Job

I'll admit: Job wasn't easy to get through. It took me over a week to read, which is pretty long for me. Most of it is basically just Job arguing with his various friends. Depressing and boring....

The first thing that jumped out at me is Job's wife famous phrase "Curse God and die." My mom says this all the time, and I never knew it was from Job. I was confused about the connotation of the phrase, though. Is Job's wife saying "If you curse God, you will die because He will kill you," or is she saying "Just curse the damn Lord and die already!" Judging from what happens to her, I think it was option #2. But I had to laugh, because my mom always means it like the first example, so I don't think she gets what it means in context.

I found an interesting allusion from The Slave in Job: 6:8-9: "Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me." This is pretty much the same thing Jacob repeats in the first few chapters of Singer's novel (which is a great read by the way, and pretty easy too).

Throughout the book of Job, I was reminded of Northrop Frye's stages of language. Job is definitely full of metaphors. Some are pretty comical, actually. Here's one: "Hast thou not poured me out as milk and curdled me like cheese?" Kind of entertaining.

"Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?" I think this is where the "by the skin of his teeth" saying came from. I still don't understand what it's supposed to mean...

Even after God does all this horrible stuff to Job, he's still faithful "My lips shall not speak wickedness nor my tongue utter deceit." I guess this is why, whenever something bad happens to you and you ask your pastor about it, he/she will always say--and I guarantee this--"You need to read Job."

Job mentions an organ. I didn't know they had such advanced instrumentation back then...

Elihu, the youngest of the friends, actually turns out to be the wisest. God seems to be a man of extremes: his heroes are either very young, like David, or very old, like Abraham.

"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment." I think we need to apply this verse to our Congressmen...

Since it says Job lived to be 140, I'd have to agree with Dr. Sexson that this book belongs way back, that it's chronologically out of place.

And if Job's wife died, and his sons died, then why does it say at the end "And [he] saw his sons and his sons' sons." Where did they come from?