Question about job and david in the NRSV version of the bible.

Gold fish

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In job 3:11-19 job says he wishes he would have died at birth.So he would not be going through what he is going through now.But what gets me is job 3:13.Also in Psalms 139:7-8 david says if he would die and make his bed in sheol God would still be there.I am confused.:confused:Sorry if i have posted this before(the part about david).The bible i got this from was the nrsv one.

I am looking at this from a jw point of view.So the part about david having a bed in sheol literally.And job going to literally sleep somewhere after his death are both getting too me.:confused:

I go back and forth with the idea of the soul dieing when the body dies.And the idea of the soul being like an immaterial thing in us that leaves us at death and go straight to heaven or hell(lazarus and the rich man).:(
 

Mark Quayle

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In job 3:11-19 job says he wishes he would have died at birth.So he would not be going through what he is going through now.But what gets me is job 3:13.Also in Psalms 139:7-8 david says if he would die and make his bed in sheol God would still be there.I am confused.:confused:Sorry if i have posted this before(the part about david).The bible i got this from was the nrsv one.

I am looking at this from a jw point of view.So the part about david having a bed in sheol literally.And job going to literally sleep somewhere after his death are both getting too me.:confused:

I go back and forth with the idea of the soul dieing when the body dies.And the idea of the soul being like an immaterial thing in us that leaves us at death and go straight to heaven or hell(lazarus and the rich man).:(

It is difficult, but try to recognize the "default" (if you will) is not our point of view, but God's. He does not think like we do. The spiritual is the real, and this temporal existence is but a vapor compared to what is to come. The whole temporal economy will be done away with, not as though it never happened, but as though the blinders will finally be removed and we see how things really are.

Not only will our human logic of "here not there", and the understanding of just what the soul is, come clean and clear, but we will see Him as He is. It is as radical a thing, I believe, as to say that when God made us, and Christ was slain from the foundation of the earth, it was immediately a done deal. From our point of view we need terms like "predestination" and "soul sleep", etc. because we are so intimately time-dependent. But God is Cause, not effect. We are effect. It is possible, I think, that when we finally show up in Heaven that we will see Job and David "arrive" as we do.
 
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hedrick

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In the OT, there's not a lot of clear descriptions of the afterlife. Sheol is a generic reference to the world of the dead, neither to what we'd call heaven or hell; just death. Calling death sleep is a pretty common metaphor. It's simply a reference to death.

Job 3:13 is basically "I'd be better off dead." I wouldn't read more specific significance into than that.

Ps 139 is saying that God is everywhere. Nothing will separate us from him. The last part of 139:8 is more specifically, "not even death will separate us from God."
 
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