Job 14:1
Mortals are born
With short lives sated with turmoil
This reminds me of the phrase “Life is a beach and then you die.” Of course, the real word is not beach, but sounds similar. I associate this phrase with someone downplaying the complaints of another about how bad life is. Probably how everyone who could hear Job complain felt. The other phrase that I associate this with is, “What is your purpose in life?” As I contemplate how I want my life to be, I need to plan accordingly.
The nominal translation of this first stitch is ‘A man born of woman’. Biologically, this is true, but since this isn’t biology, I updated it to a more spiritual version.
The second stitch is also more nominally ‘Is of few days and full of trouble’. A partial pull of this is that men are troublemakers. I think this differentiation from women is not intended. ‘Short lives’ was also ‘few of days’ and ‘scant of days’. ‘Turmoil’ was also ‘trouble’ (obviously) or ‘rage’. Rage puts a different spin on the passage. Overall, it really boils down to ‘Life is not a bowl of cherries’.
I am using a book titled ‘The New Greek / English Interlinear New Testament’. I see where the phrase ‘It’s all Greek to me’ comes from as the Greek letters are nothing like English (as everyone knows). The Greek is the fifth revised version or the 28th version of some other rendition which makes no sense how it can be two different revisions at the same time. The English full version on the side is the New Revised Standard Version, which of course is the upteengillianth version in English. The absolutely cool part of this is that the interlinear portion is a direct English translation of each individual word from Greek right below it. Trying to read the English forces your brain to follow the Greek word order and makes you work to understand what it says. I am currently only reading the parts where Jesus was speaking, so I find it rewarding and challenging, although one verse/passage at a time is often too much for one sitting.
As I have suffered through some times of being physically limited by my poor decisions, I am now trying to plan out a life where I make better such decisions; and while I know I will never really make up for all the sitting and eating, I will be able to have more participatory opportunities in my future than otherwise. My study of the Bible is limited by both the time in a day and how well I use it. But individual parts are limited by how much my brain can spend on one topic. I can easily focus on work for hours at a time, but the physical and mental cost for doing so are growing as I age, and it seems my brain will not let my Bible study do the same damage. I think about how we have school set up in our culture and wonder if maybe the best opportunity for artificial intelligence is to figure out how to teach our kids better rather, than how to make a better social media advertising experience.
As I look to move past this verse, I want to capture three things. People are not here for their exclusive personal enjoyment of life. There has to be a higher purpose. People do not grow and learn when everything is too easy. It takes time and failure to produce a quality person. And lastly, God made us for His purpose. If we really want joy and not just happiness, it has to come from aligning our goals to His.
Written 8/1/24, Posted 8/26, Job 312