Job23chapter 23

Job 23:1-2

Then Job answered: Job's sixth reply opens by naming what has not changed through five rounds of speeches: even to day is my complaint bitter, and my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Henry notes that Job does not retract the complaint the friends have been rebuking; he restates it, because the affliction still outweighs anything his words have said about it. Gill reads the stroke heavier than the groaning as Job's own defense against the charge of excess, his laments have understated his suffering rather than overstated it.

Job 23:3-5

The wish is not for escape but for access: Job wants God's own seat, a place he could come to and order his cause, filling his mouth with arguments the way a man prepares a case for a court he trusts. Barnes notes that this is confidence, not despair, since Job wants to hear what God would answer rather than dreading it. Delitzsch reads the whole verse as the presence longing that runs under the entire chapter, a man shut out from an audience he is certain would clear him.

Job 23:6-7

Job answers his own question before the friends can press it further: he does not expect God to overpower a defendant with mere force, but to put strength in me, giving him standing to plead rather than crushing him into silence. Gill reads there the righteous might dispute with him as Job's settled expectation of acquittal, a courtroom where the outcome is a verdict and not annihilation. So should I be delivered for ever from my judge looks past the present ordeal to a final and lasting resolution.

Job 23:8-9

The imagined courtroom of the verses before this one collapses against the fact stated here in four directions: forward, backward, left and right, Job cannot perceive, behold or see the God whose seat he was just describing. Clarke notes the irony the arrangement makes plain, a man confident of his case has no way to bring it, because the judge he seeks will not be found by searching. Davidson reads the fourfold search as the honest center of the chapter, longing answered later by the whirlwind in a manner Job does not yet expect.

Job 23:10

Against the searching that just failed on every side, Job turns the ignorance around: he cannot find God, but God has never lost sight of him. He knoweth the way that I take answers the fourfold blindness of verses eight and nine directly, and when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold states the refiner's confidence that the present darkness has a purpose and an end. Watson reads the verse as the chapter's turn, the sufferer's own ignorance of God's whereabouts answered by God's unbroken knowledge of the sufferer's own way.

Job 23:11-12

Job's confidence in verse ten rests on a life he can account for: his foot has held God's own steps, his way kept without turning aside, and no going back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food is the book's own doctrine of appetite for Scripture, placing God's word above the daily bread the body cannot do without. Henry reads the comparison as Job's strongest self-defense, a man who has fed on obedience longer than he has fed on bread.

Job 23:13-14

The chapter turns from Job's own record to the will he cannot move: he is in one mind, and who can turn him, a plain statement of unchangeable sovereignty. What his soul desireth, even that he doeth extends to Job's own case, he performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with him. Barnes notes that this is not yet the worship of the ash heap, it is a harder acknowledgment, that the suffering is decreed and the decree will not bend to argument.

Job 23:15-17

The confidence of verse ten does not hold the whole chapter, and the dread returns here at its close: therefore am I troubled at his presence, when I consider, I am afraid of him. God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me, and the chapter ends wishing for a darkness he was not cut off before, rather than the darkness he now faces uncovered. Gill notes that this is the chapter's honest shape, a peak of confidence between the redeemer of chapter nineteen and the book's end that still closes in the same fear it opened with.