Job 7:20
If I have sinned, how have I harmed you,
O watcher of man?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you?
(Written 4/20, Posted 5/4)
A lot is going on right now. Netflix is being pummeled, Paypal is continuing to drop, and I feel the call to do something. I wanted to talk about other stuff, but the Netflix thing was too big to pass up, sorta. I have just finished chapter 18, I will wrap up blogs on chapter 7 soon, I will reach Job in my Chapter a day reading plan that I will modify accordingly, and I will soon wrap up helping the 11th grade boys and leading the financial study on Wednesdays. And there is this new push to be effective not efficient and the old push to make money.
Job asks a couple more pointless questions right before he wraps up this speech. My first question was why this was not two verses. I am often curious on how chapters and verses were divided, but never enough to study it.
Some versions have Job admitting sin, some use a hypothetical sin, and some question how he sinned. The idea here is the ask, not the fact, so I went with the hypothetical.
Most versions asked “what have I done to you”, but my favorite got more to the point “how have I harmed you”. God is all powerful; Job asked how he can hurt the all powerful. Oddly enough, I want to quote from 19:2 to say we can grieve His heart. God is emotional to love us, therefore, He can be hurt when we do not love Him back.
“O watcher of man” had alternatives of watching “humanity” or “me”, “preserver of man”, “keeper/jailer of man”, and “guardian of man”. I went with the generic “man” and went with the inactive “watcher” to tie into the “above it all” attitude Job implies.
The stitch about being a target was mainly straight forward.
The final stitch had one major change in that the burden was either to God or to Job himself. I felt the ask was why Job was a burden to God. I am not sure the basis for the burden to “myself”, but I am not sure how we cannot be a burden to ourselves.
God has chosen to create us and chosen for us to be His burden, to love us, and to be loved by us. When we let someone in, we give them the chance to hurt us. That is what God did for us. We cannot change the consequences, we can only do our best to not grieve Him.