An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 91: You Should Never Go Full Emo (Job 16-20)

Job 16-20
You Should Never Go Full Emo.

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 16

“God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.”

We are back with Job, and he continues much as before, here bemoaning that his ill fortune has put him into the hands of his enemies who now take advantage of him; Job continues to wish that he could put his case for innocence to God, as a man might plead before a judge on behalf of his neighbour. Which, surely he can, and is doing. Perhaps the point is that Job has become so sunk in his misery that he can’t see this as an option yet? I continue to be confused. In some ways it’s better to enjoy this book as one would read TS Eliot – don’t worry too much about the specifics but just let the language wash over you. I don’t want to be one of those people that picks every single line of scripture apart for allegory and deeper meaning; the whole here is probably more than the parts. However, it’s a tricky thing having set myself the task of commenting chapter by chapter. Ah well.

Job 17

“My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.”

More Epic Emo from Job, who claims that he is ready to lay down and die, all things come to death, everything fails in the end. And so on.

Job 18

“His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.”

Bildad replies, after the now mandatory reproval by Job’s friends that he should stop talking. Bildad isn’t very comforting here, evidently getting tired of Job’s endless talk of death and corruption, and so he joins in. Bildad tells of what punishments await the wicked, with terrors and hunger as he walks into a trap of his own making. We even get some proper brimstone (which will be scattered on the habitation of the wicked). The implication, perhaps as before, is that Job must have done something wrong to be punished by God, and so he should stop with all these protestations of innocence.

Job 19

“Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.”

Job’s response again, and there are a few interesting points in this one. Overall, Job tells how everyone including his wife and small children have turned from him (possibly because of the boils more than the poverty; this is not made explicit but if so they are only following guidance from Leviticus; also, didn't they die?), and how he has become thin and frail. We get reference to “escaped with the skin of my teeth”, possibly the origin of this phrase? However, Job still believes in God, and holds the belief that he will be redeemed after death, which is perhaps why he was so desperate to die in early chapters. There’s also the verse “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth” which feels a lot more like a NT verse than an OT verse. Here, of course, the “redeemer” is God, but I can see this being interpreted to be Christ as well, even though that wasn’t a concept when this was originally set down (oh, and there’s almost a bit of fourth wall breaking when Job says “Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!”. If this were played upon a stage now, I would condemn it as an improbable fiction.

Job 20

“Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.”

Zophar replies, and for once he doesn’t tell Job that he talks too much. He does, however, express the opinion that the joy of the wicked and the hypocrite are short-lived. The weight of their sins will weight them down and poison them from within, and any kind of afterlife reward is denied to them. And I think this book is the first time that anything like that has been expressed in the bible. Previously, rewards from God have been temporal success, either directly or for descendants of the person in question. Job is the first book that really makes any kind of mention of an afterlife at all, let alone rewards and punishment. Funny I’d not noticed that before. I think, by the way, that once again Zophar is trying to imply that Job must be a sinner and/or hypocrite because of his divine punishment.