Tag Archives: Iago

The Spiritual Triangle

July 25, 2023 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

[Job] replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
Job 2:10 (NIV)

I’m getting to a place on life’s road in which retirement sits on the horizon. I have friends who have already retired, and retirement thoughts and plans has suddenly become a more frequent topic of conversation.

I’ve observed that retirement seems to be a piece of “the American dream.” We’re told to plan for it, save for it, and get ready to “enjoy” life in our golden years. It’s easy to feel that I have a right to those promises of a “good life” in the retirement years like you see on every drug commercial. I put in all of those years of work, and the financial planner promised that my savings and investments will allow me to do the things I want to do.

Over the past decade, I’ve watched my mother suffer and die from Alzheimer’s. I’ve watched my father suffer from cancer as well as a viral infection that almost killed him and put him in nursing care for months. I know it’s not the life my parents envisioned in their seventies and eighties. It’s easy to feel a certain sense of injustice in it all.

The prologue of Job (chapters 1-2) sets up a divine relational triangle. God and Job have a good relationship going. Both are happy and content with one another. Job is grateful and faithful to God, ritually providing offerings even for his children that they would be pure in their relationship with the Almighty (Job 1:5). This is an important piece of the story for me to understand before embarking into the main text of the story.

In the ancient near east, the Hebrews had a very different understanding of God than the other cultures surrounding them had of their many gods and goddesses. The other religions of Job’s day viewed gods as higher beings, like super humans who were very human-like. The notion was that the gods got tired of providing for themselves, digging irrigation systems, raising crops, building homes for themselves, and et cetera. So, they believed that the gods created humans to serve them, provide them with a home and daily needs (a temple or shrine, with food (offerings and sacrifices), and to care for the gods in every way. Humans were essentially a slave labor force. The gods provided for humans in order that humans could provide for them. This is referred to as “The Great Symbiosis.”

In contrast, the God of Hebrews revealed Himself in a covenant relationship of His own prompting. He asked for ritual offerings and sacrifices like the other gods, but not because He needed humans for anything. God promised to provide and protect the Hebrews, but not because He desired anything other than relational fidelity from them. God simply wanted to be in a faithful covenant relationship with His creation, a covenant relationship very much like a marriage. Marriage is used as a metaphor for the relationship of God and humanity throughout the Great Story, especially by the prophets and later by Jesus.

The third member of this relational triangle revealed in the prologue of Job is Satan. The Hebrew word satan means “accuser” or “adversary.” Satan attempts to drive a relational wedge between God and Job (I can’t help but see a literary parallel to Iago driving a wedge between Othello and Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello). Satan’s accusation is that Job is faithful to God only because of a “Great Symbiosis” type relationship like the other gods of the near east. Satan contends that Job is only faithful because God has provided for him, protected him, and blessed him. Take away his wealth, the blessing of his children, and (in today’s chapter) his health, and Job will certainly lose his faith and curse God.

We’ll never know a certain diagnosis of what Job was afflicted with, but within the rest of the story he describes symptoms of festering sores from head-to-foot, nightmares, hallucinations, fever, weight loss. His physical appearance was frightening. The fact that his three friends put ashes on their heads (an ancient sign of grieving for the dead) when they saw him basically meant they considered Job as good as dead. Job’s wife certainly believed that Job would be better off dead, and urges him to essentially commit suicide by cursing God and prompting God to finish him off.

Despite his agony, Job refuses to do abandon God or curse him. He asks his wife another one of the big questions that resonate throughout the entire story, and that resonates with me in my own life: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In the quiet this morning, I focused on the fact that Satan exits the story upon his affliction of Job and Job’s refusal to curse God. We’ll neither see nor hear from the Accuser again in this story. Job will question God, plead with God, and complain to God, but never will he curse God. The accuser is proven wrong. Now the questions that remain for next 40 chapters are how on earth did Job endure? How does Job make sense of his circumstances? Why would God allow this suffering?

In the quiet, I’m also reminded that Jesus never promised His followers an easy life. Quite the opposite, He said: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Who’s the Villain?

September 9, 2022 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Now let my lord the king listen to his servant’s words. If the Lord has incited you against me, then may he accept an offering. If, however, people have done it, may they be cursed before the Lord! They have driven me today from my share in the Lord’s inheritance and have said, ‘Go, serve other gods.’
1 Samuel 26:19 (NIV)

This past week Wendy and I have been working remotely from the lake. We finished watching all of the Marvel movies in their chronological order within the Marvel Universe which was a lot of fun. I’d forgotten how good Avengers Endgame was as all the Avengers arrived to defeat the evil Thanos and his minions.

Great stories need great villains. Thanos hadn’t arrived on the scene when the American Film Institute celebrated its 100th anniversary by listing the 100 top movie heroes and villains. I wonder where they’d have put Thanos in the list. Here are their top five:

Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs
Norman Bates, Psycho
Darth Vader, Star Wars
Wicked Witch of the West, Wizard of Oz
Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

One of my favorite villains, whom I believe is one of the greatest villains of all time, comes from Shakespeare’s world. In Othello, the title character’s best friend is a man named Iago. What Othello doesn’t know is that Iago is not his friend, but his enemy (ever know anyone like that?). Slowly and methodically, with manipulative and conniving whispers, Iago drives Othello to madness. Iago convinces Othello that his beloved Desdemona is cheating on him, and eventually Othello murders his innocent girlfriend in a jealous rage.

I thought of Othello as I read today’s chapter. Once again, Saul and his army are hunting David in the wilderness, even after David had spared Saul’s life just two chapters ago. Saul had repented of his foolish, mad envy of David. Now Saul is doing it again, and I had to ask myself “Why?”

Saul’s madness is certainly evident throughout the David vs. Saul saga, but I pondered the idea that it might be more than that. Then I remembered a little tidbit the author of 1 Samuel shared back in chapter 22:

And Saul was seated, spear in hand, under the tamarisk tree on the hill at Gibeah, with all his officials standing at his side. He said to them, “Listen, men of Benjamin…”

Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, and “all his officials” were from the tribe of Benjamin, as well. They are Saul’s officials from Saul’s tribe, and as the king’s officials, they enjoy feasting on the king’s gravy train. If David, from the tribe of Judah, becomes king. What do you think will happen to their privilege and power? What might David do to them if and when he becomes king, knowing they were Saul’s henchmen?

David has thought about this, too. What’s driving Saul’s repeated homicidal attempts on David’s life might not only be Saul but from his officials who have everything to lose should David come to power. Could it be Saul’s entourage who are whispering Iago-like in Saul’s ear?

In today’s chapter, David once more confronts Saul with the fact that he could have killed the king and didn’t. David doesn’t address Saul, however. He addresses Saul’s general, Abner. David calls into question the motives of Saul’s advisors and officials: “If, however, people have done it, may they be cursed before the Lord!“

In the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering friendships. I have had an Iago or two in my life and wondered in hindsight how I could have been so foolish as to listen to their whispers and how I could have missed the signs of their true motives. I also find myself grateful for true friends who have walked the journey with me for years, who have been through the worst of life with me, and who have always had my back.

This is another thing David is forging in his wilderness experience. He is creating a brotherhood of men who have no other reason to be with David but loyalty. They are forging relationships through the worst of times which will translate into advisors who will be loyal to him when the best of times come and he ascends the throne.

It is a blessing to have friends and companions who are motivated only by the desire of wanting God’s best for you.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A Lesson in Abner

April 30, 2014 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

“May God deal with Abner, be it ever so severely, if I do not do for David what the Lord promised him on oath and transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and establish David’s throne over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba.” 2 Samuel 3:9-10 (NIV)

Abner is one of the most fascinating characters in the unfolding drama of the conflict between the houses of Saul and David. Abner was Saul’s general, and second in command. As such, Abner had amassed tremendous power and influence. With Saul’s well known mental health issues, it was likely Abner who provided stability, respect and fear in the chain of command. Upon Saul’s death, it was Abner who quickly propped up the weaker younger brother of Jonathan, Ish-bosheth as his puppet to maintain control of the northern tribes.

Abner served Saul and his family faithfully, but his ultimate service was always about himself.

It struck me as I read this morning that Abner was well aware God had anointed David king of Israel. The way he worded his threat to Ish-bosheth it would seem he even believed that David’s ascent to the throne was a divine oath. Yet, Abner spent two decades fighting faithfully for the house of Saul because that was where his bread was buttered.

Today’s chapter gives us a clear picture of Abner’s character. Abner seems to have enjoyed the fruits of his position. Now we see that he so disrespected his former master and the son of Saul made his political marionette, that he felt it his right to feast on the forbidden fruit of his Saul’s harem. After all, who was going to stop him? When Ish-bosheth finds the guts to stand up to Abner and call him to account, Abner does what all power brokers do: he makes a power play. He plays the powerful trump card he’s been holding and vows to deliver the northern tribes to David wrapped with a bow.

Abner is Judas. The inner-circle confidant who is secretly pilfering things for himself, and willing to betray his master if it suits his personal agenda. Abner is Iago, the 2nd in command whom the commander shouldn’t trust. Abner is the one who knows God’s truth, but never submits to it unless it happens to dovetail with his duplicitous purposes.

Today, I’m also recognizing the Abner in me. David wrote in the lyric of one of his songs: “search me God…and see if there is any offensive way in me.” I’m kind of feeling that same spirit this morning as I mull over the person of Abner. I can see in my own life the perpendicular lines of God’s way and my way. I am guilty of being duplicitous, too. It could be said that I have served God for personal ends.

On this my 48th birthday, I am reminded by today’s chapter of the difference between the man I desire to be, and the man I sometimes prove to be by my own words and actions. I’m reminded that after 48 years I have still not arrived. I am reminded that I’m still in process. God, examine my heart – and help me be less like Abner and more a man after your own heart.