Read Job 13:1-14:22.

Introduction⤒🔗

As noted in our previous study, Zophar charges Job with being a man “full of talk (the Hebrew word,בַּד, means “empty,” or “idle” talk; “babbling”),, and Zophar desires that God would speak. In other words, Zophar wishes that God would personally address Job and refute Job’s charge that he is being treated unjustly (11:1-5).

Job responds by indicating his desire that he might, indeed, be granted a personal interview with God: “I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case before God” (13:3).

Scripture teaches that the Christian may, indeed, draw near to God for a personal interview; but he must do so in accordance with the requirements stated in Scripture. In our previous study on this dialogue between Job and Zophar, we learned that when we approach the LORD, (1) we must be aware that we are approaching the all-knowing, all-wise God; and, (2) we must be aware that we are approaching the God who is the Righteous Judge of all the earth.

We now proceed to learn two more requirements that must be acknowledged when we approach the King of glory.

When You Draw Near to God, be Assured that You Are Approaching the God Who Is Merciful←⤒🔗

Job is determined to draw near to God no matter what may be the consequence: “Let me speak! then whatever happens to me, let it happen” (13:13). In his present state, Job possesses no confidence that the LORD will receive him without destroying him; in approaching God he views himself as putting his flesh between his teeth and taking his life in his hands (13:14). He views his endeavor to approach God as self-destructive, for how can a mortal man—indeed, one who is sinful by nature­ stand in the presence of the Almighty? Job expects the worst: “If he desires to slay me, I have no hope” (13:15a).

Nevertheless, despite his doubts and apprehension, Job is determined to defend his ways before God, he testifies: “If he desires to slay me, I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will defend my ways before him” (13:15b). This determination is based on his confidence in the covenantal faithfulness and integrity of God:

¹⁶Surely this will prove to be my salvation, for a godless man cannot stand before his presence. ¹⁷Listen attentively to my words; let your ears take in what I say. ¹⁸I have prepared my case; I know that I will be acquitted. ¹⁹Who is he that can bring a charge against me? [If there is such a man], I will be silent and die. 13:16-19

Job knows that a godless man cannot stand before God (13:16b); a man who willfully forsakes God and who defies His holy law cannot stand before God, such a man will be condemned by God. Job is certain that he is not a godless man; on the contrary, he boldly asserts, “I know that I will be acquitted” (13:18b). None of his friends have been able to successfully bring a charge against him (13:19).

Now, as he apprehensively, but determinately, prepares to approach God, Job requests two things of the Almighty (13:20). He requests that God would remove His hand far from him (13:21a); this is a request that God would suspend the afflictions to which He has subjected Job. The Psalmist makes a similar request of God: “Remove your scourge from me; I am overcome by the blow of your hand” (Psl. 39:10). Job further requests that God would not let His dread terrify him (13:21b). Here is a plea that God would spare Job from a direct encounter with the awesome fullness of God’s divine presence. Consider the testimony of the Apostle John when he had a direct encounter with the LORD: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man” (Rev. 1:17a).

If God is gracious to grant Job’s two-fold petition, then Job is prepared to enter into a session of interrogation with the Almighty (13:22). If Job is granted the opportunity of interrogating God, he will submit two questions that weigh heavily upon his heart:

²³How many iniquities and sins [have I committed]? Show me my rebellion and my sin. ²⁴Why are you hiding your face and treating me as your enemy? 13:23-24

If Job can come to know what he has done that has apparently aroused God’s righteous indignation, he can repent and be reconciled with God, knowing that God is merciful to the contrite, as the Psalmist testifies: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psl. 51:17). Note: Job asks God to reveal to him what, if any, are his iniquities and rebellion. Job is speaking about willful and defiant conduct, not the expressions of the sinful nature over which the Christian grieves and with which he struggles every day.

Job seeks to induce God’s pity and mercy by appealing to his human frailty before the Almighty (13:25-28). He asks God, “Will you cause a wind-driven leaf to tremble? Will you pursue dry chaff?” (13:25) By comparing himself to the autumn leaf and the dry chaff, Job is emphasizing his utter inability to stand in the presence of God or to withstand the awesome power of the Almighty. He is an object to be pitied, a candidate for God’s mercy, as he acknowledges his frailty and in no way seeks to exert himself in defiance against the LORD.

Contrast Job’s present attitude with that expressed back in Job 10:1-2. Casting all caution (and reverent fear of God) aside, Job, in his despair and bitterness of soul, contemplated taking God’s own position as sovereign Judge: Job boldly and impiously demands that God not render a verdict of guilt against him: “I will say to God: ‘Do not condemn me!’” (10:2a). Furthermore, back in chapter ten Job challenges God to submit evidence to support His case against him: Tell me what charges you have against me! (10:2b) In 10:1-2 Job had assumed the position of judge and prosecutor; but now, when we come to Job 13:25-ff. Job’s attitude has changed; now, rather than defiantly asserting himself before God, he humbly seeks to induce God’s mercy toward him.

Further seeking to move God to be merciful to him, Job asserts that God has “written down bitter things against me” (13:26); here is a reference to the present sufferings of body and soul that God has consigned Job to experience. He goes on to assert, “you have fastened [a chain and ball] to my feet” (13:27). Job charges that God is treating His faithful servant like a common criminal.

Job portrays himself in his present condition as a thing that is rotting away or as a garment that is moth-eaten (13:28). His is a pitiable condition, one that should solicit the mercy and compassion of the LORD.

Job goes on to declare that man “has few days and is full of turmoil” (14:1). Indeed, like a flower, his life is quickly withered or cut down (14:2a). Again, his life is compared to a shadow (14:2b) that has no substance and quickly vanishes as the wind blows the clouds along.

Job then inquires as to why God so intensively scrutinizes such a frail, transitory creature, why does God bring such a one into judgment? (14:3) Once more there is the unspoken implication that God should have mercy on such a one and view him with pity.

Since man cannot change his nature, (“who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing?” [14:4]), and since his time on earth is so very short—Job measures man’s lifetime in terms of months (14:5)—Job pleads with God to look away from him and “relent” (14:6). Job is requesting that God, in pity, would give man a brief moment of relief before man departs this world, instead of intensely and constantly scrutinizing man’s every moment.

While Job hesitantly solicits God’s pity and mercy, we, in the light of Calvary, may confidently plead for His mercy as we seek a personal interview with Him:

¹⁴Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Heb. 4:14-16

Consider again the passage from the Book of Revelation, which records the Apostle John’s personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. John testifies, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a deadman.” But the verse then proceeds with these words, describing the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, “he laid his right hand upon me and said, ‘Do not be afraid.’” (Rev. 1:17)

When You Draw Near to God, Do So with Confidence and Hope←⤒🔗

Job declares that there is hope for a tree (14:7-9). If it is cut down and reduced to a stump, the tree can sprout again; even if its root becomes old, it can be resuscitated by water and so be restored to life. But in contrast to a tree, man dies and lies prostrate (14:10). Unlike a tree, a man expires, “and where is he?” When, in death, man’s spirit/soul is severed from his mortal body, there is no hope for his revival. Just as surely as the waters of the sea evaporate and the rivers dry up, so man, when he lies down in death, does not rise again “until the heavens cease to exist” (14:11-12).

Job testifies that if he had the hope of the resurrection, he would patiently wait out his present life of trial and suffering, confident that in the resurrection he would be restored to fellowship with God:

¹³If only you would hide me in Sheol, and conceal me there until your wrath has passed; oh that you would erect a stela for me and remember me. ¹⁴If a man dies, will he live again? [If so, then] throughout all the days of my term of suffering I would wait until my discharge has come. ¹⁵You would call and I would answer you; you would yearn for the one your hands have made. 14:13-15

If Job could possess the hope of the resurrection, he could view Sheol, (the place of the dead), not as the abode of darkness and despair from which there is no return, but as a temporary hiding place, (a place of refuge) where he could be secure until the storm of God’s wrath has passed (14:13a). Then, after the storm has passed, God would call Job to come out of the refuge of Sheol back to life, a life of restored fellowship with God (14:13b, 15).

What Job envisions has been realized in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ: Standing at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus commanded: “Take away the stone.” When they had done so, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” Then we read, “And he who had died came out” (Jn. 11:39, 43-44).

But once again, Job’s faint glimmer of resurrection hope, (his glimpse of resurrection life beyond the dark silence of Sheol), gives way to despair:

¹⁶But now, as it is, you count my steps. Do you not take close notice of my sin? ¹⁷My transgression is sealed in a bag, and you cover up my iniquity. ¹⁸[Indeed], as a mountain erodes and crumbles, or as a boulder is moved from its place [by an earthquake]; ¹⁹as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the earth’s soil, so you [relentlessly] destroy man’s hope. ²⁰You forever overpower him and he passes away; you change his expression and send him away. ²¹If his sons are honored, he does not know it; or if they are brought low, he does not see it. ²²On the contrary, he feels only the pain of his own body, and his soul mourns for himself.14:16-22

Job views God as taking close notice of his sin: “my transgression is sealed in a bag” (14:17a). According to J. Hartley, the latter half of verse seventeen may be translated, “you coat over my iniquity.” Job is charging that God merely daubs his iniquity with whitewash, a coating that the rain of divine judgment will easily wash away, thereby exposing that iniquity so that it may be condemned.¹ Thus, Job protests that God consciously reserves his sin so that He may bring Job into final judgment and condemnation; such is Job’s present assessment of his situation.

Just as a great mountain will eventually erode as the forces of nature act against it, and just as the incessant flowing of the waters wear down the stones, so God in His eternal being wears away any hope that mortal man might entertain, for there is no possibility of outliving or outlasting God and thereby attaining deliverance from His righteous opposition to sinful man (14:18-19). Far from enduring, man passes away (14:20); he has no knowledge as to the fate and the future of his sons (14:21), he passes away into oblivion. While on earth, man’s short life is characterized by pain of body and mourning of soul (14:22).

Unlike Job, who at this point possesses only a fleeting glimpse of the resurrection, we as Christians who live in the New Testament dispensation can draw near to God for a personal interview with full confidence of a future hope.

Job testified that if he possessed the hope of the resurrection, he could view Sheol, (the place of the dead), not as the abode of darkness and despair from which man does not return, but as a temporary hiding place, (a place of refuge) where he could be secure until the storm of God’s wrath has passed (14:13a). The hope of the resurrection is, in fact, the Christian’s sure hope, as summarized in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q/A #37,

What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?

The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves, until the resurrection.

But the Christian’s hope surpasses that of Job. Job trusted that after the storm had passed, God would call him to come out of the refuge of Sheol back to life, a life of restored fellowship with God (14:13b, 15). The Christian’s sure hope in Christ far exceeds that faint hope entertained by Job; note, again, the way the Westminster Shorter Catechism, (Q/A #38), summarizes that sure hope:

What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?

At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted on the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.

The New Testament declares that, at the resurrection, believers shall not merely be restored to the bodily existence they had previously experienced during their lifetime on this present earth; rather, their resurrection bodies shall be newly fitted for life in the glorious, transcendent kingdom of God:

⁵⁰Now I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood are not able to inherit the kingdom of God; neither can that which decays inherit what is imperishable. ⁵¹Listen, I will tell you a mystery. Not all of us will fall asleep [in death], but all of us will be transformed—⁵²in a moment of time, in the blinking of an eye, at [the sounding of] the last trumpet. The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised [to an] imperishable [existence], and we will be transformed. ⁵³This body that decays must clothe itself with what is imperishable; indeed, this mortal body must clothe itself with what is immortal. 1 Cor. 15:50-53

...our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹By the power that enables him to bring everything into submission to himself, he will transform the body belonging to the present state of our humiliation, so that it may be conformed to his glorified body. Phil. 3:20-21

Conclusion←⤒🔗

When a Christian experiences a severe measure of incomprehensible suffering, he has the desire to request a personal interview with God. Scripture indicates that the Christian may, indeed, draw near to God for such an interview; but as he does so, the Christian must adhere to the requirements presented in Scripture:

• You Must Acknowledge God’s Unsearchable Greatness
• You Must Be Aware that You Are Approaching the Righteous Judge of All the Earth
• You May Be Assured that You Are Approaching the God Who Is Full of Mercy and Compassion
• You May Approach God with Confidence and Hope

Discussion Questions←⤒🔗

1. Job has expressed his desire to have a personal interview with God (13:3), but in what spirit does he anticipate such an interview? See Job 13:13-15a Because of the present moral anomaly he is experiencing, Job contemplates his desired interview with trepidation; but, as a Christian, what assurance do you have before God? See Heb. 4:14a, 16,

Let me speak!—then whatever happens to me, let it happen. ¹⁴Why do I put my flesh between my teeth and take my life in my hands? ¹⁵If he desires to slay me, I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will defend my ways before him. Job 13:13-15

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest...Jesus the Son of God... ¹⁶Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Heb. 4:14, 16

2. Despite his fear of rejection (13:15a), Job has confidence that he will be received by God. What is his reason for this confidence? See Job 13:16, 18-19a What does this tell you about Job’s confidence in God’s commitment to justice? Do you think Job views himself as sinless before God, or devout before God? Note Job 13:26 The Apostle Paul alludes to Job 13:19a in Romans 8:33; what does he tell us is the basis for the Christian’s confidence before God? See Rom. 8:33-34,

¹⁶Surely this will prove to be my salvation, for a godless man cannot stand before his presence.. ¹⁸I have prepared my case; I know that I will be acquitted. ^19aWho is he that can bring a charge against me? Job 13:16, 18-19a

...you write down bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth. Job 13:26

³³Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? [It is] God who justifies; ³⁴who is he that condemns? [It is] Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Rom. 8:33-34

3. If Job is granted an interview before God, what will he ask the Almighty? See Job 13:23-24 Being unaware of any acts of rebellion, Job wants to know the reason for this apparent alienation from the God to whom he is devoted; as a Christian, have you ever experienced a similar situation? Have you ever cried out to God with the words of the Psalmist? See Psl. 22:1,​

²³How many iniquities and sins have I committed? Show me my rebellion and my sin. ²⁴Why are you hiding your face and treating me as your enemy? Job 13:23-24

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? [Why are you so] far from helping me...? Psl. 22:1

4. If a devout Christian, like Job, (and like yourself?), experiences suffering that cannot be in consequence of any known act of rebellion, what does this tell you about God’s use of suffering­ does He employ suffering to accomplish more than merely reclaiming the errant? Note, again, such passages as 1 Pet. 1:6-7 and 1 Pet. 4:12-13, as well as Jn. 15:1, 2b,

...now for a little while, since it is necessary, you have been brought to grief by all kinds of trials. ⁷[This has happened] so that the genuineness of your faith, being of greater value than gold that perishes, having been tested by fire, may be verified, resulting in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Pet. 1:6-7

¹²Beloved, do not be surprised by the fiery trials among you that have come for the purpose of testing you, as though a strange thing has happened to you. ¹³On the contrary, since you are participating in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice; so that at the revelation of his glory you may indeed rejoice with exultation.1 Pet. 4:12-13

I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. ²He removes every branch in me that does not bear fruit. But he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it may bear more fruit.Jn. 15:1-2

5. How does Job describe himself in Job 13:25, 28? What is he seeking to solicit from God? As a Christian who seeks to live a godly life in fellowship with the LORD, of what are you assured? See Psl. 103:13, 17a,

²⁵Will you cause a wind-driven leaf to tremble? Will you pursue dry chaff? ...²⁸I am wasting away like something rotten, like a garment that is eaten by moths. Job 13:25, 28

¹³As a father pities [his] children, so the LORD pities those who fear him...¹⁷But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him... (Psl. 103:13, 17) To “fear” the LORD means to acknowledge Him as God, to stand in awe of Him, to bow before Him in reverence, and humbly submit to His will.