Job 18:13

The strength in their skin is consumed,

   The first born of death overwhelms their extremities.

 

My notes say revisit. I am not satisfied that this is the best option since it reads of outcomes of old age, not something specific to the wicked. Last week I was out of town for what I am calling a new line of business. It’s been three weeks, and it looks like it will dominate my work time if not leak that out into my personal time. I know this is the path God has before me, but it will be a little harder than when work was really slow this year.

In one source, ‘disease’ is the source of consuming and in two others ‘it’. I still am not sure what it really could be. ‘The strength in’ was also ‘parts of’, ‘patches of’, ‘tendons under’, ‘sticks and’, ‘limbs and’, or ‘each part of’ his body. ‘Consumed’ was also ‘eats’, gobbles’, or ‘devours’.

‘Overwhelms’ was all the same verbs from the first stitch, mostly duplicated as well. ‘Extremities’ was also ‘limbs’, ‘strength’, ‘tendons’, or ‘sticks’ with each at least once being used in both stitches.

One option would be ‘It consumes their strength, The first born of death consumes their strength’. This has the repetition of verb and noun and defines it. This matches the King James version pretty close.  Another alternative ‘The tendons under their skin are consumed, The first born of death consumes their tendons’. This would match the Jewish traditional version. I understand the use of a body part, but I think strength is the correct choice.

It consumes their strength,

   The first born of death consumes their strength.

During accountability, one of the guys read from Ephesians how a husband is to treat his wife. He said it was a good reminder. At first, I thought it might be because he was older than I was when he became a Christian. But I realized that one of my gifts is belief in the Word of God. When I read the Bible as a youngster, I believed. I took it in as who I was supposed to be, and I let who I am be influenced but what I read. When I read this passage in Ephesians, I took it as gospel and set that as my goal with no question. I, of course, fall short, but not because I forget.

At my second real job, we had an arrogant client who made some restrictions on international travel for our employees. It was petty, and our employees did not like it. Our company leaders caved and said if you were assigned travel for this client, you either followed the restrictions or quit. I decided I would quit but was never assigned to travel. I think back on this now that my client is asking me to do stuff that I would prefer not to. I am going to do it, and I am going to do it with a smile. Money is the real reason, but there is a huge difference between petty stuff and crossing lines.

I pointed out to one of my client’s clients how they had crossed the line by modifying my report without identifying themselves as the source of the modification. In theory, it was practicing engineering without a license, but it was also just wrong not to ask me to change it. As it turns out, the changes were incorrect, and the trail of mistakes made by others created a loss of value for the project. Hopefully, the client learned a lesson and will continue to use us, but I defended the right thing and let the petty things slip.

In life, God will ask us to swallow our pride and be humble. He will not ask us to violate His principles. We need to understand this and be willing to be humiliated and be willing to die. So, when we are asked to do something, we have to ask whether it is worth dying for.

Written 10/7/25, Posted 10/25/25, Job 423/~1070