Who released “those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:15)?
Job uses words with such rich meaning—especially when he’s talking about life having no meaning! In a way, he reminds me of the atheist who uses his intelligence to prove there’s no intelligence behind the universe. Or the philosopher who thinks he’s making sense when he tells us nothing makes sense. Any thinking contrary to God’s thoughts must be nonsensical. In Job 10:18-22, the dear man does it again. He longs for his death date to follow his birth date (v 19). We can’t imagine the agony of his soul in losing his family, his wealth, the fellowship of his wife, his health, and his reputation in the eyes of his friends. His desire to die is simply expressing his conviction that the life he had is over. Are the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson really the case? “I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all” (In Memoriam, A.H.H.). This elegy, describing a seventeen-year voyage of grief in his own life, concludes that love is such a miracle that it makes the pain-filled loss worth it. But Job isn’t there yet. He hopes to leave soon for that land which he graphically describes (using four different words for darkness). But in the few days he has left, can’t he have a break from this unrelenting criticism? “Leave me alone, that I may take a little comfort, before I go to the place from which I shall not return” (vv 20-21). What place? “To the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land as dark as darkness itself” (vv 21-22). It will be millennia before the Dawn would visit from on high, “to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1:79). We say, “Truly the light is sweet” (Eccl 11:7).