Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Job · About this commentary
Yahweh: Will You Condemn Me?
Job 40:1-14
1 Moreover Yahweh answered Job, · WEB
Job's first answer is silence, which is not enough, and God names the real charge: that Job would put God in the wrong to be right himself.
The first round ends with a demand for a reply: shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it Job 40:2.
Job's answer is the shortest speech he makes. Behold, I am of small account. What will I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further Job 40:4–5.
He stops talking. He does not repent, does not withdraw anything, and does not agree — he declines to continue. The gesture of the hand on the mouth is the one made by the princes who fell silent when he entered the gate Job 29:9, and now he makes it himself.
That is not enough, and the fact that God speaks again is the most important thing in the chapter. Silence from a beaten man is not what this examination was for. Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind a second time, with the same summons: brace yourself like a man Job 40:6–7.
And now the charge is stated, for the first and only time in the book. Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified? Job 40:8.
That is the whole indictment, and it is worth seeing how narrow it is. Job is not charged with the sins Eliphaz invented. He is not charged with impatience, or with cursing the day he was born, or with any of the violent things he said in chapter 16. He is charged with one thing: in the course of establishing his own innocence, he has been willing to let God be in the wrong.
The two are not alternatives, and Job had assumed they were. He believed that if he was innocent, God must be unjust — and rather than surrender the truth about himself, he accepted the conclusion. The charge is that the conclusion was never necessary.
What follows is an offer, and it is delivered with heavy irony. If Job can run the moral order, let him: deck yourself with excellency and dignity. Array yourself with honor and majesty. Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low... Crush the wicked in their place Job 40:10–12.
This is precisely what Job has been asking for — a world where the proud are brought down on sight and the wicked are dealt with where they stand Job 21:7 Job 24:1. He is invited to do it.
And the condition attached names the real issue: then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you Job 40:14.
Running the judgment of the world and saving oneself turn out to be the same job. A man who could do the first would not need anyone for the second. Job has been demanding a court and a verdict; he is being shown that what he actually needs is a deliverer, which is the figure he kept reaching for and could not name Job 9:33 Job 19:25.
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