[July 2006 journal entry]
Is Eliphaz thinking of the ‘scrapheap’ Job when he introduces the lion metaphor (4:10-11)? Does the ‘scrapheap’ Job identify with this metaphor? Has he now felt the ‘breath of God’? ‘the blast of his anger’? Are his teeth now broken? Does he now lack the ability to capture prey? Are his cubs now scattered? Job’s victorious roar (descriptive of his pre-‘scrapheap’ community standing) has been silenced. He is now reduced to the plight of a lion that can no longer hunt either for itself or for its cubs, that will soon die alone in the field and return to dust. Or Eliphaz could also be interpreted here as demonstrating how, without full awareness or without intention, the oratory (e.g., hymns, prayers, sermons) of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm victimizes individual sufferers such as the ‘scrapheap’ Job.
Is Eliphaz thinking of the ‘scrapheap’ Job when he introduces the lion metaphor (4:10-11)? Does the ‘scrapheap’ Job identify with this metaphor? Has he now felt the ‘breath of God’? ‘the blast of his anger’? Are his teeth now broken? Does he now lack the ability to capture prey? Are his cubs now scattered? Job’s victorious roar (descriptive of his pre-‘scrapheap’ community standing) has been silenced. He is now reduced to the plight of a lion that can no longer hunt either for itself or for its cubs, that will soon die alone in the field and return to dust. Or Eliphaz could also be interpreted here as demonstrating how, without full awareness or without intention, the oratory (e.g., hymns, prayers, sermons) of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm victimizes individual sufferers such as the ‘scrapheap’ Job.
