Job: How Can a Man Be Just with God?
1 Then Job answered, 2 “Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God? 3 If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand. 4 God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him and prospered? 5 He removes the mountains, and they don’t know it, when he overturns them in his anger. 6 He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble. 7 He commands the sun and it doesn’t rise, and seals up the stars. 8 He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. 9 He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms of the south. 10 He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number. 11 Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him. He passes on also, but I don’t perceive him. 12 Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’ 13 “God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. 14 How much less will I answer him, and choose my words to argue with him? 15 Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him. I would make supplication to my judge. 16 If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn’t believe that he listened to my voice. 17 For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause. 18 He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness. 19 If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, ‘Who,’ says he, ‘will summon me?’ 20 Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.
Job concedes the friends' premise and shows that it destroys their argument: a case against God cannot be won even by a man who is right.
Truly I know that it is so Job 9:2. He grants it. God is just and man is small, and nothing the friends have said is disputed.
And then he takes their premise somewhere they had not intended. If God is that far above a man, what becomes of the courtroom they keep invoking? How can man be just with God? is not a question about morality. It is a question about procedure, and the rest of the chapter is a legal argument.
The description of God's power that follows is genuinely magnificent, and it is placed there to make a point about the trial rather than to praise. He removes the mountains, and they don't know it; shakes the earth from its place; commands the sun and it doesn't rise; treads on the waves; makes the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades Job 9:5–9.
Job's astronomy is worth marking. He names constellations, and the whirlwind speech will name two of the same ones back to him Job 38:31. The two speakers share a vocabulary; what they do not share is standing.
The consequence is drawn in verse 11 and it is the heart of the complaint: he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him. The problem is not that God is unjust. It is that he is not available. Who will ask him, 'What are you doing?' Job 9:12.
From there the argument becomes procedural and merciless. Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn't answer him Job 9:15 — an innocent man could not conduct his own defense. If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn't believe that he listened Job 9:16 — even a favorable hearing could not be trusted, because the disparity is too great to permit confidence.
And then the sentence that shows how much Job has already grasped: he multiplies my wounds without cause Job 9:17.
That is the phrase God used in the second council Job 2:3. Job has arrived at the correct account of his situation — that the suffering has no cause in him — by feel rather than by information, and he is about to be told for thirty chapters that it is impossible.
Verse 19 states the deadlock in two clauses. If it is a matter of strength, God is mighty; if of justice, who will summon me? There is no bailiff, so there is no case.
The last verse of the section is the bleakest thing Job has said. Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse Job 9:20. He believes that if he ever got the hearing he is asking for, he would talk himself into a conviction — not because he is guilty, but because no man could hold his ground under that examination.
settled What this mark means