Erupting in Emotion II (Job 3:20-26)
Bill Long 1/12/05
Probing Questions; A Rough Return to Reality
Pain can cut us in two ways. It can close off the springs of creativity by making us take the same mental journey over and over again in rehearsing our pain to ourselves or others. You know what I am talking about. Haven't you ever met a person in distress who can do nothing other than sing the same song of distress over and over again? Pain has dulled not simply their joy in living but has quenched every generative and creative impulse in life. Yet reflection on loss can also lead us to reorient the categories of our thinking, to pose new questions to ourselves, God and others and to open new vistas to us. It begins to do the latter for Job in this passage.
The purpose of this lesson is to follow Job's mental journey from his imagined world of 3:11-19 back to his numbing and tumultuous life in 3:26. Let's begin with 3:20-23.
3:20-23
"20 Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, 21 who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; 22 who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave? 23 Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in?"
A. Job asks two questions in these verses. How are they different from the questions he asks in 3:11, 12? Is the difference in person (first person in 3:11,12; third person in 3:20, 23) significant?
B. How is Job moving from his particular problem to touch upon a universal problem in these verses? He will also do this later in the book, so it is helpful to identify his "method" here.
C. I see Job's ability to extrapolate from his own experience to that of another through these questions as an indication of a mind that longs for answers in his distress. Have you ever asked new questions when loss has come your way? Which new questions/new ideas entered your life?
Job 3:24-26
These three brief verses are among my favorite in the Book of Job because they show that when the reverie of imagined existence and new questions ends, you have to return to the brute facts of your real existence. So, Job returns to the reality of life in these verses.
"24 For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. 25 Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. 26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes."
A. How does 3:25 relate back to 1:5? What was the thing that Job feared? Does the fact that he feared something mean that his faith, portrayed as a model faith in Job 1, was inadequate or even illusory?
B. The last word of the chapter is the Hebrew word translated "trouble" or "turmoil." What is the range of meaning of that term for you?
C. The four phrases in v. 26 are all two-word phrases in Hebrew. Their effect is like four quick knife-thrusts to the spirit or, if that image is too gory for you, of four staccato notes in musical notation. What is the effect of ending this long and ruminative chapter with staccato-like clauses?
D. Is there an air of finality in Job's words in v. 26? Would you think that suicide has crossed his mind?
E. If you were a friend listening to this magnificent and complex poem of Job 3, would you still want to sit on the ground and not say a word (cf. 2:13) or would you speak? What would be going through your mind?
Concluding Thought
One way to look at the Book of Job is to see it as a sort of critical meditation on other biblical passages (especially the Psalms). I have thought that Psalm 90 could have been written in response to Job, or vice versa. Listen to the lines from that Psalm:
"9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh. 10 The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away."
The word "trouble" in Ps. 90:10 and Job 3:26 links these passages. Trouble will be the greatest felt reality for Job as the poetic section "heats up." Are we ready to enter further into that journey now?
Copyright © 2004-2007 William R. Long
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