Mar 12, 2007 - Eye agreement

Mar 12, 2007

Job 31:1 KJVR
(1) I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?

So often I have heard this voice as it was thrown out in response to men looking at other woman when the have a wife, or worse yet, men looking a pornography. Is that what this verse is really about? If so, why are there not similar verses in the Bible that talk about the problems woman would have with their sexuality? Is all this directed at just men and not woman?

So much of the culture was male dominated that it would make sense for the writers of the Bible to aim there topics in the area of men. When one looks under the surface, is there more here then meets the eye. To begin with, Job made a covenant with his eyes. Covenant here is the same covenant used with Abraham, an agreement where the stronger would come to the aide of the weaker when it came time to go to war. Job starts by making an agreement that his will power will kick in when his eyes want to go looking at stuff that he does not need. The fact that he tends to follow it up with looking upon a maid tends to lead to the assumption that the agreement was sexual in nature. Was it really? Was it just a covenant so that he would not desire sexual permissiveness or was it for anything that he should not have?

If we assume that this verse is just sexual in nature, what is in it for woman? Do the claim that they want men to be like Job's (Curse God and die) wife? Or could there be something deeper here God is trying to tell us. Job wanted to keep his heart pure. He did not want images in front of it that would lead to him failing God in some way. He wanted not to receive destruction from God (v. 3) but wanted God to count his steps (v.4).

The real facts here are that people in general should not look at things that are not healthy to them. It can be a sports car that they would have to put their family in debt to get. If we insist that men should not look at woman in a sexual way (and yes I agree with that), they woman should not look at men in an unhealthy way. How many marriages have been destroyed because of romance novels and 'soap operas?' Do these paint just as unhealthy an image of men as porn does of woman. The facts are, all of us have problems with our desires. All of us have to learn to not look after things that are unrealistic in our life.

Go, make an agreement with your eyes.