Wisdom · Chapter 9 of 42

Job 9

Job agrees that no one can be just before God, but for a devastating reason: God is so mighty and unsearchable that no mortal could ever win an argument with him. God moves mountains, commands the stars, and cannot be summoned to court. Even if Job were innocent, God's overwhelming power would make him seem guilty. He longs for a daysman, an umpire, to mediate between them, but finds none.

What happens in Job 9

Job takes up Bildad's question, how can a man be just with God, and gives it a tragic twist. He agrees no one can, but not because all are simply guilty. Rather, God is so wise and mighty that if he chose to contend, no one could answer him one time in a thousand. Job piles up images of unstoppable power: God removes mountains, shakes the earth, commands the sun not to rise, seals up the stars, spreads out the heavens, and made the constellations.

Such a God passes by and takes away without anyone daring to ask what he does. Job feels crushed: even if righteous, he could not answer, only beg mercy from his judge. Since God is not a man he can meet in court, Job cries out for a daysman, an arbiter who might lay his hand on them both and remove the divine terror. But he concludes there is no such mediator.

Job 9 in context

This chapter reaches one of the book's deepest cries. Job is not disputing God's justice in theory but confronting the impossibility of a lawsuit between a mortal and the Almighty. The legal imagery of court, judgment, and pleading runs throughout. His longing for a daysman, an umpire who could stand between God and man and lay a hand on both, is one of the Old Testament's most poignant reaches toward a mediator.

Job feels the infinite distance between himself and God and aches for someone to bridge it.

Main themes of Job 9

Job 9 (KJV)

1Then Job answered and said, 2I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God? 3If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. 4He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? 5Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger. 6Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. 7Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars. 8Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. 9Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. 10Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number. 11Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not: he passeth on also, but I perceive him not. 12Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou? 13If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him. 14How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with him? 15Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge. 16If I had called, and he had answered me; yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice. 17For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause. 18He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness. 19If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong: and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead? 20If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. 21Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life. 22This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. 23If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. 24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he? 25Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good. 26They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey. 27If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself: 28I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent. 29If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain? 30If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; 31Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. 32For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. 33Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. 34Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me: 35Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

Verses to carry from Job 9

“I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?”Job 9:2

“For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.”Job 9:32

“Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.”Job 9:33

Reflection

Job stood before a God too great to argue with and cried out for someone to bridge the gap. That someone has come. When you feel the distance between your smallness and God's majesty, you are not left to shout across it alone. Christ is the daysman Job longed for, laying one hand on God and one on you, and removing the terror between.

A prayer from Job 9