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Job 30:17-18
17 My bones [`etsem] are pierced [naqar] in me in the night season [layil]: and my sinews [`araq] take no rest [shakab].
18 By the great [rob] force [koach] of my disease is my garment [labuwsh] changed [chaphas]: it bindeth me about ['azar] as the collar [peh] of my coat [kathoneth]. KJV-Interlinear
17 'At night it pierces my bones within me, And my gnawing pains take no rest. 18 'By a great force my garment is distorted; It binds me about as the collar of my coat. NASB
Job is under mental stress, and he is obviously suffering from extreme physical stress and discomfort.
He hurts all the way to his bones. Even his bones ache. His muscles, his joints, everything that moves aches. He cannot sleep at night. He cannot find any rest because of the extremeness of the disease that has encamped on him.
Normal people wear clothing for comfort and protection from the elements. But Jobs disease has taken on the role of clothing. This is a representation of course. His disease has so encapsulated him that he feels like it is a tightly fitted set of clothing wrapped around him such that he cannot remove it, cannot change it, he can't even wash it away.
Such is the disease that one cannot get rid of, and therefore has become enslaved to.
Such is the attack of the world.
When we are born, we are born physically alive, but spiritually dead. Our spiritual death is evidenced by the physical sin nature, which is resident within the physical body. It is there. It is permanent. You cannot rid yourself of it. And therefore, that is why the physical body will be discarded when we die. Eventually it will be replaced by an eternal resurrection body for believers. One that is incorruptible.
Unbelievers will also be resurrected into a body of some type for their permanent residence in the Lake of Fire, but that body is never described. It will not be a very desirable one.
In eternity, we will have a physical resurrection body, incorruptible and undefiled. A body that will be able to withstand life forever.
But on this earth, in this life, we must deal with corruptible bodies. Bodies subject to disease, accidents, disabilities, imperfections and so forth.
When you are young, you are full of vigor and vinegar and bulletproof. If you have never been really sick or injured, then your perspective in life is one of the illusion that things will continue more or less indefinitely as they are.
What a shock when trouble finally enters into your life. And if trouble never strikes, old age certainly will.
It is far better to endure some form of suffering in life, if only to put your arrogance and perspective of life in check, and bring you back to the reality that you are not invincible. And to remind you that you do need God in your life.
None of us are so independent that we possess total control over our own destiny. Unless you believe that you can control the weather, the economies of the world, or your own health for that matter. If nothing else, age will set you straight on that.
But as with Job, God can allow life to hammer you so bad, while still keeping you alive, that you will wish that you were dead, even that you had never been born. Do you remember Job wishing for those things?
Suffering is a great reality check, and arrogance annihilator.
