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Job 30:28
28 I went [halak] mourning [qadar] without the sun [chammah]: I stood up [quwm], and I cried [shava`] in the congregation [qahal]. KJV-Interlinear
28 'I go about mourning without comfort; I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help. NASB
There are both feminine and masculine reactions to sorrow. The typical feminine reaction is usually expressed in outward crying. The typical masculine expression is usually expressed inwardly. It is a male thing to hide ones emotions in public.
But when sorrow is so great, then even the toughest man cannot hold his tears, even in public.
This is where Job finds himself. This is how we can determine and perhaps understand, the magnitude of his suffering.
Mourning here refers to turbid, muddy, difficult to see through, and a torrent, flood, inundation of pressure and suffering.
'Without the sun,' is a reference to an eclipse where the light is taken away for a short time, but removed nonetheless.
Without God in ones life, there is no possibility of recovery, no possibility of help, nothing that one can look to for relief, and so the suffering, the emotions, the reaction in ones life are beyond description. Helpless and hopeless is the gist here, and with that outlook, the only thing left is tears. But not just any tears, these are tears of terror, utter terror, with no possibility of rescue.
The one and only person who can help is not there. And that one person is Christ.
And, we might add to this, that this is exactly the position in which Christ found Himself on he Cross. Remember that we are learning what life is like when God is not in our life. A good incentive to stick with ones daily studies. But too, Job is a type, a representation, of Christ as He hung for the Cross.
His situation was one of hopelessness in sin and death when He made the ultimate sacrifice in our behalf. No human being could have endured what Christ endured. No human being could have gone where Christ went and then returned.
The magnitude of these descriptions is intended to defy your imagination. They are intended to get you thinking of the phenomenal scale of the very seriousness of life. Such thinking should lead you into wanting to stick with a daily study.
But of course most folks just ignore these words, these warnings, these attempts of the Bible to get them on track in their spiritual life. And the result is obvious, that is to those who actually do get going and stick with their spiritual life. But what is the alternative?
