Job 5:14

By day, they encounter darkness,

   At noon, they grope as if night.

I am writing this on the third anniversary of my mom’s passing. That definitely put me into a funk where I might as well have been groping around in the dark. Part of why we have two cats I imagine. For the most part, I really like to be in the dark (when I want to be in the dark). I do not need night lights, clock light, or light coming in around the curtains or under the doors. Total darkness while alive gives me a sensation of no boundaries and freedom.

The opposite is true for the darkness of death. My mental image of hell is to be fully conscious, but unable to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, or worst of all, being absent the ever-present association with God. No pain or suffering even compares to the total terror I equate with losing relationship with God. This is the lack of relationship I see the poet alluding to in this verse.

As I sometimes find, there is a stark difference between my Jewish and Christian sources for this verse. The Jews have the timing at the front and the Christian have it at the end. With the vast differences between English and Hebrew, I am not surprised that the order would be different from two different cultures. Beyond the odd letters and the writing backwards, English is just different, and I think it impacts the way people think more than many other languages.

“Encounter” had alternatives of “meet with”, “comes upon”, and “stumble against” but encounter was consistent with the Jewish sources and rang less incorrect than the others. “Day” was chosen over simple “daytime” but was almost a coin flip over the more detailed “in daylight” that I liked but did not find to fit as well with the second stitch.

Similarly, “noon” was selected over “noon time” or “noon day” or “midday”. I did actually use the poet source for “as if night” rather than everyone else saying “as in night”. It simply felt right.

Five days in and I am still not comfortable with it being a new year. I was a little more on top of preparing for cold whether this year than last February. I look back at what I did and it’s a wonder the damage was not worse. I am sure someday we will get a bill for the repairs, and it will be stuck in my mind forever. The consistent phrase of 2 Kings that goes something like “did more evil than all who lived before” is running through my head as a push to make this year about glorifying God more than I ever have before. That seems like a great goal and much better than groping about in the dark.