Devotional Thoughts: Why. Why? Why!

In a previous blog post, I mentioned the usage of a couple of reference works: the NIV Study Bible and Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. I generally try to take a text for what it is. However, because the text is originally in Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT), reference works sometimes help bring to light things that the translators have that we don't have. As a rule, the English Bible translations will have footnotes if there are any questions about the rendering of some particular phrases. The reference works often will go into more detail that a brief remark in a footnote. What has struck me over the years in reading the Bible is that those footnotes though not insignificant in number aren't as numerous as one might think for something 2000+ years old and often time those uncertainties don't change the meaning of the text at all or not very much.

The other reason for reference works is the cultural gap! I'm sitting here 21st Century American of Asian ancestry. Job is probably 3000+ years ago Middle Eastern society! Some things are universal: facing suffering. But some things might have a cultural angle and good reference works help us see those dimensions.

Anyway, enough remarks about reference works.

Onto today's reading where we are hit with a 26 verse rant (understandable!) Job 3:1-26:

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job spoke, and said:

“May the day perish on which I was born,
And the night in which it was said,
‘A male child is conceived.’
May that day be darkness;
May God above not seek it,
Nor the light shine upon it.
May darkness and the shadow of death claim it;
May a cloud settle on it;
May the blackness of the day terrify it.
As for that night, may darkness seize it;
May it not rejoice among the days of the year,
May it not come into the number of the months.
Oh, may that night be barren!
May no joyful shout come into it!
May those curse it who curse the day,
Those who are ready to arouse Leviathan.
May the stars of its morning be dark;
May it look for light, but have none,
And not see the dawning of the day;
Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

The first thing I noticed is the change in the way the text is laid out on the online Bible (as well as in hard copy Bibles) which indicates we are looking at poetry.

Question: Does anyone within a click of this blog routinely speaking in poetry? 8-)

There may well have been a literal Job who literally went through the misery we have seen and may well have had long conversations about it with friends. But what we have in hand, in Job the book, is probably a dramatic retelling of those experiences. The cadences and aural qualities and word pictures of poetry can be deeply affecting to the listener. After all, how is it possible that Shakespeare is still revered today? C'mon, nobody speaks in iambic pentameter!?

In this initial 10 verse rant, Job is saying in many different ways: ARGH, I wish I had never been born so I wouldn't have to be sitting here suffering!

Job continued vv. 11-19:

“Why did I not die at birth?
Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?
Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

For now I would have lain still and been quiet,
I would have been asleep;
Then I would have been at rest
With kings and counselors of the earth,
Who built ruins for themselves,
Or with princes who had gold,
Who filled their houses with silver;
Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,
Like infants who never saw light?

There the wicked cease from troubling,
And there the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners rest together;
They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
The small and great are there,
And the servant is free from his master.

Question: do you think Job believed in an afterlife?

He clearly described death as the great equalizer and there is an emphasis on the idea of "rest."

If Job believed in reincarnation, what would his poetry sound like? Would it be hopeful that in the next incarnation of his life, his lot would be better? Would it be fearful that the next go around would be even worse?

If Job believed that there was nothing after death, what would his poetry sound like? Would he describe nothingness as rest?

I've heard that the Hebrew Scriptures are somewhat vague about the afterlife though from what I understand Jewish folks generally believe in one if only to right the scales of justice. From reading this passage of Job, I do get that feeling of some afterlife concept. Rest is a good thing. Job believed if he were dead, he would enter into rest. This does not sound like reincarnation or annihilation.

Job continued vv. 20-26:

“Why is light given to him who is in misery,
And life to the bitter of soul,
Who long for death, but it does not come,
And search for it more than hidden treasures;
Who rejoice exceedingly,
And are glad when they can find the grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
And whom God has hedged in?

For my sighing comes before I eat,
And my groanings pour out like water.
For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,
And what I dreaded has happened to me.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest, for trouble comes.”

Why. Why? Why!

I think God, in wisdom, included this story in our Bibles to give us permission to ask why.

The Bible does have its share of "pie in the sky" hopefulness but it also has a gritty realism that I have grown to love over the years of reading it. My feeling is if it didn't contain the down and dirty realities of life, I would be easily inclined to dismiss it. But here it is: Job, this righteous dude, is at the end of his rope asking God: Why. Why? Why!

Lord, thank you that you are a God who hears us. Thank you that you are a God who includes in the Bible people who doubt like Job here and are flawed like Peter and passionate leading to good and bad situations like David and sketchy like Jacob. Yet you have drawn them to yourself. Lord, thank you that you have reached out to them and to me through Jesus, through the stories of believers through the ages and through my life experience. Help me to always bring everything to you including the doubts and frustrations. Amen.