Death Imagined: From Mother Earth to Dust and Ashes in the Mind of Job

Abstract

Abstract:Early in the Book of Job the hero's future death is represented as a return to the "womb" of a maternalized earth. However, this metaphor of uterine regression–a cross-cultural commonplace which has been studied by Otto Rank (1929)–is not what it seems to be at first glance. Job desperately wishes to go down into the earth not in order to rest in peace, but in order to escape the persecutory God who has deprived him of his ten children, his vast properties, and his health. Unable to complete grieving the deaths of his children, Job succumbs to major depressive disorder. He even threatens to commit suicide by entering Sheol, the ancient Israelite underworld of no return. Multiple passages in the book have Job imagining that he enters Sheol, the Pit, the grave, the dust, etc.–but none of these imaginings is actually ever carried out because God is really quite fond of Job, and had arranged in advance with the satan (his agent) that Job's life be spared. For his part, Job is truly devoted to God, and wants to argue his case against God in a court of law. Such hubris, however, results in Job having a vision of God who mocks him with a thundering voice from out of a whirlwind. This divine harangue forces Job to submit. The submission is not an act of moral masochism, as Dan Merkur (2004) demonstrates, but is the result of the awe which overwhelms Job, as Jack Kahn (1975) had discovered in the only book-length psychoanalytic study of Job's illness ever written. Recent research findings by biblical scholars on Job's final words accepting his future status as "dust and ashes" (the alliterative 'āpār wā'ēper) are quite similar to Kahn's findings. Some personal Ash Wednesday reminiscences by the author of this article also support Job's new view of himself as mere "dust and ashes" in the wide natural universe. The article ends with an explanation of why Job's experience of awe also transformed him into a generous person.