Job 5:21

You will be hidden from the tongues of Fire.

   You need not fear the on rushing Flood.

Flood and Fire are two perils we often read about in the papers and sometimes the focus is on deaths caused by them. We teach our kids enough to be scared of their own house burning down and it does indeed scare them. We forget to teach people that cars float and do not work in water and yet “idiots” drive into flooded streets all the time wasting cars or killing themselves. As long as we have had houses and cars, it would seem we would do better teaching of our children.

Options for “hidden” include “be protected” and “be sheltered”. Hidden was used much more often and seemed to carry the intent. Oddly enough, only one source actually had fire with the rest having simply tongue: “scourge of tongue” or “lash of tongue”. I do not believe this is left over from the previous verses of the sharp tongue of the crafty, but that the word use for tongue carries the expectation that it is a tongue of fire.

There were a variety of strings of words that carried the basic meaning of “You need not fear”, but none of them was different or even duplicative enough that I felt I could not use my own. “Onrushing flood” was also presented as ”destruction” by the Christian sources, “violence”, “raiders”, and “assault”. Again, it seemed as if the term translated here carried the unspoken definitive of a flood.

I am remembering the difficulty I had working through this passage trying to understand how so many bible translation groups had selected phrases that did not carry the depth of meaning these verses seem to deliver. I look back at how I felt other people looked at Job as a confusing text and how I lumped it in with a collection of psalms and proverbs and never really understood the flow of wisdom that God had entwined in it. I do not feel that I am any more loved by God or talented than many others, but I feel that God is leading me through this to somehow impact others with a better understanding of the work that Job is. As I continue forward on this path, I will continually look for Him to guide me in ever aspect and pray that the totality of the effort somehow helps others even a fraction as much as it helps me.