Why does God Bless Some but Not Others?

by Michael Shackleton · July 31, 2017

Does God favour some and not others – like Cain and Abel? Why do some people have a happy life, while others have it so hard?

I have two questions: Firstly, in Job 2:9, the Douay version has Bless God and die, whereas the New American Version has Curse God and die. Which is correct? Secondly, in my 72 years I have been spared to survive the war during the 1940s, immigration to South Africa, the blessings of wife and children, and I’ve got everything going for me. Why was I blessed in this way when so many millions died violently, despite desperately praying Lord, let it end?

Your two questions are linked by the theme of why God richly blesses some God-fearing people with a comparatively easy life and appears to let others suffer extreme hardships.

Job has unshakeable faith that his worldly blessings come from God, and if they are taken from him, it is God’s will. When his possessions are destroyed and his children killed, he refuses to reproach God and says: Blessed be the name of Yahweh.

His exasperated wife complains: Do you still mean to persist in your blamelessness? Curse God and die. In those times, misfortune was believed to be the result of sin.

Although the early texts from which the Douay Bible was translated, say bless instead of a curse, it is likely that this was a copyist’s error, and the correct word is a curse. This is because of Job’s reply: That is how foolish women talk. If we take happiness from God’s hand, must we not take sorrow too?

Job had been consistently blessing God. His reply to his wife, therefore, makes more sense if she urged him instead to curse God. Modern translations prefer the word curse.

For centuries philosophers and religious teachers have wrestled with your second question. In the movie Zorba the Greek, Zorba asks whether his friend’s books tell him why people must suffer and die, and when the friend says no, Zorba asks: Then what the hell do they tell you? “They tell me”, the bookworm replies, “of the agony of men who can’t answer questions like yours.”

St Paul’s attitude is found in Romans 8:18: The sufferings of this present time cannot be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. The Catechism (314) says: We firmly believe that God is the master of the world and of its history. But the ways of providence are often unknown to us. Only in the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God face to face, will we fully know.