Job 9

We ended Job 8 with a question, “Is God’s justice ever suspect?”  Bildad’s statement in 8:20, “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man” leads Job to comment on his own legal vindication.  The principle that Bildad has put forward is simple enough: God blesses the innocent and punishes the guilty. But Job holds fervently that he is innocent of  any sin that would warrant his suffering.

On the other hand, Job knows that God’s wisdom is far to profound and power far too transcendent to be able to stand against God in court,  (v3-4) it would be a useless gesture.  Verses 4-13 explains the transcendent attributes of God.  Job brings out these overwhelming attributes of God not to show God’s justice, but to say that Job’s futile attempted to make a case against God would be swallowed up in His immense power (v11-13).

In understanding this passage for yourself, one must realize that Job is struggling to understand God.  These verse cannot lend themselves to the contemporary thought that the God of the OT is a bully.  Job is operating from a limited understanding of who God is and what He does. So Job begins to allow his imagination run with these negative thoughts about God (v22-24).  I think about how my own tongue begins to wag perversely while under stress, and I cannot begin to image the desperation of Job who wants answers from God.

Nevertheless, these verses cannot be argued to say that God is author of evil.  The Bible narrative firmly builds from a foundation of God’s goodness.  All that He does is righteous and just.  And what we see here in Job is a desperate man trying to figure things out.  The story is all-t0 practical for anyone who find themselves “innocently” suffering.  We know as the reader that Job is innocent and we also know that there is a cause to his suffering that was not revealed to any human character of the story. I hope that Christians will read books like Job and stop passing around the old and inaccurate cliche: “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Yes He will, not only does the history of Christian martyrs tell the story, but Job is beyond being broken, he wants to die (v21).

For more persuasion of Job’s deep desperation, continue reading verses 25-35.  No joy, no smiles, only a seemingly unending fog of suffering lies ahead. In Job’s mind if he were able to free himself for a moment, get himself cleaned up, then God would  only plunge him back into the muddy mire (v30-31).

Job then hits on a developing theme in the Bible, a mediator to stand between God and man.  In Job’s desperation, he wants a strong man who is qualified to take his case to court and not be swallowed up in God’s terrible power.  Despite the image of God’s goodness being tainted by Job’s bitterness, God Himself out of His own goodness and love provides that mediator in Jesus Christ (v33-35) . Through Jesus we believers do not live in fear of wrath or in the terror of eternal separation from Him, but rather we enjoy good standing with God being defended in court by a Master Advocate (See John 15:26).