Job 6:1-2

The Job spoke out saying,

   If indeed, my anguish could be weighed,

      Placed with all my calamity on the scales,

In case you are not aware, professional baseball is at a crossroads today. Labor and management let the last contract expire and both sides are fighting to get the new one to be more beneficial to themselves. As of yet, the worst outcome is the fans have not been able to get any news from their favorite clubs and the clubs cannot change personnel. Those are the highlights of the months without games. The real pain for the parties involved does not begin until games are canceled and revenue changes. But the real damage is the emotional toil the fans are taking now when they are weighing alternatives for their attention and money. I swore off buying Astros stuff last year until the playoffs. I realized my scales had tipped and I did not care for baseball as much.

“Anguish” was also presented as “vexation”, “grief”, and “rage”. I did not like the aspect of Job having “rage” at God, so I passed on that option. “Grief” was appropriate to the loss of life, but it seemed to much like a recovery step for my intent. “Vexation” was very interesting, but it left a revenge sort of feel, and a not quite sure of the meaning impression. There was a hint of weighing the fullness of anguish, but it somehow felt redundant.

“Calamity” could have been either of “misery” or “disaster”. But I felt “misery” was too close to “anguish” and “disaster” was too everyday for the breadth of the issues Job faced. “Scales” could have easily been “balances” as what we typically think of as scales are “balance scales”. The one aspect I am unsure of is the lack of specificity indicating the inability to fit all of his calamity on the scales. “Anguish” cannot be weighed at all, but there is some physical hint to the term “calamity” and some sources included this with an inability to “fit” everything on the balance. “Be laid” or “be borne” were the best representations of this. I still cannot see a reason to use “fit” or “be borne” but could easily see “laid”. I see not benefit to a change.

In an odd twist, I wrote myself a note to reference my source when I wrote this piece. It is an introduction to Job’s first speech and hits the big topics at hand. The main take away is that Job is driven by emotion and is not being 100% logical is his actions and words. We saw a true crime story last night that had a dad lying to his daughter about her mother’s disappearance. It was comical how emotionless the man was. The cops could come up with nothing as the dad lawyered up. The lack of emotion convinced me the dad killed the mom and disposed of the body and left not enough clues behind.

Job’s anguish at his calamity was not just impossible to weigh, it was more than he could bear. He lost his kids, his livelihood, and the favor of God. He wanted that relationship with God to be restored, to know that God loved him, and that his love for God was not worthless. Job asked for restoration with everything he had.

Baseball is entertainment and at its basic level it is competing with every other sport, movies, tv, internet, travel, and diversion on the face of the planet. People become fanatical about how they integrate baseball into their lives, but as Job felt when calamity hit, fans may ask why they do what they do to not be rewarded. I have a real distaste for the NFL and football in general right now, but I watched the four games this weekend and enjoyed it as much as I ever had before. The games were fun to watch with failure, success, and competition on all sides. It was like I was a little kid not worried about politics or money or poor role models all over again. Baseball is hoping for that emotional bounce to return just as Job was hoping for some positive emotion to return. Job had terrible emotional conditions and that is where God will come to rescue: in this story about Job and for each of us.