The Valley
“Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?” Job 3:23 NASB
Light – “Even though I walk through the valley of tsalmawet.” What kind of valley is tsalmawet? One that we know, unfortunately. “It describes the darkness of eyelids tired from weeping (Job 16:16), the thick darkness present in a mine shaft (Job 28:3), the darkness of the abode of the dead (Job 10:21f.; 38:17), and the darkness prior to creation (Amos 5:8). Emotionally it describes the internal anguish of one who has rebelled against God (Ps 107:10–14; cf. 44:19f. [H 20f.]). Thus it is the strongest word in Hebrew for darkness.”[1] If this is the reality of our lives, why even be born?
Ah, Job’s question. The NASB translates “Why is light given . . ?” The NIV offers, “Why is life given?” Most translations use one of these two alternatives. However, the Hebrew text provides nothing! It doesn’t have any phrase like this at all. It simply reads, “To a man whose way is hidden whom God has hedged in.” We have to go back to verse 20 to find the basis for the translator’s gloss. But it’s not very encouraging.
20
“Why is light given to him who suffers,
And life to the bitter of soul,
21
Who long for death, but there is none,
And dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22
Who rejoice greatly,
And exult when they find the grave?
23
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
And whom God has hedged in?
24
For my groaning comes at the sight of my food,
And my cries pour out like water.
25
For what I fear comes upon me,
And what I dread befalls me.”[2]
Job’s lament sends us on the road to fearless purpose. It’s not an easy trip. “We must go into the scary places to find ourselves, we fools, we must encounter all that lives there, and if we never find our way out again it will still have been a risk worth taking, more than that: it’s the risk we’re born for, made for. It’s the risk we owe it to ourselves to take. We’ve called up what we can’t put down and now we’ve got to look into its eyes and talk to it.”[3]
Most of us do everything possible to avoid this kind of pain, including anesthetic addictions. We convince ourselves that we would rather fight the devil we know than open the door to another kind of hell. But in the process we wrap ourselves in a cloud of numbing behaviors that actually prevents healing and growth. To heal is to hurt. That’s why we don’t automatically take that road. Like frogs in a pot, we don’t notice the rising temperature until we boil.
The path to healing begins with an honest assessment of our emotional complaint. As long as we pretend things are okay, we can’t deal with our real anger, disappointment and hopelessness. If we have never dreaded our fears, groaned over being alive, felt intractable burdens or protested our suffering, we haven’t faced the real God of Israel, a God who in intimately intertwined in all these scary things. When we avoid the heartbreaking way, we will never encounter existential relief. We can go on pretending God cares but there is a very big difference between the theory of compassion and the experience of tears being wiped away.
Perhaps Job isn’t really the Bible’s answer to the problem of evil. Perhaps it is an introduction to authentic living.
Topical Index: Job 3:23, tsalmawet, shadow of death, darkness, purpose, healing
[1] Hartley, J. E. (1999). 1921 צָלַל. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (767). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Job 3:20-25 NASB
[3] J. O. Steenkamp, SHIP, p. 126.
Thanks Skip. If I can’t be honest to HaShem… who can I be honest with? He already knows me, even better than me knowing myself… So what’s the deal to pretend to be somebody I’m not with Him? This is surely one of the first elements of Teshuvah… the beginning of travelling from darkness to light!
Job had never met himself before, apparently. If you read his early laments they are all full of self pity, which is what I consider the gloss WE add over the holes where self hid in God should be. Job had taken the high road in his life, for sure (which is the exemplary road we all should be taking), but he was not familiar with the road through his own valley. You have never met yourself until you hit bottom, for bottom is where we all really are. Everything else, from addictions to working your way to heaven, is just churning froth besides.
I have noticed that it was when he was in the only right place we have to repent in dust and ashes (which is also the only place where we can really see that we are our own problem) that YHVH could reveal Himself. He can only show up when the real us does, and the bottom was where I found I had really been all along. The rest is illusion and games, and He can never be there, because ‘there’ only exists in our heads.
The high road does not build the muscle we all need to be able to stand in disaster. That muscle is built when we learn to stand in the disaster of ourselves, first. So many of us (yep, me too) unconsciously choose the pain of the world over facing the pain of the soul (well, it does keep the self pity monster fed!).
You are right, Skip, I could not be comforted by the Comforter until I faced my discomfort. Duh.
Indeed. Been there, done that!
Love today’a word. Job is by far my favorite book ever written. I would be totally ok with you just doing a line by line study of this amazing poem!
This is so true.
The calling into Christ, requires we become nothing so that God can give us a new heart, etc. Many of us take the long route 40 years in the wilderness. Jesus took 40 days. While god promised from the exodus experience that it is but a three day journey…
Crucifixion till resurrection as Hosea explained in his prophetic reasons…
Exactly as happened with Jesus so that he could be the first… We may need to follow suit…
I know this shadow of death place well. And, it has been the breaking and making of my soul. Having lived through a near fatal accident, had it not been for a miracle healing of internal organs in front of ER doctors giving me a CT scan, I would not have been here to tell this story. I was puffed up with spiritual pride from my healing until about 6 weeks later when my immune system went bonkers. For 13 years I suffered from my immune system attacking my GI tract whenever I ate. I was uninsurable due to the preexistant accident until Obama Care.
As the symptoms progressed I was able to eat fewer and fewer items and smaller portions until I was skin and bones. I was in chronic inflammatory pain throughout my GI tract from my esophagus all the way down. The physicians were going to put a feeding tube in me and send me to Mayo. All the while I was teaching Kitchen Nutrition, my career of many years, to survive. I am amazed that people paid to be taught by a skeleton. You see, I couldn’t even eat much of what I taught about and cooked. My family had rejected me due to my illness and subsequent financial problems. Nobody wanted to hear about it. My condition frightened people.
I moved far away from my family and found a few kind supportive people, of which Today’s Word is included. Our Father took me through that shadow world, providing people to care for me in times of need. Many times I wished for death. Finally, about a year ago, I broke through the adversary’s smoke and mirrors veil and have achieved a level of health I have not known for many years. Once the blinders were removed I was able to see the way to healing. Through all the suffering He showed me so much about the human body’s connection of the gut to the brain. How the sins of the forefathers play out in the new science of epigenetics. and how powerfully our perceptions effect our mental and physical health. It’s all in the Scriptures if one has eyes to see. The only way for me to survive was to literally leave the matrix–I took the red pill.
This world is dying at a rapid pace and the King of the Universe is in charge of it all!