For Job, sacred awe before the Most High is the substance of everyday life; he strives with all his strength...
For Job, sacred awe before the Most High is the substance of everyday life; he strives with all his strength to keep God's commandments. In the concluding part of his speech, Job lists the good things he has done, not in order to demand a reward—here the book's author departs from the commonly accepted views of his age. Job says that the destruction of the lawless frightens him, but that he would accept such a fate if he knew himself to have broken the law. What, then, has he done for God to punish him so severely?
Once again Job demands that someone explain the reason for his calamities and show him precisely how he has sinned against God's will. Again and again he repeats thoughts he has already expressed; again and again he cries out to God to answer him. The reader hears these many repetitions while knowing the story the author revealed in the prologue. The contradiction between the real cause of Job's suffering, according to the story, and Job's own experience of what has happened ultimately raises the question of whether there is any connection at all between human suffering and a person's sins. In the Old Testament this connection would seem obvious, yet the author nevertheless considers it necessary to think it through in relation to an individual person.
The prosperity of the lawless, of which Job has spoken more than once during the discussion, casts no less doubt than Job's own suffering upon the idea that sin leads a person to destruction. This burning perplexity on the author's part shows, first of all, that things are not as simple as people thought. Above all, the impossibility of rationally explaining why the righteous suffer while the lawless prosper—and sometimes the reverse happens!—points, for the author, to the mystery of suffering, as unfathomable as the mystery of divine love. The Book of Job speaks of this mystery within the framework of its own story, and so its message does not entirely coincide with what is partly revealed to the prophets and will be fully revealed in the sacrificial death of the Son of God on the Cross. Yet it was crucial for humanity's spiritual history that the tangible, visible earthly fruits of righteousness and lawlessness should cease to be axiomatic for the book's reader. In this, the Book of Job anticipates God's revelation in Jesus Christ.
But the book's significance does not end there. In Job's speeches, the author brings another, unseen dimension of suffering to the fore. What torments Job is not only—and perhaps not even so much—the abundance of misfortunes that have befallen him, but above all the impossibility of a clear and direct relationship with God. The gulf between God and Job, which Job cannot cross, makes his situation so desperate. And it is entirely clear that anyone could find themselves in Job's place, cut off from God and buried in darkness and silence. It is here that the book's great turn in the story, its central revelation, is to unfold.
31 Job's protestation of his innocence, with regard to wantonness, Job 31:1-4.
Fraud and injustice, Job 31:5-8.
Adultery, Job 31:9-12.
Haughtiness and severity toward his servants, Job 31:13-15.
Unmercifulness to the poor, Job 31:16-23.
Confidence in his wealth, Job 31:24-25.
Idolatry, Job 31:26-28.
Revenge, Job 31:29-31.
Neglect of poor strangers, Job 31:32.
Hypocrisy, or not reproving others, Job 31:33-34.
He wishes God would answer and that his words might be recorded, Job 31:35-37.
Protests his innocence, as to oppression, Job 31:38-40.
31:1 I made - So far have I been from any gross wickedness, that I have abstained from the least occasions and appearances of evil.
31:2 For - What recompence may be expected from God for those who do otherwise. Above - How secretly soever unchaste persons carry the matter, so that men cannot reprove them, yet there is one who stands upon an higher place, whence he seeth in what manner they act.
31:5 Walked - Dealt with men. Vanity - With lying, or falsehood.Deceit - If when I had an opportunity of enriching myself, by wronging others, I have readily and greedily complied with It.
31:6 Let me - I desire nothing more than to have my heart and life weighed in just balances, and searched out by the all - seeing God.That God - Or, and he will know; (upon search he will find out: which is spoken of God after the manner of men:) Mine integrity - So this is an appeal to God to be witness of his sincerity.
31:7 Heart - If I have let my heart loose to covet forbidden things, which mine eyes have seen: commonly sin enters by the eye into the heart.A blot - Any unjust gain.
31:8 Increase - All my plants, and fruits, and improvements.
31:10 Then - Not as if Job desired this; but that if God should give up his wife to such wickedness, he should acknowledge his justice in it.
31:11 This - Adultery. It is - Heb. an iniquity of the judges; which belongs to them to take cognizance of, and to punish, even with death; and that not only by the law of Moses, but even by the law of nature, as appears from the known laws and customs of the Heathen nations.
31:12 Destruction - Lust is a fire in the soul; it consumes all that is good there, the convictions, the comforts; and lays the conscience waste. It consumes the body, consumes the substance, roots out all the increase. It kindles the fire of God's wrath, which if not quenched by the blood of Christ, will burn to the lowest hell.
31:16 If I - Denied them what they desired of me. To fail - With tedious expectation of my justice or charity. Job is most large upon this head, because in this matter Eliphaz had most particularly accused him.
31:18 Youth - As soon as I was capable of managing mine own affairs.With me - Under my care. A father - With all the diligence and tenderness of a father. Her - The widow mentioned ver. Job 31:16.From - From my tender years; ever since I was capable of discerning good and evil.
31:19 Perish - When it was in my power to help them.
31:21 When - When I saw I could influence the judges to do what I pleased.
31:23 For - I stood in awe of God and of his judgments.I could not - I knew myself unable either to oppose his power, or to bear his wrath. Even good men have need to restrain themselves from sin, with the fear of Destruction from God.Even when salvation from God is a comfort to us, yet destruction from God should be a terror to us. Adam in innocency was awed by a threatning.
31:26 I - This place speaks of the worship of the host of heaven, and especially of the sun and moon, the most eminent and glorious of that number, which was the most ancient kind of idolatry, and most frequent in the eastern countries. Shined - In its full strength and glory.
31:27 Kissed - In token of worship, whereof this was a sign.
31:28 The judge - The civil magistrate; who being advanced and protected by God, is obliged to maintain and vindicate his honour, and consequently to punish idolatry. Denied God - Not directly but by consequence, because this was to rob God of his prerogative, by giving to the creature, that worship which is peculiar to God.
31:29 Lift up - Heb. stirred up myself to rejoice and insult over his misery.
31:31 If - My domesticks and familiar friends. His flesh - This is farther confirmation of Job's charitable disposition to his enemy.Although all who were daily conversant with him, and were witnesses of his and their carriage, were so zealous in Job's quarrel, that they protested they could eat their flesh, and could not be satisfied without. Yet he restrained both them and himself from executing vengeance upon them.
31:33 As Adam - As Adam did in Paradise.
31:34 Did I fear - No: all that knew Job knew him to be a man of resolution, that boldly appeared, spoke and acted, in defence of religion and justice. He durst not keep silence, or stay within, when called to speak or act for God. He was not deterred by the number, or quality, or insults of the injurious, from reproving them, and doing justice to the injured.
31:35 Had written - Had given me his charge written in a book or paper, as the manner was in judicial proceedings. This shews that Job did not live, before letters were in use. And undoubtedly the first letters were those wrote on the two tables, by the finger of God. He wishes, his friends, who charged him with hypocrisy, would draw up the charge in writing.
31:36 Take it - As a trophy or badge of honour.
31:37 Him - My judge, or adversary. My steps - The whole course of my life. A prince - With undaunted courage and confidence.
31:38 Cry - Because I have gotten it by fraud or violence.
31:39 Without money - Either without paying the price for the land, or by defrauding my workmen of their wages. Life - Killing them that I might have undisturbed possession of it, as Ahab did Naboth.