Job 5:6

For evil does not come from dust,

   Nor wretchedness sprout from the soil.

 

So, the text moves from fools to evil. In this I see a distinction being made from people who do not know any better and people who intentionally do wrong. A young child hitting a dog is one thing. An old man hitting the dog is another. If you do not know what sin is, you still sin. If you do know what sin is and you still sin, then that is on you.

Options in my sources for “evil” were ”misery”, “hardship”, “affliction”, “crime”, and “misfortune”. Misfortune itself seems totally out of place from the concept of God directs even the circumstances of Job that these words center around. The others seem inconsistence with the message that bad things do not just happen, but people make them happen.

Alternatives for “come” include “spring”, “grow’, and  “emerge”. The plant aspects of the verse do not really shine in “come”, so I plan to make it come forth to align better, but there is just something less impactful about being explicitly plant based in this first stitch for me.

Variations for “dust” included “earth”, “soil”, and “ground”. I used dust to align with how I remember all the verses about being made from dust and ashes returning to dust.

Trying not to be repetitive, possibilities for “wretchedness” included “trouble”, “mischief”, and “evil”. I did not want to repeat evil, trouble seemed too generic, and mischief underwhelms in comparison to evil.

Sprout was chosen over spring to retain some of the plant-based feel.

Variations for “soil” included “earth” and “ground”. I used soil to align with dust.

Interesting to me, is how the various assemblages of words that mean the same thing and come from the same source can either reinforce the message coming in the next verse or serve as a useless prelude. Hardship and trouble are our lot because of original sin in the garden. They were not the “nature” outcome of the world as some renditions of this verse might point to.

I finished reading the fourth Dune book. The main take away from the book as a book was the sheer volume of “wisdom” the leader spoke that made no sense to his followers. There was an aspect of not spoon feeding them the answers so they would learn it as opposed to just hear it. I know God did this for us in the Bible, but I know he did it in such a way as we could learn something even from simply hearing or reading it. The other outcome aligns with this verse. People create evil and all its suffering trying to escape reality. Reality is that God exists, He made the world such that actions have consequences that cannot be chosen, and when we try to force things to be our way whether trying to return to the good old days or to create a better future, we fail to experience the joy of right relationship to God now. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow may not come. Today is the day. Rejoice and be glad in it.