Suffering Misery and Bitter Souls

I never knew the bible could be so poetic. Seriously, the words, and how they are strewn together in Job are incredibly astounding.

Okay, so first and foremost, the whole reason for this chapter is for God to prove the righteousness of Job, and therefore the Devil (being his evil little self) decides to in a way, ruin Job’s life to prove to God that Job would curse Him given the circumstances.

Up until chapter 10, after having his cattle disappear, as well as his children, and getting an awful skin disease, Job still has yet to ‘curse’ God. Sure, he gets overly pissed and rants about how he does not deserve this, but not once does he get truly mad at the Lord.

Job 3:20

“Why is light given to those in misery,
and life to the bitter soul,
to those who long for death that does not come
who search for it more than a hidden treasure,
who are filled with gladness and rejoice
when they reach the grave?”

Deep, or what? Right now, as you can see, he is in an obvious state depression and a mind-set that questions life in bitterness. This is sort of like the regular question of why some people are happy and other are not in life, as well as the question of our existence if we’re going to spend most of it hoping for the day it will end.

Another one I liked was Job 4:5, where Eliphaz says, “But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed.”

This is basically like the lesson in life of getting back up when you fall down. It is true that in life, whenever we fail at something, or don’t do things like we are ‘supposed’ to or how we want them to do and excel, we always feel down and burden ourselves enough so that we don’t try again. We get discouraged by any single mistake that ends up deciding our path, something that we should not let happen.

Finally, a quote by Job that just kept me gasping at the pure profoundnesss of it and relative comparison, was Job 10:8 :

“Your hands shaped me and made me,
Will you now turn and destroy me?
Remember that you molded me like clay.
Will you now turn me into dust again?

This demonstrates the description of being built, only to be torn down again, piece by piece, which is how Job feels right now.

“Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle
me like cheese,
Clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?”

I just loved the description of this one, the flesh clothing the body and constructed with a puzzle of joined bones?

Genius.

I have come to find, that besides just being a religious text focused on telling the story and portraying beliefs, the Bible is also an amazing collection of awesome literary art.

I wish I talked like that.