When I started this series last summer, I think I began fairly well. I began (especially with the prologue of Chapters 1-2) with what might be rationally pulled out from the texts themselves (“exegesis”). The logical conclusions any reader might draw out from the narrative.
While the first several pieces also contained portions of personal thoughts and responses, relating parts to my own life and feelings, (“eisegesis”), it still felt that I might wade through to Chapter 42 with some type of specific analysis.
However, with passing of time and lessening of focus in this book, I find that when my thoughts prompt a return to this series (I will finish it!) there is some sense that it doesn’t quite matter what chapter I’m on (it is now Chapter 10, which I will insert/read after my writing here!) because somehow, whatever details are contained between Chapter 3 and Chapter 42:6, will fall under the following hearing lenses:
- Job is quite overwhelmed
- Job is trying hard to be understood
- No one can understand Job, fully, for a number of rational reasons, much less fix any of it
- Job is highly rational
- Job is highly irrational
- Job makes (rational) irrational statements in response to an irrational set of problems, and his friends try to make rational suggestions which compound the irrationality of it all
- Job keeps speaking, when he should probably shut up
- Job’s friends are trying to help him
- Job’s friends are literally incapable of understanding Job, though they try, through their forms of discourse (in my Google search, image at end here, I like that Chapters 3-42:6 are named an “intervening poetic disputation”--I like that descriptor)
- Job is in an impossible situation for a number of very real reasons (from his view, which is what matters most)
Even the epilogue, in a sense, is a bit of an irrational ending, if we are honest! Most readers have got to wonder how the replacement of his children, and other things, with new children, made things better. This just made things different.
I am pre-disposed to viewing most of my life trials as a series of phyrric victories. And Chapter 42:7-17 sure does tempt me to categorize Job’s situation as that. But I do suppose it would be somewhat rational to call that a “win.”
So, what are we supposed to take away from the book of Job?
I both know, and have absolutely no clue. Part of me feels that I deeply know the answer, but I would never be able to quite articulate it. Any articulation might sound a bit irrational, and therein lies the rational understanding of the book of Job!
No one can clearly verbalize its meaning! It’s just too much!
I find the book of Job fascinating, as I also do a number of biblical books of the wisdom/poetry/prophetic genre: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah…and…the book of Job.
Back to Job. The book of Job is a problem.
Job has too many problems. And, what makes him the most rational figure (apart from God) is his recognition at the get-go that the premise of there being some solution to any part of it is irrational.
Those who try to give him rational advice, guidance or anything else are highly irrational. Period. They just are. Because their premise is false. In their minds, they think (and speak), “Surely our friend Job has done something to warrant his current state, and surely he can make a few choices and take our suggestions and rectify the situation.”
Their premise involves a false belief that every problem has both a causation and a remedy. Their premise also involves that others can measure and assess how well the person is navigating distresses (or their causation) by certain scales and rulers.
This involves the false belief that for every problem, there is a solution (that doesn’t create some new problem). What they fail to understand that Job’s scenario is bigger than Job. It is bigger than them.
Job needs deliverance from all sorts of evils in both natural and supernatural realms.
And in the end, God, who gave permission to Satan to assault Job (with constraints) in God’s constrained (and totally just, right and inscrutable ways) fixes it all! (Please, readers, don’t interpret my statement wrongly about God’s actions before, during and after…or…I would need the same admonishment God spoke to Job! Trust me, I just can’t explain this right!)
Job. What irrationality.
And now, let’s see what Chapter 10 actually says and scrutinize the irrationality of it all! In some ways, I feel like I’ve given an entire “layperson’s sermon” without reading a speck of the text. As though whatever it says doesn’t actually matter; because, I am certain of what it means!
10 “I loathe my very life;
therefore I will give free rein to my complaint
and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I say to God: Do not declare me guilty,
but tell me what charges you have against me.
3 Does it please you to oppress me,
to spurn the work of your hands,
while you smile on the plans of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as a mortal sees?
5 Are your days like those of a mortal
or your years like those of a strong man,
6 that you must search out my faults
and probe after my sin—
7 though you know that I am not guilty
and that no one can rescue me from your hand?
8 “Your hands shaped me and made me.
Will you now turn and destroy me?
9 Remember that you molded me like clay.
Will you now turn me to dust again?
10 Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese,
11 clothe me with skin and flesh
and knit me together with bones and sinews?
12 You gave me life and showed me kindness,
and in your providence watched over my spirit.
13 “But this is what you concealed in your heart,
and I know that this was in your mind:
14 If I sinned, you would be watching me
and would not let my offense go unpunished.
15 If I am guilty—woe to me!
Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head,
for I am full of shame
and drowned in[a] my affliction.
16 If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion
and again display your awesome power against me.
17 You bring new witnesses against me
and increase your anger toward me;
your forces come against me wave upon wave.
18 “Why then did you bring me out of the womb?
I wish I had died before any eye saw me.
19 If only I had never come into being,
or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!
20 Are not my few days almost over?
Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy
21 before I go to the place of no return,
to the land of gloom and utter darkness,
22 to the land of deepest night,
of utter darkness and disorder,
where even the light is like darkness.”
Thank You For Reading
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