During the centuries between 2000 b.c. and 1500 b.c., laborers cut deep vertical shafts into the desert bedrock of the Arabah Valley. Men hang by woven hemp ropes in total darkness away from human settlements. They swing heavy bronze pickaxes against solid granite to pry loose copper ore and veins of silver. The air underground is thick with soot from tallow lamps and the choking ash of fire-setting wood. Above them lies an unyielding desert surface where no falcon or lion treads. Below, the miners endure relentless sweat and physical exhaustion to rip rock from the roots of the mountains.
Job measures human technical mastery against divine justice and human suffering. Men dam underground floods and melt copper ore out of stone at 1,984 degrees Fahrenheit. They extract seventy-five pounds of silver to cast a single trading ingot. Yet no amount of physical labor or extracted gold can purchase understanding. God alone knows the mechanical weight of the wind and the precise volume of the waters. When he established the laws of the rain, he declared that fear of the Lord is true wisdom.
Human beings possess the relentless engineering capacity to bore through solid flint and overturn entire mountains for industrial resources. A miner will willingly endure suffocation and darkness to pull raw sapphire and iron from the earth. Yet this same creature remains completely incapable of excavating peace or understanding through mechanical effort. Technical skill builds mines, but it cannot solve the problem of human suffering.
A man can dig deep enough to find iron and melt stone into copper, but he cannot dig his way into peace of mind.
The abandoned shafts and slag heaps of the ancient Arabah desert still score the bedrock today. They stand as silent proof of human industry and the absolute limits of mechanical labor.