An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 90: Slippery Feet and a Bellyful of Wind (Job 11-15)

Job 11-15
Slippery Feet and a Bellyful of Wind.

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 11
“Should not the multitude of words be answered? and should a man full of talk be justified?”

Zophar the Naamathite replies to Job, starting with “You do talk a lot of rubbish”, more or less. Zophar tells Job that although Job may think himself free from error, God knows any iniquity in a man’s heart, whereas man cannot hope to know God’s thoughts. Zophar suggest to Job that his best course is to offer up penance, even if he doesn’t think himself guilty, as God will pardon those who repent.

Job 12
“He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.”

What is that even supposed to mean? As I’ve said before, the poetry of Job is a nice change from the dry genealogies and rosters, but really, sometimes it verges into the utterly obtuse. It reminds me of sleeve notes on a Bob Dylan album; sounds fancy but doesn’t mean anything. I’m going to pick on this particular verse and see if I can extract meaning. “A lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.” So, you are at ease, you are evidently feeling safe and content. You think of a lamp. And despise it. Because … you don’t think you need one because you aren’t in darkness? So, maybe it means something that you don’t think you’ll need because your current circumstances don’t require it? Maybe. And what of the other end: “He that is ready to slip with his feet.” Possibly by slip the text means in the sense of to slip loose, rather than slide as on ice or a banana skin. Because you wouldn’t be ready for that, right? So, maybe, someone who is preparing to run away. So, someone who is preparing to run is like something you don’t think you need. No, that really doesn’t work.

Help?

The rest of the chapter, however, is pretty clear. Job lists a whole load of things that God causes, and he tends to focus on the negative – drought, dementia, overthrow of kings, that kind of thing.

Job 13
“Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.”

Job continues from what he was saying last chapter, although it’s a bit of a mixed message. On the one hand he upbraids his friends for daring to speak for God, and following on from last chapter he contends that it is God’s right to deliver ill to anyone, but then he also calls upon God to let him know what his sins have been for which he is being punished. So really, I guess, Job is in a state of confusion about his situation, which makes sense.

Job 14
“Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.”

Continuing to wax on his subject, Job addresses the miseries of mortal man. Although a tree may grow new shoots from a stump, when man dies he comes to nothing, like waters dried up in drought or rocks worn away by water.

Job 15
“The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.”

Eliphaz’s rebuttal of Job’s words come next, and like Zophar, he starts by telling Job that he talks to much (“filling his belly with the East wind”). His argument runs that, whilst Job sees the wicked going unpunished, in reality they live their lives in fear of reprisal (divine and human), and in the end will wither up and die. Eliphaz doesn’t like obesity “Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks.”

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