Job 9:4

However wise and stout hearted one may be,

   Who has ever argued with God,

      And emerged unscathed?

(Written 6/9, Posted 6/15)

I read a phrase in Hebrews that spoke of the fear of death, and I read in Esther “their laws are different”. In theory, God gave everyone a fear of death. Christians no longer fear death, but it made me question the sanity of non-Christians who do not fear death. The laws of the Jews were different to point to God. As Christians, we should live differently to point to God. But from the secular viewpoint, all religions serve to overcome this fear of death, and each has an aspect that makes the followers behave better than others in some form or fashion. Little d and I watched an action movie about people who could remember their lives after death and reincarnation. She struggled to divorce herself from reality and I couldn’t blame her. It took a belief of a group and twisted it.

Many translations assume the first stitch is talking about God. Two of my Jewish sources were clear that they do not, and I agree. Job is referring to a person, like himself, and giving this person two great characteristics and then saying that is not enough to “achieve” victory in dispute with God. This was a key point in fixing the path I wanted to go on this verse.

In the first stitch, the characteristics ranged from wisdom, strength, mighty, stout hearted, profound, powerful, shrewd, and staunch. Common was wise and strong. Shrewd was the only difference from wise, but shrewd has a negative connotation for me, so I skipped it.  There was a sense of wise carrying an adjective such as wise in heart, wise in mind, or wisdom is profound. In the end, I just felt the adjective was not required. The same for strength with variations like mighty in strength, power is vast, mighty in power, and staunch in strength. But one translation used the term stout hearted that I felt captured this strength in a less physical and domineering fashion and told us of the strong will the person would have to stand up to hard circumstances and this fit my image of what Job was trying to indicate.

Additionally, every source had two stiches, but I stretched it into three. I did this more for reinforcing the pause of the comma and how it looked visually than any attempt at following the style of the author.

Argued was also resisted, hardened himself against, challenged, or faced. I like the confrontational aspect of hardened his heart but feel the court aspect is overriding in this case. Unscathed was also succeeded, prospered, and “come out whole”. Come out whole and unscathed are identical to me, so I went with the less common. The others not wrong, just not a better fit.

Many of the lessons to be learned from the Letters in the New Testament are the need to understand enough about God and our relationship to Him to avoid being led astray by others with a twisted sense of right and wrong. In the latest book I am reading as a nominal daily devotional, the author reminds us that Jesus knew the scriptures enough to quote it to the devil and to read the most important parts in synagogue when needed. I am not great on memorizing verses, and I generally chalk this up to it not being a talent I have. But I do have a gift of knowing when something that is read or retold is slightly off point. It is not so much a talent as a spiritual gift from God. I know this because it is not triggered by a difference in translation so much as a difference in the underlying meaning. I like having this gift, but I know it is not to glorify me, but to Glorify God. That is the intent of every spiritual gift and why God gives us them: to use at the urging of the indwelling Holy Spirit. So we should not be afraid to be different, we should not be afraid to use our gifts (or our talents), and we should be wise and stouthearted not in ourselves, but in our relationship with God, our source of strength.