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| Desert rain |
"Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?" - Job 38.25-7
This verse comes from a passage in the book of Job, where Yahweh is helping Job realize that he is not the center of the universe. It includes a concept that was very strange in the ancient world: Why does it rain in places people don't live?
The pre-modern world view, believed that the gods were responsible for bringing rain and would only do so if humans had properly appeased them.
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| Drought |
Droughts then were understood as times when the gods where unhappy for some reason. This way of thinking was very familiar to the ancient Israelites and can be seen in Deuteronomy 28 and 1 Kings 18.1.
Today we understand that rain is less a direct act of God and more reflective of a cycle that God put in place to bring life to the whole world.
As God spoke to Job, he did so based on Job's understanding of the world. This is a very important concept to keep in mind when reading the Bible:
God acts within human history, so to get the most out of our reading, we attempt to understand the world to which God originally communicated.
If we don't do this, we are in danger of misunderstanding and misapplying the Bible. A danger with which the world is all too familiar.
4 comments:
wish some of these warnings were printed in the Bible
"Attn reader - remember the people God was speaking to thousands of years ago - notice he didn't speak legions above them. He wanted to actually be understood."
love your posts Brandon, I look forward to them.
Thanks so much Charlie. Your comments mean a lot to me.
so, we're memorizing psalm 51:17 in class, and i'm seeing a theme here: "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it, You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, o God, you will not despise." Sacrifices, i.e. a human's attempt to bring rain in a drought by doing something to please God/the gods, is not what the Lord is looking for: humility, i.e.- 'you are not the center of the universe job' (or anybody else), allows us to see ourselves in proper relationship with the God that sees all and knows all - even knowing when to bring rain to a thirsty desert miles away from our awareness.
i like that you pulled out the cultural times, brandon, that the folks of job's day thought they had to please the gods to get rain, and here is God speaking to job on terms he can understand.
-christy
Thanks Christy. It's pretty wild God communicates with us in terms we can understand. Thanks for your comments.
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