Two friends from school came to visit the paralyzed teenage girl in the hospital ICU. Upon seeing their friend for the first time, they stood for a few seconds in awkward silence by her bedside and then ran out of the room. In the hallway one of the girls vomited and the other sobbed. A few days later another friend named Jackie stopped in to visit. The young patient insisted that her friend bring her a mirror. For the first time since the accident she saw what she looked like. “The person in the mirror had eyes that were bloodshot and sunken into dark cavities far back into her skull. Her skin color had faded to a dull yellow, and teeth were black from medication. Her head was still shaved, with metal clamps on either side. And her weight had shrunk from 125 to 80 pounds.” She pleaded with her friend, “Help me die. Bring some pills, or a razor blade even. I can’t live inside a grotesque body like this. Help me die, Jackie.”
Such is Philip Yancey’s description of Joni Eareckson Tada’s anguish (following her swimming accident) in his book “Where Is God When It Hurts.” (Pages 131-132)
The second half of Job chapter 30 (verses 16-31) is Job’s final “Bring me a mirror!” accounting of his horrible illness.
30:16 “And now my soul is poured out within me; Days of affliction have seized me. 17 at night it pierces my bones within me, and my gnawing pains take no rest.”
This is the bottom for Job. Francis I Anderson writes, “In a final burst of grief, Job wrestles with the sheer pain of his disease as if it were objectively a terrifying monster, chewing at his flesh day and night.” The New Living Translation puts verse 16 this way, “And now my life seeps away. Depression haunts my days.” His life is ebbing away. The gloom of Elie Wiesel’s “Night” hangs over Job’s ash heap (“Night” is an account of the horrors of a German concentration camp during WWII.). And his eyelids can’t even find a moment’s rest: “At night my bone hath been pierced in me, and mine eyelids do not lie down!” (Young’s Literal Translation).
30:18 “By a great force my garment is distorted; it binds me about as the collar of my coat. 19 He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.”
Verse 18 could be interpreted a few different ways: 1) Job’s illness has so disfigured his body that his garment has become distorted, or 2) because of his running, open sores his clothing has become cemented and glued to his ulcerated body, or 3) he is in so much pain it feels as if God has grabbed his collar and pulled his clothing so tight that every cell seems to cry out in agony.
And in a chameleon-like way, Job is beginning to resemble his environment: sitting on dust and ashes he has “become like dust and ashes.”
30:20 “I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me. 21 You have become cruel to me; with the might of Your hand You persecute me.”
“I cry but You do not answer…” The word “answer” appears more often in Job than in any other Old Testament book (twice as often in fact).
“You have become cruel to me…” The word “cruel” (Hebrew “akzar”) connotes insensitivity and lack of compassion. I think in the midst of our struggles and pain and testing (our “Night”), when we say things we shouldn’t, that God understands and totally forgives. Why do I say that? Because in chapter 42 when God is reprimanding Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, He says, “You have not spoken of Me what is right, as my servant Job has.” That’s pretty cool.
And the word “persecute” is "satam" – an obvious play on the word “Satan” from chapters one and two. Job is saying to Jehovah, “You are cherishing animosity against me!” (Hartley)
30:22 “You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride; And You dissolve me in a storm. 23 For I know that You will bring me to death and to the house of meeting for all living.”
In a sarcastic tone Job continues, “In times past You made me to ride upon the heights of blessing and intimacy with You, but now? You raise me up only to dissolve my hopes and dreams!”
Verse 23 implies that Job did not anticipate deliverance this side of death. “My home is gone, and I am heading to the gloomy home of Sheol.”
30:24 “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, or in his disaster therefore cry out for help? 25 Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?”
Undoubtedly Mr. and Mrs. Job would often, around the breakfast table, think about those in town that they could be a blessing to that day. Job thought often about those whose lot in life was difficult (those “who were having a bad day” is a loose literal rendering). He felt for the common man (in the next chapter there is an incredible statement about his attitude toward his employees).
So Job reasons, “If I felt compassion for those in a heap of ruins, shouldn’t someone (God?) stretch out Their hand for me?”
30:26 “When I expected good, then evil came; when I waited for light, then darkness came. 27 I am seething within and cannot relax; Days of affliction confront me.”
Good and evil; light and darkness. The “before” and “after” for the Job family. Verse 27 is literally, “My bowels are boiling…” Inside and out Job was in misery.
30:28 “I go about mourning without comfort; I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help. 29 I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches.”
I like to think that Mrs. Job has not abandoned her husband. Even though forsaken by the rest of the family, by his friends and the community, Mrs. Job came each day to try to give a moment’s comfort to her husband’s fevered and blistered body.
30:30 “My skin turns black on me, and my bones burn with fever. 31 Therefore my harp is turned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of those who weep.”
His skin blackens, flakes and peels off. Fever torments him constantly. “ABANDONED!” is written over this Castaway on the ash heap. He is discarded, forsaken, and deserted.
Francis I Anderson sums up this portion of Job by stating, “Job ends his lamentation on the physical agonies of his illness, unrelieved by a kind word or friendly touch. His friends sat with him (2:13) but they did not weep with him.”
I would like to close this section of Job with a few words from Philip Yancey’s book “Where Is God When It Hurts” –
“No one can package or bottle “the appropriate response to suffering.” And words intended for everyone will almost always prove worthless for one individual person. If you go to the sufferers themselves and ask for helpful words, you may find discord. Some recall a friend who cheerily helped distract them from the illness, while others think such an approach insulting. Some want honest, straightforward confrontation; others find such discussion unbearably depressing. In short, there is no magic cure for a person in pain. Mainly, such a person needs love, for love instinctively detects what is needed…In fact, the answer to the question, “How do I help those who hurt?” is exactly the same as the answer to the question, “How do I love?” If you asked me for a Bible passage to teach you how to help suffering people, I would point to I Corinthians 13 and its eloquent depiction of love. That is what a suffering person needs: love, and not knowledge and wisdom. As is so often His pattern, God uses very ordinary people to bring about healing.” (Page 173)
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Of Troglodytes and Marshmallows (The Reversal of Fortunes) (Job 30:1-15)
Chapter 29 was “the then.”
Chapter 30 is “the now.”
Chapter 29 was “The Lord gave…”
Chapter 30 is “The Lord took away…”
Job was the godly and wealthy sheik, the family man of incomparable character, the one that was admired, respected, and honored. But now Mr. Class Act has become riffraff – the stuff that is swept off the kitchen floor and thrown into the garbage can.
The contrast between these chapters could not be greater. FI Anderson crystallizes the disparity when he states, “Job has exchanged the respect of the most respectful for the contempt of the most contemptible.”
The first half of chapter 30 deals with the depths of Job’s social shame, the second half looks at Job’s spiritual and physical suffering.
30:1 “But now those younger than I mock me, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.”
“But now…” The word “now” appears three times in this chapter; it’s as if a sudden and piercing stab of pain pulls Job back from his thoughts of better days. The word “mock” is the same as “smile” just a few verses earlier (29:24). Job smiled on people to encourage them, but this classless group of people smiles derisively and mockingly. One commentator writes, “The most deplorable youths mock Job, who had been the most respected person in the community.”
We need to put the second half of verse one in context (“whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock”). Job had enormous compassion for the down-and-outers. He ascribed great worth to his servants. He was not despising this group of people because of their station in life. These are not just people down on their luck – these are those that hate society and everything good about it.
(Just a side note: as a lover of dogs I have to raise one objection. You’ve heard the saying, “The politicians are spending money like drunken sailors.” But then drunken sailors object, “Hey, don’t associate us with politicians." Even though dogs in the Jewish society were considered as lower than low (even worse than cats), and even though (as Poole writes), “Dogs are every where mentioned with contempt, as filthy, unprofitable, and accursed creatures,” I am going to stand up for dogs everywhere who object to being associated with this uncivilized band of society haters.)
The following verses describe these desert dwellers:
30:2 “Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me? Vigor had perished from them. 3 From want and famine they are gaunt who gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation, 4 Who pluck mallow by the bushes, and whose food is the root of the broom shrub.”
“They pluck mallow…” (or saltwort as some versions have it). One ancient writer says that this plant was cooked as a vegetable and the leaves were sour and furnished very little nourishment. It was apparently like eating a bark salad with ranch dressing.
And another side note…have you ever meditated on the word “marshmallow?" Its “mallow from the marshes.” Wikipedia says that marsh mallow was originally used for medicinal purposes (like curing sore throats) and dates back to Egyptian times (I think they found a bag of them in King Tut’s tomb next to some petrified s’mores). When you received your giant bottle of marshmallow pills from Pharaoh’s Pharmacy, the instructions on the bottle read: Take one marshmallow three times a day.” And did you know that modern marshmallows no longer contain marshmallow? What? Is the government looking into this? And one last thing on this meaningless interlude: someday I am going to write a history of marshmallows:
Volume One: Marshmallows That Contain Marshmallow
Volume Two: The Legend of Peeps
(I apologize for this little intermission; but every now and then I just have to get away from all this suffering stuff.)
Back to reality.
30:5 “They are driven from the community; they shout against them as against a thief, 6 So that they dwell in dreadful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.”
These men were troglodytes – cave dwellers, people of degraded, primitive or brutal character. The word “troglodyte” literally means, “one who creeps into holes.” There was a contempt felt for the Trogs by civilized society (the word “driven” carries the idea of forcefulness). One writer states, “They had to take shelter in the most dangerous and out of the way and unfrequented of places.”
I think that Job probably offered at least some of these guys an opportunity for employment – but they chose thievery and panhandling to the rigors of an 8-5 job.
30:7 “Among the bushes they cry out; under the nettles they are gathered together.”
They ate roots and lived in holes or caves or dry stream beds or ravines or gullies.
30:8 “Fools, even those without a name, they were scourged from the land.”
This group of people is called “Ben-Nabaal” – “sons of no-name.” Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “He (or she) made a name for himself.” Implied in that is the fact that they have become honorable or influential. So to be called “Ben Nabaal” is in effect saying that a person is without honor and without influence. They are nobodies.
They are persons not fit for civil society. “So inhuman are they that aged men, whose sufferings ought to excite pity, are allowed to perish near them without a helping hand!” (From the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary)
30:9 “And now I have become their taunt, I have even become a byword to them.”
Adam Clarke writes in his commentary, “Job is no longer affluent so they are no longer respectful.”
30:10 “They abhor me and stand aloof from me, and they do not refrain from spitting at my face.”
The literal translation is, “They have abominated me…!” The detestable have now become the detestors. I can imagine moms warning their kids, “Get away from that icky man Job! Don’t go anywhere near him!”
Job had probably admonished some of these young men to turn their lives around, but now they are spitting in his face. Clark writes, “What a state must civil society be in when such indignities were permitted to be offered to the aged and afflicted!”
It needs to be emphasized again that this entire passage is not a commentary on Job's attitude toward these unfortunates; it rather accents the depths of shame to which he has fallen in the community. As we have seen in past chapters and will see in chapter 31, Job had sort of a “Mother Theresa spirit” when it came to helping those beaten down by life.
30:11 “Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, they have cast off the bridle before me.”
The Trogs think to themselves, “Well, if God has cast him off, we might as well also!”
Have you noticed what is not recorded anywhere in these verses (or even in these ending chapters)? There is absolutely no hint that Eliphaz, Bildad or Zophar tried to stop any of this degrading treatment of Job. The Trogs may have acted despicably by spitting at Job, but the Comforters are inexcusable for their lack of action on Job’s behalf.
30:12 “On the right hand their brood arises; they thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways of destruction.”
The NIV puts verse 12 this way, “On my right the tribe attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me.” The rabble have attacked Job with such force that it appears as though they are besieging a fortified city.
13 “They break up my path, they profit from my destruction; No one restrains them. 14 As through a wide breach they come, amid the tempest they roll on.”
The Message translates verses 13-14 this way, “They throw every kind of obstacle in my path, determined to ruin me—and no one lifts a finger to help me! 14 They violate my broken body, trample through the rubble of my ruined life.”
The imagery of an attacking army continues: the army assails a fortress, laying siege for a long time and finally breaking through and sacking and ransacking the person of Job.
30:15 “Terrors are turned against me; they pursue my honor as the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.”
The Message puts the first part of verse 15 this way, “Terrors assault me—my dignity in shreds…”
In his commentary Barnes writes, “Everything (they can come up with) to produce terror has been turned against him.” Trapp brings the first half of this chapter to a close by paraphrasing Job’s words, “I am utterly deprived of all means of avoiding this misery.”
Conclusion: When I pastored the small church in Hawthorne, Wisconsin, a young man visited one Sunday and sat in one of the pews toward the back of the sanctuary. Not until I went back to shake his hand during the greeting time did I find out that he had brought his dog with him. His dog “Diesel” sat perfectly still the entire service and didn’t make a sound. The next day I sent Diesel an official “Thanks for visiting!” letter and expressed my gratitude to him for visiting the church (and for bringing his master with him). I like dogs.
Looking back on my time of pastoring, there has only been one person that I regretted asking to stand behind the pulpit and preach a sermon. I was a rookie preacher at the time and, if I remember correctly, a relative of one of the people in the church I was pastoring asked if Preacher Bob (I can’t even remember his name) could preach a Sunday night sermon. I said that would be fine. But somewhere close to the end of his sermon he made a statement that I will never forget (and that convinced me to NEVER invite him back). He said simply this, “There are some people so far from God, I would never allow them to live in my dog house.” As I sat on the front pew, anxiously waiting for him to leave town, my only thought was, “You may not allow them to live in your dog house, but Jesus had supper with some of them. And then He died on Calvary for them.”
Jesus loves people.
Chapter 30 is “the now.”
Chapter 29 was “The Lord gave…”
Chapter 30 is “The Lord took away…”
Job was the godly and wealthy sheik, the family man of incomparable character, the one that was admired, respected, and honored. But now Mr. Class Act has become riffraff – the stuff that is swept off the kitchen floor and thrown into the garbage can.
The contrast between these chapters could not be greater. FI Anderson crystallizes the disparity when he states, “Job has exchanged the respect of the most respectful for the contempt of the most contemptible.”
The first half of chapter 30 deals with the depths of Job’s social shame, the second half looks at Job’s spiritual and physical suffering.
30:1 “But now those younger than I mock me, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.”
“But now…” The word “now” appears three times in this chapter; it’s as if a sudden and piercing stab of pain pulls Job back from his thoughts of better days. The word “mock” is the same as “smile” just a few verses earlier (29:24). Job smiled on people to encourage them, but this classless group of people smiles derisively and mockingly. One commentator writes, “The most deplorable youths mock Job, who had been the most respected person in the community.”
We need to put the second half of verse one in context (“whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock”). Job had enormous compassion for the down-and-outers. He ascribed great worth to his servants. He was not despising this group of people because of their station in life. These are not just people down on their luck – these are those that hate society and everything good about it.
(Just a side note: as a lover of dogs I have to raise one objection. You’ve heard the saying, “The politicians are spending money like drunken sailors.” But then drunken sailors object, “Hey, don’t associate us with politicians." Even though dogs in the Jewish society were considered as lower than low (even worse than cats), and even though (as Poole writes), “Dogs are every where mentioned with contempt, as filthy, unprofitable, and accursed creatures,” I am going to stand up for dogs everywhere who object to being associated with this uncivilized band of society haters.)
The following verses describe these desert dwellers:
30:2 “Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me? Vigor had perished from them. 3 From want and famine they are gaunt who gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation, 4 Who pluck mallow by the bushes, and whose food is the root of the broom shrub.”
“They pluck mallow…” (or saltwort as some versions have it). One ancient writer says that this plant was cooked as a vegetable and the leaves were sour and furnished very little nourishment. It was apparently like eating a bark salad with ranch dressing.
And another side note…have you ever meditated on the word “marshmallow?" Its “mallow from the marshes.” Wikipedia says that marsh mallow was originally used for medicinal purposes (like curing sore throats) and dates back to Egyptian times (I think they found a bag of them in King Tut’s tomb next to some petrified s’mores). When you received your giant bottle of marshmallow pills from Pharaoh’s Pharmacy, the instructions on the bottle read: Take one marshmallow three times a day.” And did you know that modern marshmallows no longer contain marshmallow? What? Is the government looking into this? And one last thing on this meaningless interlude: someday I am going to write a history of marshmallows:
Volume One: Marshmallows That Contain Marshmallow
Volume Two: The Legend of Peeps
(I apologize for this little intermission; but every now and then I just have to get away from all this suffering stuff.)
Back to reality.
30:5 “They are driven from the community; they shout against them as against a thief, 6 So that they dwell in dreadful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.”
These men were troglodytes – cave dwellers, people of degraded, primitive or brutal character. The word “troglodyte” literally means, “one who creeps into holes.” There was a contempt felt for the Trogs by civilized society (the word “driven” carries the idea of forcefulness). One writer states, “They had to take shelter in the most dangerous and out of the way and unfrequented of places.”
I think that Job probably offered at least some of these guys an opportunity for employment – but they chose thievery and panhandling to the rigors of an 8-5 job.
30:7 “Among the bushes they cry out; under the nettles they are gathered together.”
They ate roots and lived in holes or caves or dry stream beds or ravines or gullies.
30:8 “Fools, even those without a name, they were scourged from the land.”
This group of people is called “Ben-Nabaal” – “sons of no-name.” Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “He (or she) made a name for himself.” Implied in that is the fact that they have become honorable or influential. So to be called “Ben Nabaal” is in effect saying that a person is without honor and without influence. They are nobodies.
They are persons not fit for civil society. “So inhuman are they that aged men, whose sufferings ought to excite pity, are allowed to perish near them without a helping hand!” (From the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary)
30:9 “And now I have become their taunt, I have even become a byword to them.”
Adam Clarke writes in his commentary, “Job is no longer affluent so they are no longer respectful.”
30:10 “They abhor me and stand aloof from me, and they do not refrain from spitting at my face.”
The literal translation is, “They have abominated me…!” The detestable have now become the detestors. I can imagine moms warning their kids, “Get away from that icky man Job! Don’t go anywhere near him!”
Job had probably admonished some of these young men to turn their lives around, but now they are spitting in his face. Clark writes, “What a state must civil society be in when such indignities were permitted to be offered to the aged and afflicted!”
It needs to be emphasized again that this entire passage is not a commentary on Job's attitude toward these unfortunates; it rather accents the depths of shame to which he has fallen in the community. As we have seen in past chapters and will see in chapter 31, Job had sort of a “Mother Theresa spirit” when it came to helping those beaten down by life.
30:11 “Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, they have cast off the bridle before me.”
The Trogs think to themselves, “Well, if God has cast him off, we might as well also!”
Have you noticed what is not recorded anywhere in these verses (or even in these ending chapters)? There is absolutely no hint that Eliphaz, Bildad or Zophar tried to stop any of this degrading treatment of Job. The Trogs may have acted despicably by spitting at Job, but the Comforters are inexcusable for their lack of action on Job’s behalf.
30:12 “On the right hand their brood arises; they thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways of destruction.”
The NIV puts verse 12 this way, “On my right the tribe attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me.” The rabble have attacked Job with such force that it appears as though they are besieging a fortified city.
13 “They break up my path, they profit from my destruction; No one restrains them. 14 As through a wide breach they come, amid the tempest they roll on.”
The Message translates verses 13-14 this way, “They throw every kind of obstacle in my path, determined to ruin me—and no one lifts a finger to help me! 14 They violate my broken body, trample through the rubble of my ruined life.”
The imagery of an attacking army continues: the army assails a fortress, laying siege for a long time and finally breaking through and sacking and ransacking the person of Job.
30:15 “Terrors are turned against me; they pursue my honor as the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.”
The Message puts the first part of verse 15 this way, “Terrors assault me—my dignity in shreds…”
In his commentary Barnes writes, “Everything (they can come up with) to produce terror has been turned against him.” Trapp brings the first half of this chapter to a close by paraphrasing Job’s words, “I am utterly deprived of all means of avoiding this misery.”
Conclusion: When I pastored the small church in Hawthorne, Wisconsin, a young man visited one Sunday and sat in one of the pews toward the back of the sanctuary. Not until I went back to shake his hand during the greeting time did I find out that he had brought his dog with him. His dog “Diesel” sat perfectly still the entire service and didn’t make a sound. The next day I sent Diesel an official “Thanks for visiting!” letter and expressed my gratitude to him for visiting the church (and for bringing his master with him). I like dogs.
Looking back on my time of pastoring, there has only been one person that I regretted asking to stand behind the pulpit and preach a sermon. I was a rookie preacher at the time and, if I remember correctly, a relative of one of the people in the church I was pastoring asked if Preacher Bob (I can’t even remember his name) could preach a Sunday night sermon. I said that would be fine. But somewhere close to the end of his sermon he made a statement that I will never forget (and that convinced me to NEVER invite him back). He said simply this, “There are some people so far from God, I would never allow them to live in my dog house.” As I sat on the front pew, anxiously waiting for him to leave town, my only thought was, “You may not allow them to live in your dog house, but Jesus had supper with some of them. And then He died on Calvary for them.”
Jesus loves people.
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