From Dust to Glory The plan
Illustration · An old olive stump beside a stream in the early morning, putting out new shoots. Not drawn from a photograph.

Day 6 · Job 10–14

Hope for a Tree

Zophar speaks, Job turns from his friends to argue with God himself, and asks whether the dead can live again.

Day 6 of 365Job

Today’s reading · about 11 minutes

Job 10–14

Job pleads with God, Zophar speaks, Job’s longest answer

Read it

Psalm 4

Today’s psalm

Read it

Themes and asks

  1. Made from dust

    Job reminds God that he made him: “Remember that you made me from dust—will you turn me back to dust so soon?” (10:9, NLT). The Hebrew of the next verse pictures it as milk poured out and curdled into cheese (10:10). Job turns the picture of humans made from dust (compare Genesis 2:7; 3:19) into an argument: why would a maker destroy what he shaped with such care?

    • What does it mean to you that you were made with care?
    • If you dared to argue with God, what would you say?

  2. Worthless physicians

    Zophar goes further than the others: God, he says, is punishing Job less than he deserves (11:6). Job answers that his friends are defending God with lies (13:7): “As physicians, you are worthless quacks. If only you could be silent! That’s the wisest thing you could do” (13:4–5, NLT).

    • When has someone defended God in a way that hurt you?
    • Where are you tempted to speak for God instead of listening?

  3. Though he slay me

    Job resolves to take his case to God himself, whatever it costs: “God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with him” (13:15, NLT). The Hebrew of this verse can be read as hope or as hopelessness (see Behind the words). Either way, Job does not walk away from God; he walks toward him.

    • What do you hold on to when hope runs thin?
    • What would it mean to bring your complaint to God instead of away from him?

  4. Hope for a tree

    A tree cut down can sprout again at the scent of water, Job says, but people lie down and do not rise (14:7–12). Then he asks, “Can the dead live again?” (14:14, NLT), and pictures himself waiting for release. Many commentators see Job reaching for a hope he cannot yet hold; Christian readers have often heard in it the first stirrings of resurrection hope.

    • Where have you seen something grow back that you thought was gone?
    • What do you hope for beyond this life, and what does that hope rest on?

Behind the words

One word, two readings

Job 13:15 is one of the best-known lines in the English Bible and one of the hardest in the Hebrew. It turns on a two-letter word. As written, it is lōʾ, “not.” But the scribes who handed the text down, the Masoretes, noted in the margin that it was to be read aloud as lō, “to him,” and the two sound alike. Translated word for word from the Hebrew, the written text says, “Look, he will slay me; I will not hope,” and the reading aloud, “Look, he will slay me; for him I will hope.” This pairing of what is written and what is read, ketiv and qere, turns up in hundreds of places in the Hebrew Bible.

English translations have divided over it. The Geneva Bible and the King James followed the reading aloud: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (KJV, 1611). The RSV and NRSV follow the written text and have Job say he has no hope. The NIV and ESV follow the reading aloud, as the King James did, and give the written text in a footnote. The NLT’s “I have no other hope” follows the written text and gives the other reading in a footnote.

Scholars still divide, too. David Clines, in his commentary on Job, sets the traditional rendering aside, with regret, as out of harmony with its context. Others hold that hope fits the next verse, where Job says this is what will save him (13:16), and many traditional readers have kept the line of trust, a reading as old as the Mishnah, which weighs both and concludes that Job served God out of love (Sotah 5:5, about AD 200). Either way, the second half of the verse is the same in both: Job will argue his case to God’s face.

The same pair of words turns up in Psalm 100:3, where the choices fall the other way. There the King James follows the written text, “it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves,” while the NLT follows the reading aloud: “He made us, and we are his.”

Job 13:15, two ways

The same verse, with one word taken as written (lōʾ) or as the margin says to read it (lō). The translations named are examples.

As written: lōʾ, “not”As read aloud: lō, “to him”
Word for wordLook, he will slay me; I will not hope.Look, he will slay me; for him I will hope.
Followed byRSV (1952), NRSV (1989), NLT (with the other reading in a footnote)1599 Geneva Bible, King James (1611), NIV and ESV (both with the other reading in a footnote)
The same pair in Psalm 100:3“and not we ourselves” (KJV)“and we are his” (NLT)

You are here

Day 6 of 365, the third of nine days in Job. Today ends the first round of speeches: each friend has spoken once, and Job has answered each. The second round begins tomorrow, with Eliphaz.

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Elihu The LORD 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ch. 1 28 42 The book’s parts above; the plan’s days below You are here 14
Schematic, drawn to the length of each part in chapters. Prose opens the book (1–2) and closes it (42:7–17). Between them come Job’s lament (3), three rounds of speeches with his friends (4–27), a poem on wisdom (28), Job’s last defense (29–31), Elihu (32–37), and the LORD’s speeches with Job’s replies (38:1–42:6).

Threads

Each one opens the plan to the days on that thread.

My notes · Day 6

Sources
  • Job 10–14 and Psalm 4, Holy Bible, New Living Translation · BibleGateway
  • Job 13:15 in the 1599 Geneva Bible, KJV, RSV, NRSV (NRSVA and NRSVUE on BibleGateway), NIV, ESV and NLT · BibleGateway
  • Mishnah, Sotah 5:5 · Mishnah.org
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 1–20. Word Biblical Commentary 17. Word Books, 1989.
  • Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd edition. Fortress Press, 2012.

Something wrong here? A date, a name, a quotation? Let me know

From Dust to Glory reads the whole Bible in the order its story happened, one day at a time, at your own pace. Each day gives questions to sit with, the history behind the words, and where it sits in the story. The plan lists all 365 days.