The Helpers of Rahab

A few nights ago, a relatively quiet evening at home was interrupted by a loud crashing sound. I chalked it up to the neighbours bringing in their garbage bins. Empty bins can make a real racket going over curbs. Then I heard the same sound again. And again. And again. I went out on my front porch and cast a glance over to our alley. I noticed our neighbour’s garbage and recycling bins knocked over. I looked back down the alley to our own. Also knocked over. Same story the further back I looked. I looked in the other direction and saw a group of five hooded figures in black a couple hundred meters down the alley across the street, just walking down the alley pushing over every bin they came across. It was like the killing fields for garbage bins. 

What possesses a group of people to walk down an alley just pushing over bins? Was this some kind of anarchic middle finger to the establishment? Perhaps a bunch of young people protesting against an economic climate that will make home ownership near impossible for them? Was it some kind of stupid social media dare? More prosaically, was it just a bunch of dumb kids who were off their faces on something and looking to wreak some havoc, unleash a bit of chaos? Or some combination of all of the above?

Whatever the story, I was angry. Not angry enough to go chasing after a group of (likely) young men, mind you. But certainly angry enough to seethe on my front porch for a while and lament the reckless stupidity of it all. For a variety of reasons, it had been a difficult week thus far. The ordinary suffering of a world that so often seems utterly indifferent to ordinary human suffering had made its presence felt. The visual of a long train of pushed over bins and garbage spilling out seemed a grimly apt metaphor for how life was feeling at that particular moment. Why would someone want to add misery, however trivial, to a world already so full of heartache? 

In my morning prayers the next day, one of the readings was from the ninth chapter of the book of Job. It gave some good language to how I was still feeling about all that is not as it should be in our world. It is a paean to the power and might of God, but also a lament at how futile it can feel to contend with God’s will and how remote from human concerns God often feels. 

Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

He snatches away; who can stop him?
Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

The last verses of the reading put it even more starkly:

If I summoned him and he answered me,
I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.

These are not the sort of words that would find their way into much corporate worship or, indeed, into many of our private prayers. I do not believe he would listen to my voice. It seems irreverent, improper. We’re supposed to say, “God is always listening, always has our best interests at heart, even when it doesn’t feel like it.” This is the right answer on the bible test. But sometimes, when the chaos and stupidity and wanton suffering of our world encroaches, it sure feels more honest to say, “Even if I could get a hold of him, I doubt he would give much heed to my plight…”

Later that day, I turned in my bible to Job 9. I wanted to read the verses again. I noticed that the prayer resource I had been using earlier had omitted one verse. Just one. The reading was Job 9:1-12, 14-16. Poor old verse 13 was cut out. I’ve written before that I am always intrigued by the verses that are left out of our readings, our prayers, our quotes. Usually, we leave out what’s inconvenient or unpalatable or not up to our, ahem, enlightened moral standards. Something that makes us squirm. Perhaps something we think unworthy of God. Our editorial decisions usually speak volumes. 

And thus, it proved to be. Job 9:13:

“God will not turn back his anger;
the helpers of Rahab bowed beneath him. 

Ah, of course. Anger. We so often don’t like the idea of an angry God. We’re ok with God’s power and majesty, we’re even ok with God’s inscrutability (kind of, until it’s personal and not theoretical). But an angry God? That seems so primitive, so odious, so discordant with the God of love we read about in the New Testament. 

I, on the other hand, was still feeling angry about the bins. I was ok with an angry God. Should have left verse 13 in, I thought. And I was curious about these “helpers of Rahab,” so I did a bit of research. In context, it’s obviously not referring to the prostitute who saves the spies in the book of Joshua. In Job, the word Rahab is functioning as a poetic name for a mythological sea monster or symbol of chaos, an avatar for the arrogance and pride associated with God’s enemies. The “helpers of Rahab” seem to be a poetic reference to all that sows chaos and destruction in our world.

I thought about the hooded figures rampaging down the alleys of my neighbourhood this week, adding their pitiful little contributions to the chaos and destruction in our world. The helpers of Rahab. Yes, of course I know that God loves all of us sinners who can be arrogant and proud and casually destructive in our own ways, big and small. I know that the mercy of Jesus is deep and wide and probably even extends to the bin topplers. I guess. But I’m not too pious to admit that I sure liked the idea of the helpers of Rahab bowing to a God who is angered by the chaos and destruction that lays waste to human lives. 

And in the end this is at lesat part of what we hope for isn’t it? That all that is false and wicked and destructive and painful and confusing and unjust in our world and (if we are honest) in our selves will be brought low. That it will bow down.