Déjà vu. Like Aladdin being cloaked in mystery, I feel we left this word in French to make it more mysterious. I do not recall experiencing déjà vu as much as I did when I was younger, but I sure do feel like have done a lot of things that I actually have not. Maybe that is a sign of old age. I feel like I have written about chapter 2 recently, but I cannot find any evidence of it. So here I go, again.
Wait I found it. It was on my work computer. My brain works after all. The Amalgmation for a refresher.
Job Chapter 2
1 Again there was a day when the heavenly court came into the presence of Yahweh and the Accuser also came among them in the presence of Yahweh.
2 Yahweh said to the Accuser
Where are you coming from?
The Accuser answered Yahweh saying
From roaming the earth and walking about in it.
3 Yahweh said to the Accuser
Have you noticed my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth, a man blameless and upright, who reveres God and turn’s away from evil. He still holds fast to his integrity although you incited me against him to ruin him for no good reason.
4 The Accuser answered Yahweh
Skin for Skin. All that a man has, will he not give for the sake of his own life?
5 And yet, reach out your hand and strike his own person, will he not blaspheme You to Your Face?
6 Yahweh replied to the Accuser
Behold, he is in your power, only preserve his life
7 So the Accuser went forth from the presence of Yahweh and struck Job with a grievous burning rash from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
8 Job took a shard of broken pottery with which to scrape himself as he sat in the midst of the dung ash heap.
9 His wife said to him
Do you still hold fast to your integrity?
Blashpeme God, and die.
10 Then he said to her
You speak as an impious, foolish woman would speak
Shall we accept only good from the hand of God
And shall we not accept adversity?
Yet in all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
11 When Job’s three colleagues heard all these adversities that had befallen him, each one set out from his own place, Eliphaz the Teminite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, having arranged to meet together to go and mourn with him and to comfort him.
12 When they raised their eyes from afar and could not recognize him, they lifted up their voices and wept, they rent their robes and tossed dust over their heads towards heaven.
13 For seven days and seven nights they sat with him on the ground. No one spoke a word for they could see how very great was his agony.
The first portion of this chapter repeats the introduction to the heavenly court (more or less) until God points out “He still holds fast to his integrity although you incited me against him to ruin him for no good reason.” So, God is describing Satan’s actions in chapter one as “you incited me”. We learn that the actions of others do impact the actions of God and that God knows exactly what is going on. The phrase “give him enough rope to hang himself” comes to mind. God recognized Satan’s actions for folly, yet He went along with it, and He even knew the outcome and still let it playout. Satan used all the rope he could, and it ended up not going to well for Job, his children, and his slaves.
Next Satan asks for more rope to make matters even worse: ”Skin for Skin. All that a man has, will he not give for the sake of his own life?” So, now Job has a grievous burning rash from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. All because Satan does not understand that he is the one being made to look foolish as opposed to Job much less God. Satan’s role in the story ends here as he was just being used to make a point and the real story is Job and his response to a trial.
In our suburban lives today, we put the trash in a bag in a can and some guys pick it up at the curb never for us to worry about again. It did not work this way back in the day. No one had trash. Extra food went to animals and all the food came at best in reusable baskets. No boxes to recycle, no plastic to throw in the trash, no food in the trash, no yard clipping in the trash, none of the garbage we have today.
But they still had a rough equivalent of our “city” dump that we never see. Those animals that ate created waste and that waste had to go somewhere. People had to clean it up, burn it, and take it out of town. The town would have a spot and everyone would take all the burned waste and pile it up. And this horrible place is where they sent all the lepers.
Leprosy is not something we worry a lot about, but they did. It was contagious and to save the rest, any lepers were sent away to the trash spot to hide and wait for family to bring them food and drink and whatever they needed when they took out the trash. I find it all hard to believe, but once he had these gruesome sores, this is where Job went to be with the outcasts. The pottery shard to scrap himself is just disgusting beyond measure.
So, his wife gives him the send off of “Drop dead.” Ok, so maybe those were not her exact words, but she wasn’t happy that he was still worshipping God and acting as if he was upright and blameless when her source of a nice life and all her kids were gone, and her husband was covered in open wounds that she could care for. I alluded to the fact that things could have been worse for Job as he still had his wife, but it looks like she kicks him when he is down.
Once again, we see that Job is upright and blameless. He does not unload on his wife, he does not call her bad names, he simply notes her behavior is less than perfect. And they He goes on to note that they should still worship God and accept whatever He provides. Most people would curse their spouse and move on. God gives us blessings and God gives us trials and Job understand this just to be another trial. One that does not make sense to him, but still, something from God to deal with the best we can. “Job did not sin with his lips.” The whole drive so far has been not to blaspheme God and Job through all this has not done so. It begs the question of did Job sin during the res of the story? Something to think about and discuss as we move through it.
From this point, we have his friends show up. There is a time gap in this point in the story. People did not get instance notice on facebook that a friend was ill or send a tweet to meet at his house in half an hour to pray. The message had to go from where Job lived to where one of his friends lived, then a message to the next friend and then a message back, and no telling how many iterations or how long the sending of messages took before they all agreed to meet and when. Then they had to travel.
I heard the story of Aladdin as a kid. Not sure where, but it had a Disney feel to it. The Disney movie came out after I finished graduate school classes, so that was not it. I am not sure I ever saw the Disney animated version. For grins, I watched the live action version the other week and became interested in the background. My thought was that it was part of the 1001 Arabian Nights. Peter Cetera has an album One More Story, with a song One More Story I always liked and a song about the 1001 Arabian Nights. So, after hearing the songs again, I went and figured out what book about that to buy and read. Apparently, Aladdin was not part of the story and was something else. The Arabian Nights book I am reading is a great work and includes a discussion of how hard it was to take the story from its best edition in a native language and translate to English. It repeats some of the gas I see in translations when studying Job. The translator has done a great job in my opinion. It is fun to read, but the spiritual aspects are not aligned to my world view.
Aladdin first appeared as a French work crediting a Syrian source with the authentic tale. The clearest critism of the story is its handling of cultural differences. Yes, most people initially think people from foreign lands are strange. The story captures that and uses it, but it was written by someone in a different language a long time ago and applying the latest standards selected by the loudest critic is no way to judge a story. If the author choses to write about people he does not understand and not to pretend that he does (or she) so be it. It is just a story. What is funny is that Aladdin was from China in the story and neither the Syrian or the French author knew much about Chinese. The critics were angry that Aladdin did not portray Arabian people in the best light. Chinese, Arabian, Yankee, what is the difference?
A flyer for a 1952 movie version says “See the World’s Most Gorgeous Harem Beauties!” Even in 1952 Hollywood knew “Sex Sells” and used it all they could.
Anyway, back to Job, His friends respond in typical fashion for the day, lifting their voices, renting their robes, tossing dust in the air, and waiting for the ill person to acknowledge them before speaking. Typical, authentic, not inappropriate use of cultural differences. I feel like I sped through this chapter, but I had covered some if it before, and some of it was a repeat, and next is the good stuff.