Job 13:15
Though He may slay me, I shall not be quiet,
Yet, I will argue my case to His face.
My notes include ‘classic rendition not best’. It reminds me that sometimes we do not know enough to understand. I found out yesterday that Zeus in addition to being the ‘main’ god, was a big fat liar and came from Crete. Paul made mention of Cretans being big fat liars and part of this image was due to the link to Zeus, and a ‘if it is good enough for him its good enough for us’ mentality. So when Paul says ‘God will not lie’, it probably had more impact on the Cretans that I would have ever understood before. Of course, everyone with a classical education in Greek gods might have known this.
The first stitch was also ‘See, He will kill me, I have no Hope’. This leaves out the conditional and any hope. This conflicts with basically everyone else and the spirit of the speech. Another was ‘He may as well slay me, I have no hope.’ This reeks of desperation which again is not consistent with the speech. The classic has ‘Though He slay me, I will trust in Him.’ This much better aligns with the speech but does not match the next stitch.
‘Argue’ was also ‘defend’, ‘maintain’, ‘dispute’, ‘justify’, and ‘protest’. I did not even notice the wide variation in this before. ‘My case’ was also ‘my ways’ or ‘His conduct’. I do not feel Job was defending his own personal choice over God’s so much as his attempts to follows God’s ways.
As I have watched my kids go through the public school system, I see that they are reading different books than I did as a kid. I read different books in school from the classics that had been used for ages. I first think this is a push by book sellers to make money off the books they have rights to. I am sure teachers push towards more modern books to keep up with the language. All that time on Old English taught me I did not want to read any of it because I didn’t get it. Kind of like trying to read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. It might have been true to the source, but I couldn’t follow it.
My goal with amalgamating Job is to put every verse in a condition in which I can understand it and then study the whole thing based on understanding each little piece. I always wonder if I will live long enough to complete this effort or if the effort will ever help someone else, but I really only do it to know God better, and it is definitely working on that score. And I think this is one of the aspects of trying to be efficient that I am starting to overcome. This effort is not about understanding Job better. It is about a mechanism to learn more about God on a consistent basis.
This rendition of this verse basically shows that Job is not afraid to die, he simply wants to find out why God has done this to him. Other parts of the Bible state clearly that God puts us in situations to help us become more Christlike, better servants of Him and of others. Job was doing well. Satan was put out that God protected Job so much. God put Job through this for him to learn more about the God and to teach us about Himself as well. The hardest bits make us better. Kind of like patience, I do not want to pray for adverse periods, but I do want to be more like Christ.
Written 4/29/24, Posted 8/6/24, Job 299