Job 15:32

It shall be accomplished,

   Before their day is over,

      Their boughs never having flourished.

 

Measles. There has been an outbreak in West Texas and since I am from there, I read about it anytime it makes the news.  The real story seems to be how a religious group and their anti-vaccine stance has put other people at risk of catching and dying from this disease. If you are an isolated group, maybe you should be able to do as you wish, but at some point this group interacts with the outside world and brings this nightmare into a group who did not chose to face this risk.

I used an extra sheet of paper trying to wrangle with this verse. Still not sure I shouldn’t have used on two stitches.

‘Accomplished’ was also ‘paid in full’, ‘wilt’, ‘wither’, or ‘be cut off’. Some big differences there.

‘Before their day is over’ was also ‘before their time’.

‘Bough’ was also ‘branch’ or ‘frond’. ‘Flourish’ was also ‘be green ‘ or ‘be lush’.

I did not like having to start wearing a seat belt in a car when the state said I had to. I later decide I was the one who wanted to wear the seat belt, but the state later decided people who accepted the risk did not have to wear a helmet. The inconsistency here is mind boggling. Either I get to decide what risk to take or I do not. I can ride a motorcycle without a helmet, but I cannot ride in a car without a seat belt. Pure stupidity.

I am working on this verse right after verse 31 due to my idea on measles. I picture this verse as assuming that the wicked will get their just desserts before their old age.  But I don’t think this is true. Some wicked people die of old age never having suffered and their kids prosper like all get out. And besides, I live my life in the terms of days and hours, and I do not have decades and generations to wait for right to be ‘proven’.

In my mind, Trump and Musk are working at break neck speed to upend everything in their way of ruling the country after his first two years all republican control concludes, just in case the people wake up in two years and vote them all out. I did not study history enough to know if a President has won, then lost, then won the office before, but I imagine Trump is in a advantaged position to work on his agenda without having to worry about winning another election ever. Putin sure isn’t concerned about losing an election.

I do not dislike the idea of rooting out corruption and extravagance in government spending, but upsetting how all of it works in the process like Musk does with all his companies, was never part of the bargain, so to speak. I pray that God will use the people in power to reign in the wrong and keep the country from civil war. I certainly am not knowledgeable enough to understand it all and probably not smart enough to figure it all out, but I do not think they are either. I especially do not think all the idiots working for free at DOGE are. They are all out for future gain; why else would they be doing it? I certainly hope the corporate governance and artificial Armageddon of movies are not coming true before our eyes. And hope I am not putting a target on my head.

Written 2/17/25, Posted 6/22/25, Job 372