Job23chapter 23

Job's opening wish is procedural: 'Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!' The seat is the judgment seat, the raised place where a ruler or elder sat to hear cases. Job wants an address to file at. He says he would order his cause before him and fill his mouth with arguments — the language of a prepared litigant, not a rebel.

And then he says the thing that separates him from every accuser: he would not need to be overpowered. He would know the words God answered him with, and God would not plead against him with his great power but would put strength in him. Job trusts the judge more than he trusts the process.

The search that follows uses the four directions, the ancient way of saying everywhere: forward and he is not there, backward and he cannot perceive him, on the left where he works and cannot behold him, on the right where he hides himself. This is not a claim that God is absent; it is a claim that God will not be summoned.

'When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold' comes from metalworking. Ore was heated in a crucible until the impurities separated and could be skimmed, and refined gold was the standard image of something proved genuine by fire. Job's confidence is that a genuine test would clear him, and his terror is that God is not obliged to hold one.