Job

Job 9

35 verses · Wisdom · Old Testament

1Then Job answered,

2“Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God? 3If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand. 4God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who has hardened himself against him and prospered? 5He removes the mountains, and they don’t know it, when he overturns them in his anger. 6He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble. 7He commands the sun and it doesn’t rise, and seals up the stars. 8He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. 9He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms of the south. 10He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number. 11Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him. He passes on also, but I don’t perceive him. 12Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’
13“God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. 14How much less will I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him? 15Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him. I would make supplication to my judge. 16If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn’t believe that he listened to my voice. 17For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause. 18He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness. 19If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, ‘Who,’ says he, ‘will summon me?’ 20Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse. 21I am blameless. I don’t respect myself. I despise my life.
22“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. 23If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. 24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?
25“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good. 26They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey. 27If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;’ 28I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent. 29I will be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain? 30If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye, 31yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes will abhor me. 32For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment. 33There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both. 34Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid; 35then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 77 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17144

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–13

Bildad began with a rebuke to Job for talking so much, Job 8:2. Job makes no answer to that, though it would have been easy enough to retort it upon himself; but in what he next lays down as his principle, that God never perverts judgment, Job agrees with…

v. 14–21

What Job had said of man's utter inability to contend with God he here applies to himself, and in effect despairs of gaining his favour, which (some think) arises from the hard thoughts he had of God, as one who, having set himself against him, right or…

v. 22–24

Here Job touches briefly upon the main point now in dispute between him and his friends. They maintained that those who are righteous and good always prosper in this world, and none but the wicked are in misery and distress; he asserted, on the contrary, that…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176335

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

Then Job answered and said. Without taking notice of Bildad's harsh expressions and severe censures, or his unfriendliness to him; he enters directly into the argument, grants some things, confutes others, and defends himself and his conduct.

v. 2

I know it is so of a truth,.... That is, that God is just, and does not pervert justice and judgment, as Bildad had observed, Job 8:3; Job was a man of great natural parts and capacity; he had a large share of knowledge of things, natural, civil, and moral…

v. 3

If he will contend with him,.... If God will contend with man, so Sephorno; enter into a controversy with him, litigate and dispute the point in law, whether he is just or not, man cannot answer to the allegations he will produce; or if man should contend…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–18759

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–4

1 Then Job began, and said: 2 Yea, indeed, I know it is thus, And how should a man be just with God! 3 Should he wish to contend with God, He could not answer Him one of a thousand. 4 The wise in heart and mighty in strength, Who hath defied Him and remained…

v. 5–7

5 Who removeth mountains without their knowing, That He hath overturned them in His wrath; 6 Who causeth the earth to shake out of its place, And its pillars to tremble; 7 Who commandeth the sun, and it riseth not, And sealeth up the stars. ידעוּ ולא (Job…

v. 8–10

8 Who alone spreadeth out the heavens, And walketh upon the heights of the sea; 9 Who made the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south; 10 Who doeth great things past finding out, And wondrous things without number. Ewald, Hirzel, and…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187129

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 3

If he--God will contend with him--literally, "deign to enter into judgment." he cannot answer, &c.--He (man) would not dare, even if he had a thousand answers in readiness to one question of God's, to utter one of them, from awe of His Majesty.

v. 4

wise in heart--in understanding!--and mighty in power! God confounds the ablest arguer by His wisdom, and the mightiest by His power. hardened himself--or his neck (Pro 29:1); that is, defied God. To prosper, one must fall in with God's arrangements of…

v. 5

and they know not--Hebrew for "suddenly, unexpectedly, before they are aware of it" (Psa 35:8); "at unawares"; Hebrew, which "he knoweth not of" (Joe 2:14; Pro 5:6).

World English Bible — Public domain