Curses, Blessings, Whatever...

Job 2:9 has this report.  "Then [Job's] wife said to him, ‘Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.’"  The Hebrew word in that verse for "curse" is actually the word for "bless" (as the footnote in the NRSV points out).  This certainly illustrates the translation difficulties which Biblical Hebrew can present and which are especially pronounced in the Book of Job.  What are we supposed to think when Hebrew words can be used to mean their opposites?

Of course, we do this all the time in colloquial English.  Is that person "hot" or "cool"?  Which description is the good one?  Perhaps both are.  Is that new car really "bad" or really "good"?  Perhaps bad is good.  Or is good really bad?  As my television hero, Doctor Sheldon Cooper (of Big Bang Theory fame) would say, "The social conventions of sarcasm often escape me."  That is true for us many times as we read the conversations in the Book of Job.

Hebrew lexicons do, in fact, confirm that "bless" can be used in this euphemistic manner.  It can carry, for sarcastic and rhetorical purposes, the opposite meaning.  Job 2:9 is not the only time in the Hebrew Bible that "bless" is used to mean "curse."  This is also the case in 1 Kings 21, verses ten and thirteen.  1 Kings 21 is the story of Naboth's vineyard.  I invite you to read the chapter to get the whole account.

The important part for us is that Naboth is accused of "cursing" (read "blessing") both God and the king.  The accusation is false, trumped up by the king to create grounds for executing Naboth.  Once Naboth is out of the picture, his ancestral property ceases to have an owner.  King Ahab has been coveting that little piece of property for his own.  In order to circumvent the property and inheritance regulations in Leviticus 25, Ahab convenes this kangaroo court, and Naboth's head is soon separated from his body.

Ahab the Absolutely Arrogant gets his way.  He is relieved from his toddler-like sulk and is once again the master of all he surveys.

Is it coincidence that Job's wife uses the same language in connection with God?  We cannot know that for sure.  But it is quite interesting.  Does the writer of the Book of Job want us to hear the faint echoes of 1 Kings 21 here?  That may be the case.  

It may well be that we are getting another hint of how the writer wishes to portray God at the outset.  Does the writer of Job tempt and tantalize us with the notion that God is a bit like Ahab the Absolutely Arrogant?  That is not the least bit flattering for God in the Book of Job.  That description does fit, however, with the image created so far in the book.

And it does fit with how the traumatized and bereaved may experience God in the midst of their pain.  I certainly had those moments when I wanted one last word with God and then...oblivion.  It could be that Job's wife was sick and tired of his complaining.  That's another issue, and we'll discuss the support/resistance of others down the line.  

Or it could be that she is the only one who is willing to see God as God is portrayed.  Could this wise woman be the only human in the story willing to let God be God--without a need to airbrush out the difficulties in the picture?

It wouldn't be the first or last time in Scripture that a wise woman was willing to tell the truth, but no one would listen.