Job 5:24

You shall know that your tent is at peace,

   You will inspect your home and find nothing amiss.

This is in sharp contrast to the perils that God is protecting us from. And in direct opposition to the outcome of the home of the crafty. I am about to go out and cover the pipes to protect from freezing tonight and expect that I will have no issues like I did last year since I plan to do it correctly. Our lives can only be at peace with nothing amiss if we put in the normal work required. God does miracles, but I am not sure He does a lot of them for routine maintenance.

“Tabernacle” and “household” were suggestions in contrast to tent, but I picture “tabernacle” as a communal worship tent and preferred the “temporary” home aspect of tent over the concrete household image. “Safe”, “secure”, and “well” were terms used by some for “at peace”, but I never felt safe nor secure in a tent with was either to keep out the rain or the heat or the bugs, and “well” carries a “happy” flavor that I do not think is intended by the peace aspect others used.

“Take stock”, “visit”, and “probe” were options for “inspect”, but take stock and probe were similar enough to dismiss and visit carried a sense of you were not living there that seemed out of place. However, one source had “visit your wife” and brought the idea that you were away from the house working the land and only went home every so often. Other alternatives included for “home” were “property”, “dwelling”, “habitation”, and “household” which all seem similar enough, but one was “fold”. Fold implies to me a sense of a wallet or a safe where you keep important stuff: the fold of your clothes. In the end, I felt that tent represented the physical nature of a home and the home represented the spiritual nature of your family.

Finally, suggestions for “find nothing amiss” included “miss nothing”, “find nothing missing”, “shalt not sin”, “will never fail”, “you will not fail”, and “find no one missing”. These each added a different sense to the message. “Miss nothing” seems to indicate you will never lose anything. “Find nothing missing” is similar, but carries illusion to others not taking if they know you look. “Shalt not sin” seems totally off the mark, i.e. if to sin is to miss the mark, then someone back substituted sin for missing something. I do not see how you will not fail fits within the verse (in the source that uses it) at all, I simply skipped it. “Find no one missing” seems to imply that if you spend all your time away from the house, then you might end up losing kids or servants or a wife along the way. This is probably true, but I have no sense of why that would be the intent of the verse. And last, but not least, “you will never fail” comes after “when you visit your wife” and all I can think of is the ad for a generic drug that recently came up. (Adult humor?) I definitely did not think that was the Biblical intent of the verse.

I leave this verse still tagging it to the opposite of the crafty in that we are to do the right thing that includes routine maintenance of our tent and meeting the needs of our family. God made a few things easy, but most of life takes effort, and often, the best things are best with good solid focus of action. We are not to be craft and cunning, but we are to “man up” and fulfill our mandate. A tent is not a home without tanning a few hides and tying a good knot.