NOTES for Job 30:1-31
Continuing his speech, Job pours out his complaints about the life he now has to lead (vv. 1-31). But this is not only a matter of complaints. Job laments first of all the injustice of the situation, the fact that God has humiliated him without cause (vv. 19-22). He reminds God of the help that the needy received from him, making it clear that such deeds should have received proper recognition in God's eyes and should have led Job to a very different condition from the one in which he now finds himself (vv. 25-26). At first glance, such words thrown in God's face sound like a bold challenge. But by his deeds Job truly deserved a much better fate, and he knows this very well. The issue is not insolence or disobedience, but principle. Is human righteousness worth anything at all in God's eyes? Job's spiritual life depended on the answer to that question, and for him it was more important than physical life. Job is ready for death; he knows that he does not have long left (vv. 23-24). But what will death become for him: the fulfillment of God's will, or a matter of chance?
The same was true of life. If God has no concern for human righteousness, then He has no concern for the human person at all. Then a person is no better than an animal, either in life or in death. Then everything is meaningless, and Job has nothing more to seek. For a righteous person, such a conclusion was worse than any disease, however terrible, and worse than any death, however painful. This is not surprising: righteousness is above all a relationship with God; it forms the foundation, goal, and meaning of the righteous person's life, and the whole of that life, even death, becomes part of this relationship. But if in fact there is no relationship, if all righteousness was only a fantasy, then the righteous person has nothing left: no God, no righteousness, no life, no death. Only a ghost remains, a shadow of all these things. This is Sheol, the world of shadows in its fullness. With God, even Sheol is not frightening; without God, the whole world becomes Sheol. And Job protests against that prospect. He is no longer afraid of a strong and merciless God because, if God is like that, then things cannot become any worse for Job; he has nothing left to lose. But if God is different after all, if He does in fact care about the human person, then He will understand and accept Job, because Job is righteous. That is beyond dispute, and God cannot fail to notice it. Thus the challenge Job throws at God becomes prayer. It was, of course, a prayer-challenge, but in the situation that had arisen Job could not act otherwise.