Job 14

There is tenderness in this passage. It is a fitting end to the first cycle. I find I must return to where I euphemized Sheol into grave and change it to Sheol - as a statement of hidden love. For this is not 'hell'. Some quote this passage as if Job's word on death is final and understood by him as such. I don't find the results so definitive.

Job seems almost to invent in a sliver of hope what must be thought about God if love is to be reconciled. Then he looks mortality in the face again.

Note there are some verbal conundra below that I have not resolved. Tus Sinai has the suggestion 'loiter' for the first occurrence of 'cease' that may lead to something. Human loiters, but tree doesn't. There is no single word or image that resolves this for me. I could ignore the recurrence but I would rather leave the thorn in the bush. Similarly portion suggests a covenant term.

Human born of woman
is few of days and sated of trouble
As flower it comes forth and is cut off
and it flees as shadow and does not stand
Indeed on such you open your eyes
and me you bring to judgment with you

Who gives purity from impurity? Not one
If engraved are his days, the number of his months with you
his decree you have made and he does not pass over it
Stare away from him and let him cease
while he accepts his days as a mercenary

For there is for a tree hope if it is cut down
that again it will sprout
and its tender branch will not cease
if its root ages in the earth
and in the dust the stock dies
from the smell of water it will flourish
and make a harvest like fresh growth

but a warrior dies vanquished
a human expires and where is he?
waters fail from sea
and stream, desolate, dries up
So mortal lies down and does not rise
till the heavens decay
he will not stir and will not be roused from his sleep

If only you would treasure me in Sheol
and conceal me till turned is your wrath
fix me a decree and remember me
If a warrior will die will he live?
All the days of my pressed service I will wait
till my change comes

You will call and I, I will answer you
the work of your hands you will desire
for then my steps you number(1)
and you do not watch over my sin
my transgression is sealed in a bundle
and you smear over my iniquity

But nevertheless a mountain falling collapses
and a rock is removed from its place
water wears stones
you overflow the abundance of the dust of the earth
and the hope of a mortal you destroy

you prevail in perpetuity and he goes
you alter his face and send him
honoured are his children and he does not know
or insignificant and he does not understand it of them
But his flesh on him is marred(2)
and his being over him will lament

(1) I have not justified 'then' though BDB does list other passages where this word could be taken as such. I think the desolation of his hope waits for four more stichs. In the lines which follow, the verbs: number, watch, seal, and smear reflect earlier uses of the same word but positive rather than negative in tone. One could read them negatively also - pick your poison.
(2) REB seems to have completely 'rewritten' this verse: his flesh becomes his kin, and his soul becomes , his slaves! Interesting ideas.

Note the complementary psalm for this passage might be Psalm 1.

Biblical Studies Carnival LXI

Job gets a mention in the prelude to the parade following the clowns in the Biblical Studies Carnival LXI - Do take a look. James McGrath of Exploring Our Matrix has done a great job of organizing a full month.

Job 13 - God's faces

In the next two chapters, Job presents more of the Psalmist's attitude as he switches from addressing his fellow humans to addressing God directly. Here it is that the simple core of the piece is decided - in the I-Thou encounter, not ever in any theological explanation or set of beliefs about God.

Lo - all this my eye has seen
and my ear has heard and understood
Even as you know, so I also know
I myself do not fall behind you

"Nevertheless for me, to the Sufficient I would speak"
but I desire to reason with the One
And nevertheless for you, smearers of lies
worthless physicians the lot of you
If only you were given silence and you kept silent
it would be wisdom to you

Hear please my reasons
and to the contentions of my lips attend
Will you of the One speak injustice?
and of him speak deceit?
Are you his faces lifting up
or for the One contending?
Is it good that he should find you out
or is it as jesting among mortals that you jest with him?
Reason? he will reason with you
if you concealed lift up faces
Should not his height terrify you
and his dread fall on you

Your memorials are a parable of dust
bodies of clay your bodies
Be silent - back off
and I myself will speak
and he will pass over me
whatever
on whatever
I will lift up my flesh by my teeth
and my life place in my open palm

Lo - he will kill me
I do not wait
Surely my ways before his faces I will reasoning prove
Also he will be my salvation
for a hypocrite will not come before his faces
So hear, hear my speeches
and my declaration with your ears
Behold please I order my judgment
I know for I will be just

Who is this who will contend against me!
For I will be silent - I will expire
But two things do not do against me
then from your faces I will not conceal myself
Your open palm put far from me
and your horror - let it not terrify me
then call and I myself will answer
or I will speak and you will turn to me

For what are my iniquities and my sins
my transgressions and my sins make me to know
and why do you conceal your faces
and count me as your enemy?
a scattered leaf will worry you?
and dry stubble will you hound?

for you write against me bitter things
and you cast in me the iniquities of my youth
You put my feet in the stocks
and watch all my paths
you pierce the roots of my feet
and this as rot decays
as a moth-eaten cloak

There are many new words in this chapter that recur before the end of the middle of this book - I suspect circles of thought surrounding a larger centre. Too big to see at the moment - if possible I will find an algorithm to make the hilights appear in a diagram.

Isaiah 50:4

Who is speaking in this verse? To whom is this verse addressed?

Can I apply it - To Israel? To the prophet? To the Anointed? To self?

אֲדֹנָי יְהֹוִה נָתַן לִי לְשֹׁון לִמּוּדִים
לָדַעַת לָעוּת אֶת־יָעֵף דָּבָר
יָעִיר בַּבֹּקֶר בַּבֹּקֶר
יָעִיר לִי אֹזֶן לִשְׁמֹעַ כַּלִּמּוּדִֽים

Lord יְהֹוִה has given me a tongue of those who are taught
so I may know how to assist the weary with a word
he wakens morning by morning
he wakens for me an ear to hear as those who are taught

After a short discussion on the Biblicalist (where unicode appears as crazy characters), I have arrived at this conclusion for my own thoughts.

I think this verse applies as a microcosm of faith for anyone who is in the role of servant. For me it redefines life away from the need to know the right things about God or about his servant and away from the need to be dominant and towards the simple action of being still and listening.

It is a curious beginning – Adonai YHWH – often translated Lord God – because they had to write something and Lord LORD would look strange.

I (prophet, servant, Israel, Christ, anyone who is anointed, you – me personally) am given a tongue – words to encourage fellow laborers – not copying someone else’s words but my very own – a creative language, not a descriptive or derived language.

To get the tongue I must have an ear – it is a slow process to open an ear. Hearing and obedience are so tightly tied together that the ear can be seen as the obedience of faith itself. Is the whole body an ear? Sometimes yes it is. Listening is the human’s hardest problem when one is concerned with being right or being strong rather than being servant. So the first commandment on Sabbath is Hear – O Israel…

Job 12

And Job answered and said
Truly you are the people(1)
and with you is complete wisdom(2)
But I have a heart as well as you
I myself do not fall behind you(3)
and is there anyone who is not like these?

A laugh to his neighbor am I
"called on God and he answered him"(4)
a laugh, the one who is just and complete
a contemptuous lamp in the thought of one at ease
prepared for those whose feet are slipping
The tents of robbers are safe
they who provoke the One are trustworthy
whatever God brings to their hand

"nevertheless ask please Behemoth and she will instruct you(5)
and a bird of the heavens and he will tell you
or complain to the earth and it will instruct you
and the fishes of the sea will recount it to you"
who does not know among all these
that the hand of יְהוָה has done this?

"In his hand is the being of every life
and the breath of all the flesh of a man"
Does not the ear scrutinize speeches
and the palate its food taste?

"with the aged is wisdom
and with length of days acumen
with him is wisdom and power
of him is counsel and acumen"
Lo - he overthrows and it will not be built
he shuts a man up and it will not be opened
Lo - he withholds in the waters and they dry up
he sends them out and they ravage(6) earth

With him is might and success
of him is the stray and the strange(7)
He leads counselors away plundered
and makes judges dunderheads(8)
mentor of kings he opens
and ties their loins with a girdle
he leads priests away plundered
and the perennial(9) he distorts
he turns lips from those who have faith in themselves
and the discretion of the aged he takes away
he pours contempt on nobles
and the dam of the stream he lets it be
he reveals the deep things out of darkness
and brings them forth in the light of obscurity
increasing the nations to make them perish
spreading out the nations to guide them
he turns away the heart of the head of the people of the earth
and makes them wander formless without a way
they grope darkness without light
and he makes them wander like a drunkard

(1) assuming the definite article which is not in the Hebrew per TS
(2) reading the vowels differently (per TS)
(3) TS suggests make fall, נפל (traditionally rendered inferior) be considered as separate or different (from פלה). Reasoning unclear to me but the sense is similar. I prefer the NEB 'fall behind' which I noted this morning in Church - reading when I should have been listening.
(4) NEB reads afflicted instead of answered. It does not seem necessary to amend the text. The sarcasm and quoting of prior conversation can be read. It takes a performer to mimic.
(5) to match Behemoth in chapter 40 (so Good, In Turns of Tempest, A Reading of Job) - note plural antecedent, singular verb
(6) הפך used 12 times in Job and I am going to give it a different gloss for every usage except in the same speech, poem or strophe - obscuring its thread (Job 9:5, 19:19, 20:4, 28:5, 28:9, 30:15, 30:21, 34:25, 37:12, 38:14, 41:28).
(7) TS has aberration and derangement; JB beguiler and beguiled; Clines: in his power are the deceiver and the deceived.
(8) The Hebrew also rhymes מֹולִיךְ יֹועֲצִים שֹׁולָל וְֽשֹׁפְטִים יְהֹולֵל , shulal with cholul
(9) Difficult word - perennial (also Job 33:19) - Clines: brings to ruin men long established, TS: distorts (the words of) the truthful-with some emendation of the text; JB: overthrows established powers.
Complementary psalm - 107.

Job 11 - the faces of Job

Then answered Zophar the Naamathite and he said

Will many words not be answered
as if man with lips will be justified?
Your deceptions make males speechless
and you deride without humiliation
and you say - my take is "clean"
and "pure" am I in your eyes
nevertheless let it be given that God will speak
and open his lips against you

and tell you secret wisdom
that they are double success
so know that for you God removes(1) your iniquity

The finding of God do you determine
as if consummately you determine the Sufficient?
High as heaven, what will you do?
Deep(1) as Sheol, what do you know?
Longer than earth of measure
broader than sea
If he passes or shuts
or gathers, who can turn him?
for this one knows an empty male
and he sees iniquity, will he not understand?
and a hollow man will be heartened
when a wild ass's foal is born a human

If for you, you establish your heart
and stretch out to him your open palms
if the iniquity in your hands you put far away
and do not let injustice dwell in your tent
for then you will lift up your face without blemish
and you will be poured firm and will not fear
For you, you will forget misery
as waters pass on you will remember
and at noon transience will rise and fly away
as morning you will become

And you trust for there is hope
and you dig to trust and you lie down(2)
You will recline and no one will make you quake
and many will soften your face(3)
but the eyes of the wicked will be consumed
and flight perishes from them
their hope is to lose their lives(4)

(1) my impression is that there are a number of individual words accumulating through the conversation that will recur in God's speeches - in this case 'wisdom' and 'remove' balance the removal of wisdom for the Ostrich.
(2) reflects two words of chapter 3 (dig, lie down). This being Zophar's first response, and that God responds to chapter 3 also, I think it important to find concordant words. You see my point on concordance has nothing to do with absolute meaning but with structural usage and character development - these folks are really trying to listen (Isaiah 50:4) so let's not write them off completely - otherwise why would Hashem ask Job to make sacrifice for them?
(3) these last three verses have tired and challenged me - the justification for the traditional translation goes against the grain. Why faces or presence? Why seek your favour for a word that means 'make you sick'. It sounds like grasping at straws or rendering what the translator thinks ought to be there. פנים occurs 67 times in Job, this verb חלה occurs once. I imagine the faces of Job as reflected in the substantial lament in this poem - they are softened when they are read by us in our own time and place. (Even if Zophar ultimately has the shoe on the wrong foot.)
(4) מַפַּח־נָפֶשׁ - these two words in a different form but similarly related recur in Job 31:39

Job 10

This passage should be read with Psalm 139 and the prior one should be read with Psalm 39. How could I have come to the psalms without Job or to Job without the psalms? Where we had sarcasm, we now have tender appeal.

Other translations are filled with conditional and modal verbs. They may be right! When he says here that he 'abandons his complaint', I hear him giving up - going on to the grave - so he can invite God back into the tenderness he exhibited by creating Job. It is a remarkable turn about but though it hints at tenderness in God, it is not successful in uncovering the problem which we readers are aware of from the prologue, or achieving a relenting from the Most High - not yet anyway.

My colouring is spotty but slightly suggestive of theme and frame - the only frame word is 'shine'.

It is moot how one approaches the character of Job - how can one identify with the upright who fears God and turns from evil? Look at this one verse:

but there is not from your hand a rescue

Is this positive or negative? Once in your hand, there is no rescue out of your hand - or I do not see rescue coming by means of your hand? Most people translate and read it negatively as if God is an ogre. But I don't see why in this case it should be negative - except by absence of effect - i.e God does not will it rather than no one else is strong enough to effect a rescue with God as enemy. Attitude is an intriguing problem for a reader.

My being is grieved with my life
I abandon for me my complaint
I speak in the misery of my being
I say to God - do not condemn me
Let me know why you contend with me
Is it good to you that you oppress
that you refuse the labour of your open palms
and shine on the counsel of the wicked?

Eyes of flesh have you
that you see as a mortal sees?
Are your days as the days of a mortal
that your years be as the days of a warrior
that you search my iniquity
and my sin seek out?

In your knowledge I am not wicked
but there is not from your hand a rescue
your hands shaped me and made me
together on every side yet you swallow me
Remember please that as clay you made me
and to the dust you will bring me

Have you not as milk poured me out
and as cheese curdled me
skin and flesh - you clothed me
and with bones and sinews you hedged me
life and loving-kindness- you made for me
and your visit - you watch my spirit
and these things you treasured in your heart
I know this is with you

If I have sinned, you watch me
and from my iniquity you will not acquit me
If I am wicked - woe to me
and just - I will not lift up my head
sated of confusion so you see my affliction
As proud as the aged beast you hunt
you return demonstrating wonders with me

you renew your witnesses before me
and multiply your indignation against me
changes and a host are upon me
so why from the womb did you bring me forth?
I expire and no eye will see me
As if I had not come from the belly
to the tomb I am being conducted

are not they few - my days?
Cease your fixation from me and let me smile a little
before I go and not return
to the land of darkness and obscurity
a land of faintness and like the gloom of obscurity
without order and the shining is like gloom

Job 9

This post combines chapter 9 segments from the two previous posts to allow observation of the framing. Some words seem small and insignificant - like so or if. But 'if' will be taken up in chapter 31 as a repeated trope and its repetition here is more than in other chapters. 'So' is a minor opening and closing and I did not note the 'therefore' which matches in the middle. I made a few adjustments to strophes.

The theme of creation is continued from chapter 3, the uncreation of Job. Job himself is at the center using separate particles for the first person pronoun 5 times in this chapter. I find myself wondering how much of the creation imagery and mythology is meant as a recognition of a human psychological reality (like the serpent in Harry potter that joins Riddle and Potter at the hip). Who advised God at the beginning of creation? Who did a design review? The irony of verse 12 - what are you doing!

And Job answered and said
In truth I know and so what!
And how can a mortal be just with the One!
If one desires to contend with him
one cannot answer him once in a thousand
wise of heart or courageous of strength
who hardens against him and remains whole?

He removes mountains
and they don't know what hit them in his anger
He provokes earth from her place
and her columns shudder
He speaks to the sun and it stops sunning
and of stars - he seals them
stretching out the heavens? he alone
and walking on water!
making the Great Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades
and the parts of the South
"who does great things and there is no finding out
his wonders without number!"(1)

Lo - he passes over me and I don't see him
he passes quickly and I don't understand him(2)
Lo - he seizes, who can hinder him
who will say to him - what are you doing?
God does not turn his anger
under him the helpers of Rahab bow

And I myself, I answer him?
and choose my words with him?
who, if I were just, I would not answer
to my judge, would I make supplication?
if I had called and he had answered
I would not believe he had listened to my voice

who with a whirling tempest bruises me

and multiplies my wounds for nothing
he will not give me a turn to breathe
but satisfies me with bitterness

If of strength - behold courage
If of judgment - where is my appointment?
If I justify myself, my mouth condemns me
Complete - me? It perverts me
Complete - me, I do not know my being
I refuse my life

One thing therefore I said
complete or wicked he consumes
If a scourge slays suddenly
the testing of the innocent he derides
earth is given into the hand of the wicked
the faces of the judges he blindfolds(3)
if not there? then who -

My days are swifter than a blog post
they flee away
they see no good
they pass as ships of papyrus
as the eagle swoops to its food

If I say I will forget my complaint
I will abandon my face and smile sweetly
I dread my injuries
I know you will not acquit me
And I - shall I be wicked?
Why so? I would toil in vain

If I wash myself in waters of snow
And brighten with purity my open palms
then in a pit you will plunge me
and my clothes will abhor me
for not a man like me
that I will answer him
that we come together in judgment
There is not between us a referee(4)
that might fix his hand on the two of us

Let him turn away from me his staff
and let not his horror terrify me
I would speak and not fear him
for not so am I with myself(5)

(1) a direct quote from Eliphaz - I am assuming a certain sarcasm of the obvious as I hope you can tell. I wonder if the definite article with the participles in vv 5-7 and then dropping it in vv 6-8 might indicate the tone of voice.
(2) Tur Sinai's thesis of misplaced dream sequence is untenable - here Job reflects Eliphaz and his passing spirit in Job 4:15
(3) courtesy of Clines and forget the concordance
(4) this bon mot umpire from Tur Sinai - though Jerusalem Bible's arbiter is nice too. Still for reasons noted later - see between chapters 32 and 33 - I have changed it to referee - the word is 'one who could reprove both of us'.
(5) Tur Sinai considers the last stich in Hebrew belongs to the next thought in chapter 10. Maybe - but Clines has a pleasant solution which I have adopted with slight variation.

Job 9:17-35

Didn't know that Job had email, eh? And say not that there is no smile in my translation. Chapter 10 has one too.

...who with a tempest bruises me
and multiplies my wounds without cause
he will not give me a turn to breathe
but fills me with bitterness
if of strength - behold might
if of judgment - where is my appointment?

If I justify myself, my mouth condemns me
Complete - me? It perverts me
Complete - me, I do not know my being
I refuse my life
One thing therefore I said
complete or wicked he consumes

if a scourge slays suddenly
the testing of the innocent he derides
earth is given into the hand of the wicked
the faces of the judges he blindfolds(1)
if not there? then who -

My days are swifter than email
they hurry away
they see no good
they pass as ships of papyrus
as the eagle swoops to its food

If I say I will forget my complaint
I will abandon my face and smile sweetly
I am afraid of my injuries
I know you will not acquit me
And I - shall I be wicked?
Why so? I would toil in vain

If I wash myself in waters of snow
And make clean with purity my palms
then in a pit you will plunge me
and my clothes will abhor me
for not a man like me
that I will answer him
that we come together in judgment
there is not between us an umpire(2)
that might fix his hand on the two of us

Let him turn away from me his staff
and let not his horror terrify me
I would speak and not fear him
כִּי לֹא־כֵן אָנֹכִי עִמָּדִי
for not so am I with myself(3)

(1) courtesy of Clines and forget the concordance
(2) this bon mot from Tur Sinai
(3) Tur Sinai considers the last stich in Hebrew belongs to the next thought in chapter 10. Maybe - but Clines has a pleasant solution which I have adopted with slight variation.

At some point - perhaps after the first cycle, I will attempt more interpretation. I am also experimenting with forms to see if some diagrams may emerge.

A note on concordant translation: I am not exactly a slave to using the same word in English for the same word in Hebrew. The correspondences are many to many - not one to one. Sue has a lovely post here from the introduction to the KJV - scroll to the bottom for the quote in the comments. The KJV admits to being non-concordant where the translators so chose. Well - they had a different set of problems than I do and they made a different set of errors and happy phrases than I am making. I agree that rigid concordance is not only impossible but may be misleading. I disagree when creative synonymy obscures a conversation or a structural form - such as I have called thread and frame. Forms are important to the understanding of the piece.

I also object to concordance used or not to reinforce what the translator thinks the text should say. We all can do this - how much of the KJV implicitly supports the Divine right of Kings or the submission of the people to due publick order? And do I know what the text says? No - the text says nothing. I think my response to the text, and I imagine that I touch the mind of an ancient author. I experience the text in me and I believe the touch of the present God. Both are my privilege and both essentially uncommunicable.

A funny song

No millions of viewers - but the song was fun - smiles all around. See here.

Job 9: 1-16

And Job answered and said
In truth I know and so what!
And how can a mortal be just with God!
If one desires to contend with him
one cannot answer him once in a thousand
wise of heart or mighty of strength
who hardens against him and remains whole?

He removes mountains
and they don't know what hit them in his anger
He provokes earth from her place
and her columns shudder
He speaks to the sun and it stops shining
and of stars - he seals them
stretching out the heavens? he alone
and walking on water!
making the Great Bear, Orion, and a star cluster
and the parts of the South
"who does great things and there is no finding out
his wonders without number!"(1)

Lo - he passes over me and I don't see him
he passes quickly and I don't understand him(2)
Lo - he seizes, who can hinder him
who will say to him - what are you doing?
God does not turn his anger
the helpers of Rahab bow under him
And I myself, I answer him?
and choose my words with him?
who, if I were just, I would not answer
to my judge, would I make supplication?
if I had called and he had answered
I would not believe he had listened to my voice

16 verses is enough for now - think on it.

(1) a direct quote from Eliphaz - I am assuming a certain sarcasm of the obvious as I hope you can tell. I wonder if the definite article with the participles in vv 5-7 and then dropping it in vv 6-8 might indicate the tone of voice.
(2) Tur Sinai's thesis of misplaced dream sequence is untenable - here Job reflects Eliphaz and his passing spirit in Job 4:15

The positive aspects of the Afghan law

An afghan in English is a rug for warmth. This law that is being talked about in Afghanistan is seen as an affront to women's rights over their own bodies. (for some recent comment see here and here.) Of course this is true - and it is my conclusion as well as my bias after but a short lifetime. But what if there is love between a man and a woman? Would woman exercise such power over her husband's body?

What! A woman has power over her husband's body - no way! you say.

If you know me, you know I am searching for words to find a positive aspect to this disempowerment of women - for from the Afghan male's point of view, this is a power which he acknowledges but does not want the woman to exercise. Who would put himself under such a power! Who would allow his own desire for pleasure to require such a law? Who would then admit it publicly!

Now the positive aspect is this. The law recognizes the woman's power. The negative aspect is the attempt to legislate the relinquishment of such power. It makes the Islamic law a laughing stock in the world. Who needs cartoons?

What is the equivalent 'Christian' law? What is the law of love that is universal? That each should give to the other pleasure, not that any should take pleasure for him or herself. Hear the word of the Spirit who takes a body for himself:

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband:
and likewise also
the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
Defraud ye not one the other, except with consent for a time [not 4 days],
that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer;
and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
But I speak this by permission, not of commandment.
For I would that all men were even as I myself.
But every man hath his proper gift of God,
one after this manner, and another after that.

Is it too hard for you to read this? It is an old translation of an older text from about 57 AD. If it is too hard to read, try the Greek, or perhaps you think you can understand the all-Merciful in only your own terms. Whoever cannot submit to abstinence for 4 days has never known submission even for 1 day. Whoever submits to the power of another in the marriage bed does not take but receives what can only be given in love. Love cannot be legislated.

This Satan - just translate as accuser and play the role yourself. How easy it is for things to deflect us from the way of love: jealousy - our own inner accusations of another, or quilt - no that's an Afghan - guilt, I mean - our own inner accusations of self.

For man - frequently read 'one' lest you read male into Paul's writing. Note how he does not give commandment - he knew that human impossibility. That God gives commandment to love is the ultimate invitation. Note also that abstinence is for fasting and prayer. You really should ask why - and refuse to give an answer till the Bridegroom shows you. Then you will begin to learn that never again should you demand pleasure for yourself. The rationale will be that you have learned your meeting place with the Most High.

For those who know the mercy seat that is the place of the death of Christ Jesus, you will know also why it is that Rabbi Akiva said - "had the Torah not been given, the Song would have been sufficient for our teaching."

Of course where there is no love, what can one expect except violence and rape? No warmth or comfort is possible in such a place. If you only read the latest books, you really are missing out.

Images of non-discernment

These are silly - and I will probably stop. I have to rebuild them anyway since I changed the algorithm - I wonder what colours the individual nodes are now!

You can easily tell when the poetry begins though. Image 1 is chapters 1-3, then 4-6, then 6-9. I had better get on with translating.

Job - large scale structure of the tale

For the general shape of this rather colorless image I am indebted to Michael Cheney's book, Dust, Wind, and Agony. (The colours are calculated by my inimitable gematria mapping.)

Ecclesial troubles

Macrina has a quote here from Zizioulas

A confessional Church is the most disincarnate entity there is; this is precisely why its content is usually borrowed from one or other of the existing cultures and is not a locality which critically embraces all cultures.

Do you want to be disincarnate?

Or what about this one - and the notion of alternate oversight

It is extremely significant that in the entire course of church history there has never been an attempt at establishing a super-local eucharist or a super-local bishop. All eucharists and all bishops are local in character - at least in their primary sense.

What a mystery - how can Church exist at all these days?

My Church is in my strange entanglement with the cross of Christ. This is my meeting place with God - an event in history with non-local manifestations, making my atoms, polarizing my light in communion with his light, my new man/old man - creating a refraction pattern based on this good source of light. And yes I do attend services - but not many (any?) there use this language as I use it.

Inside and outside

It is all too easy to feel like an outsider in a strange context. This is partly the problem Paul had in writing to the Romans and trying to get them to be true to the Shema (as Mark Nanos interprets Paul's reference in Romans 3:27). But consider - if Paul thought that the Gentiles were being grafted into Israel and Israel as represented by the established Diaspora communities within the structure of the Empire wanted no such thing - then there would be sharp resistance. All three Abrahamic faiths have put up boundaries of confession or exclusivity. Allowing the Oneness of God in our collective hearts is therefore very difficult for us. It is more than an intellectual or even political problem. The action called for is difficult and that's without even considering the influence of secularism - which itself has much to commend it for its honest skepticism. I wonder how a unifying voice can be heard.

I hear people like Rachel Barenblatt through her poetry and personal experience. I find Irshad Manji works perceptively for Islam and I am looking forward to April Deconick for early Christian history. Among recent scholars, I enjoy James McGrath for his questioning.

If there is a unity - and this I believe, for I believe that the light is good (Genesis 1:4) and that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8), and that our agreement on this alone would be some measure of unity in faith - but if there is such unity, it cannot call for a conversion between 'religions' or even for a conversion to 'religion'. Even for Christians, conversion is not equivalent to fulfilling the great commission and thereby 'making disciples', whatever the head counters think.

Rather I think it may be expressible by negatives: turning away from those things that damage others, turning away from fear and defensive positions. Such acts are hard enough. If, on the other hand, there is only competition for scarce resources and a lack of real creativity, then we have only a limited transience to celebrate and we can look forward to more self-protection at all costs, war and destruction. Should we then conclude that "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" is the only sensible response to the real?

That is why the negative approach is simplest to say. The positive approach cannot be known unless the barriers are down. Limited resources and fear are both barriers but they are not the most powerful. Among the powerful is the need to be right and to be inside rather than outside. Is it also deceptive? Can we in fact be right and continue hurting others by our insecurity? Can we be inside through accepting a confession of faith and yet still know within us a noisy chaos?

John did not write, God so loved the church... (John 3:16) nor did Jesus in John's gospel limit himself to Israel as he did in the synoptic gospels. But there is no mention of Christianity as a religion. Believing that God is love does not require you to be a Christian. Salvation and joy are not exclusive to Christianity. Paul is not remotely happy with such a possibility (Galatians 2:18) nor is he necessarily exclusive as the fundamentalists say over the definition of who is a 'brother' (Romans 14:15).

Religions have gathered (pace Hebrews) and enforced gathering and confession because of fear and through violence. Even translations are molded to subdue the people to the powers that be. Translations often without warning substitute a word or phrase that interprets what the translator thinks the word should say - not what it does say. (Try it, you will soon see what I mean - there is no substitute for training the ear than conducting a choir or learning to play a stringed instrument in an orchestra.)

I am biased of course. I do not think I could know these things for myself except through the Anointing I have come to know through the word and life of Jesus. I also note that others like the Sufi who seem to record a similar experience (see my post here) are often persecuted for incarnationalism. I must remain critical within my own tradition. My voice is one in many, whether of many or not I do not know.

Reference: Mark Nanos, The Mystery of Romans (1996) P183ff

Job 8

Bildad - perhaps 'son of contention', and he seems to come out the least of the three, but there are great peculiarities and incongruities in this visionary statement, perhaps a little quantum entanglement, and even some ironic prophecy. (Oh my aching adjectives.)

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said
How long will you give speech to such things!
a great wind are the words of your mouth
does the One subvert judgment
and does the Sufficient subvert justice?

If your children sinned against him
then he sent them away by the hand of their transgressions
As for you, if you would seek the One early(1)
and ingratiate yourself to the Sufficient(2)
if you yourself are clean and upright
he will rouse himself for you(3)
to make whole the home of your justice

and as your beginning was small
so your end will increase greatly
but do ask of a former generation
and establish the findings of their fathers
for we ourselves are yesterday and know nothing
for a shadow are our days upon earth
will not they instruct you and say to you
and from their heart bring forth speeches

Can rush grow lacking a swamp
reed increase without water?
yet in its tenderness and unplucked
in the face of any grass it dries up

So are the paths of all who forget the One
and the hope of the hypocrite perishes
whose confidence will be cut off
and a spider's web(4) his trust
let him support his web but it will not stand
let him prevail in it, but it will not rise

Moist in the face of the sun(5)
and in his garden his branch comes forth
around rubble his roots are wrapped
the house of stones he discerns

if swallowed from his place
then it will deny him - I have not seen you
Lo - this is the joy of his way
but from dust others will spring up

Lo - God will not reject completeness
nor will he prevail in the hand of evildoers
till he fills with laughter your mouth
and your lips with a shout of joy
those hating you will be clothed with shame(6)
and the tent of the wicked will be as nothing

(1) remember Job's prayer - these words exactly
(2) ingratiate - anticipating the positive aspects of grace later
(3) remember the earlier 'rousing' of Leviathan
(4) lit. house
(5) these next two verses I am taking as an extended metaphor on the rush and reed; Tur Sinai considers these verses refer proleptically to the righteous of verse 20 - they could equally well have elements of sarcasm - 'such joy' meaning its opposite. The dead body in the marsh is not out of line. It could have the double entendre of a death that gives life - but then I push the swamp too far perhaps :) JB and Clines use the extended metaphor also.
(6) verses such as these in the psalms seem to have meaning - but the psalms are in covenant and this poem seems to me to be at most within a covenant of natural law. At least the psalmist is addressing God - where the friends here are addressing themselves - and so it is with many religious today - need I name any?

Job 7

I stopped mid-strophe in my last post - the job of Job is increasingly difficult for me as I research more books. Also I am testing ways of seeing as I go (with a little success). I repeated all of chapter 7 here since it is a closed circle. The next speaker will pick up phrases of the first and last verses.

Do you think Job is portrayed as outside of the Davidic covenant? His lament has no apparent recourse as do the laments in the Psalms. But see Psalm 144:3-4 and also Psalm 8:4.

Is it not the press-gang for a mortal on earth
like the days of a mercenary, his days?
like a slave, he longs for a shadow
like a mercenary, he expects work

So there is to me a torrent of empty months
and nights of misery are set for me
when I lie down, I say
when shall I arise and the dusk be tossed
and I am sated with tossing till twilight

Clothed is my flesh, worms and clods of dust
my skin split and repugnant
my days swifter than a weaver's shuttle
and they are consumed in terminating hope

Remember that but a breath is my life
my eye will not return back to see good
the eye of my seer will not look on me
your eyes on me and there is no me

a mist consumes and it goes(1)
so one descending to Sheol will not make an offering
he will no longer return to his house
and his place will no longer recognize him

so as for me I will not spare my mouth
I will speak in the trouble of my breath
I will complain in the bitterness of my being
Am I the sea or a sea monster that you put a watch on me?

When I say my bed will comfort me
and my couch will lift my complaint
then you break me with dreams
and with visions terrify me

My being would chose strangling
and death than my body

Enough! - I will not live for ever(2)
Cease from me - for my days are vanity(3)

What is a mortal that you make him great
and that you fix on him your heart
and that you visit him every morning
and every moment scrutinize him?
How long till you not stare at me
or let me be till I swallow my spit?

I have sinned? what do I do to you, keeper of the human?(4)
or why have you set me as your target
so that I am to myself a heavy load?(5)
And why not lift up my transgression
and pass over my iniquity?(6)
for now in the dust I will lie down
and early you will seek me and there is no me

(1) every other translation I have seen so far puts these verbs in the passive - but they are not niphal - why would I read the qal as passive?
(2) enough - literally 'I reject', but Tur Sinai suggests dropping the aleph from מָאַסְתִּי and reading as an exclamation
(3) vanity - הבל the name of Abel, I have distinguished it in this chapter from שוא Shv in verse 3 which I translated empty and also from רוח Ruach, wind, spirit, which here is 'but a breath'. I would like to play more with the breeziness and transience of Havel - but maybe - when we finish this labour, we will find a way to write a poem on Job.
(4) both Tur Sinai and Clines have this as an implied question
(5) both the above have to you instead of to me. Apparently the imputation that we are a burden to God was too much for the Masoretes.
(6) yes it's the same verb as in Exodus.

Faith and judgment - physical resurrection reframed

Miscellaneous things and why I believe the resurrection. My most incoherent post to date.

April DeConick is starting a series on How Jesus became God - this should be fun. At least with April, the fundamentalists won't have to debate if she is apostate as they do with James McGrath - they will take that for granted. I won't even consider the question. Is X apostate is one of those bad questions that should be unasked. Rather ask, is X loved by God? If you have a God who is love, then the answer is obvious. So make sure you act like that God of love and go on to other questions.

The Scriptures are filled with contradiction - one word speaks against another. A simple example from the New Testament: John 5:24 versus Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10. Now I know one could spend a lifetime reconciling these or one could even reconcile them in a few words - there must be differing types of 'judgment'. But does such reconciliation help or is it even necessary? One can come to believe in one's own watering down of the text like maybe we believe this or that confession but in the meanwhile risk forgetting to love our neighbour or otherwise engage with God.

Here's the simplest circle - and I have heard it applied by both Islamic and Christian fundamentalists. The doctrine of inerrancy says: if two Scripture verses contradict each other, the contradiction is in my understanding, not in them. And so I must make up a story - this is called theology - which explains the violation of the law of inerrancy. Surely that is enough of that - eh? Is Christ and his resurrection just another talk show?

Science and faith. I came across a cute set of questions by someone calling himself Jason - he is without blog and otherwise unidentified:

If Jesus is in heaven now, are His atoms in heaven? If so, does the strong nuclear force exist in heaven? Is there any sense of talking about physical space for Jesus' physical body to reside in? Does His heart still beat(?) circulating blood that circulates oxygen from the lungs around the body? Is the top layer of His skin cells still dead, as they were when He was on earth?

These questions need summarizing: 'Is love real' is a shorter question. The short Pauline procedural answer is - if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will find out.

Then, I add, you will know about heaven, because you will have an unspeakable prepayment of the principal on your home. So the even shorter answer to these questions is 'yes'. The atoms become your atoms. His top level of skin your skin. His place, your space. His beating, your heart, His Spirit, your oxygen.

Now - to give some minimal coherence to this meandering - how does Paul read Deuteronomy 30:14 and transfer the referent there from the covenant with Israel to the faith of Christ crucified? And why did I write to fundamentalists and the off the wall skeptic trying to poke fun at them as I did? Same reason. There is something more here than blessings and curses (though they are fun to read), or just plain despair and condemnation - but we are good at condemnation and not good until we stop it.

On love - Ubi caritas, ibi deus est.

Quote of the day - J. K. Rowling

For heaven's sake, Potter ... Do you really think this is about truth or lies? It's about keeping your head down and your temper under control.

Order of the Phoenix P224

Substantiation

This blog is a personal statement. I have also read and commented on many blogs. Most of them are more scholarly than mine, where the souls are much better trained in this field. I count myself fortunate that since the early days of e-lists, I have been able to learn much from them. Such scholars tend to be mature and will graciously accept even dumb questions (for a while). On the personal level, perhaps some can learn from me as I learn. Certainly, any of you who read my translations should know that they are all a learning experience and must be subjected to alternative readings. But you may take heart that learning is possible even for the aged.

There are blogs where people seem so certain of their positions that they throw adjectives around at anyone who disagrees. I hate adjectives and generally do not throw them - though occasionally one will slip out. People who are sure they are right don't need help but they may need to repent.

Our Holy Week services have been continuous and filled with the Gospel. I have just returned from Easter vigil, a service in which the church starts in darkness and the new fire is brought in from outside. It symbolizes the intrusion of God into this world, in Creation, in the Law and the Prophets, and ultimately in the person of Jesus whose overcoming of the powers of darkness in the world and in us is both critical and effective. Critical for forgiveness, and effective for love. In this mercy seat, through his death, and in the recognized forgiveness sealed by his resurrection and gradually appropriated by us, his servants - in this place, this temple not made with hands, this earthen vessel, we have new life.

It continually distresses me that some can take good news and turn it into bad news. Such is a power trip on the very power that led to Jesus' crucifixion. It is unavoidable, of course, because each of us has to start in sin and learn somehow. The learning may be painful for others - but they needed to learn too.

But - learn - let us indeed learn and not be like a horse or mule. We should read and understand Paul in Romans 15:3 quoting Psalm 69:9 and know that being right and self-sufficient puts us in the very place we do not want anyone to be. We are not saved because we are right. We are saved because God is love and has proved it. So: we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves; let each of us please our neighbor for their good, to edify them. For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached thee fell on me."

And who thinks he is strong, eh? It is easier to be ugly.

Job 7:1-8

If I try and review chapters 1-6 at this time, I will never finish. I must plough on through the fields and see what things turn up - hopefully something better than all the Morning Glory I dug out of the new garden yesterday.

Is it not the press-gang for a mortal on earth
like the days of a mercenary, his days?
like a slave, he gasps for a shadow
like a mercenary, he waits for work

So there is to me a torrent of empty months
and nights of misery are set for me
when I lie down, I say
when shall I arise and the dusk be tossed
and I am sated with tossing till twilight

Clothed is my flesh, worms and clods of dust
my skin split and repugnant
my days swifter than a weaver's shuttle
and they are consumed in terminating hope

remember that but a breath is my life
my eye will not return back to see good
the eye of my seer will not look on me
your eyes will look to me and there is no me

Chapter 7 begins with הֲלֹא, one of 15 verses beginning with a negative interrogative, the first being the accuser's challenge to God (Job 1:10). At the risk of anticipating a conclusion that I have not substantiated from this text alone, it appears that the accuser's question is the wrong question (that's par for most of our questions that require an answer). It is not the hedge of reward and punishment or blessing and accident that is at issue, it is whether the character of God is trustworthy.

The book's answer is yes. But the book's support of traditional rationales for such a faith is no. The book allows for human demand to God's face with no holds barred. (I am not kidding.) And here in chapter 7, based on only one word and that a negative, we have the beginning of Job's explicit dialogue with God. There is a shift to first person that puts Job's prayer in front of us. It is not a religious prayer. It gives the lie to such piety. It is a blessing to God that God should hear our real cry, not what we imagine God would like to hear. How will we engage such a God? Where else can you find instruction for such engagement but from such a God?

צבא, host, army, service, etc, appears only in the first cycle, here and in chapters 10 and 14 - and only on Job's lips. This word is variously glossed - war, host, appointed-time (KJV), service (Tur Sinai and Clines), pressed service (JB). I chose press-gang so I can have the three gang up on him later.
אנוש, mortal, appears throughout the speeches of the men from chapter 4 to 37 and nowhere else. I am becoming inclined to see Job 3, the undoing of creation, as a special 'breaking the ice' chapter - balancing his monologue in chapter 29 and then subject to recreation by the speeches of chapters 38-41.
שכיר, hireling, mercenary, also framing in chapters 7, and 14, and possibly in Job 12:25 though differently pointed.
אִם, if - occurs frequently (91 times as a word) and often in bursts on Job's lips.
מאס, despise, refuse, loathe, reject, be repugnant etc - I already used refuse once. As with several other common words, I will be forced by context to choose a variety of glosses for this word and others. Some are parts of thread and frame so I will try to choose my variety carefully.
קלל, swift - no one can improve on the KJV here (Tur Sinai argues for an Aramaic smoke, but it is strained to me and a strain to read it since my Aramaic is to say the least, limited). Note this is the same word as cursed. Perhaps if we accept Tur Sinai we can say "my days are cursed like smoke".

Getting back into the groove

Job is intimidating to say the least. Several of the essays and books I have read suggest that chapter 3 - the undoing of Job's creation, is countered by the speeches of יהוה

So I have just looked briefly at 3:8-14 and listed below painstakingly the common words between that speech and those in chapters 38-41. Many words repeat only in these two areas or there and in a couple of other places. Is it significant? or accidental? ++ means there are other uses I did not list.

Of course a 'conversation' especially a set of staged conversations about a troubling subject, is more complex than frame and thread can encompass. But it gets me thinking... The links which allow you to see the KJV on hover show that whatever structure is implied is often hidden by synonyms or must be obscured in translation because of Hebrew homonyms.

Frame

Leviathan Job 3:8, 41:1 לויתן
Curse / pierce Job 3:8, 5:3, 40:24, 41:2 נקב
Raise up / awaken Job 3:8, 41:10 ++ עור
stars Job 3:9, 38:7 ++ כוכב
darken Job 3:9, 38:2 חשך
eyelids Job 3:9, 16:16, 41:18 עפעפים
cattle / substance, Job 1:3, 1:10 36:33 מקנה
shut up Job 3:10, 41:15 סגר
doors Job 3:10, 41:14 דלת ++
belly Job 3:10, 38:29, 40:16 בטן
eyes Job 3:10, 41:18 עין ++
womb Job 3:11, 38:8 רחם ++
prevent Job 3:12, 41:11 קדם
king Job 3:14, 41:34 מלך ++
counsellor - Job 3:14, 26:3 יעץ also frame for the 'speeches'
build - similar to counsellor בנה
waste Job 3:14, 30:30, 39:22, 40:19, 41:26 ++ חרבה חרב
and so on - a detailed comparison of chapter 3 and 38-41 is called for.

Thread

Day יום
Life, beasts חי - also frame Job 3:20, 38:39, 39:15, 40:20
beasts 'of the field' Job 5:23, 40:20 שדה
going forth Job 3:11++ יצא
stillness Job 3:13 ++ שכב
Quiet Job 3:13 שקט - four synonyms in this verse

Age before beauty

Sufficiency is 2 years old today - 407 posts on a bunch of things - story to Song to Romans to Job.

Peter Lopez has noted his own anniversary here.

A note on a set of questions from Irshad Manji

Here is a response to a request from Irshad.

Do you think I spoke her language? Or am I too full of puns and syncretism?

1. Is the global financial meltdown more of a spiritual crisis than an economic one?
2. Does God hate materialism?
3. Can religion effectively curb human greed?
4. What ethical lessons have the past several months taught us — be it about saving or consuming?

I did not change a word in the questions or in my answers as I sent them.

1. Of course the global financial meltdown is a spiritual crisis when the Trust companies don’t trust each other and when our ‘currency’ in terms of our ability to trust people’s use of time and effort to create value is no longer ‘current’.
2. God loves all that God has made materially and fully, as it is written – “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine.” That poem (Song of Songs 1:2) shows what holiness is. The switch from third to second person in the middle of a thought is typical of Hebrew poetry and invites a similar switch for us so that we may recognize how the Anointing of God’s Spirit is real and tangible. To put it into an easily misunderstood form: Only God makes sense. In more words: What is real and tangible is inhabited by the Spirit of the Compassionate One.
3. Can religion curb human greed. Religion has no power of itself and may even mask both the abuse of power and the greed of convenience. The power implicit in faith is in the object of such faith, i.e., if it is what people call ‘religion’, the Anointing of the Compassionate One – such as is seen in a psalm or in any work of beauty that builds us up – such as your courage. For me this power is in the death of Jesus on whose day you are speaking. It is his full measure of Spirit through his self-giving death for me that gives life to me in all its aspects.
4. Ethical lessons are not about saving or consuming – but on providing value for service. Saving is another form of misplaced trust. Consuming is another form of convenience in place of service. The place we need to be is where we are at any one moment – as Jesus said – “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”.

A little experimentation with Job

I really must find some better colours. And maybe you would like spaces back in the text. This is an experiment at seeing Job. It may be transient - i.e. I will replace it as I find better ways. To identify frame and thread, I will have to limit my highlighting to words used 2 or three times and > 12 times - otherwise - it is totally unseeable!

One thing is immediately obvious - the frame and the poetry have differing line sizes.

Job Resources

I read a few good essays on Job during my three days away. Dust Wind and Agony, by Michael Cheney is a helpful surmise of characterization in Job based on a top down structural approach (length of speech in poems and cola, internal microstructures, verbal and linguistic clues, etc). I thought of many things to say as I read it - and they may come out in subsequent and comments on or revisions of past posts. It was good to have a sense of how little traction Tur Sinai's approach has had. Cheney has a particularly good look at Aramaic and Arabic as well as archaisms in the dialogues and concludes that the ancients knew how to write dialect and used such skill as part of the characterization of individual speakers.

I also have Harold Bloom's collection of essays on The Book of Job with contributions by Northrope Frye on Blake's Job - brilliant as usual, Robert Alter, always the perceptive poet - I love his approach to the speeches of יְהוָה, Ken Frieden - the closest to a unified response, an unexpected gem, Réné Girard, meaningful but perseverating on his thesis. Also in the the book is an essay by Daiches which I did not find gripping or exciting, and Ricoeur, which got better towards the end but began with such abstraction that I had nowhere to stand. Bloom's Introduction is short and to the point - 4/7 for the book as a whole.

I also have the Word Commentary by David Clines which I will try and look at in more depth. At least it is a second commentary but on first glance I thought it was too heavy to put in the car for holiday reading. The testimonia at the beginning from Auden, Calvin, Frost, etc are delightful. I will conclude with two of these - one from Clines and one from Cheney (who also cites Clines).

[God to Job in the afterlife]
Robert Frost

You realize by now the part you played
To stultify the Deuteronomist
And change the tenor of religious thought

Leonard Cohen

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

The Auden is over my head - but I know it is very clever as are all his poems that I have sung. I won't copy it since it is probably still under copyright - Google this if you like:

Auden
where job squats awkwardly upon his ashpit
... Scraping himself with blunted Occam Razors

Also a bit more of it here, a place I am happy to reference. I do have my prejudices.