What Is Mankind That You Make So Much Of Them…?

Job 7:12-18 – Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning. “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?

1 Kings 19:3-4 – Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”

Genesis 1:26,28 – Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”…God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Application:

• ·         Elijah concluded that his work was fruitless and consequently not worth living.
• ·         Humanity is created in God’s image to have dominion over the world. Job’s words are a parody on this theme—as if God’s only interest in people is to scrutinize them unmercifully and take quick offense at their slightest fault.
• ·         Humans are the climax of God’s creative activity, and God has “crowned them with glory and honor” and made them rulers over the rest of His creation.
• ·         Humankind goes forth from the hands of the Creator under His divine benediction—flourishing, filling the earth with their kind, and exercising dominion over the other earthly creatures.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV