Job 5:4

His children are far from success,

   They are crushed at the judgement gate,

      With no one to deliver them.

 

Again, we read about the fool. Not only is his abode accursed, but his children also have a hard time. One of the great joys of being a Christian parent is learning your child has accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. I got to discuss baptism for the little one with the student minister this morning. In some sense, my main goal as a parent is complete with both kids to that stage. However, as with any witnessing and seed planting, the success or failure belong to the Lord, and it is only our duty to plant and cultivate. Many, many Christians have done all they could, and their children have grown up to reject Christ. It does not mean the parents were bad Christians, only that the children were lost.

In this verse, there were options for gender specific “his” and “sons”, but I chose to mix the two. No real reason. “Far from success” had alternatives of “far from safety”, “far from help”, and “distant from rescue”. Safety was actually predominant, but I felt the rescue aspect was covered in the later terms, and the idea I followed was that children of a fool have a hard time getting past the impact of the parent.

The judgement gate recalls how the courts were held at the city gates and the judges were the elder townspeople of good standing. Typically, a good parent will stand up with and for their kids and help get a reasonable judgement from the court. The fool does nothing to raise the kids, does not show up in court, and the kids are punished harshly in an attempt to modify the behavior that comes from lack of good parenting. Some sources used just “the gate”, one used “court”, and one used “public square”. I preferred the more descriptive version.

The only alternative to “crushed” was “oppressed”, but that seemed too passive and “crushed” appropriately seemed overwhelming. There was some dropping of the “they” or “they are” which I think I like now in rereading it. And some being crushed “in” the gate rather than “at” it which makes no sense knowing it is a “court” and not a physically gate to be crushed in.

This last phrase was all over the place with the noun being “none”, “no one”, “defender”, “deliverer”, or “not any”. Options for the verb were, “deliver”, “rescue”, “save”, or “is” with the defender/deliver nouns. I liked the verb as the descriptive element and chose deliverer for its successful feel over defend. Therefore, I needed a negative for the noun and “no one” seemed more directed at the fool.

For whatever reason, this brought back memories of when I found some neighbor friends throwing rocks and damaging a neighbors new masonry wall. There was an element of “join us” to  which I responded with a “you guys need to stop” and days later they ended up in court with their parents. I was always pleased that they did not drag me down in the process, but I remember how their parents went to defend them. I do not remember their punishment, but I always had the impression the experience kept them out of too much trouble afterwards.

It is a little odd to think back on the previous verse and the aspect of immediately knowing there was trouble with the fool’s house and the longer-term outcome of his kids having trouble later. The jump to conclusion aspect seems even more out of place now. I project back to the scene with Eliphaz calling Job a fool and then digging into the loss of his children, next he hits with the loss of his wealth, and then blames it al on Job’s evil nature. Eliphaz is not Job’s friend and I imagine the character enjoying putting Job down. As I go word by word looking for nuggets, I am continually amazed at the depth of God’s word.

Note that as I move forward, I may focus a little too much on personal issues as I feel my audience is small and I am hesitant to blast this across social media.