Job 23:15

That is why I am dismayed by His mien,

   When I consider all this, I am in dread of Him.

 

(This is the last of the really old ones, so now I will be about a month behind posting from writing.) 

I learned a new word today. If you read the rest of this, you might too. I was baffled by the almost unanimous use of “at His presence”. I also removed some other ignorance learning how expensive Visa and Mastercard gifts cards are. From now on, I give cash. ( I wish this had stuck.)

“That is why” was also “therefore” and “so”. Therefore, is correct, but ‘that is why’ helped me understand the passage.

“Dismayed” was also “terrified”, “troubled”, and “in a panic”. Terrified seemed to be the common sentiment, but it did not match with Job’s great desire to argue before Him.

Mien is of course the new word for me. I looked up “presence” in my handy thesaurus and found “bearing”. It sounded less wrong, but not quite right. I looked up “bearing” and found a list of words that included mien. None of the others were right, so I moved on to the dictionary to look up presence and bearing. Presence really just led back to bearing. The definition of bearing had a discussion of all the synonyms and the difference circumstances to use each. The lot of them discussed the nuances of the “outward manifestation of personality” which lined up with the idea that I thought Job was trying to express. Mien was said to be a literary term combining the two terms of bearing and demeanor into one. The idea being that Job was impressed by how God radiated His perfection by His simply being God.

“By His mien” was also “at His presence”, “before Him”, and “in His presence”. I like my suggestion better since I now know what mien means.

“When I consider all this” was my expansion of “when I consider”, “when I consider this”, “just the thought of Him”, “ I look”, and “when I think of all this”.

“I am in dread of Him” was also ”I fear Him”, “I am afraid of Him”, “I dread Him”, and “makes me shake”. Again, Job’s great desire to talk to Him minimizes what I think are the right options.

This verse of course reminds me of the admonition to fear God. I never liked that wording. Yes, those we do not have salvation through Christ should be afraid of God, very afraid. But those who, like me, are God’s own children bought by the blood of His Son Jesus? We should not live in fear but in reverence. Job loves God and is in great reverence of Him. He wants to follow Him, He wants to relate to Him, He wants to be with Him. He is not running in fear. This is part of why we have so much to learn from the behavior of Job about how to be humble before God. I am happy to have learned this new word.

( I forgot I ever did them this short without three paragraphs.)

(Written 2/16/23, Posted 10/16/26, Job 563/~1070)