Jon Huer writes

THE SEDUCTION OF JOB: Twenty Years Later   

A Dramatic Poem

CHAPTER TEN

Job, waiting to hear the verdict, continues his suffering ways.

JOB TO SELF:  

Brave words and stern countenance for appearance! 

But my legs are wobbly with fear of the unknown  

And my spine unsteady with the burden of anxiety. 

I know God is my witness, but the king?  

Will the king be generous and just with me, 

For my great wealth and my high reputation  

Before he renders his verdict on my crime? 

I am too ashamed with my admission of guilt  

To appeal to the king for generosity and justice, 

And think too highly of myself to beg him  

To abate the law's revenge toward me.

I deserve the consequences but still fear the verdict,  

For I know the king is but God's instrument. 

But the double penance of guilt and shame‑‑  

The king's decision of guilt for my crime, 

And God's judgment of shame for my sin‑‑  

Wears out my resolve and my courage. 

I am weary of waiting for the king's messenger,  

Who may bring a most disastrous calamity any day. 

I am sorrowful for my God Who is displeased,  

And Who wishes to increase the burden of my grief. 

The day is long with my anxious waiting,  

The night fearful with my lonely reckoning of the soul.  

ZORAH:  

O Job, what has possessed your spirit of late, 

And why the darkness of your countenance,  

So unlike the recent days of peace and serenity? 

Laughter seldom leaves your pursed lips nowadays,  

Light words no longer uttered by your mouth; 

And do you hardly touch your food and drink.  

Your wisdom and piety so hidden in silent thought, 

As if you count the days and hours toward the end,  

An end fast approaching and dreadfully anticipated? 

My always strong husband, why this sudden gloom?  

Has something great and terrible come upon you?  

JOB:  

O Zorah, it is the gloom of a sinner 

Who must face the day of the Lord's judgment,  

With all his sins, large and small, 

Counted and weighed, sorted and listed,  

From which nothing escapes the watchful angels.  

ZORAH:  

O Job, why is your burden heavier than the others' 

And why are your sins measured greater against God?  

Man sins and God forgives, as always; 

Pray for His forgiveness and God will hear you.  

Why are you specially troubled above all men, 

And weary of your sins far beyond God's interest?

    

JOB: 

My Zorah, penance is proportional to one's sin.  

With small sins forgiveness is nearby, 

As God is ready to forgive you for your sins.  

As for me, my sins are bigger and heavier, 

Proportional to my pride and haughtiness,  

Bolstered by the public claim and adulation, 

And by my own shortcomings of self‑importance,  

So that days are not long enough for my penance 

And nights too long for a sinner in slumber.   

ZORAH: 

O Job, call it a woman's silly intuition,  

But have you committed a grave sin 

Which hounds you with special shame and torment,  

Clouding your face with darkness 

And causing you to sigh as often as you breathe?   

JOB: 

The day of reckoning will come to all of us,  

When we stand naked before the Great Judge, 

Who will count and weigh our sins against us.  

In the meantime, we must do our own reckoning, 

And thus lighten the docket of the Great Judge.   

ZORAH: 

That is no answer to satisfy me, Job,  

But that shall have to do for now. 

I long for the days not too long ago  

When this house was filled with laughter 

And you were the leader in wisdom and piety.  

Now only heavy silence and sigh are heard  

Where we had only peace and contentment in our hearts.   

JOB: 

Poor Zorah, bear with me in these times,  

For this sorrowfulness cannot last forever. 

It is your misfortune to have married a man  

Who is blessed by God and cursed by man: 

Blessed with humble wisdom and great wealth  

And cursed with immense stupidity and haughtiness. 

My heart is heavy with love for you,  

My soul sweet with the longing to caress you. 

We have traveled our journey together  

And we shall finish it in union, 

Come whatever may in God's grace.   

JOB TO SELF: 

Zorah, with her fine feminine intuition,  

Knows that something is amiss with me, 

So obvious is my agony in desolation  

As is my brooding shackled in sorrow. 

But I cannot share my secret with her,  

For I cannot endure the aftermath inevitable.   

O how could I let her find out  

That I have fallen short of God and myself, 

And, more grievous still, I have failed her  

In a way I had never failed before 

When the critical trial came to test me  

In a way I had never been tested before? 

Never had I failed anything in weakness,  

Nor tasted my own folly's sourness before 

Until Bashana came and destroyed my strength  

And made a mockery of my wisdom and resolve!   

Is it better that a man has never failed  

Or that he has failed but has regained himself? 

All the more searing is my bitterness  

Because of the triviality of my offense 

And of the immensity of destructiveness  

Wrought by my own passions and errors! 

Why is my failure so painful, so mournful,  

Though it has been visited upon men time and again, 

As often as the rising suns and the setting moon?    

How many great men are destroyed by minor events, 

For it only takes one small wave of the heart  

And a murmur of sweetness in the ear 

For nature to invite wantonness and ruin  

Into great lives and greater deeds. 

How useless is a man's monument to himself  

That can be dismantled by a small passion! 

How foolish is the expectation of another day  

When it can be erased by the passing wind?

 

 --William Blake