[July 2006 journal entry]
What attitudes/emotions should be attributed to the ‘scrapheap’ Job (6:14) toward friendship? as represented by his three close friends? Who does he have in mind in this challenging view of ‘friend’ – a wider circle of individuals he would call ‘friends’ with a corresponding shallow expectation? or his smaller/inner circle of close friends with a corresponding deep/profound expectation? Is he repeating a familiar proverb? There are three possible parallels in Proverbs for the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s remarkable statement about friendship -- (1) “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (17:17), (2) “There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (18:24), (3) “Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend” (19:4). Note that the phrase ‘by his friend’ in the third parallel with Proverbs is identical to the wording used by the ‘scrapheap’ Job (6:14).
What attitudes/emotions should be attributed to the ‘scrapheap’ Job (6:14) toward friendship? as represented by his three close friends? Who does he have in mind in this challenging view of ‘friend’ – a wider circle of individuals he would call ‘friends’ with a corresponding shallow expectation? or his smaller/inner circle of close friends with a corresponding deep/profound expectation? Is he repeating a familiar proverb? There are three possible parallels in Proverbs for the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s remarkable statement about friendship -- (1) “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (17:17), (2) “There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (18:24), (3) “Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend” (19:4). Note that the phrase ‘by his friend’ in the third parallel with Proverbs is identical to the wording used by the ‘scrapheap’ Job (6:14).
