[July 2006 journal entry]
The ‘scrapheap’ Job points to caravan travelers (6:18; see also 6:19, 8:13, 30:12). (Peterson also has “merchants” and “tourists”.) Peterson’s use of ‘tourists’ is a stretch for antiquity. Few people took long vacations. ‘Traveling merchants’ would be better wording. I find insight in associating the caravan travelers in antiquity with the modern taxi driver. The caravan travelers in antiquity see more widely than those who have not traveled. They have time to ponder what they have seen. Here the focus is on the risk that a caravan gets turned around and lost (like wagon trains in the American West). A wrong turn could move a caravan farther from water or into greater danger. Looking at the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends with this metaphor, they are like a caravan that loses its way and is never heard from again. The ‘scrapheap’ Job spots his three close friends. He goes out of his way for a drink from them. He is confident. But he is soon disappointed. His countenance falls.
The ‘scrapheap’ Job points to caravan travelers (6:18; see also 6:19, 8:13, 30:12). (Peterson also has “merchants” and “tourists”.) Peterson’s use of ‘tourists’ is a stretch for antiquity. Few people took long vacations. ‘Traveling merchants’ would be better wording. I find insight in associating the caravan travelers in antiquity with the modern taxi driver. The caravan travelers in antiquity see more widely than those who have not traveled. They have time to ponder what they have seen. Here the focus is on the risk that a caravan gets turned around and lost (like wagon trains in the American West). A wrong turn could move a caravan farther from water or into greater danger. Looking at the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends with this metaphor, they are like a caravan that loses its way and is never heard from again. The ‘scrapheap’ Job spots his three close friends. He goes out of his way for a drink from them. He is confident. But he is soon disappointed. His countenance falls.
