The Last Word on Job

This is my last post concerning Job . . . for a while, at least.

Last year (in January 2019) I purchased a Chronological Study Bible and started reading it at a leisurely pace in the hopes of gaining new Biblical insight as well as writing some poetry along the way.  So, that January, while reading through Genesis, I wrote five poems.  There was a poem that included a few themes in Genesis, called In the beginning; one about Abraham NOT sacrificing Isaac in The Lord will Provide; another about Jacob in Jacob, the Deceiver; about Joseph in Have you heard the latest?; and, finally, about Jacob blessing his twelve sons in The Blessing, found in Genesis 49. 

Chronologically-speaking, Job follows directly after Genesis.  I had never read Job before and I couldn't believe what I was reading — as I was literally reading it for the first time.  I came into Job with the idea of writing four or five poems but, after reading a few chapters, I couldn't decide which chapter to zero in on (since they were all so good!)  So, I went back to the beginning of the book.

The first two chapters of Job contain the narrative that sets up Job's story.  Chapter 3 really begins the poetic conversations between six characters that continue into the final chapter, Chapter 42.

Starting with Chapter 3, I ended up writing a total of 40 chapters.  And, God was good!  I truly felt the hand of God as I was being guided and helped along the way — being inspired with words and ideas for every verse.

It took me five months to write the forty poems — on average, nearly 2 per week.  I'd set the alarm for 5a in order to write before work.  I was writing late at night and into the next morning.   I was jotting ideas down throughout the day.  I was totally consumed by this project.

I used to blog about it as well.  But, there were weeks when I would write 2, 3 — even 4 poems and it just got to be too much for me to keep up with the blogs, the newsletters, and the writing — and I ended up cutting everything out but the writing.  All I wanted to do was to write!

I spent the rest of 2019 reading and rereading the poems to really fine-tune them and to smooth out the rough areas.

The booklet above is a little side-by-side view of my poetry along with the Bible, using a variety of versions.  It contains six poems — one for each of the 6 characters: Job, his three friends, a fourth guy that really surprised me when he suddenly showed up, and then, finally, God.  Each of them speak with a different meter — a different rhythm to their speech.