{"id":7433,"date":"2016-03-05T00:05:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T08:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7433"},"modified":"2016-03-04T22:57:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T06:57:15","slug":"catching-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2016\/03\/05\/catching-monsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Monsters"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>\u201cCan you catch Leviathan with a hook<br \/>\nor put a noose around its jaw?<br \/>\nCan you tie it with a rope through the nose<br \/>\nor pierce its jaw with a spike?<br \/>\nWill it beg you for mercy<br \/>\nor implore you for pity?<br \/>\nWill it agree to work for you,<br \/>\nto be your slave for life?<br \/>\nCan you make it a pet like a bird,<br \/>\nor give it to your little girls to play with?<br \/>\nWill merchants try to buy it<br \/>\nto sell it in their shops?<br \/>\nWill its hide be hurt by spears<br \/>\nor its head by a harpoon?<br \/>\nIf you lay a hand on it,<br \/>\nyou will certainly remember the battle that follows.<br \/>\nYou won\u2019t try that again!<br \/>\nNo, it is useless to try to capture it.<br \/>\nThe hunter who attempts it will be knocked down.<br \/>\nAnd since no one dares to disturb it,<br \/>\nwho then can stand up to me?<br \/>\nWho has given me anything that I need to pay back?<br \/>\nEverything under heaven is mine. \u201c (Job 41:1-11)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Do you feel lucky? God compares himself to a monster.  In the mythology of Ugarit, a Canaanite city just north of Israel, Leviathan was a sea monster that battled the god Baal.  His ally was Mot, the god of the underworld.  Leviathan was defeated.  For the Israelites, the monster\u2019s death became a symbol for the death of the wicked. Also the monster was recognized as something that only God could defeat or control.  <\/p>\n<p>So God adapted the myth to his own purposes, pointing out that neither Job nor any other human being could control such a sea monster.  But yet, here Job is thinking he can stand up to God and that he could legitimately question God\u2019s choices.  But God is all powerful and he owns everything.  Is there something that God owes to Job?  Has God somehow missed the past due bill?  Job has no business questioning God\u2019s goodness.  If he wouldn\u2019t bother a sea monster or ask it questions, then how could Job dare question God?  If he feared a monster, he should fear even more the one who created it.<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCan you catch Leviathan with a hook or put a noose around its jaw? Can you tie it with a rope through the nose or pierce its jaw with a spike? Will it beg you for mercy or implore you &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2016\/03\/05\/catching-monsters\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7435,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433\/revisions\/7435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}