A Comedy of Justice

[richardf8]

So. I've been working on Chapter 38 of Job. In Hebrew. And it's funny! There is so much word play, double and triple entedred that don't make it into translation. Uz, for example. It's Job's hometown. And it's Hebrew for "Counsel." So we've got God asking Job "Who is this darkening counsel by words without knowledge?" But there are other layers of meaning. God is speaking out of a tempest, a storm, and well, storms tend to darken places. So by invoking God in a way that has enraged Him (another layer of meaning for the word for tempest) Job has caused Uz to become dark. And why is this place called Uz, "counsel" anyway? Because all we ever see happen - all that has happened for some 36 chapters, is that people have sat around talking.

Comments

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

...all that has happened for some 36 chapters, is that people have sat around talking.

So it's the Biblical equivalent of a '50's sci-fi film. :)

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Intrigue!! ;>

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Astounding. But are you sure that it's meant to be funny? I think the author might have been piling on interesting layers of appropriation without expecting to evoke laughs. That happens with "wordplay" sometimes.

I hear that Job is the most difficult Bible book to read. Would you agree that it's harder than the others you've read in Hebrew? I had trouble even with multiple English editions.

[richardf8]

I was a bit punchy yesterday.

The language in Job is not that hard for me, at least from a technical standpoint. The challenge lies in the multiplicity of meanings, as befits a poetic text. There's a lot to unpack there. The thing about reading it in the original is that in this kind of situation, a translator winds up pick a meaning and going with it, and in some ways that makes the book more difficult rather than less, because shades of eaning in one place provides context in others.

Whereas the early Prophetic writings, like Samuel and Judges are very Hemingwayesque, Job is a little more like Thomas Pynchon

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Hemingway is Samuel- and Judges-esque. More accurate, but also more awkward.

I hear that one part of Job could be translated as "I will fear the Lord" or "I will not fear the Lord." When you consider the two-edged meaning of fear, it makes some sense.