Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Tuesday September 8
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Job 42:1-6-Then Job answered the LORD and said: 2 “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ 5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. 6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”
There are so many lessons that we can learn from the Book of Job. However, there is especially one that I want to consider here with you. It comes from the last chapter of this great Book, when the Lord (in chapters 38-41) appears to Job in the whirlwind (Job 38:1-3) and begins to question him. The thrust of this questions is designed to show Job that God is good, and this goodness can be demonstrated through the magnificent creation that God creates and manages. Even though Satan is at work in the world, God will one Day fully defeat that terrible beast known as Leviathan!
Yet there is another dimension to these questions that some have noticed throughout the years. The questions that God directs Job to consider remind Job of the wonder and awesomeness of God’s world. These questions are intended to encourage Job not to give up on living, even though he has faced such hardship. They invite him to once again become involved in the Earth that needs to be subdued, to again partake in the adventure of existence. This is especially demonstrated in Job’s statement in 42:6. The passage reads:
Job 42:6-Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”
Job had some things about God that were less than flattering, to put it mildly. He accused God of being cruel, capricious, wicked and delighting in causing suffering to His creatures. Now, Job repents of these attitudes and remarks.
Yet there is another dimension here that we need to consider.
Job’s statement that he “repents in dust and ashes” may suggest several different ideas. One possibility is repentance from what he has said about God. Another possibility is that he is “comforted” now in the dust and ashes. Still again, it is possible that he is claiming that he is repenting “from” the dust and ashes.
The last line of his response, however, complicates interpretation of Job’s words. Traditionally translated, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42: 6), the verse actually allows for several translations. In the NABRE translation, Job disowns his words and repents even though he is a righteous man. Both translations create problems. The former leaves Job in self-hatred, a defeated man beaten down by God. The latter shows Job renouncing the truthful laments he has set before God, who, in turn, praises Job’s speech in the epilogue (42: 7). But the Hebrew word often translated “repent” can also mean “be comforted,” or “regret.” Other translations create different nuances. In one, Job retracts his words and “is comforted by dust and ashes.” In another, Job “rejects” the “dust and ashes,” meaning that Job has stopped grieving and gotten on with his life. The ambiguities of this line resist oversimplification. In light of the book’s puzzling structure and unresolved debate, it is likely that the ambiguity is deliberate, a means to invite readers to enter Job’s experience and come to terms with it for themselves. Whereas many interpreters find the speeches in the storm to be marked by chaos that Job learns to accept, this commentary concentrates the beauty of both the language and events in the storm. The breathtaking attraction of God’s creation draws Job in and transforms him. The beauty of God and God’s world allures, takes him outward from his suffering, and enables him to relinquish his imaginary position at the center of the world. Experience of beauty sharpens attentiveness, creates a contemplative spirit, provokes gratitude, and opens one to care for the world. Job’s long, angry laments have helped to heal him and opened him to the life-affirming greeting from God. However we deal with the many lingering puzzles of the book, its beauty points to the beauty of the Creator and summons readers to the possibility of encounter with God in any of life’s circumstances. (Kathleen M. O’Connor, The Book of Job (Little Rock Scripture Study), 192-193 (Kindle Edition): Collegeville, MN: Little Rock Scripture Study)
In other words Job is expressing that he is turning from the pessimistic view of creation and life that he had espoused. He is now going to embrace life again, content with the knowledge that God is good, that his loved ones who have died are safe and they will one day be reunited again (Job 30:23), and that the Lord will one day fully defeat Satan and his wickedness (Job 19:25-27; 41:1-34).
Job chooses to embrace healing, and he once again seeks and accepts with courage and determination the adventure that living in this world affords.
God’s involvement with the world expresses itself in huge, unapologetic delight in a creation whose outstanding quality is quite simply magnificence: power and freedom on a scale that is bewildering and terrifying….Now why should God love a world like that? Annie Dillard provides an excellent answer: because “the creator loves pizzazz.” She is reflecting not on Leviathan and Behemoth, but on all their strange kin who share the world with us: The world is full of creatures that for some reasons seem stranger to us than others, and libraries are full of books describing them—hagfish, platypuses, lizardlike pangolins four feet long with bright green, lapped scales like umbrella-tree leaves on a bush hut root, butterflies emerging from anthills, spiderlings wafting through the air clutching tiny silken balloons, horseshoe crabs . . . the creator creates. Does he stoop, does he speak, does he save, succor, prevail? Maybe. But he creates; he creates everything and anything. The creator goes off on one wild, specific tangent after another, or millions simultaneously, with an exuberance that would seem to be unwarranted, and with an abandoned energy sprung from an unfathomable font. What is going on here? The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork—for it doesn’t, not even inside the goldfish bowl—but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.9 I quote at length because this is a point we are slow to get. We are so accustomed to thinking of God in sober terms. We are comfortable talking about God’s sound moral character—“merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). But the idea that God might have aesthetic preferences is strange; it seems frivolous, beneath God’s dignity. Yet the speech out of the whirlwind would seem to suggest that God does indeed exhibit a certain style, and admire it in the creatures….And what does all this mean for Job’s case? Job has long clung to his “integrity” (27:5), by which he meant being responsible within his own social sphere. But now that God has given this guided tour of the creation, the whole project of human integrity looks different. It means fitting into a design vastly bigger and more complex than Job ever imagined. What God says, in effect, is this: “Look away from yourself, Job; look around you. For a moment see the world with my eyes, in all its intricacy and wild beauty. The beauty is in the wildness, Job; you cannot tame all that frightens you without losing the beauty.” God calls this man of integrity to take his place in a ravishing but dangerous world where only those who relinquish their personal expectations can live in peace. The price of peace is the surrender of our personal expectations, which are always too small for the huge freedom built into the system. The great question that God’s speech out of the whirlwind poses for Job and every other person of integrity is this: Can you love what you do not control?…Therefore I recant and change my mind concerning dust and ashes. (42: 3-6) These last two lines are crucial for understanding what has happened to Job. The verse is generally translated along these lines: therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (NRSV) Yet the Hebrew verb translated “repent” denotes any kind of mental and emotional reorientation, either positive or negative; “repentance” is only one possibility. Moreover, the phrase “dust and ashes” always appears in the Bible as a metaphor, not as a reference to literal dust heaps. The metaphor consistently designates the humbleness of the human condition, seen in light of God’s majesty (see Genesis 18: 27). Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Job is abasing himself before God here, as the traditional translation suggests. If Job now has little to say, then this is the silence not of self-disgust, but of desire fulfilled. Job has gotten what he most wanted: he has seen God. And as a result he takes a new view of the human condition and of his own place in the world. Job’s silence at the end of the book bespeaks his spiritual transformation. It is not only his theology that is renewed; it is his whole mind. In fact, the clearest expression of the renewal of Job’s mind is not anything he says. It is his willingness to have more children. I have heard it said in modern Israel that the most courageous act of faith the Jews have ever performed was to have babies after the Holocaust, to trust God with more defenseless children. The note at the end of the book that Job had seven sons and three daughters is often considered to be a cheap parting shot—as though God could make it all up by giving Job another set of children to replace the ones who were lost. But that is to judge the last scene of the book from the wrong side. This book is not about justifying God’s actions; it is about Job’s transformation. It is useless to ask how much (or how little) it costs God to give more children. The real question is how much it costs Job to become a father again. How can he open himself again to the terrible vulnerability of loving those whom he cannot protect against suffering and untimely death? Of course, we never get a direct answer to that question. (Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, 137-142 (Kindle Edition): New York, NY: A Cowley Publications Book)
The final lesson that Job learned from his ordeals was that in the face of the trials and difficulties of life, the best we can do is persevere in hope and keep living.
Do not give up!
What are some other lessons that you see from the Book of Job?
How can we apply those lessons to our life when we face suffering and pain?
Father, give us the wisdom of Job to continue living and embracing life when we face difficult times. We praise You! Amen.