Chapter 46 Reading notes I read "The Bible Old Testament"
My Reading of "The Bible·Old Testament"--My Thoughts on "The Book of Job"
In the dark and chaotic ancient times, the moment when the first ray of rational light pierced the sky in the resealed lock has always been the eternal theme of later poets.Because God said "Let there be light", so in the long years, people who are small gods have never given up the pursuit of light, and in the pursuit they have constantly shaped themselves to resemble God's image.And because the light is an inseparable thing embedded in the dark flesh, human beings have to split themselves for their own perfection, and experience the grace of God in the torment of pain. For me, the whole "Old Testament" Those simple and obscure stories in the eyes of today's people all record the process of human spirit from birth, establishment, development, maturity, and growth.And the poem "The Book of Job" in the "Old Testament" is the most memorable description of how the human spirit seeks new life through struggle in the world.The hero of the psalm reads like an ancient pagan, and his comprehension (consciously or unconsciously) of the will of God, his relentless pursuit to death, and his irresistible impulse are very similar to those of an artist. .
God's servant (believer) Job is a very rational person who always adheres to his "pure" beliefs and never indulges the evil in himself.But all this is far from enough, Satan, the unpredictable devil who "walks up and down from the ground, and back and forth", is determined to instigate the just God to conduct that kind of destructive test on his servants .God agreed to Satan's suggestion, and handed Job over to Satan to dispose of him at will, with the only condition being to keep his life (because once the body perishes, the spirit will lose everything).From then on Job’s spiritual purgatory began.The first is that his property and children were taken away, and he fell into infinite grief.Then Satan made himself very sick, covered with sores from head to toe, and could only sit in the ashes of the furnace to live, wanting to live, wanting to die.
The question and answer in the psalm consists of the conversations of Job sitting in the ashes, his three friends, Elihu the Busi, and finally Yahweh.Through this extreme and thrilling soul test, the most fundamental problem in human nature has been unfolded layer by layer.What is faith? Faith is a three-dimensional pursuit process that advances in depth, rather than a flat, external attachment; faith is a form of detachment presented by the force generated from the root of human nature, and the explanation for her can only be Can start from life, not from external things.What Satan wants to make Job do is to let him perform the cruel dance of chains on a purely spiritual stage, and let his true self stand out from spontaneity to self-consciousness.The tone of Job in the Psalms is extremely tense and lyrical to the point of hysteria, because the voice here is a life that is unwilling to perish and struggles to get rid of death, and it is a person who has been silent before God for a long time. The second "speak" to gain one's own essence.Regardless of whether it is Job's three friends, Elihu the Busi, or the last Jehovah, one can hear the strong, life-and-death, and at the same time ambiguous hints and guidance from their words.
Job, who was tortured by the terrible illness and couldn't live, was furious as soon as he opened his mouth. He cursed his birthday, the day and night of that day, and the fact that he was born from the mother's womb.His tone was profane and desperate, presumably because he had nothing left to lose.The only life he had did not bring him the hope of life, but became his drought in the lingering process! KOpportunity?/p>
"Since man's way is covered, and God surrounds him on all sides, why should light be given to him?"
This is a natural reaction of an individual with strong vitality in the face of the God who has everything under control. Even in a desperate situation, he still takes the initiative to attack, desperately questioning, and wants to get to the bottom of the mystery of survival.
"What I dreaded came upon me; what I dreaded came to me."
Being unable to live, yet not yet dead; seeing no way, yet still having light (reason) given to him, this is what Job fears.People who face this kind of fear, what else can they do except to use loud questioning to emphasize that they are not a puff of smoke, but a creature of God that actually possesses rationality? What Job said is From the instinctive truth, he wanted to live, and he was not willing to live without death, so he revealed his true feelings to God, complained to God, and resisted God's arrangements.But looking at it the other way around, maybe God created him and brought him the light just for his performance today in a desperate situation? God’s will is supreme, how can mortals grasp it? Job’s performance, his interrogation , His arguing is exactly the process in which he realizes God's will.The more extreme he is, the more desperately he struggles and becomes angry, the more real the experience will be.Human nature is greedy, and so is God. He wants people to exhaust the most incredible experiences, so he deliberately arranged this test for people to directly compete with him.This test has reached such a dire point:
"They long for death, but cannot die; they desire death better than hidden treasures. They find the grave and are glad, and rejoice exceedingly."
Job's purgatory was God's favor to him.God took a fancy to his rare sincerity, so that Satan provided him with such a stage to perform.
Look again at Eliphaz the Temanite's response to Job's blasphemous words.Eliphaz used Job’s previous rational behavior to refute his current thinking. He believed that Job’s venting of anger was a sign that his faith in God had been shaken, that he took his pain too seriously, and forgot that God is extremely powerful. and the insignificance of man.In general, his proposition is to completely deny the role of man.
"As for me, I will look to God and commit my affairs to him."
Then he asked Job to proceed from rationality, to suppress his immediate painful feelings, to pin all his hopes on God, and to firmly believe that God would save him.His preaching was obviously beyond the reach of a bloody man like Job.If he did as he said, it would be tantamount to giving up existence for Job.Job's existence is his personal feeling at every moment, not some kind of promise in the distant future.So when Eliphaz said, "We have examined this, and it is true. You must listen, and know that it is for your own benefit," he could not convince Job at all.Job is indeed a rational person, but more importantly, he always lives in his own feelings, which is his unchangeable nature.He will never be able to look at life as a bystander and use "good for himself" as the criterion to choose a lifestyle.Of course, Eliphaz's rebuttal here is also very suspicious. Who knows what his original intention as a "friend" is? This point will be mentioned later.
Job, obsessed with personal experience, answered Eliphaz in this way:
"May my troubles be weighed. All my troubles are weighed in the scales. They are now heavier than the sands of the sea. Therefore my words are hasty. For the arrows of the Almighty have shot into me, and their poison has made my spirit drink It is over; God's fright is set against me. Shall a wild ass howl when it has grass? Shall an ox roar when it has food? Shall it be eaten when it is bland and without salt? What is the taste of egg whites? Refuse to come near."
This is the essential difference between Job's way of living and Eliphaz's way of living.Job dared to love and hate, and was fearless, but his devotion to God was no less than that of Lifa.In fact, his devotion was closer to the kind of devotion God requires—a painful, active experience of the Supreme Will.Therefore, Eliphaz’s suppression only provoked Job’s greater backlash.Not only were his words still fierce, but they seemed to be a little threatening.It seems that he wanted to threaten, to insist, and he said to his god that if he continues to punish him indefinitely, the result will be "you will search for me diligently, but I am gone." From the bottom of his heart, he He understands that he and God are inter-substantial, and that God's will cannot be realized without his physical existence.Of course, his blasphemous piety is something that his friends would object to, because it is too contrary to common sense and the way of belief of the world.Here, the question-and-answer between him and Eliphaz is like a struggle between rationality and sensibility that "the height of the road is one foot, and the height of the devil is one foot".
Bildad the Shuhite, another friend of Job, put it this way:
"Please question the previous generations and recall what their ancestors investigated..."
He asked Job to find out his sins through "root-seeking" (similar to our "root-seeking" movement today), and asked him to be closely connected with the external foundation created by God-the earth on which people live.None of these words were new to Job.God is omnipotent and omniscient, and man cannot argue with God on all matters (including those mysterious ancestors that can no longer be traced). The only thing man can do is to express his feelings about God. You can only argue with God on this point.So Job continued to complain about grievances, tactfully accused God, and at the same time begged God bitterly.This way of his is of course condemned by his friend Bildad and others.
The outlook on life of Zopher the Naamathite is no different from that of the other two friends. He still emphasizes that God is all-encompassing and that man can do nothing but blind faith, but faith brings happiness to people.His point of view is common sense popular in the world, but common sense is not what Job needs in his current situation.He believes, but blindly dreaming cannot activate his life, he needs vivid life experience.So he roared:
"The proverbs that you think memorable are proverbs of ashes; and the strongholds that you think sure are strongholds of mud."
When he was so angry, his body full of pain was actually unconsciously feeling the power of faith, but his way was opposite to those of his friends.He wants to speak, to justify his actions, to complain about his difficulties, and to reason with God face to face.Above all, he valued this world over the next, arguing with God:
"You attack a man always victorious, and cause him to die; you change his face, so that he will never return. His son is honored, he does not know it; he is humbled, he does not feel it, but he knows the pain of the body and the sorrow of the heart. ."
As long as he has one breath, he can only continue these heartfelt justifications.
Because of Job's obstinacy, in the second round of dialogue, the friends' condemnation of him escalates.Eliphaz talked about God's cruel and merciless punishment, hoping to arouse Job's fear and make him stop blaspheming God.But Job has lost everything, so he has nothing to fear.He insisted that his complaints, even his complaints against God, were all "pure prayers", because in his heart, he "wanted man to justify himself with God, just as a man pleads with his friends." This objectified self is regarded as an old friend, his hope is in this world, and he is not afraid of punishment in the next life.Then Bildad, the Shuhite, could not refute Job’s bold and ungodly words because he could not refute him, so he had to use God’s name as an example to describe the more terrible torture to Job.Angry and weary, Job replied to his friends that he was not at all afraid to say what they considered blasphemy, and that what he had said "was engraved with an iron pen, poured with lead on a rock, and preserved forever." forever".Because he knew that what he said was true, he complained to God without affecting the purity of his belief.Zopher the Naamathite was very impatient when he heard Job's nonsense nonsense, so he repeated the old tune of punishment and torture.Job retorted, making the blasphemy even harsher.This leads to the third round of debate.
In this round of debate, Eliphaz still emphasized that passive existence is a matter of course, asking him to take the joy of the invisible Almighty as his own joy.His words inspired Job. Job said that he really wanted to see God with his own eyes and appeal to God face to face.He said that God frightens him now because he can't see hope; not only can't see it in himself, but he can't see it in the world;Bildad replied to Job that the world cannot judge God because the world is "like maggots."Job acknowledged the power of God and the inability of man to discern God’s will, but he still insisted on using his own spontaneous movement to communicate with the incommunicable God, and he took this as his lifelong ideal and never gave up.It was here that he read a poem entitled "In Praise of Wisdom".This poem is very obscure. If you understand it carefully, it still talks about the spiritual contradictions in the depths of human nature and the source of human wisdom.The gold, silver, copper, sapphire, etc. mentioned in the poem in the dark "extreme place" are all the spiritual treasures of man. Man must "cut open the rock" and "pour the root of the mountain" before they can be revealed.This metaphor implies that wisdom exists at the root of human nature, directly connected with impulse.Priceless wisdom shines where no one knows, in the darkness of the subconscious.Only the omniscient God knows the way of wisdom, "for his searches go to the ends of the earth".Therefore, the only way for man to gain wisdom is to communicate with God, and the so-called communication with God is just Job’s instinctive desperate struggle and his questioning complaints, not the superficial rational analysis of Eliphaz.
In his final appeal to his friends, Job made vicious oaths one after another in tragic language, which was self-torture and self-argument; he threatened himself with death to test his loyalty to God.This kind of appeal is almost equivalent to assuming the priesthood by oneself, exercising rights on behalf of God.Perhaps the reason why God instituted this test was to achieve this effect on Job.That is, to inspire him, force him, suffocate him, make him argue desperately, resist desperately, so as to perform this good show full of free spirit.No one can know God's will.It seems that God’s non-appearance and non-appearance are the best director methods. Only this method can allow Job to tap his full potential and reach the limit of freedom. Otherwise, who can approach that glorious moment when he is alive? Woolen cloth?
Elihu the Buzi spoke more eloquently than Job's three friends.He told Job not to give up his faith in God, and to believe that God's punishment had a noble purpose even in his own miserable situation.Because God created man, everything he did was for man, not for himself.It is God's unchanging principle that wicked people will be eliminated in the end and good deeds will be publicized. "God rescues the poor through adversity, and opens their ears while they are oppressed." Although Elihu's speech was more reasonable than those of the three friends, and he also believed that God "does not despise people", but he also It is not in favor of Job to complain and despise God with words.What he advocates is an understanding method, a rational pursuit, rather than Job's "lawless" creative play. He hopes to change Job through his clear reasoning.
When the debate reached such heights, Jehovah God finally emerged from the whirlwind.As soon as he came, he communicated directly with Job: "Gird your loins like a warrior. I will ask you, and you can show me." Just from this sentence, it can be seen that compared with those few people, God is more in line with Job. imagination.
God first expounded his omnipotence, in order to put the foundation of his unfathomable will; ; His wisdom of knowing the laws of all things in the universe was conveyed to Job one by one, so as to overwhelm Job in momentum and keep Job humble before him.Job was a sensible man, so he naturally fell in love with God’s omnipotence.He was fortunate enough to listen to God's teaching with his own ears, and his humility implied a warm expectation.Sure enough, God immediately urged him not to remain humble, but to be like him:
"Adorn yourself with glory and majesty, and clothe yourself with majesty and majesty; let out the overflow of your wrath, and see every proud man, and bring him down; see every proud man, and subdue him. Trample the wicked under their feet and hid them together in the dust, and hid their faces in a secret place; and I recognized thy right hand to save myself."
He asked Job to learn to become a god, and he also affirmed Job's performance in the test (it seemed to encourage him to go to extremes and despise the world even more in the future).From this point of view, the will of God seems to be a contradiction.He not only denied that man could know divinity, but baffled Job by asking profound questions; at the same time, he taught Job not to give up his efforts to know divinity (because only through this kind of effort can man gain the dignity of being a human being).It turns out that paradox is a powerful weapon of God.If divinity is human nature, the description of God’s will here is also the description of man’s own will, which will become clearer after reading the following.
God went on to make a most powerful metaphor.Through this parable, God told Job the true purpose of the whole test: He wanted Job to use this cruel cultivation method to obtain true self-awareness and rise to the state of freedom that is similar to God and omnipotent.Because Job has that rare spirituality, vitality and ideal spirit.Using his own creations, hippopotamus and crocodile, as examples, God talked metaphorically about the power of human will; the indomitableness of human faith; the natural beauty of human reason and sensibility; ; the greatness of human creativity.In short, he is guiding Job to become a "perfect man" like hippopotamus and crocodile, constantly improving his own soul realm.
"If the river is flooded, it will not fight, even if the water of the Jordan River reaches its mouth, it will be safe."
"Can you catch a crocodile with a hook? Can you hold down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a rope through its nose?..."
"It makes the abyss boil like a pot, and the sea like ointment in a pot. Its path shines afterward, making the abyss like white hair."
Every word of God is a metaphor for the invincible free soul deep in human nature.
This is how the communion is completed, and Job sees heaven in the ashes and dust.He completely denied his secular body and converted to the spirit of God.Of course, this denial was only temporary, and it was the prelude to the next round of struggle and resistance in the flesh. God’s revelation had penetrated into his heart:
"Hear me, I want to speak; I ask you, show me. I heard of you, and now I see you. Therefore I loathe myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
Why is Job’s spontaneous instinctive impulse so in line with God’s will? Why are the experiences of Job’s three friends, and even later Elihu, the wise men, not correct explanations of God, but instead God said that they misunderstood What kind of mysterious relationship is there between God's will and life impulse? Perhaps, these four lobbyists are all sent by God, and they are human beings. Common sense, people’s existing rationality, the reason why they set up obstacles in front of Job is because God gave them the task to stimulate Job, so that Job can break through the conventional common sense and achieve a new kind of rationality in creation? The answer to all this lies in the poetry of passion.After experiencing it repeatedly, you will feel more and more deeply that the Jehovah God here is really the concept of human nature of ancient artists, and this concept must be continuously enriched and developed through an individual life like Job.After performing this unforgettable spiritual dance, Job was reborn and God's ideal was carried forward.
The dream of Job, who was covered with sores and struggling in the ashes of the furnace, is exactly the painful and poetic dream that we humans have had for thousands of years.Without this dream, we would only remain in the stage of the beast.
May 28, 2001, Yingcai Garden