JOB CHAPTER 9 - 16

JOB 9

1 Then Job replied and then Job said
2 I know the truth, but how can man
Be righteous with El as by plan
Set up in judgement in his stead?
3 If he will argue with Him, he
Cannot answer one in the fee
Of a thousand of inquiry.

When one man has a case to bring to fight
With neighbour be the matter wrong or right,
The two can meet before the bench and bar
Of judgement and decide particular.
But when a man brings up a case in point
Against You, my Beloved, in joy or joint,
There is no courthouse to bring in relief,
The man just has to stand there in his grief.
So how can any other when he sees
The trouble and the sorrow without ease
Say that the first is guilty in the breeze,
Since no judge has passed verdict in assize?
Job’s final argument is finely spun,
His living logic’s logic when it’s done.

4 He’s wise in heart, mighty in strength,
Who’s prospered against him at length?
5 He removes mountains, they know not,
Overturns them in wrath like pot.
6 He shakes the ear out of her place,
Her pillars tremble at His mace.
7 He commands the sun not to rise,
He seals away the stars in skies.
8 He only spreads the heavens out,
And treads upon the waterspout.
9 He makes Arcturus, Orion,
The Pleiades and stars that run
In chambers of the south begun.
10 He does great things past finding out,
Wonders indeed beyond the rout.
11 He goes past me, I see Him not,
He hovers too above my plot,
But I perceive no sight nor thought.
12 He grasps His prey with none to bar,
And who can ask Him where You are?
13 Allah does not writhdraw His wrath,
The proud do not stoop to His path.
14 How much less shall I answer Him,
And choose out words both bright and dim?
15 Though I were righteous, I would not
Make a reply upon the spot,
But only supplication brought
To my Judge and the One I sought.

You and man are not equals at the bar
Of justice, one is higher than the star,
The other is a brother to the worm,
And there is nothing for a common term.
You fashion in Your hand the mighty weight
Of star and sun and moon, and You relate
Narration of the quiet Universe,
While humankind lies under blast and curse
Of time and place and earthly limits too,
Beneath the seemly weight of his sins’ due.
To be judged by his peers is human right,
But You are beyond the illumined light.
The distance twixt our form and humble state
Means that the human being’s always late.

16 If I had called and He replied,
I would not believe to confide.
17 For He breaks me with tempest weight
And gives me wounds in no caused rate.
18 He will not let me take a breath,
But fills with bitterness like death.
19 I speak of strength, and He is strong,
I speak of judgement, who takes prong
To set a time and place along?
20 Should I justify myself then
My own mouth will condemn again.
“I’m perfect” proves me but perverse.
21 I am perfect, I do not know
My own self, I despise the show.

There is no instance that can bring about
The justifying of Your storm and shout,
And before Your creating power and voice,
The human will to justify his choice
Is dumb. If ever man could raise a cry
In witness of his hue and alibi,
That fact itself would be his fair undoing,
The revelation of his misconstruing.
Beloved, though I be perfect in the way
I meet Your fair commandments’ ray in sway,
I am such only in the grace and power
Of Your sovereign hand to create an hour.
The shard has no rejoicing at the cord
And pattern devised by maker and lord.

22 One truth: and so I say the thing.
He destroys perfect on the wing
With the wicked and everything.
23 If scourge slay suddenly, He’ll laugh
At the trial of innocent gaff.
24 The earth is given into the hand
Of the wicked, he covers stand
Of the judges of it, if not,
Then where and who is He in plot?

You laugh indeed, for nothing can touch You
With any seed of destruction in view.
You have the right to return to the dust
The pot You make, and every such pot must
In silence sits before the grinding wheel
And makes complaint beneath no step nor heel.
And yet it seems to those whose eyes look out
Upon the world in beauty and in rout,
That You have left the wicked line about
To cut the flesh and heart with blade of steel.
Beloved, if this is not so, then I beg
To wonder why You do not show Your leg?
The emptiness of Universe weighs hard
On human heart and eye, the flying card.

25 My days run now quicker that foot
Of a runner, to flight they’re put
And no good enters in their wake.
26 They pass by like the ships at sea,
Like the eagle upon the wee.
27 If I say I’ll forget complaint,
I’ll leave of heaviness like saint,
28 I fear of all my griefs, I know
You’ll not hold me unguilty row.
29 If I am wicked, why do I
Vainly clamour against the sky?
30 If I wash with water of snow,
And make my hands clean as to glow,
31 Still You will throw me in the ditch,
And my own garments will unstitch.
32 For He is not a man as I,
That I should answer in reply,
That we should confer on the bench.
33 Nor is there mediating hench
To lay his hand on both to quench.
34 Let Him remove His rod from me,
Let not His fear terrify me.
35 Then I would speak and not fear Him,
But it is not so with life dim.

It is an argument against the fail
Of accusation that Job’s strong and hale
To rise in accusation of Your hand
Oppressing him despite his righteous stand.
If suffering is the evidence of wrong,
Then cannot protest against line and long
Be evidence in case of truth and will
To do and act out Your commandment still?
The logic of Job’s call is sweet to hear,
Despite the angry answers that appear,
Despite the arrogance of form and trace
The sweet Christian brings in instead of grace.
Beloved, I see Your wisdom in the sound
A sound man makes upon the barren ground.

JOB 10

1 My soul is weary of my life,
I shall not leave complaint for strife,
I’ll speak in my own bitterness,
As a man I can do no less.
2 I’ll say to Allah, Don’t condemn,
Show me wherefore Your stratagem.
3 Do You enjoy oppression’s heel,
Despising Your own hand’s appeal,
And favour wickedness at keel?
4 Do You have eyes of flesh, or see
As a man sees eternity?
5 Are Your days as the days of man?
Are Your years as man’s life in span?
6 So You’re so closely interested
In what small evil thing I did,
Minutely searching out my fault
Leaving me in the dark and cault?
7 You know I’m not a wicked man,
But none can save out of Your plan.

The welt experience of grief’s despair
Implies, Beloved, that You take help in care
To view the slightest rudeness in a man,
And find the fault as soon as e’er You can.
Job’s trial seems to him beyond belief,
Beyond what’s worthy of Your sight and fief,
Who can hold up the universe in sway,
Why do You take the trouble in Your way
To punish man for what he himself finds
Not in the contemplation of his rinds?
Beloved, Your greatness would belie the knife
That with such invective slices the life
Of Job, and if of Job, of everyone
Born on the brief sphere that Your hand has spun.

8 Your hands have fashioned me alone
And yet You slay me flesh and bone.
9 Remember now You’ve made from clay,
And will You bring back to dust’s way?
10 Have You not poured me out like milk,
And curdled me like cheese for ilk?
11 You’ve arrayed me in skin and flesh,
With bones and sinews me enmesh.
12 You’ve granted me both life and grace,
Preserving my spirit and place.
13 These things have You kept in Your heart,
I know that this is in Your part.

The act of Your creation would presume
That You would take an interest in the doom
That overtakes a being from Your hand,
So Job throws out this argument as planned.
Why make an eye so marvellous to see,
To grate against the speck of dust to be
The medium of light and thought an hour,
Only to crush that eye within Your power
To very dust again, without excuse
Or without any inkling of its use?
I trow Job’s argument is understood
By the divine mind that set forth its hood,
Or so Job says, when he claims he knows what
Within You divine heart and spirit’s shut.

14 If I sin, then You mark me out,
You’ll not acquit me from my rout.
15 If I be wicked, woe is me,
If I be righteous, there’s no fee
To lift my head from the world spree,
So You see my grief’s great degree.
16 It just gets greater. You hunt me
Like a fierce lion, and again
You appear marvellous to men.
17 You bring new witnesses to me,
Increase Your wrath infinitely,
You bring pain on catastrophe.
18 Why did You bring me from the womb?
I wish I’d died and found the tomb.
19 I should have been as never born,
From womb to grave on the same morn.
20 Are not my days few? Give me peace
To take some comfort in release
21 Before I go and not return
To the land of darkness and learn
Death’s shadow there and not to spurn.
22 A land of darkness, dark as dark,
Shadowed with death, assailed in park
Of chaos and lightning as stark.

The argument is sound by the gross hand
Of statistics and science in the land.
The fact is innocence and guilty rip
Have little effect on the mighty trip
Of humankind through suffering and through pain.
If escape from our sorrows is the main
Reason for virtue, then our virtue’s vain.
It matters little whether wrong or right,
The illness and the grief strike in one night
The wise and foolish in the divine sight.
Beloved, let Job’s comforters answer such
Good arguments he brings for them to touch,
And I will praise Your wisdom that the sound
Of understanding once has hit the ground.

JOB 11

1 Zophar the Naamathite replied,
2 Do not so many words require
And answer, should be justified
One with more talk than can abide?
3 Should your lies make men hold their peace?
When you make mockery’s increase
Shall no one make you blush for shame?
4 For you’ve said ‘My doctrine is pure,
And I am clean in Your eyes sure.’
5 That Allah would speak up to hear,
And open His lips at your ear!
6 That He would show you wisdom’s right
And multiply it in your sight!
Know that Allah lays punishment
On you less than transgression meant.
7 Can you by searching know Allah?
Can you examine to the craw
Almighty God we hold in awe?

Zophar’s a sweet one like the Christian mate
That usually comes to gloat with sugared hate.
His first in argument is sheer insult,
The second is a misquote of the cult,
The third claims that poor Job in fact deserves
A greater punishment for secret swerves,
The fourth claims that since God is infinite
Appeal to simple justice is not right.
Beloved, such nonsense still carries its weight
Today among the Christian small and great.
Original sin demands death and so
What people suffer in revenge is slow.
You may be beyond thought and sight but You
Must always be just and to Self be true.

8 As high as heaven, what can you do?
Deeper than hell, can you know true?
9 Its measure’s longer than the earth,
And broader than the sea in worth.
10 If He cuts off or shuts in place,
Or gather together from trace
Who can hinder Him from His grace?
11 He knows vain men, He sees the heart
Of wickedness, He’ll do His part.
12 Man is foolish but thinks he’s wise,
Born a wild ass’s colt for guise.
13 If you prepare your heart extending
Your hands toward Him not pretending,
14 If wickedness is in your hand,
Put it away from house and land,
And let no evil stay in band.

The three things Zophar tells the man to do,
Repent in heart, make supplication true,
And put away the evil deed from hand,
Are right and good, the only way to stand.
But each repentance must have focus made:
It must refer to the specific trade
In sin and the specific in transgression
Against Your law to make a right confession.
Job simply can’t confess a thing he’s done
As long as he cannot remember sun
That rose upon commandment he ignored.
Today the sweet Christian and the adored
Can always find a reason to confess,
Since sin’s defined by such vague terms’ address.

15 Then you’ll lift face without a spot,
You’ll be steadfast and not fear plot.
16 For you’ll forget your misery,
Remembered like waters that flee.
17 Your life shall be clearer than day,
You’ll shine out like the morning ray.
18 You will be safe, since there is hope,
You’ll settle and rest in your scope.
19 You’ll lie down and never have fear,
Others will come comfort to hear.
20 The eyes of sinners, they shall fail,
And they shall not escape the pale,
Their hope like giving up the ghost,
Gone down in silence from their boast.

The wicked Christian that calls to repentance
Promises all sorts of things in the sentence
Of clear reprieve. He dotes on safety’s wheel
Because he has a company of steel
Supporting him against the man alone
That is the object of his vigil’s drone.
I’d rather find a Christian with a deed
Of righteousness than always the same speed,
Saying the crucifixion of a man
Is all a part of the great divine plan
To make all right that went wrong in the way,
And gives the in-crowd licence for their prey.
Beloved, I see there were such men around
Before the cross was raised above the ground.

JOB 12

1 And Job answered and came to say
2 Surely you’re crown of humankind
And wisdom dies when you’re aligned
In the tomb. 3 But I know a thing
As well as you, I’m no worse fling
Than you, indeed who does not know
The things that you propose to show?
4 I’m one mocked by his neighbour when
I call on Allah before men
And He gives no answer to me,
The just and upright comes to see
How he’s laughed to scorn wickedly.
5 The one in trouble is a light
Despised by those resting in spite.

Job’s words are highly unpolitical
When he points out he’s just as good a pal
As those who come to give him their advice
On how to act sweetly, Christlike and nice.
The fact that what he says is true just makes
His saying so greater post for mistakes.
Though he is ridiculed in pecking order
His last sarcastic thrust on grateful hoarder
Will never be forgiven till the day
That You step in Yourself and take the sway.
Beloved, I see the victim everywhere
Made guilty by the sacred, public stare,
While perpetrators get the laurels and
The glory of a blaring ghost bandstand.

6 The robbers’ tents prevail, and those
Who provoke El are safe in rows,
Allah gives them all that they chose.
7 But ask the animals and they
Will teach you about the right way,
And the birds in the air will say.
8 Speak to the earth, and it will show,
The fish in the sea also know.
9 Who among all of these does not
Know that YHWH’s hand all this has wrought?
10 In His hand is each living thing,
The breath of humankind in sling.
11 Does not the ear understand words?
Does not the mouth taste meat and curds?
12 With the old ones is wisdom found,
Long years bring understanding’s sound.
13 With him is wisdom and due strength,
Counsel and understanding’s length.
14 What He breaks down is not rebuilt,
What He shuts up cannot be spilt.

Job says in fact that even pigs know well
That what you get is not the fair to tell.
Division of goods on the earth is not
In justice, but forever in the slot
Of law of jungle, the strong eat the weak
And people take of porkers with a squeak
And never stop to think that what you do
Does not get just reward among the few.
The argument will not sit very well
With those who think that You just cast a spell
And every man gets by his own deserts
The grief and joy the universe asserts.
Beloved, I simply fail to find the thread
Of justice in the earthly share of bread.

15 He holds back waters, it is dry.
He sends them out, the world’s thereby
Overrun with the flood. 16 With Him
Is strength and wisdom, the deceived
And deceiver are his reprieved.
17 He spoils the counsellors in way,
He makes fools of judges in sway.
18 He unfastens the bands of kings,
He ties a cord about their rings.
19 He leads away captive the priests,
And overthrows the elite feasts.
20 He takes away the faithful speech,
And understanding from the reach
Of those grown old able to preach.
21 He pours contempt on government,
And weakens power of their chiefs bent.

I’m glad that Job, at least in time of grief,
Notes that the priest and ruler in their feoff
Are robbers and rough bandits despite glare
Of jewels and fashions and finely gelled hair.
I’m glad that Job, when attacked to the bone,
Sees through hypocrisy and walks alone.
I’m gladder still to know You’re on his side,
Even if You’re no help against the tide
Of pain and grief he blunders round to quell.
You are the staff and strength of Israel.
Beloved, what Job says must be true, I trow,
As I look on the bench of justice now,
Neither thought of truth nor of justice there
Is found, merely the shop and metalled air.

22 He shows deep things from darkness’ store,
He brings light from death’s shadowed door.
23 He raises nations, turns them low,
Enlarging them to make them slow.
24 He removes wisdom from the chiefs
Of earth’s folk, and makes them for griefs
Wander in wilderness away.
25 They grope in darkness without light,
He makes them stagger in the night
Like drunken men out for a fight.

The reason presidents stumble in view
Of kings and queens come to receive their due,
Is not because You set a block before
Their feet as soon as they come in the door.
Job’s wrong in that. At least today the reason
Is simply that cheap alcohol’s in season,
And if it were not so, it would not matter,
There’s tax enough for everything to scatter
And table lid and load with whiskey till
The president and wife meet in the swill.
Beloved, Job gives You credit out of turn,
But in time even Job would come to learn
That patience is a skill of those who fret
For where tax euro, pound and dollar met.

JOB 13

1 Indeed, my eye has seen it all,
My ear has heard the sound and call.
2 What you know is in my mind too,
I’m not inferior to you.
3 But I would speak to El-Shaddai,
And reason with El is my cry.
4 But you are forgers of lies, you
Are all physicians with no clue.
5 O shut your mouths and let that be
Your wisdom’s gauge and guarantee!
6 Hear now my pleading argument
And listen to what my lips sent.
7 For El’s sake you speak wickedly?
For Him you talk deceitfully?

The lie is simply that poor Job has sinned,
The evidence is taken from the wind.
And yet it is a lie that’s commonly
On heart and tongue of rabble under tree.
There is no man who does not judge his brother
Of wickedness despite knowing another.
Humankind cannot escape making such
Judgements except by training mind to touch
No judgement except evidence that one
Has transgressed the commandment under sun
That’s mentioned in the ten. All other things
Are prejudices that work condemnings
For deceit before God on every day.
The commandments save the soul from such sway.

8 Will you accept His person fast?
Will you contend for El at last?
9 Is it good that He searches you,
As one man ridicules a few
Do you mock Him without a clue?
10 He will certainly reprove you,
If you in your heart make distinctions
Of persons based on your own pinctions.
11 Shall not His glory make you fear?
Shall His dread not fall on you here?
12 Your remembrances are like ashes,
Your bodies like clay in their sashes.
13 Be quiet and leave me alone
To speak, come my way what’s in stone.
14 Why do I take my flesh in teeth,
My life in my hand like a wreath?
15 Though He kills me, still I’ll trust Him,
I’ll keep to my own path not dim
Before His face, though it be grim.

Job’s friends are sure they know what’s right as they
Express the appeal of their inner way.
So doing they judge both their God and men
In wickedness always rising again.
The duty of man is not to make clear
Philosophy that he just might hold dear,
But to follow the path of Decalogue
As carefully as would a sniffing dog,
And disregard the arguments of fate,
The falling of the blade, grimace of hate.
Though circumstance pile on the cruel weight,
Job stubbornly refuses to let go
Of his obedience to the ten in row.
His argument is true, though friends are slow.

16 He also will save me for that,
A hypocrite fails where He’s at.
17 Hear well my speech and what I say
And let your ears now not delay.
18 See now, I bring myself to court,
I know I’m right in my resort.
19 Who brings a case against me now?
If I am silent anyhow,
I’ll give up the ghost in the row.
20 Just give me two advantages,
And I’ll not retreat from the biz.
21 Relieve the pain a moment here,
And hide Your glory from my fear.
22 Then raise Your voice and I’ll reply,
Or let me speak so You can try.

The courtroom Job describes is never found
On earth, each judge, I will be honour bound,
Lays fetters on the prisoner in pain,
And keeps pretence of glory without shame.
The innocent and guilty, all the same,
Are hedged in and intimidated where
The judgement seat’s established and laid bare.
Will You, Beloved, do less than humankind
In Judgement, will You hide Your glory vined
So none shall be afraid, and will You heal
The pain that erodes mind and what men feel?
I think not. My hope’s not in such a bench,
But in the fact Your justice comes to clench
In mercy every sinful man and wench.

23 Count out transgressions I have made,
Make me know clearly where I’ve strayed.
24 Why do You hide Your face from me
And treat me like Your enemy?
25 Will You break a leaf blown about,
And persecute stubble in rout?
26 You write against me bitter things,
Trot out my youthful questionings.
27 You put my feet in the stocks too,
Examine all my paths in view,
And mark the heels of my feet too.
28 It rots and vanishes away,
Like a moth-eaten coat to stay.

Instead of crowing claims without substance,
Guess-work and the opinions set to dance,
Job asks for a clear catalogue in trace
Of all the sins he’s squandered in the place.
The innocence of Job is manifest,
And few can make such claims before the test,
But even accusations of the guilty
Are usually stated in form wilty.
Beloved, I’ve been accused of many a crime,
But hardly ever of the things for dime
I’ve truly done that miss the heavenly mark.
My real sins remain secrets in the dark
From human eyes, and only You know truth.
Such are accusers in this world uncouth.

JOB 14

1 Man born of woman’s of few days,
And full of trouble, despite praise.
2 He sprouts like a flower that’s cut down,
He flees a shadow on the town.
3 Do You have regard for such men,
And so bring me to judgement’s ken?
4 Who can bring cleanness from the soiled?
No one at all for having toiled.
5 His days are set, the number of
His months is given to You above,
You’ve set the limits he’ll not pass
To walk upon the earthly grass.
6 Turn from him, so that he may rest,
Till he like workman do day’s best.

Job wonders that the King of universe,
The One who guides the stars in their converse,
Should so minutely take regard to man,
That You should notice detail in his span
For which to punish him with toil and boil.
Man is a mere breath whispering to soil.
It is not possible in course of things
That One so great as You in creatings
Could be so finely warped in judgement that
You damn a man for sins that he out flat
Cannot perceive despite most careful coil
Of introspection after earthly toil.
There is no justice, if You require ends
In things beyond human heart, sight, and bends.

7 For there’s hope for a tree cut down,
That it will sprout again a crown.
8 Though the root shrivel in the earth
And the stock perish with the dearth,
9 Still at the scent of water it
Will bud and spring out boughs and fit.
10 But man dies and he wastes away,
He gives up the ghost where to stay,
11 As waters run off from the sea,
And flood diminishes to be
Dry after the rain and the score,
12 So man lies down to rise no more,
Till heavens fails, they shall not wake
Nor be raised out of their sleep’s stake.
13 O that You’d hide me in the grave,
And keep me under secret glaive,
Until Your wrath be past, that You
Would set a time of judgement due
And keep my remembrance in view!
14 When a man dies, shall he live more?
All my appointed days in store
I’ll wait till I change at the door.
15 When You call I will answer You,
Desire turns to what Your hands do.

The tree sprouts up again after the axe,
But men remain in graves flat on their backs.
Job goes beyond empirical to wonder
If there’s no resurrection beyond thunder,
And whether You remember Your hands’ deeds
When they are planted in the earth like seeds.
Such cogitation is a human thing,
And yet it is a crumb of hope to sing.
Beloved, whether I rise in incarnation
Of tree or blossom in a new-born ration,
Or in the fatal resurrection meant
For good and wicked on the earth’s ascent,
I too trust in the hope that future brings
The universe another time of kings.

16 For now You’ve counted out my steps,
Your eye’s upon my sins’ relapse.
17 My transgression’s sealed in a sack,
You bind iniquity for lack.
18 The falling mountain comes to naught,
The rock is removed from its slot.
19 The waters scour the stones, the rains
Erode the growing earth of gains,
And You destroy the hope of man.
20 You always win against his plan,
He passes out of sight and mind.
You mar his form, send out resigned.
21 His children come paying respects,
He does not know from their neglects,
They too fail, but he never knows.
22 But his flesh shall bow to its pain,
His soul in him shall griefs complain.

Despite the crumbling of the fading earth,
The dimming of the stars, the new star’s birth,
The ages upon ages beyond ken
Of man’s imagination in his den,
I too trust that my failings are all told
Within the sanctuary of Your hold.
While mountains wear away beneath the cold,
Your memory of my flash in the dark
Is safe and settled in the heavenly park
To rise again when Your mind is set free
To new creations after burning sea.
I trust that in the dim years of the tomb
When ancestors’ and all descendants’ doom
Lies in forgetfulness, You’ll deck a room.

JOB 15

Then Eliphaz the Temanite
Replied and said without delight,
2 Does a wise man speak vain conceit,
Filling his belly like a treat
With the east wind without retreat?
3 Does he reason unusefully
With speeches that can do no good?
4 You cast off reverence when you could,
And fail to meet El prayerfully.
5 Your mouth gives witness to your sin,
You choose the tongue of crafty kin.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, not I,
Your own lips come to testify.
7 Are you the first man to be born?
Did you come before the hills sworn?

Eliphaz argues that Job’s innocence
Is belied by the words he speaks in sense.
He does not stop to ask what else the man
Could do but humbly tell the truth in ban.
Job himself knows and says that self-defence
Is not a pretty picture, but the fact
Is no one comes to help when he’s attacked.
He has no choice but tell the truth himself.
For speaking truth, he’s dealt with like an elf.
Beloved, the sweet Christian today is sure
The victim, when she cries, is not like pure
And humble Christ or Mary, so he cries
“Un-Christlike, you rant, and I shall despise.”
Who’s he to say what’s Christlike and what’s wise?

8 Have you heard the secret of God?
Do you hide wisdom in your pod?
9 What do you know that we do not?
What do you understand of plot
That was not also to us taught?
10 With us are both grey head and old,
More elder than your father cold.
11 Is what El gives to console you
Worth nothing at all in your view?
Do you have any secret too?
12 Why does your heart take you away?
Why roll your eyes in disdain’s sway?
13 To turn your mind against El and
Let words fly you don’t understand?
14 What is man that he should be clean,
Born of woman, a righteous bean?

Eliphaz makes an issue that the men
Who’ve grown old in their foolishness again
Just for their age are right in what they say,
Claiming that sin original at bay
Is the fate of all humankind in sway.
The concept of intrinsic sin instead
Of defining sin by the action led
And listed in the Decalogue is not
A new one. See these fair Christians are taught
By Eliphaz himself, with such a name
Appealing to Your strength and for such shame!
Beloved, I do not trust the failing word
That finds sin in humanity deterred
By nothing, an inborn speck and a turd.

15 See, He relies not on His saints,
The heavens before Him have their taints.
16 So then how much filthy to stand
With abominations in hand
Is man who drinks iniquity
Like water taken from the sea?
17 I’ll teach you, listen to my speech,
And what I’ve seen I come to preach.
18 Gnostics told what ancestors said,
And have not hid the message spread,
19 To whom alone the earth was left
Without a stranger passing cleft.
20 The wicked man is bowed with pain
All his days, and the number vain
Of years is set to violence.
21 A dreaded sound falls on his sense,
In midst of his prosperity
Destroyers come upon his tee.
22 He does not have faith in return
Up from the darkness he would spurn,
He’s predestined for what swords earn.

Eliphaz is not sure whether his state
Is that of Gnostic thinker with his mate
Or if the sin original with him
Leads to complete depravity not dim.
Two doctrines join in his mind and they swim
Out to reveal that matter is a grim
And awful thing, and evil in itself,
So even sinless angels, gnome and elf
Are filthy for the matter clouding brain.
Only the pure light and spirit can gain
Acceptance, but the man who’s trapped below
In darkness does not feel the pull of glow,
Predestined for destruction on the go.
Such is the sweet Christian’s belief in pain.

23 He goes out begging for bread there,
He knows darkness is coming share.
24 Trouble and anguish make him fear,
They overcome him and his gear
Like a king ready for war’s tear.
25 He attacks El Himself by hand
Stretched and strengthened against the stand
Of El Shaddai and His command.
27 He made his face fat, shining fat,
His haunches trembling in their fat.
28 He lives is towns made desolate,
In houses no man can locate,
About to fall in ruined state.
29 He’ll not gain wealth to keep at all,
Nor prolong days in earthly stall.

Eliphaz sees the human state itself
Between birth and the dark of death on shelf
As proof that man is evil and cannot
Obey You in his deeds as You have taught.
His Calvinistic-gnostic word and plot
Contrive to contradict You in the fact
That You have told humankind how to act,
And having told us, have the right to wait
Obedience within the human state.
All doctrines of devils and men are there
To give excuse for those who would not share
Obedience to Your word spoken with care
On Sinai. My Beloved, I see the race
Of false religions all about the place.

30 He’ll not depart from darkness then,
The flame shall dry his branch again,
And by his mouth’s breath on a day
He’ll disappear and go away.
31 Let the deceived trust vanity,
For vanity’s his reward’s fee.
32 Fulfilled before his time, his bough
Shall not remain green anyhow.
33 He’ll shake his green grape from the vine,
And drop his olive blossom fine.
34 The hypocrites’ assembly’s dark,
Fire burns the tents of bribery’s park.
35 Pregnant with mischief they shall bear
The passing vanity and care,
Their wombs their broken trusts prepare.

Eliphaz’ final argument is that
Humankind is a temporary vat,
And just because he’s not eternal he
Can never satisfy Your symmetry.
The argument sounds spiritual but it
Is loaded with irrational to fit.
It simply does not take eternity
To obey Your ten words on Sinai’s lee.
One can refrain from killing on a day,
One does not need a timeless frame to say
The truth about one’s neighbour in the court.
The Sabbath only needs seven days to sport.
Beloved, save me from spirituality
That lifts the mind to faithless ecstasy.

JOB 16

1 Then Job replied and said to all,
2 I’ve heard many such things in call,
You’re miserable comforters all.
3 Shall empty words come to an end?
What makes you so bold to defend?
4 I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in my soul’s shoe,
I could heap up words against you,
And shake my head at what you do.
5 But I would strengthen you instead,
You’d find solace in what I said.
6 Though I speak, my grief’s not assuaged,
I refrain, but how am I paged?
7 He tires me with his arguments,
You’ve left me desolate in tents.

Human conditions set as argument
That Job’s deserving of such punishment
Is general, and so well could be spent
On comforters who sit brave and content.
The argument is valid only if
All humankind suffers in Job’s grief’s skiff.
And so the proof falls in the ditch and there
Is only left the failure to give share
Of human solace that each should have done.
Job’s logic here at last shows that he’s won.
Beloved, just wait and see if logic sways
The enemy in all his wicked ways.
The victory of words seems empty when
The winnings fall on the deaf ears of men.

8 You’ve cast me down for a witness,
Emaciated in my dress.
9 He tears me in his wrath and he
Renews persecution of me,
He gnashes on me with his teeth,
My foe sharpens his eyes beneath.
10 They’ve gaped upon me with their mouth,
They’ve smitten me upon the south
Cheek in reproach, they come together
Against me, those birds of a feather.
11 El’s left me in ungodly hands,
Released me into wicked bands.
12 I lived in peace till He broke me,
He took me by the neck, you see,
And shook me till I rattled, then
He made me His bull’s eye again.
13 His bowmen crowd around me while
He splits my kidneys in His guile,
He pours my gall out on the ground.
14 He breaks me again round and round,
He runs at me a pace a mile.

The foolish words of Eliphaz to Job
May well be couched in Christian kind of robe,
But are so outrageous to hear that he
Complains that You, Beloved, have set them free
Like hounds against him, like the pigs to root
And dig him in the mire of their pursuit.
As soon as I hear claims to be the great
And remnant people of Your own estate,
I know the next thing is the well-aimed boot.
The worst on earth today as then for soot
Are those who claim to represent Your throne.
The Judenrat, cardinals’ college, and
The council of marjas have hit the sand.
I’d rather be at mercy of rock band.

15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
Defiled my horn in the dustbin.
16 My face is swollen with my tears,
My eyelids shadowed with death’s fears,
17 Not for injustice in my hands:
Also my prayer is pure as stands.
18 O earth, do not cover my blood,
Let my cry continue like flood.
19 See now, my witness is in heaven,
My record book is on high seven.
My friends scorn me: but my eye pours
My tears to Allah without shores.
21 If one could contend with Allah
As one brings neighbour to court’s claw!
22 When I’ve gone a few years, then I
Shall go my way and I shall die.

It’s not the boils so much, and not the death
Of children and of flocks in stealth of breath,
But to be left before the righteous mate
To feel the tendrils of the good man’s hate
That makes Job blame You for his perverse fate.
He’s able to stand before flood and storm,
And take the batterings of cold and warm,
The tragedies that fail not on the earth
In death, disease, in hail, locust, and dearth.
What he blames You for, My Beloved, is just
The Christian tendency to cast in dust
Each one that is a victim of the round
Of human circumstance upon the ground.
The higher the suffering soul, the greater sound.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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