Friday 4 October 2024

Psalm 2:1-8

Background
Job is here speaking in response to his friend Eliphaz. Notice how he draws on a variety of images from the natural world (vs 2, 7-9, 11, 14) to illustrate his points. This is characteristic of the ‘wisdom literature’ of the Old Testament.

Two themes predominate. Firstly, human life is fleeting, fragile, and full of trouble (v. 1). To be human is to be like a full-time hired labourer (v. 6; see also 7.1). Someone else (God) determines the length and scope of what has to be done and what may be done (v. 5). The only pleasure a labourer has is to count the hours until his shift ends (v. 6b).

Secondly, when death comes, it is final (vs 2, 14). (Note: even a tree gets a better deal (vs 7-9)!)

Speculatively, the author wants to explore options for a greater sense of freedom for human beings.

Firstly if it is true (as Eliphaz has insisted) that intense human suffering is the result of God punishing wrongdoing, is it fair that the Almighty God should call a fragile human being to answer God in a court, if an individual wants to challenge God’s decision? Why cannot God simply look away (v. 3)?

Secondly is hope possible? Could humans envisage a life beyond death? Could a person wish for Sheol (the realm of the sleeping dead) to be reimagined as an extra phase of hired service (v. 14)? Long enough for God’s wrath to pass (v. 13). Then life could ‘sprout again’. (The Hebrew word translated as ‘release’ in v. 14 is connected to the verb ‘sprout again’ in v. 7.)

It was much later after the time when the Book of Job was written that many Jews developed ideas about the general resurrection of the dead or related ideas about life after death.

To Ponder:

• When a loved one dies, what words have you found to express a conviction that the deceased is held forever in the merciful embrace of God? If believing in life after death is a cause of anxiety for you, with whom will you seek a conversation to explore this theme openly and carefully?
• Contemporary culture majors on the quality of our lives. We seek ‘fulfilment’, ‘peace of mind’, or ‘a sense of purpose’ in and through our domestic arrangements, our working lives, the groups we support in the local community and the Church. If you attend church, do you share how you are getting on with other Christian people in a house group or in the congregation? How, in your congregation, do you prepare one another for sudden tragedy, an accident or the onset of a serious illness, that may threaten ‘the good life’ you have been working towards?

Bible notes author: The Revd David Deeks
David is a Methodist supernumerary presbyter, living in Bristol.