Job 9

Job 9:1-35

JOB’S REPLY TO BILDADJob 9, 10.BILDAD rests and Job replies. It is interesting to see these healthy men spelling one another in argument while the man sick unto death continues unabated. This is due to the fact that Job is the individual involved; the others speak as outsiders, talk as philosophers, if you please; but Job’s utterance is under the pressure of affliction. They weary easily, but however great his weariness, he cannot forbear.The ninth chapter contains a confession.JOB FEARS TO FACE GOD He is too high and mighty for man.“Then Job answered and said,“I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?“If he will contend with Him, he cannot answer Him one of a thousand.“He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against Him, and hath prospered?“Which removeth the mountains, and they know not; which overturneth them in His anger;“Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble;“Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars;“Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea;“Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south;“Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.“Lo, He goeth by me, and I see Him not: He passeth on also, but I perceive Him not.“Behold, He taketh away, who can hinder Him? who will say unto Him, What doest Thou?“If God will not withdraw His anger, the proud helpers do stoop under Him.“How much less shall I answer Him, and choose out my words to reason with Him?“Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge” (Job 9:1-15).How much of wisdom is in this speech! How should a man be just with God? He cannot answer Him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against Him and hath prospered? He moves mountains, shakes the earth, commands the sun, spreads out the heavens, treads the waves of the seas. He doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.

His enemies fall before Him, and in His sight there is none righteous, no not one. Little wonder that Job feared to face Him!Job feels his unfitness to even pray.“If I had called, and He had answered me; yet would I not believe that He had hearkened unto my voice.“For He breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause.“He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.“If I speak of strength, lo, He is strong: and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead?“If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.“Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.“This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.“If the scourge slay suddenly, He will laugh at the trial of the innocent.“The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: He covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is He?“Now my days are swifter than a. post: they flee away, they see no good.“They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.“If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself;“I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent” (Job 9:16-28).Who shall approach into His presence?

With what words shall we order our cause before Him? Who dare boast his righteousness, or even to anticipate his right of approach?Job’s fear rests in the fact that he finds no daysman.“If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?“If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;“Yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.“For He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgment.“Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay His hand upon us both.“Let Him take his rod away from me, and let not His fear terrify me:“Then would I speak, and not fear Him; but it is not so with me” (Job 9:29-35).In the thirty-three verses of this pathetic confession, the great man of God expresses his need of a daysman, one who could stand between him and God, and by laying the hand of faith upon the Father, and the hand of conquest upon the sinner, could bring them together. Truly, Jesus Christ was a necessity. He is the only open way into the Divine presence. He is the only possibility of peace between God and man, and He, and He alone, could effect reconciliation.JOB’S SOUL WEARIES AND IS WITHOUT HOPEThere are times when prayer can amount to nothing more than self-condemnation. In this tenth chapter Job has reached such a state.

However, he attempts to turn even that to his own account.He proposes an argument in appeal.“My soul is weary of my life: I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.“I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; show me wherefore Thou contendest with me.“It is good unto Thee that Thou shouldest oppress, that Thou shouldest despise the work of Thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?“Hast Thou eyes of flesh? or seest Thou as man seeth?“Are Thy days as the days of man? are Thy years as man’s days,“That Thou enquirest after mine iniquity, and sear chest after my sin?“Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of Thine hand.“Thine hands have made me, and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me.“Remember, I beseech Thee, that Thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt Thou bring me into dust again?“Hast Thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?“Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.“Thou hast granted me life and favour, and Thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.“And these things hast Thou hid in Thine heart: I know that this is with Thee” (Job 10:1-13).He admits the justice of judgment against the wicked.“If I sin, then Thou markest me, and Thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity.“If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see Thou mine affliction;“For it increaseth.

Thou huntest me as a fierce lion; and again Thou showest Thyself marvellous upon me.“Thou renewest Thy witnesses against me, and increasest Thine indignation upon me; changes and war are against me” (Job 10:14-17).He desires only an obliteration of life.“Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me?“I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.Are not my days few? cease then, and let me atone, that I may take comfort a little,“Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness, and the shadow of death;“A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness” (Job 10:18-22).It must be confessed that any man’s estate is miserable when he has reached the point where life makes no favorable appeal to him, and when he prefers not only death, and end of life’s experience, but wishes that he never had an existence.America is just now being shocked again and again by the suicides of college students. These young men are going from health to an unknown and untried eternity. The modern college philosophy of bestiality and materialism has effected in them the same ennui that affliction wrought for Job. With no God before their faces, they dare in their infidelity to end it all; but Job, having known God, prizes life and even under the almost infinite pressure of an indescribable affliction, can only continue, unless God Himself cut off his days.