Job 41: Leviathan

Job 41:11 "Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me."

God continues his description of how big and powerful his creation (and by extension, himself) is. This is a chapter about Leviathan. We've met leviathan before in our readings, back in chapter three, when Job calls out whoever is powerful enough to rouse him. Essentially calling on God to eschew the day Job was born. Chapter 41 appears to be a direct response to that. 

Job is in absolutely no position to put something like leviathan under his control. It is huge, rare and scary. Not tameable. With descriptions including breath that lights coals, it sounds a lot like a dragon. A real, honest-to-Job dragon. Maybe they did exist. I wasn't around a million years ago. Maybe these things roamed around in the depths, scaring fishermen and stuff. I don't know. Seems kind of wussy if it describes a crocodile. Those things are catchable. The zoo is down the block from me. I've seen captive crocs.

In the same manner that a person can not hope to contain leviathan, a man has no business making claims against God.

Job 3: Cursing the Birthing

Job 3:1 "After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth."

Job finally speaks to his friends about his situation. What I have is written very poetically, in couplets. Every sentence seems to have two parts.

Job paints an extremely dark picture about the day of his birth, cursing it...wishing he could reverse it. He seems to want to hide it, to black it out. To obscure it. Everything he held dear was now destroyed, dead, or stolen away. It's just a whole lot of cursing.

Verse 8 is rather strange. "May those who curse days curse that day (the day of Job's birth), those who are ready to rouse Leviathan." Who are those who curse days? Whoever they are, they also apparently rouse Leviathan. Is it some sort of a mystical thing? And there's not really any definitive description of what Leviathan is. A large fish, mayhaps. Anyway.

Verse 14 suggests some knowledge or education about the afterlife. He says that were he stillborn he would rest with kings and counselors of earth, whose buildings lie in ruins...so those who were great in days longer ago than he. Also, this rest would be a place free from turmoil.

Verse 20-22 are really kind of depressing, suggesting God gives longer life to those who are in pain and misery, when the grave would be a relief, a treasure, a reward. Very morose. And I thought it was mostly teenagers who wish on themselves like this.

The concept of the hedge is brought up here, too. Where Satan declares that God has placed a hedge of protection around Job, Job sees a hedge of entrapment. The way is hidden, so how can Job find escape?