My spirit is crushed,
    and my life is nearly snuffed out.
    The grave is ready to receive me. (Job 17:1)

I have been stuck on Job 17 for days. I have been grieving it with Job, feeling the poignancy of his lament. There are questions here, real questions, that are worth asking.

Where then is my hope?
    Can anyone find it? (Job 17:15)

Job 17 is the tree our American Christianity kite gets so wrapped up in: misery, the kind of misery that makes death look friendlier than life. The yearning for a quick end, the fear of lingering on for no purpose but to suffer. If you’ve ever heard someone you love express a desire to die, if you’ve ever had to consider the choice between suffering and death for a loved one, if you’ve ever questioned which is better for yourself, you know – Job’s words tear down a veil we have constructed for a reason. It covers the picture of Dorian Gray; it wraps the ghost of Christmas future; it disguises the shadow of death. We are afraid to look behind it; we are afraid to become what’s behind it.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4, NKJV)

There are things we teach our children: we don’t touch fire, we don’t look at the sun, and we don’t greet death like he’s welcome here – like he’s one of us, like he’s part of us. These things are dangerous. They damage.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

– Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

What do we know of death but its cold shoulder? What should it know of us but ours. Right? And yet, death lurks over us; it is written into our cells and seasons and natural world, and though we try to ignore its presence, it blocks the light and warmth of the sun. It casts a shadow. And we live in it.

When someone like Job – someone who we admired, revered even – falls into this level of despair, of yearning for death – it calls into question everything we live for. It makes us look at death, and most of us would rather ignore that face. American Christians especially shy away from it. Life. Jesus brings life. We talk about life.

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. (John 10:10)

Sometimes, I think we talk about life so much that we have forgotten what it means to live in death’s shadow. We live as if we will go on living forever, when in fact, we are made to live as those who are dying. We build the wrong things, invest our time and energy in the temporal while neglecting the eternal. We trade the eternal joy of heaven for the fleeting pleasures of earth. This is the danger of forgetting death: we wish, we hope, we desire poorly.

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses

Job’s depression is hard to sit beside, hard to read, hard to face because it lurks within us all. In our deep places that we keep shut off from our waking mind, the places where our fears reside, the question floats atop an answer few of us have the courage to test: what will I do when my hope is gone? What will happen when there’s nothing left I want?

My days are over.
    My hopes have disappeared.
    My heart’s desires are broken. (Job 17:11)

By this point, Job has given up trying to convince his friends of his innocence with his arguments. For that, he appeals to God, who alone knows the state of his heart. His anger is running thin, an energy that he has exhausted, and all that is left under it is sorrow. His anger has left him depleted. He’s tired.

What if I go to the grave^[a]
    and make my bed in darkness?
What if I call the grave my father,
    and the maggot my mother or my sister?
Where then is my hope?
    Can anyone find it?
No, my hope will go down with me to the grave.
    We will rest together in the dust! (Job 17:13-16)

Look at his language. I realize this is a translation, that it can only convey his meaning so well because different cultures embed their own beliefs into their language, but in English, the language around death rings similar to the language around sleep, and in some ways, one is a parallel, symbolic of the other. I believe from the translations I have read – how Jesus had to clarify that Lazarus was dead because the disciples thought he really meant sleeping, how “he rested with his fathers” is the way of saying a man died – that the same connotations are embedded in Job’s language, too. I don’t know that. But I suspect. I suspect what translates as “make my bed in darkness” and “we will rest together in the dust” are both fairly straight translations. The Strong’s Hebrew concordance supports this. Job is tired, and the language he uses is language of rest. He craves satisfying rest; he finds none left in life, and since his exhaustion seems so permanent, he seeks a rest more permanent.

And this is why I think the book is Job is not actually about suffering, as is commonly believed. I think the book of Job is about hope. Because hope is our reason for carrying on through pain and suffering and exhaustion. Job, in chapter 17, could find no more reason to carry on – because he’d misplaced his hope. Like so many of us, his hope was in the temporal. Like so many of us, his hope was flimsy. Like so many of us, his hope snapped under the weight – of death.

No, my hope will go down with me to the grave.
    We will rest together in the dust! (Job 17:16)

Job needs better hope. His life depends on it. Job needs a Savior – the same Savior who is foreshadowed in his own feelings, words, circumstances:

My spirit is crushed,
    and my life is nearly snuffed out.
    The grave is ready to receive me. (Job 17:1)

He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Mark 14:33-34)

I am surrounded by mockers.
    I watch how bitterly they taunt me. (Job 17:2)

God has made a mockery of me among the people;
    they spit in my face. (Job 17:6)

The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment. They dressed him in a purple robe, and they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head. Then they saluted him and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they struck him on the head with a reed stick, spit on him, and dropped to their knees in mock worship. (Mark 15:16-19)

You must defend my innocence, O God,
    since no one else will stand up for me.
You have closed their minds to understanding,
    but do not let them triumph. (Job 17:3-4)

Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find evidence against Jesus, so they could put him to death. But they couldn’t find any. Many false witnesses spoke against him, but they contradicted each other. (Mark 14:55-56)

They betray their friends for their own advantage,
    so let their children faint with hunger. (Job 17:5)

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests to arrange to betray Jesus to them. (Mark 14:10)

My eyes are swollen with weeping,
    and I am but a shadow of my former self. (Job 17:7)

Then Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

The virtuous are horrified when they see me.
    The innocent rise up against the ungodly. (Job 17:8)

 A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. (Luke 23:27-28)

When the Roman officer overseeing the execution saw what had happened, he worshiped God and said, “Surely this man was innocent.” And when all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow. (Luke 23:47-48)

Even as Job cried out for better hope, his life prophesied his coming: the sturdy hope who can bear the weight of even death and loss and suffering. Messiah. Hold on, Job. He’s coming! Better hope has come at last!

Job wants Jesus. ❤