Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Job 31:9-10

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Job 31:9-10


9 If mine heart [leb] have been deceived [pathah] by a woman ['ishshah], or if I have laid wait ['arab] at my neighbour's [rea`] door [pethach];
10 Then let my wife ['ishshah] grind [tachan] unto another ['acher], and let others ['acher] bow down [kara`] upon her. KJV-Interlinear


9 'If my heart has been enticed by a woman, Or I have lurked at my neighbor's doorway, 10 May my wife grind for another, And let others kneel down over her. NASB


Now Job uses the married woman in his example. Earlier he used the virgin as the expression of enticement into the ways of the world. Now the married woman signifies the act of adultery, or the taking of something which belongs to another, the taking of something which obviously does not belong to you. And all parties involved know it.

Lurking at another's door, is descriptive of waiting for them to leave, and then going inside their home, a place which you have no right to be, and taking or simply being there, in violation of the neighbors privacy and property.

The ways of the world are herein made obvious. No one can live their life and say that they 'didn't know.' No one has any excuse when their life finally ends and they finally stand before Jesus for their final grade.

To be an adulterous, is described as the worst of crimes. You not only cheat on your current partner, but you violate the property, the rights, the privacy, and life of someone else.

Marriage is considered to be extremely sacred. Around it revolves the stability of society. When marriage is violated, abused, compromised, then the fabric of society reels with the repercussions with trouble galore.

If Job (if you), were to commit an act of adultery, if you were to commit an act in which you took, openly and willingly and knowingly, that which did not belong to you, then you should have no objection when someone else comes along and takes that which is near and dear to you.

By cheating on his wife, then Job states that such a person should then place their own wife (someone they hold extremely close to their heart) in a position of the lowest levels of society.

To do menial tasks, such as grinding flour, or washing floors, or anything which a slave person would typically do. And, because the wife is female, to be automatically at the disposal and whim of the master to be used and abused (for sexual pleasures) as he pleases, is the quintessence of degradation and helplessness.

Such a slave has no recourse, no one to turn to for help. Such a woman is helpless and made to be useless except for the pleasures of a tyrant.

Now, the world is the tyrant taskmaster. You, when you cheat on your spiritual life, are standing, lurking, and watching the world for pleasurable opportunities and enticements. You seek out that which does not belong to you and take it for your own possession. You commit adultery with the world rather than committing fidelity with God through your spiritual life.

Why then, when your life finally ends, would you be surprised when God strips you of all of your possessions, your worldly things, and leaves you stark naked, just as a slave girl is naked, before your tyrant master - the world.

Job states clearly that if his life is such, then let its result be as stated.

For the spiritually deficient person, then that is what you should expect as the ultimate result of your life.

Unbelievers will lose the most, and that should be obvious.

All believers will go to heaven, but those who have ignored their spiritual life, or have not pursued it correctly, will be there without any spiritual assets, without any spiritual growth to show for their life. They will lose their eternal 'bonus' blessings. Stripped as it were, of all that they tried to carry from this world, into the next.

Only those who advance in their spiritual life, and certainly only those who advance to spiritual maturity, will end up with phenomenal blessings in eternity.

To adulterize the world is to be enticed by something that will never amount to anything, and at the same time, throwing away your most valuable possession.