Chapter 9
(((Copy all of 9 to website also)))
Job's answer refers back to Bildad's statement in 8:20, above:
"Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God?
Job 9:2 ESV
2021 - Job understands that God's standard is unachievable. He hasn't read the verse that says "All have sinned...", but he knows the concept. Job embraces the same philosophy as Eliphaz and Bildad. He believes that there is sin in his life, but he doesn't even recognize it as such. Job's problem with God is that God's punishment in this case is far more severe than deserved. That's why Job wants to die. If what he did is so bad it deserves this much punishment, and if he can't even understand what he's done and why it is so bad, then just kill him. If it's bad enough for this much suffering, then just go ahead and kill him, because that won't be much worse.
I had never noticed before that Job and his friends differ only in degree. Their foundational beliefs are the same.
2024 - Job is saying that to go at court with someone, to debate them about justice, you must be on an equal footing with them. If they are perfect, and we are not, what standing, what qualifications do we claim that empower us to debate with them about justice? It's like an inmate debating with the Warden. Maybe the prisoner is innocent of disrupting lunch but he is guilty of murder, so having to scrub the toilet is still absolutely justified. We are all guilty to the core, our best is a filthy rag...yet we would try to tell God "I don't deserve this"? This is what Job is saying. BUT...SEE CHAPTER 10, where Job goes ahead and asks God why!
Job agrees with the points that Bildad has made. One should be able to bring a case if one is falsely accused. However, everybody has done something!
And who can argue with God that He is unjust? He made all that is, He understands all. Who can bring a case of injustice against God?
Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. Job 9:15 ESV
We cannot justify ourselves before God and demand relief on this basis. He is too far above us to demand anything of Him. Our ONLY defense is no defense at all, but an appeal for mercy despite our own belief that we are in the right. How can we EVER reply against God.
2021-This is Job replying to Bildad, and Bildad's advice was to appeal directly to God. To tell God that no great sin has been committed, that his situation is unfair, and after doing that God will fix it all. This is what Bildad recommends, and Job's answer is that no one has the standing to confront God like this and essentially tell God that He's wrong. Job gets it.
Possible FB post...maybe.
Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
Job 9:20 ESV
Job says that though he recognizes no fault in himself, arguing such with God would prove otherwise. So is Job thinking he must be suffering for an unrecognized fault? He believes he had done something to deserve this punishment though he does not know what it was? So he is still putting God in a box, requiring God to behave according to man's standard of justice.
2024 - This one:
21 I am blameless; I regard not myself; I loathe my life. [Job 9:2, 21 ESV]. This tells us that Job did NOT think there was a sin in his life that he did not recognize. Job knew that he had done nothing to deserve such terrible punishment. But even so, he also knows that God is perfect, and he is not, and so even without understanding the reason for his situation, Job refuses to challenge God. Bildad wants him to appeal his innocence. Job says he will never "win" a contest of righteousness against God. Job has already asked God to just let him die, but think about it. Not once has Job asked that the suffering be stopped. He has not ask for restoration. And why not? Because to ask God to stop what He is doing is to debate with God about what is just. Oh my...we are always asking God to make this stop hurting or that stop hurting or for this or that to be healed up. But all these things are far less than we ought to be suffering and who are we to tell God we shouldn't be in pain, though our sins are so many.
FB post? Or just too rough? I guess the real question is, do I have it right? SEE CHAPTER 10. If this is wrong, Job does it anyway in the next chapter!
22 It is all one; therefore I say, 'He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.' [Job 9:22 ESV]
None are blameless before God. All are wicked before God. There are not two categories of people before a Holy God.
2021-Here is the rest of this summation:
23 When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. 24 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges-- if it is not he, who then is it? [Job 9:23-24 ESV]
Here, Job has it wrong. God does not mock the innocent. But sometimes they die. At this time, Satan was the ruler of this world, and Job doesn't realize that. Job is placing the blame for his problems in the wrong place. They are caused by Satan, as all bad things are.
Possible FB post...also a maybe.
2023 - No...Job is right, it is his vocabulary that rubs us wrong. What he has said in this passage is that he knows that if he tries to confront God and to accuse God of injustice, God will show him that these things ARE just. Job is saying that just because he can't figure out what he's done wrong doesn't mean he hasn't done wrong. BUT, the wrong is beyond his comprehension. He cannot fix what he does not understand. Therefore, he want's God to just let him go ahead and die, because the suffering is too much for him, and he cannot "repent" of a sin he does not recognize. So he is doomed to suffer on and on, without end, without hope of remedy - other than through the mercy of his accuser. Now here's the thing...Again, Job, Eliphaz, and Bildad all see these events the same way, they differ only in degree. Job agrees that his suffering is due to his sin. Job too believes that God is good to those who are good, and allows horror to come upon those who are evil. Eliphaz and Bildad believe Job already knows what he's done and yet refuses to confess it. Job says he has no sin that HE can discern, so he does not know what to confess to God so that God will ease up on the punishment. And he would rather die than continue to endure life as it now is for him. The point that they are ALL missing is that in a fallen world, injustice can and does sometimes prevail.
Possible FB post.
2025 - To more succinctly rephrase the paragraph above:
Job is not denying that his suffering is just. Job says he cannot repent of the sin for which he is suffering and therefore has no hope of release. He would rather die than continue to live is this situation. He is in a hopeless situation, but he still believes himself guilty of something.
2023 - Look at that question Job asks at the end. "If it is not he, who then is it". Again, the same philosophy. If we sin, God will make bad things happen. Bad things are happening. Therefore, Job has sinned. There is only God in charge, and this is how "we know" God operates always. Therefore it HAS to be God that is doing this thing for which Job cannot discern any reason. God is doing this. No one else could. Job is right in that all that ever happens to anyone anywhere is - and must be - within God's will. Otherwise, he would not be God. But Job is completely wrong in this case about God's reasons. Sometimes, we cannot know God's reasons. For those times, faith is all we have.
Second possible FB post on these verses.
For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.
Job 9:32 ESV
God is not a man. Mormonism says that he really is, and that we too can be gods.
2022 - Here is the thing about Chapter 9. Job is saying that no matter how sure he is that he has not brought all this catastrophe upon himself by being unfaithful, he still knows that if he confronts God, that God will find him dirty, unclean, impure, imperfect...in all ways inadequate. This idea starts in vs 2:
2 "Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? [Job 9:2 ESV]. Doesn't this verse just say right out front that EVERYONE deserves whatever they get, because we are ALL unrighteous in the eyes of God? And did that change when Christ "incorporated" us into himself? Does God now see us as righteous? That can't be so, because if we are righteous, and bad things happen, then that is truly unjust. Or maybe God doesn't send any curses our way, but still lets us endure the natural consequences - as opposed to punishment and/or correction - of our sin?
12 ...Who will say to him, 'What are you doing?' [Job 9:12b ESV].
15 Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. [Job 9:15 ESV]
20 Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. [Job 9:20 ESV]
22 It is all one; therefore I say, 'He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.' [Job 9:22 ESV]. This verse, though, says that his purposes are inscrutable. Though this verse may well be true from our perspective, it is never true from God's. All that happens does so for a reason, and God knows and approves the reason, and the reason is that the greatest good is served by the things that happen.
Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding,
Proverbs 3:13 ESV
Wisdom as a tangible thing to be acquired. The benefits of ownership are listed... long life, wealth, peace.
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew.
Proverbs 3:19-20 ESV
These seem to be a reference to the flood. That's the only time I know of when the deeps broke open.
The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace.
Proverbs 3:35 ESV