Job 15:21
The sound of terror is always in their ears,
Even while at peace, they fear the despoiler coming upon them.
Writer’s block is the main thing coming to mind right now. I am not sure its source in those that suffer from it, but I can imagine it might be stress. I do this for fun, so there is no real stress to it, but I can feel pressure from myself to make progress on the goal of finishing these someday. I have started on my proverbial ‘get the house organized’ during this dearth of paying work. My stress here is getting it into small enough chunks to not last more than a day on a task.
‘Terror’ was also ‘terrifying’, ‘dreadful’, ‘frightening’, and ‘fear’. ‘Is always’ was only in one source, but it filled a void that did not seem to be missing in the others.
‘At peace’ was also ‘in prosperity’, ‘seems well’, and ‘at ease’. ‘The Despoiler’ was also ‘the destroyer’, ‘marauder’, ‘robbers’, and ‘plunderers’.
In spite of all that is wrong with it, we have recently watched a tv series where the lead character seems to face terrible things all day every day. It does not seem to create terror in him, but it seems as if it would for a normal person. I think the term I want to apply is jaded. I think that is the culture our newscasts have developed. We are jaded by bad things and even the terror of fires has lost its impact due to the political fighting over who needs to pay.
A house at the end of our street almost burned down due to less than ideal fireworks cleanup. Our youngest is not free from fear of a house fire. It made for a touchy conversation to remind her of the risks. I think of the neighbors who came over to ask about the smell are heroes for caring enough to do so. The terror from what might have happened might have made staying here harder. One can only imagine the feeling of those who suffered on such a large scale in Los Angeles, much less other similar and smaller events.
The other fear I see in this verse is those who cannot enjoy anything knowing it is all going to end in disaster. This is the idea behind using despoiler. I had not heard that term much, but my two favorite sources both used it. This is also a common issue with the world. The world is going to become unbearable, and it is only through the rapture that believers will not suffer the worst of it. I have run across people too afraid to have kids for this fear. Before my kids found their salvation, I feared this for them. It seems if we believe that the world is falling apart, we could use it as a reason to witness in more of what we do to save others from it. Pretty overwhelming.
Written 1/16/25, Posted 2/15/25, Job 358