Job 17:13-14

13 If I wait [qavah], the grave [sha'owl] is mine house [bayith]: I have made [raphad] my bed [yatsuwa`] in the darkness [choshek].

14 I have said [qara'] to corruption [shachath], Thou art my father ['ab]: to the worm [rimmah], Thou art my mother ['em], and my sister ['achowth]. KJV-Interlinear

13 'If I look for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness; 14 If I call to the pit,' You are my father'; To the worm,' my mother and my sister'; NASB

Job finishes this chapter with an interesting comparison for relationships. Given that this world is vain and full of nothingness, and given that his so called friends have demonstrated anything but friendship, Job points out that the only real friend that a person has in life, is death.

Not that death is a good thing, but that death is reliable, consistent, and certain for us all.

Job calls this death his home, but home 'bayith' here means a passageway, a conduit, through which a person must pass, on their way to their real home.

With unbelievers, death is a prison, a prison from which they will never be released, but for those who have believed in Christ, death is a nighttime. Death is a setting of the sun, a turning out of the light, when rest takes us over until the morning light appears and again we rise up into a new life.

Our new life will be an eternal one, and for believers, there will never again be a setting of the sun, a turning out of the lights, a moment of death. Job knew that death was a temporary resting period, followed by a new life.

For as you look around you in this life, death is the only thing that is certain in your life, from this world.

Your life's dreams, your life's wishes, your plans and goals, whether attained in part or even in whole, will always be temporary, and they will always end, as will your life.

The decay of death, the worms and maggots associated with death and the grave, will be your only true family of this world. You came from the dust, and to the dust you return. That applies to the pattern of life in this world.

The real you is not your body, and not your possessions. You are a living soul, and death really means a separation. And in the case of physical death, your life, which is in your soul, along with your human spirit which has been inseparably attached to your soul, both are separated from your body, casting it aside and leaving it behind to rejoin its family in the dust.

Jobs friends were well intentioned, perhaps in the beginning, but have proved to be less than helpful. In fact they will be no help at all.

If ones best friends can be found in the grave, then what does that say about people in general?

Well, Job has described humanity as putrid corruption. Isaiah has described the righteousness or the goodness of humanity, as filthy menstrual rags. And now, we see that mans best friend is not the dog, but maggots. And not only the best of friends, but really your best family members. Thus the father or the sire of the dust. And thus the mother and sister, the worm in the feminine, which is the one who maintains the home, of the family of dust. Now what pleasant dreams could you get from all of that?

Now is the time to post a prayer.