Job 13:23 - Meaning and Application

Here, Job asks God to show him his sins and to make them clear to him. He looks up to God and says, “How many are my sins? Show me what I have done wrong” (Job 13:23). His friends were quick to tell him how many and how serious his sins must have been (Job 22:5), but Job wants God to tell him, because God’s judgment is true, and theirs is not.

This can be read in three ways. It may be a painful complaint that he is being punished for faults he has not been shown. Or it may be a wise appeal to God against the unfair judgment of his friends. Or it may be a humble prayer, like Elihu’s later words, “Teach me what I cannot see” (Job 34:32). A true penitent, a person who is truly sorry for sin, is willing to know the worst about himself. We should all want to know our sins so we can confess them plainly and guard against them later.

Job then complains bitterly that God has withdrawn from him (Job 13:24). This must mean more than outward troubles, because losing wealth, children, or health can happen while God still loves a person. Job had already blessed the name of the Lord when those things were taken from him. But now his soul is in pain too, and that is what he is lamenting. He feels that God’s favor is hidden, as if God were a stranger who is displeased and distant. He also feels God’s terrors pressing on him, as if God were treating him like an enemy and aiming arrows at him (Job 6:4; Job 7:20).

This can happen even to God’s best servants in this world. Sometimes the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, withholds comfort for a time and lets fear and darkness rest on the soul. Assurance of heaven may fade, inward comfort may be interrupted, and the fear of God’s wrath may feel very strong (Psalm 77:7-9; Psalm 88:7, 15, 16). That is a heavy burden for a godly person, who values God’s love more than life itself (Proverbs 18:14). A wounded spirit is hard to bear. When we feel God’s face hidden, we should ask why, what sin he is correcting, and what good he means to bring from it. Job’s sufferings also pointed ahead to Christ, from whom people hid their faces (Isaiah 53:3), and from whom God’s face was hidden when darkness covered the cross and he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If this happened to the green tree, what will happen to the dry? Those who are dry and dead in sin will be forsaken forever.

Job then humbly says that he cannot stand before God’s power (Job 13:25). “Will you break a leaf, or chase after dry chaff?” he asks. In other words, is it worthy of God’s honor to trample someone already down, or to crush one who has no strength to resist? We should think of God as kind and compassionate, believing that he will not break a bruised reed (Matthew 12:20).

He then complains about God’s severe dealings with him. He admits that God is contending with him because of sin, but he thinks it is hard that old sins, long past, should now be remembered against him (Job 13:26). “You write bitter things against me,” he says. Afflictions are bitter things. To say that they are written means they are deliberate and fixed, like a written order for punishment. It also suggests that the suffering continues, because what is written remains. Job feels that God is making him carry the guilt of the sins of his youth, punishing him for them and bringing them back to mind so he must repent of them again.

This is a hard thing, but it is sometimes true of God’s people. He writes bitter things against them in outward trouble and inward distress, to humble them, test them, and do them good in the end. The sins of youth often bring pain in old age, both inward sorrow and outward suffering (Jeremiah 31:18-19; Job 20:11). Time does not erase guilt. When God writes bitter things against us, his purpose is to make us remember forgotten sins, grieve over them, and turn away from them. That is the fruit he seeks, to take away our sin.

Job also feels that God is watching every small mistake too closely (Job 13:27). He says, “You put my feet in stocks,” meaning not only that he is afflicted and shamed, but also that he cannot escape God’s wrath. He feels as if God is watching every movement, every path, every false step, even every wrong look or careless word. It seems to him that God marks each fault and makes him pay for it at once, so that punishment follows sin right on its heels. He feels old guilt and fresh mistakes piled together as the cause of all his misery.

Still, this was not truly how God was acting toward him. God is not so strict that he marks every wrong in that way. If he did, no one could survive (Psalm 130:3). In fact, God does not deal with us according to what we deserve, even for sins that are open and plain, and not hidden by any search (Jeremiah 2:34). Job was speaking out of deep sorrow, not with his clearest judgment. His calmer thoughts would not have described God as such a harsh master. Even so, we should keep a careful and watchful eye on ourselves and our steps, both to uncover past sin and to prevent future sin. It is wise for all of us to think carefully about the path our feet are taking.

Finally, Job says that he is wasting away under God’s heavy hand (Job 13:28). A person, he says, is like a rotten thing, with decay already in him, or like a garment eaten by moths, slowly falling apart. Or he may mean that God is like rottenness and like a moth, slowly consuming him, as in Hosea 5:12. Compare also Psalm 39:11. Human life wears out quickly at the best of times, and under God’s rebuke it passes even faster. Since there is so little strength in the soul, it is no wonder there is so little strength in the body (Psalm 38:3).