Job 23:1 - Meaning and Application

Job is sure that his friends have treated him unfairly, and so, though he is in deep pain, he will not drop his case or let them have the final word. He first defends the bitterness of his grief. “Even today my complaint is bitter,” he says, and that is not surprising, because his suffering is bitter too. There is wormwood and gall in it, and his soul still remembers it and feels the sting, as in Lamentations 3:19-20.

Some read the line differently: “Even today my complaint is rebellion.” Job’s friends took his honest cries of pain and treated them as if he were speaking against God and his rule. Job answers that he is not complaining more than his suffering calls for. “My stroke is heavier than my groaning,” he says. In other words, even after all they have said to correct and comfort him, his bodily pain and inward sorrow are still so great that he has good reason to cry out.

We wrong God if our groaning is louder than our wound, like stubborn children who cry for nothing and then justly get something to cry about. But we do not wrong ourselves when our wound is heavier than our groaning, because saying too little can be made right soon enough. Job then turns from his friends’ judgments to God’s just judgment. That appeal itself showed, in Job’s view, that he was not a hypocrite, because a hypocrite would not dare to call God as witness in that way. Paul took comfort in this truth too, that the one who judges him is the Lord, so human judgment mattered little to him, though he was willing to wait for the appointed time (1 Corinthians 4:3-4). The apostle James also urges suffering believers to wait patiently for the Judge’s coming (James 5:7-9).

Job is so sure that God’s court is fair that he longs to appear before it. “Oh, that I knew where I might find him!” he says. This can express the cry of a soul that knows it has lost God through sin and is ruined unless it regains his favor. It is the plea of a deserted soul, asking, “How can I recover his favor? How can I come back into his covenant, that is, his binding promise, and communion, or close fellowship, with him?” As in Micah 6:6-7, it is the cry of one who wants God himself to show the way back.

Job, however, seems to speak too boldly here. He complains that his friends have wronged him and that he does not know how to bring his case before God, though if he could, he would go to God’s seat of judgment and ask for justice. A calm waiting for death and judgment is our wisdom and duty, and when we think rightly about them, that waiting should bring holy fear and trembling. But to wish for death or judgment in a rash and heated way, without that fear, is sin and foolishness. Do we really know what death and judgment are, and are we so ready for them that we need no more time to prepare? Woe to those who, in a rush of feeling, long for the day of the Lord (Amos 5:18).

Job is also so sure that his cause is good that he wants to present it plainly before God. “I would order my cause before him,” he says, meaning, “I would set it out clearly and in the right light. I would bring forward the proof of my sincerity in proper order and fill my mouth with arguments to show it.” We can apply this to prayer. In prayer, we are allowed to come boldly into the holiest place, that is, into God’s presence, even to the footstool of his throne of grace.

We have not only freedom to come near, but freedom to speak. We may be detailed in our requests and lay out the whole matter before God in whatever order seems best to us. We would not speak so freely before earthly rulers, but a humble and holy soul may speak that way before God. We are also allowed to be urgent in our prayers. We may do more than ask, we may plead. We may even fill our mouths with arguments, not to inform God, who already knows the case fully, but to stir up our own earnestness and strengthen our faith.

Job is also sure that God will answer him favorably. “I would know the words which he would answer me,” he says. That is, “I would gladly hear what God would say about this dispute between you and me, and I would fully accept his judgment.” So it should be in all disputes, let God’s word decide them. Let us learn what he answers and understand what he says. Job knew what his friends would say, they would condemn him and keep pressing him down. But he wanted to know what God would say, because he was sure that God’s judgment is true, while theirs was not. He could not make sense of their words, because they were not to the point. But what God said, he would understand, and that would satisfy him.

Job then comforts himself with the hope that God will deal kindly with him in this matter. It is very helpful, in everything we have to do with God, to keep good thoughts of him. Job believes, first, that God will not crush him. God will not deal with him by sheer power or strict justice, as an overbearing ruler would. “Will he plead against me with his great power?” No. Job’s friends had used all their strength against him, but God will not do that. God’s power is always righteous and holy, unlike man’s power. God will use his great power against those who stubbornly refuse to believe and repent, and their destruction will show his power. But with his own people, who love and trust him, he deals in tender mercy.

Second, Job believes that God will strengthen him so he can speak for himself before God. “He would put strength in me,” Job says, to support him and help him hold fast to his integrity, his honesty before God. The same power that stands against proud sinners stands for humble saints. By strength that comes from God, they prevail with him, as Jacob did (Hosea 12:3). See also (Psalm 68:35).

Third, Job believes the outcome will surely be good. In that heavenly court, when the final sentence is given, the righteous may reason with God and come out justified, that is, declared right. Even now the upright are often disciplined by the Lord, and they cannot argue against it. Honest living does not protect a person from trouble or false accusation. But in that day the righteous will not be condemned with the world, even if God afflicts them for a time by his own right. Then the difference between the righteous and the wicked will be clear (Malachi 3:18). Right now, that difference is often hard to see, because outward life comes alike to everyone.

Then, when the final verdict comes, Job means, “I will be delivered forever from my Judge.” That is, he will be saved from the unfair judgments of his friends, and from the divine sentence that now fills him with fear.

Those who are given up to God as their owner and ruler will, in the end, be delivered from him as their judge and avenger. There is no way to escape his justice except by running to his mercy.