[September 2006 journal entry]
Of his children, Job wonders anxiously, “Maybe one of them sinned by defying God inwardly” (1:5, Peterson’s Message of Job). Is Peterson’s ‘defy’ an appropriate rendering (‘curse’ in the RSV)? The Hebrew word translated ‘defy’/‘curse’ is an intensive form of the word for ‘bless’. Perhaps this choice is an example of a hesitation even to speak/write in any other way than to bless ‘God’. In a way, ‘curse’ is a stronger translation than ‘defy’ in that ‘curse’ more definitively connotes rejection. But in another way, ‘defy’ is a stronger translation than ‘curse’ in that ‘defy’ suggests the courage to stand up to and challenge ‘God’. Could/should the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s remarks in the heated exchanges with his three close friends be construed as a disclosure that he in fact does ‘defy God inwardly’? What would ‘defying God inwardly’ have entailed if Job’s children (in the prologue) had done so as they were partying? And is ‘merry-making’ being criticized in the story?