nakedness. The literal meaning of ‘I shall return there’ need not be pressed. The suggestion of some commentators that it refers to Mother Earth as man’s origin and goal finds no support in Scripture. The thought is as general as Ecclesiastes 5:15 or 1 Timothy 6:7. A man comes from his mother and returns to dust. But šāmmāh, ‘thither’, could be a euphemism for Sheol, ‘that place’, as in Job 3:17, 19. Job sees only the hand of God in these events. It never occurs to him to curse the desert brigands,