Reflections on Job 9

 Job 09 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Job said:
2. What you say is true. No human is innocent in the sight of God.
3. Not once in a thousand times could we win our case if we took him to court.
4. God is wise and powerful-- who could possibly oppose him and win?
5. When God becomes angry, he can move mountains before they even know it.
6. God can shake the earth loose from its foundations
7. or command the sun and stars to hold back their light.
8. God alone stretched out the sky, stepped on the sea,
9. and set the stars in place-- the Big Dipper and Orion, the Pleiades and the stars in the southern sky.
10. Of all the miracles God works, we cannot understand a one.
11. God walks right past me, without making a sound.
12. And if he grabs something, who can stop him or raise a question?
13. When God showed his anger, the servants of the sea monster fell at his feet.
14. How, then, could I possibly argue my case with God?
15. Even though I am innocent, I can only beg for mercy.
16. And if God came into court when I called him, he would not hear my case.
17. He would strike me with a storm and increase my injuries for no reason at all.
18. Before I could get my breath, my miseries would multiply.
19. God is much stronger than I am, and who would call me into court to give me justice?
20. Even if I were innocent, God would prove me wrong.
21. I am not guilty, but I no longer care what happens to me.
22. What difference does it make? God destroys the innocent along with the guilty.
23. When a good person dies a sudden death, God sits back and laughs.
24. And who else but God blindfolds the judges, then lets the wicked take over the earth?
25. My life is speeding by, without a hope of happiness.
26. Each day passes swifter than a sailing ship or an eagle swooping down.
27. Sometimes I try to be cheerful and to stop complaining,
28. but my sufferings frighten me, because I know that God still considers me guilty.
29. So what's the use of trying to prove my innocence?
30. Even if I washed myself with the strongest soap,
31. God would throw me into a pit of stinking slime, leaving me disgusting to my clothes.
32. God isn't a mere human like me. I can't put him on trial.
33. Who could possibly judge between the two of us?
34. Can someone snatch away the stick God carries to frighten me?
35. Then I could speak up without fear of him, but for now, I cannot speak.

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Though Job agreed in his reply to Bildad that the wicked perish, he maintained his own innocence. But what good was his innocence when there was no way for him to defend himself against God? God is wise and all-powerful. "Who has opposed Him and come out unharmed?" (9:4)

Though Job had no doubts about God's existence or His might, he was not convinced, at least after his losses, of God's justice. God, he said, "destroys both the blameless and the wicked." (9:22) He went so far as to say that God "mocks the despair of the innocent," and hands the earth over to the wicked. Did he really believe this, or was it his grief speaking? He had felt before his losses that God accepted his sin offerings. But following his losses God didn't seem too just.

Job felt mistreated by God and saw no reason to keep quiet about it. If he were to forget his complaint and put on a smile as if everything between him and God were okay, he would still live in fear of what God would do to him next. What was the use in pretending he had no complaint against God as if God might treat him better, God would find him guilty. Even if he were to clean himself up on the outside to depict his inward purity, God would still, "dip me in a pit of mud." (9:31)

Job needed someone who could mediate between himself and God, but he had no one. He was on is own. We have Jesus to mediate for us, but he did not. His plight seemed hopeless.