Round-the-clock negotiation

From Philip Roth's third Nathan Zuckerman novel, The Anatomy Lesson (1983):

[Dr. Kotler was saying to Nathan: I'm also] studying Holy Scriptures. Delving into all the translations. Amazing what's in there. Yet the writing I don't like. The Jews in the Bible were always involved in highly dramatic moments, but they never learned to write good drama. Not like the Greeks, in my estimation. The Greeks heard a sneeze and they took off. The sneezer becomes the hero, the one who reported the sneeze becomes the messenger, the ones who overheard the sneeze, they became the chorus. Lots of pity, lots of terror, lots of cliff-hanging and suspense. You don't get that with the Jews in the Bible. There it's all round-the-clock negotiation with God. [p. 337 in the 2007 Library of America edition of Zuckerman Bound: 1979-1985]