A Law of Nature

For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward.  Job 5:7 NASB

Born for trouble – Surprise, surprise!  We often imagine that it is Job who utters these familiar words, but it isn’t.  It’s Eliphaz.  That makes a difference.  Even if we resonate with his aphorism about the human condition, his comment is couched within the logic of the reward and punishment reciprocity scheme.  Be righteous, get rewarded.  Be wicked, get punished.  An inevitable law of divine justice.  No one can question its application because no one is so righteous as to challenge God’s ordinance.  We deserve exactly what we get.  God sees to it.  And since we all suffer, we can conclude that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” as another man once wrote.  Catholic theologians later claimed, to be born is to be guilty.  Thank you, Adam!

It is important to remember that Job doesn’t say this!  It might seem inescapably true that trouble haunts humanity from the moment of birth.  After all, didn’t God say, “Cursed is the ground because of you; with hard labor you shall eat from it all the days of your life.  Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; yet you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground”?  Job probably agrees.  But that isn’t the point.  It is Eliphaz’ reward and punishment theology that is attached to the ubiquity of the evidence.  Job just doesn’t fit.  He’s the perfect man.  Of course, it appears that he is rewarded for his devotion, but it only appears that way.  His devotion is not the generator of his prosperity.  If it were, then he would collapse into curse as his wife suggests.  Job’s devotion is not the product of a reward and punishment paradigm.  It exists independently of life’s circumstances, as is abundantly clear in his declaration, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15).  Job believes in spite of everything.  Eliphaz might be right about all the rest of us (maybe), but he certainly isn’t right about Job—and the author of this story wants us to be very clear about this salient point.  All humanity might be subject to the Genesis assessment, but Job’s issue is not being human.  It’s being faithful.

Are you born for trouble?  Yes, probably.  Even the silver spoon child doesn’t escape.  From ancient to modern times, we can appreciate the sentiments of humanity’s spokesmen:

“The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best thing for you is to die soon.”[1]

“Not to be born at all
Is best, far best that can befall,
Next best, when born, with least delay
To trace the backward way.
For when youth passes with its giddy train,
Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils,
Pain, pain forever pain;
And none escapes life’s coils.
Envy, sedition, strife,
Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.”[2]

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.[3]

It seems that Eliphaz isn’t the only doomsday oracle.  The “sparks” have been with us since the beginning.  How we handle them is the real challenge—and that happens to be the lesson in the story of Job.  It’s not about escaping trouble.  It’s about what to do with it.  Eliphaz, and others, look for a way out, even if a theological excuse.  Job faces it head on.  Perhaps we have something to learn from the perfect man’s story.  Perhaps it is the same lesson we later learn from the perfect man.  You must wonder if “though He slay me” isn’t akin to “Not my will but Yours.”

Topical Index: trouble, birth, death, reward, punishment, Nietzsche, Sophocles, Job 5:7

[1] Fredrich Nietzsche, “The Birth of Tragedy,” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7071300-the-best-of-all-things-is-something-entirely-outside-your

[2] Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7135637-not-to-be-born-at-all-is-best-far-best

[3] Heinrich Heine