Bibelkommentare

Ch. Job 13:1-22. Job knows the Divine Wisdom and Might as well as the Friends; their application of these to him is false. He desires to plead his Cause before God

Having finished his delineation of God’s might and wisdom as they act in the world, Job looks back upon his picture, saying that he knows all this as well as his friends (Job 13:1-2); but his calamities receive thereby no solution. In spite of this knowledge he desires to plead his cause before God (Job 13:3).

And they who sought to use this wisdom and might of God against him, were mere forgers of lies, who gave a false as well as feeble explanation of his troubles (Job 13:4-5). They were nothing but partizans for God. And as they had invoked the omniscience of God against him he will threaten them with the judgment of the same God, who will search out their hidden insincerity, and before whom their old maxims will be but “proverbs of ashes” (Job 13:6-12).

With this stinging rebuke to his friends Job turns from them unto God. He will adventure all and go into His presence to plead his cause come what may (Job 13:13-15). This courage which he feels is token to him that he shall be victorious, for a godless man would not dare to come before God. He knows he shall be found in the right (Job 13:16-19). Only he will beg for two conditions, That God would remove His hand from him, and, That he would not terrify him by His majesty; then he is ready to answer if God will call, or to speak if God will answer (Job 13:20-22).

1–2. Looking back to his delineation of the Divine wisdom and might as they dominate among men and in the world (ch. Job 12:7-25), Job says that his knowledge of them is not inferior to that of the friends—a final answer to Zophar, ch. Job 11:6; cf. as to Job 13 :2 Chronicles 12:3.

3. But this knowledge neither helps nor hinders him. In spite of this knowledge, if not because of it, he desires to reason with God.

surely I would speak] Rather, but I would (same word in Job 13:4).

4. but ye are forgers of lies] The but in Job 13:3 had for its background the knowledge of the Divine wisdom (Job 13:1-2); Job knows this well, but for all his knowledge of it he desires to plead his cause before God, he will speak unto the Almighty. This desire and purpose, however, are crossed by the thought of the use which his friends make of the Divine wisdom against him, and he is diverted from his great object to administer a rebuke to them—but ye are forgers of lies. Job 13:4-12 are therefore a digression, the main object being resumed in Job 13:13; the digression, however, is profoundly interesting. In clause one Job tells his friends that their assumptions of his guilt and the application which they made to his case of the Divine omniscience are false; in the second he compares them to ignorant physicians, who take in hand a disease which they are incompetent to treat.

5. This verse is suggested by the last clause of the preceding—their impotence to help was such that their silence would be the most helpful thing they could offer. There is a final sarcasm at Zophar’s speech in the reference to “wisdom”; cf. Proverbs 17:28, Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise; and the si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, quoted by all the commentators.

6. hear now my reasoning] Rather, hear now my rebuke. The reference is not to Job’s cause with God, this is not resumed till Job 13:13. He utters a formal indictment against his friends which he commands them to hear.

the pleadings of my lips] i. e. the reproofs of my lips, their pleadings against you, or their controversy with you, cf. Deuteronomy 17:8. These reproofs now follow, Job 13:7-9.

6–12. Severe rebuke of the three friends, in which (1) they are charged with partiality for God, and with acting the advocate for Him (Job 13:6-8); and (2) they are threatened with the chastisement of God for their insincerity, and for falsely pleading even in God’s behalf (Job 13:9-12).

7. speak wickedly] Or, wrongously, lit. speak iniquity, ch. Job 5:16, cf. Zophar’s recommendation to Job, ch. Job 11:14. For God means in His behalf, in His defence; and the words for God are emphatic.

8. The same charge put more explicitly. To accept the person of one is to be partial on his side, cf. Job 13:10.

contend for God] i. e. will ye play the advocate for God? The charge made against his friends by Job is that they had no knowledge of his guilt, and merely took part for God against him out of servility to God. This servility was nothing but a superficial religiousness, allied to superstition, which did not form its conception of God from the broad facts of the universe.