An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 89 The Prose Forecast: Good Poetry, becoming Teenage Poetry Later (Job 6-10)

Job 6-10
The Prose Forecast: Good Poetry, becoming Teenage Poetry Later.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Job 6
“For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.”

Before I started Job I was expecting the narrative to follow the course of things gradually being stripped away from Job, and him adjusting each time. Actually it seems somewhat different – all the losses happen in the first few chapters and the rest looks like it might be a series of dialogues between Job and his friends concerning the vagaries of fortune. Which could be interesting. It’s a little like a Socratic dialogue, but an early one where the other characters have more to say than “Yes, I agree”.

Here, Job replies. To be honest this reads so much like poetry I’m having a hard time extracting the meaning, but it feels a bit like he is bemoaning his fate – wanting to die and also berating his friends for not helping him as much as he would like. So it seems as if Satan was right, although at no point in his tirade does Job complain specifically against God, yet.

Job 7
“Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?”

Job continues, in this case it’s clear that he’s addressing God, saying that since man’s days are numbered why should he (Job) continue to linger on in pain and misery, instead asking either for death or for God to get on with it and forgive whatever transgression Job has done and remove the suffering. So again, although Job is railing against God he is also still taking his misfortune as some kind of punishment for things that he has done. I also say again, I could quote pretty much the whole chapter for great phrases.

Job 8
“How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?”

Now it is Bildad the Shuhite’s turn to speak. He reproaches Job for saying the things that he does. The gist of his argument, near as I can tell, is that God does not punish the righteous or reward the wicked, and that hypocrites may think that they are successful but their success is a fragile thing. This, again, doesn’t seem very comforting, nor germane to what Job was saying, but I think Bildad is trying to say that because Job is a good man his misfortunes can’t last forever.

Job 9
“The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?”

Job’s response to Bildad; that it is useless to try to match judgement with God and to plead before Him. Should He choose to punish the innocent and reward the wicked, what say do mortals have in this, against an entity that created the stars and moves the heavens? However, he concludes, if Job were not afraid of God he would put his case before him.

Job 10
“Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?”

What Job would say to God if he had the chance, to whit: why did you create me only to destroy me? Since God made Job in the first place, doesn’t any fault in Job ultimately lie with his creator? (That’s me asking, not Job). Else, says Job, at least let me know what I did wrong. He gets epically Emo at the end, talking of “A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.” It was fun when we started, now it’s starting to get a bit self-indulgent, Job.

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