The adversary’s question in Job asked whether Job served God for nothing. Though Job’s friends encourage him to take the Mesopotamian path of appeasement (confess anything to restore favor with deity), Job maintains his integrity (see his conclusion in Job 27:2–6), demonstrating that he did possess an abstract interiorized standard of righteousness apart from a system of consequences. None of the Mesopotamian literature that deals with the pious sufferer shows this dimension of thinking.
