Commentary on the Book of Job part twenty

                                   Job 13:1-28

In Job 13:1-2, Job reminded his comforters that he understood more than they because he heard God's Word. He chided them again for their trite wisdom which resulted from their fear of talking to God.

In Job 13:3-10, Job informed his comforters again that he sought truth by talking directly with God. Job complained that his comforters spoke lies about God because they really did not want to know God. They merely wanted to talk about God; they did not want to talk with God. Job informed them that they would display more wisdom if they kept quiet than if they spoke. Their speculations about God were so wrong that they actually mocked God.

In Job 13:11, Job taught his friends that when they imagine God's majesty and excellency, their thoughts put them in a state of dread and fear. Dread constitutes the state of every person when they realize that they have no choice in life but to choose. God created us to be this way. One fears the wrong choice because it may cause one to suffer. One fears the right choice because it never seems to satisfy completely. One's greatest dread comes when one thinks about God. One fears to choose to know God because He has to be just and has a right to punish sin, and yet, one fears to not know God because one instinctively realizes that only He can save. But if one chooses to repent of one's sins and comes to know God, one will find God to be gracious and forgiving, and one will find peace in one's heart that will completely satisfy. John 14:27.

In Job 13:12, Job informed his comforters that they had become to him like ashes and clay. They advised him from a useless materialist point of view. Their phony comfort for him had no spiritual value whatsoever.

In Job 13:13-18, Job rose to his highest level of faith before his friends. Job told them that he had made his choice. Job chose to trust in God even though he knew that a just God might slay him and destroy him. God rewarded Job's faith by revealing to him that He would justify and save him.

In Job 13:19, Job told his phony comforters that they had no right to criticize him. Because God had justified him, he had moved beyond their criticism. If God told Job to stop talking with his friends, then God would simply cause Job to give up the ghost and go home to Him.

In Job 13:20-28, Job informed his friends that God desired that he continue his dialogue with them. God was trying to teach truth to Job's friends by speaking through Job. But Job requested that his friends not speak to him in ways that would cause their dread to make him afraid. Job had risen to a sublime level of faith knowing that he had become justified by God, but he could fall back into doubt if his friends were to speak of God as if He were unmerciful. Job let them know that if they refrained from causing him dread, then from his level of sublime faith, he could teach them a lot of truth about God. Job also requested that his friends tell him exactly how many sins he had committed and what kinds of sins they were. Job complained that while his friends had called him a sinner, they knew nothing about what kind of a sinner he was. They did not know enough about him to count him as an enemy. Job accused his friends of trying to hold him down as if he were in the stocks. His friends meant to hold him to the earth to prevent him from rising to the spiritual level of sublime faith.

In Job 13:28, Job seemed to speak of sin as being like a corrupt person, and like a moth that consumes a good garment. God had given Job a symbolic but accurate description of how sin operates. God created man in His own image to be a good and living system. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31. Sin corrupts and consumes that good system but cannot destroy it. God loves and can never lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Romans 11:29. Therefore, someday God will effect a general resurrection of all living humans still in their graves, separate them from their corruption, and recreate them to live on His recreated earth. John 5:28-29; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5.