No issue has been so difficult for Judaism and Christianity than suffering. The Hebrew people and their Jewish descendants sought to make sense of suffering, and the Old Testament espouses a number of different understandings of it. None of them was successful in answering questions such as why God allows suffering and what purpose there is in suffering. However, the first Testament does narrow the focus of the question to the justice of God (theodicy). The New Testament advances a concept of vicarious suffering and claims that suffering can yield positive results, such as endurance.
