011).