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“Everyone owes nature a death and must expect to pay the debt.”
In the opening chapter of the Book of Job the newly bereaved Job declares: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there” (Job 1:21a).2 For many readers, Genesis 3:19 (“you are dust, and to dust you shall return”) comes to mind here, and rightly so. Given that return to the womb of one's own mother is physically impossible,3 and given that burial of the deceased in the earth was the norm among the biblical Israelites,4 then it would seem best to conclude that the place which Job sees as his final resting place will be the dust, the earth.
But that would be a rather impoverished interpretation of what Job is saying at 1:21. The term “there” (“thither,” Hebrew šāmmāh) in Job's statement literally (grammatically) refers back to the “womb” of his mother, so Job has misspoken. But why this apparent slip of the tongue? Even without psychoanalysis, a few biblical scholars have understood that at this point Job
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to the two anonymous readers who commented on the manuscript which became this article. Much appreciated is the kind editorial guidance of Murray Schwartz. I wish I could thank the late Barbara Milman, who was my wife as well as my most incisive reader for over forty years. Among those who have encouraged my explorations are: Jeffrey Berman, Daniel Buford, Hilary Clark, Anoronya Kar, Harry Lieberman, Trevor Pederson, Richard Rosman, Peter Samis, Daniel Sapen, Louis Schell, Bennett Simon, and Robert Walz.