Jobchapter 13
28 verses · KJVJob book hub →
Key verse
Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 13 to 19.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Job finishes his reply and moves toward trial. What ye know, I know also: 'but I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. But ye are forgers of lies; ye are all physicians of no value' (13:3-4). Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace. It would be your wisdom. Will ye speak unrighteously for God, and be partial to him? Then the book's famous crux: 'Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope: nevertheless I will maintain my ways before him' (13:15), which the KJV renders, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' Wherefore holdest thou me for thine enemy?
Context
Poetry · Unknown · Job overview
Where the chapter sits
Job 13 falls in Dialogue: three cycles (chapters 3–27). Job's opening complaint (3); three rounds with Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar; the friends' rigid retribution theology; the third cycle breaks: Zophar does not speak again. The dialogue exhausts itself as argument.
Before it: Prose prologue: heavenly court, chapters 1–2. After it: Hymn to wisdom, chapters 28.
The whole shape of Job→The world behind this chapter
Job 13The history
Job turns on his friends with a legal accusation of his own. He calls them forgers of lies and physicians of no value, and asks whether they will 'speak wickedly for God' and talk deceitfully for him, that is, whether they will perjure themselves on God's behalf. In a world where court cases were decided at the town gate by testimony, false witness was among the gravest crimes, and he is charging them with it.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
He then warns them that God will not be impressed by their partiality. Accepting a person's face, showing favour, was the standard term for a corrupt judge, and Job says the friends are behaving like advocates trying to curry favour with the bench.
'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him' sits in the middle of the chapter, and the Hebrew is genuinely difficult; the traditional rendering carries trust, while another reading has Job say he has no hope but will defend his ways anyway. Both readings agree on the next line, which is the point: he will maintain his own ways before God's face, because a hypocrite would never dare come there at all.
His two requests are the terms a defendant asked for: take your hand off me, and stop terrifying me, then call, and I will answer, or let me speak and you reply. The last section is the actual complaint, in the language of decay: a man consumed like a rotten thing, like a garment moths have eaten, and 'wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro?'
What it meant to them
This is where the book plants its most quoted line, and hearers should notice where it sits, not in a hymn, but in the middle of a man preparing to sue God and betting his life on the outcome.
The claim underneath it is the one that turns out to be right: Job says his willingness to stand in God's presence is itself evidence he is not a fraud. God says the same thing at the end.
Sources cited
- John E. Hartley, The Book of Job
- Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job
A. Job: Ye Are Forgers of Lies, Physicians of No Value
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.mine eye hath seen all this: Job answers the friends' claim to superior wisdom by matching it point for point: what ye know, the same do I know also, and I am not inferior unto you. His desire already turns past the friends toward God himself, I desire to reason with God, the wish the whirlwind speeches will finally answer in chapters 38 to 40. Henry notes that Job counts himself no worse a divine than his accusers, since the debate has been fought on doctrine he already holds.
Job 13:3, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Job 13:3
“Surely I would speak to the Almighty - I would desire to carry my cause directly up to God, and spread out my reasons before him. This Job often professed to desire; see Job 9:34-35. He felt that God would appreciate the arguments which he would urge, and would do justice to them. His friends he felt were censorious and severe. They neither did justice to his feelings, nor to his motives. They perverted his words and arguments; and instead of consoling him, they only aggravated his trials, and caused him to sink into deeper sorrows.”
2. (vv. 4-5)
a.physicians of no value: Ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value names the friends' comfort itself as the failure, false diagnosis dressed as wisdom. Job's wish that they had altogether held their peace turns their own maxim from 2:13 back on them, since their silence rather than their speeches would have been their wisdom. Gill reads physicians of no value against the ancient custom of physicians attending the sick, useless doctors who worsen the patient they claim to treat.
Job 13:4, 1 voice
Job 13:4
“Ye are forgers of lies - Ye frame deceitful arguments: ye reason sophistically, and pervert truth and justice, in order to support your cause. Physicians of no value - Ye are as feeble in your reasonings as ye are inefficient in your skill. Ye can neither heal the wound of my mind, nor the disease of my body. In ancient times every wise man professed skill in the healing art, and probably Job’s friends had tried their skill on his body as well as on his mind.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 13:5, 1 voice
Job 13:5
Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace! - You would show your wisdom by silence. Since you can say nothing that is adapted to give comfort, or to explain the true state of the case, it would be wise to say nothing; compare Pro 17:28: “Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise.”
3. (vv. 6-9)
a.Hear now my reasoning: Job calls the friends to hear his reasoning and turns their own defense of God into an accusation, will ye speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for him, the charge that false doctrine spoken in God's defense is itself sin against him. Will ye accept his person carries the language of a corrupt judge favoring one party, and Job asks whether God himself will not search out such flattery as he would any other deceit. This is the exact ground God will rule on at 42:7, that the friends have not spoken of him the thing that is right, planted here by Job's own words rather than by the narrator.
Job 13:6, 1 voice
Job 13:6
“Hear now my reasoning - The speeches in this book are conceived as it delivered in a court of justice, different counselors pleading against each other. Hence most of the terms are forensic.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 13:7, 1 voice
Job 13:7
“Will ye speak wickedly for God? - That is, will you maintain unjust principles with a view to honor or to vindicate God? Job refers doubtless to the positions which they had defended in regard to the divine administration - principles which he regarded as unjust, though they had employed them professedly in vindicating God. The sense is, that unjust principles ought not to be advanced to vindicate God.”
Job 13:8, 1 voice
Job 13:8
“Will ye accept his person? - That is, will you be partial to him? The language is such as is used in relation to courts of justice, where a judge shows favor to one of the parties on account of birth, rank, wealth, or personal friendship. The idea here is, “will you, from partiality to God, maintain unjust principles, and defend positions which are really untenable?” There was a controversy between Job and God. Job maintained that he was punished too severely; that the divine dealings were unequal and disproportioned to his offences. His friends, he alleges, have not done justice to the arguments which he had urged, but had taken sides with God against him, no matter what he urged or what he said. So little disposed were they to do justice to him and to listen to his vindication, that no matter what he said, they set it all down to impatience, rebellion, and insubmission. They assumed that he was wrong, and that God was wholly right in all flyings. Of this position that God was right, no one could reasonably complain, and in his sober reflections Job himself would not be disposed to object to it; but his complaint is, that though the considerations which he urged were of the greatest weight, they would not allow their force, simply because they were determined to vindicate God. Their position was, that God dealt with people strictly according to their character; and that no matter what they suffered, their sufferings were the exact measure of their ill desert. Against this position, they would hear nothing that Job could say; and they maintained it by every kind of argument which was at their command - whether sound or unsound, sophistical or solid. Job says that this was showing partiality for God, and he felt that he had a right to complain. We need never show “partiality” even for God. […]”
Job 13:9, 1 voice
Job 13:9
“It is good to an upright man who means honestly that God should search him; therefore he prays for it: Search me, O God! and know my heart. God's omniscience is a witness of his sincerity.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
4. (vv. 10-12)
a.He will surely reprove you: , if ye do secretly accept persons presses the charge further, warning that even a private partiality toward God's side of the argument will not escape his own reproof. Shall not his excellency make you afraid asks whether the majesty the friends invoke against Job does not stand over them as well. Your remembrances are like unto ashes reduces their proverbs to something as fragile as what a fire leaves behind, and Gill takes it of maxims that crumble under the weight they are made to bear.
Job 13:10, 1 voice
Job 13:10
“He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons - If you show partiality, you will incur his disapprobation. This seems to have much era proverbial cast, and to mean that under no possible circumstances was it right to show partiality. No matter for whom it may be done, it will be displeasing to God. Even if it be in favor of the righteous, the widow, the fatherless, or of himself, if there is not a disposition to judge according to truth and evidence, God will frown upon you.”
Job 13:12, 1 voice
Job 13:12
“Your remembrances are like unto ashes - Your memorable sayings are proverbs of dust. This is properly the meaning of the original: זכרניכם משלי אפר zichroneycem mishley epher. This he speaks in reference to the ancient and reputedly wise sayings which they had so copiously quoted against him. Your bodies to bodies of clay - This clause is variously translated: Your swelling heaps are swelling heaps of mire.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Job: Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I Wait for Him
1. (vv. 13-14)
a.Hold your peace, let me alone: asks the friends for the silence Job has already told them would be their wisdom, so that he may address God directly and let come on me what will. Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand is proverbial for staking everything on one desperate act, and Henry reads it of a man determined to speak the truth to God though it cost him his life. The courtroom Job has been building toward since verse 3 is about to open.
Job 13:13, 1 voice
Job 13:13
“Hold your peace - Margin, Be silent from me; see Job 13:5. It is possible that Job may have perceived in them some disposition to interrupt him in a rude manner in reply to the severe remarks which he had made, and he asked the privilege, therefore, of being permitted to go on, and to say what he intended, let come what would. And let come on me what will - Anything, whether reproaches from you, or additional sufferings from the hand of God. Allow me to express my sentiments, whatever may be the consequences to myself.”
Job 13:14, 3 voices
Job 13:14
“Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth,.... Or bite my lips, to keep in my words, and refrain from speaking?”
Job 13:14
“Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth - A proverbial expression. I risk every thing on the justice of my cause. I put my life in my hand, 1Sa 28:21. I run all hazards; I am fearless of the consequences.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 13:14
“A proverb for, "Why should I anxiously desire to save my life?" [EICHORN]. The image in the first clause is that of a wild beast, which in order to preserve his prey, carries it in his teeth.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (v. 15)
a.Though he slay me: , yet will I trust in him is the sole occurrence of this exact confidence in the book, and the Hebrew text itself carries two readings: the reading followed by the King James margin as the more literal sense yields I have no hope, while the text as commonly received and preached reads the positive yet will I trust in him. Both readings are argued by named commentators, and the second half of the verse holds under either, but I will maintain mine own ways before him, Job's resolve to keep arguing his case to God's own face. Clarke and Delitzsch set out the textual question without deciding it for the reader.
Job 13:15, 3 voices
Job 13:15
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. But I will rebuke mine own ways before Him. He also shall be my salvation. There is no room for the virtue of patience in prosperous circumstances. He is really patient, who is at once bruised with misfortune, and yet not bowed down from the erectness of his hope. Concerning the temper of mind of the reprobate man it is written, He will praise Thee, when Thou doest well to him.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIpatristic
Job 13:15
“Though he slay me - “God may so multiply my sorrows and pains that I cannot survive them. I see that I may be exposed to increased calamities, yet I am willing to meet them. If in maintaining my own cause, and showing that I am not a hypocrite Job 13:16, it should so happen that my sufferings should be so increased that I should die, yet I will do it.” The word “slay,” or “kill,” here refers to temporal death. It has no reference to punishment in the future world, or to the death of the soul.”
Job 13:15
“This is a high expression of faith, and what we should all labour to come up to--to trust in God, though he slay us, that is, we must be well pleased with God as a friend even when he seems to come forth against us as an enemy, ch. xxiii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (vv. 16-19)
a.He also shall be my salvation: continues the confidence of the previous verse into an argument, for an hypocrite shall not come before him, so a guilty man would never dare the approach Job is making. Behold now, I have ordered my cause states his readiness as a plaintiff who has prepared his brief, I know that I shall be justified, and Gill notes the legal sense of ordered, the marshaling of a case point by point. If I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost makes the courtroom no mere figure of speech but the only thing keeping him alive.
Job 13:16, 1 voice
Job 13:16
“He means it not of temporal salvation (he had little expectation of that); but concerning his eternal salvation he was very confident that God would not only be his Saviour to make him happy, but his salvation, in the vision and fruition of whom he should be happy. And the reason why he depended on God for salvation was because a hypocrite shall not come before him.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 13:17, 1 voice
Job 13:17
“Hear diligently my speech - That which I have made; that is, the declaration which I have made of my innocence. He refers to his solemn declaration, Job 13:15-16 that he had unwavering confidence in God, and that even should God slay him he would put confidence in him. This solemn appeal he wished them to attend to as one of the utmost importance.”
Job 13:18, 2 voices
Job 13:18
“If I shall be judged, I know that I shall be found just. Which too is not at variance with the person of the self-same blessed Job, since he is only telling that concerning himself without, which 'Truth' had inwardly declared to his enemy concerning him; Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth? And yet it is much less that the holy man records concerning himself, than what the Lord declared concerning him. For it is one thing to be 'just,' and another to have 'none like him.'”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIpatristic
Job 13:18
“This he knew because he knew that his Redeemer lived, ch. xix. Those whose hearts are upright with God, in walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit, may be sure that through Christ there shall be no condemnation to them, but that, whoever lays any thing to their charge, they shall be justified: they may know that they shall.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
C. Job: Wherefore Hidest Thou Thy Face From Me?
1. (vv. 20-22)
a.Only do not two things unto me: Job asks God for terms before the trial opens, withdraw thine hand far from me, and let not thy dread make me afraid, the two conditions that the suffering and the terror both be lifted so an honest hearing can proceed. Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me offers God either position in the exchange, plaintiff or defendant, so long as the silence between them breaks. Barnes reads the double offer as proof Job wants truth more than victory, since he will take either side of the conversation.
Job 13:20, 1 voice
Job 13:20
“Only do not two things unto me - These two things are the following: 1. Withdraw thine hand far from me - remove the heavy affliction which thy hand has inflicted. 2. Let not thy dread make me afraid - terrify me not with dreadful displays of thy majesty. The reasons of this request are sufficiently evident: 1. How can a man stand in a court of justice and plead for his life, when under grievous bodily affliction? Withdraw thy hand far from me.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 13:21, 1 voice
Job 13:21
“Withdraw Thine hand far from me, and let not Thy dread make me afraid. By which same two what else does he ask in a voice of prophecy, but the season of grace and redemption? For the Law held the people obnoxious to the stroke of vengeance, that whoso committed sin under its yoke, should be forthwith punished with death. Nor did the Israelitish people serve God from a principle of love, but of fear. But righteousness can never be perfected by fear, seeing that according to the voice of John, perfect love casteth out fear.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIpatristic
Job 13:22, 2 voices
Job 13:22
“Then - This proposal savoured of self-confidence, and of irreverence towards God; for which, and the like speeches, he is reproved by God, chap. xxxviii, 2, 3; xl, 2.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 13:22
“With such holy boldness may the upright come to the throne of grace, not doubting but to find mercy there. 23 How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 23-25)
a.How many are mine iniquities and sins?: make me to know my transgression and my sin is the demand the whole chapter has built toward, a bill of particulars rather than the general charge of guilt the friends have pressed. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy reads God's silence itself as an accusation, since a judge who will not state the charge still lets the sentence stand. Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro pictures the disproportion the friends never weighed, the Almighty's full strength turned against a man already as weak as a windblown leaf.
Job 13:23, 3 voices
Job 13:23
“How many are mine iniquities and sins? - Job takes the place of the plaintiff or accuser. He opens the cause. He appeals to God to state the catalogue of his crimes, or to bring forward his charges of guilt against him. The meaning, according to Schultens, is, “That catalogue ought to be great which has called down so many and so great calamities upon my head from heaven, when I am conscious to myself of being guilty of no offence.” God sorely afflicted him.”
Job 13:23
“The catalogue of my sins ought to be great, to judge from the severity with which God ever anew crushes one already bowed down. Would that He would reckon them up! He then would see how much my calamities outnumber them. sin?--singular, "I am unconscious of a single particular sin, much less many" [UMBREIT].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 13:23
“His friends were ready enough to tell him how numerous and how heinous they were, ch. xxii. "But, Lord," says he, "let me know them from thee; for thy judgment is according to truth, theirs is not." This may be taken either, 1. As a passionate complaint of hard usage, that he was punished for his faults and yet was not told what his faults were.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 13:24, 1 voice
Job 13:24
“Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and holdest me for Thine enemy? Man enjoyed the light of inward contemplation in Paradise, but by gratifying himself as he departed from himself, he lost the light of the Creator, and fled from His face to the trees of Paradise, seeing that, after his sin, he dreaded to see Him, whom he had used to love.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIpatristic
Job 13:25, 1 voice
Job 13:25
“Job compares himself to a leaf already fallen, which the storm still chases hither and thither. break--literally, "shake with (Thy) terrors." Jesus Christ does not "break the bruised reed" (Isa 42:3, 27:8).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 26-28)
a.thou writest bitter things against me: and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth has Job charging God with reviving old sins to justify present suffering, a bitter record kept and produced against him. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks turns the language of a prisoner's confinement onto providence itself, every path watched and every step marked. The chapter ends where it began, a man consuming like a rotten thing, as a garment that is moth eaten, and Gill notes the double figure naming both a slow decay from within and a wasting no one intended, the two things Job has argued suffering can be.
Job 13:26, 2 voices
Job 13:26
“Thou writest bitter things against me - The indictment is filled with bitter or grievous charges, which, if proved, would bring me to bitter punishment. The iniquities of my youth - The Levities and indiscretions of my youth I acknowledge; but is this a ground on which to form charges against a man the integrity of whose life is unimpeachable?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 13:26
“The sentence of the condemned used to be written down (Isa 10:1; Ps 149:9) [UMBREIT]. bitter things--bitter punishments. makest me to possess--or "inherit." In old age he receives possession of the inheritance of sin thoughtlessly acquired in youth. "To inherit sins" is to inherit the punishments inseparably connected with them in Hebrew ideas (Ps 25:7).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 13:27, 3 voices
Job 13:27
“Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks,.... Which is one kind of punishment of offenders, and a preservation of them from making their escape; and is a security and reservation of them for further punishment sometimes; and so Job looked upon his afflictions as a punishment for he knew not what, and with which he was so surrounded and enclosed, that there was no getting out of them any more than a man can whose feet are set fast in the stocks; and that he was here kept for greater afflictions still, which he dreaded.”
Job 13:27
“Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks - The word rendered “stocks” (סד sad), denotes the wooden frame or block in which the feet of a person were confined for punishment. The whole passage here is designed to describe the feet; as so confined in a clog or clogs, as to preclude the power of motion. Stocks or clogs were used often in ancient times as a mode of punishment. Pro 7:22. Jeremiah was punished by being confined in the stocks. Jer 20:2; Jer 29:2, Jer 29:”
Job 13:27
“He is not thus extreme to mark what we do amiss; if he were, there were no abiding for us, Ps. cxxx. But he is so far from this that he deals not with us according to the desert, no, not of our manifest sins, which are not found by secret search, Jer. ii.34 .”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 13:28, 3 voices
Job 13:28
“And he, as a rotten thing - I am like a vessel made of skin; rotten, because of old age, or like a garment corroded by the moth. So the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic understood it. The word he may refer to himself.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 13:28
“He - He speaks of himself in the third person, as is usual in this and other sacred books. So the sense is, he, this poor frail creature, this body of mine; which possibly he pointed at with his finger, consumeth or pineth away.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 13:28
“He (that is, man) as a rotten thing, the principle of whose putrefaction is in itself, consumes, even like a moth-eaten garment, which becomes continually worse and worse. Or, He (that is, God) like rottenness, and like a moth, consumes me.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Job 13. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XI; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765) and Matthew Henry.