Job 3:8

May those curse it who charm the sea,

Those skilled in seducing leviathan.

 

This verse had an awfully lot to it. To start with, I was still trying to figure out a consistent manner from which to get my result. I picked this verse to experiment on. I did not like the path but was satisfied with the outcome. I quickly went back to the other method the following day.

The next twist was the references to Middle Eastern Mythology. The word translated “sea” is also the name of the god representing the sea in the pagan culture around Job. Leviathan is part of the sea and is some sort of sea-beast ruled by the sea god. In essence Job is appealing to someone who can get the sea and sea beasts to do their bidding. (Maybe Aquaman? Wild rabbit chase there to tie down DC comics, the lost city of Atlantis, and middle Eastern mythology all at once.)

Additionally, the word translated at “sea” can be used to indicate chaos as in pre-creation and therefore the identity of “those” is “simply” God. This is consistent with the aspects of unreal request Job is making, but of course, I just left sea as no man can tame the sea or really anything in it.

“Curse it who charm” was the result of terms that led more closely to witches than anything else. The idea being that someone could put a spell on the sea, the sea god, or the sea beast to do their bidding. The ask is that one of these witches also cast a spell over the night of Job’s birth. One termination along this path is that the witches “damn” the sea, the chaos, the night, etc. My default is that people who do not go to heaven are “damned to hell.” Therefore, I struggle with “damning” a thing. But if things can be sent off into the chaos never to return, then I suppose it might be applicable. This train of thought begs the question, ”What does curse even mean here?” One guide used the term “hex” and that goes back to the witch option and casting a spell over the night.

One run with the terms that was not clear based on the actual words available, was the idea that he was asking the god of the sea to rouse Leviathan to destroy the day of his birth and take it back into the chaos of pre-creation. (Again, consistent with the verses around this one.)

Seduction is probably not the best term, but it seemed to fit poetically as the idea is that someone would convince Leviathan to want to do this task for them. My English vocabulary is not strong enough to want to pick better words every time all my sources seem a little off, and this one seemed close enough to convey the meaning I inferred.

I feel that at this point of the poetry, Job is ignoring his friends and pleading with God to take away his misery in every way imaginable without simply saying ‘Yahweh, just kill me.” His friends hear all this. We know at least one other person is there. In reality, there was probably a great mob there to see the visitors and everyone was getting antsy and Job picked that one impactful moment to begin his plea. He has suffered. Everyone knows about it. Everyone is watching it. Job probably feels it can not possibly get worse, so let’s finish it.

I have the impression the mythology alluded to here is referred to a few more times and it will be interesting to see if they shed light on better terms to use here. Myths, gods, witches, etc. This verse was full of the devices used by Satan to distract from the divinity of God. It is great to know that God himself gets His time to speak in the poets work.