[July 2006 journal entry]
The ‘scrapheap’ Job “cursed the day of his birth” (3:1). What concretely would the ‘scrapheap’ Job be expecting if indeed his day of birth is cursed? Perhaps he is wishing the day would somehow be skipped over in the calendar. Or perhaps he is wishing that everyone born on that day would be stillborn or die soon after birth. But he is not the only one born on that day. In cursing his day of birth, he curses their day of birth too. The consequences of such a cursing would have befallen them as well as him. This self-centeredness is noticeably parallel to the lack of regard or respect ‘God’ has for those damaged or destroyed around Job in the prologue’s two cycles of calamities. Servants die and no doubt some of the marauding enemies die too. I would cast the prologue Job as near enough to offer aid to some of these sufferers, but still safely distant -- existentially and theologically -- from the harsh realities of suffering until such came to him.
The ‘scrapheap’ Job “cursed the day of his birth” (3:1). What concretely would the ‘scrapheap’ Job be expecting if indeed his day of birth is cursed? Perhaps he is wishing the day would somehow be skipped over in the calendar. Or perhaps he is wishing that everyone born on that day would be stillborn or die soon after birth. But he is not the only one born on that day. In cursing his day of birth, he curses their day of birth too. The consequences of such a cursing would have befallen them as well as him. This self-centeredness is noticeably parallel to the lack of regard or respect ‘God’ has for those damaged or destroyed around Job in the prologue’s two cycles of calamities. Servants die and no doubt some of the marauding enemies die too. I would cast the prologue Job as near enough to offer aid to some of these sufferers, but still safely distant -- existentially and theologically -- from the harsh realities of suffering until such came to him.