Job 13:27 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Job 13:27

Comments

Job felt that he was imprisoned by his circumstances. He was like one whose feet had been put in the stocks so that he was exposed to ridicule and shame by all who saw him. He was unable to escape from his circumstances but held fast by suffering and forced to go through many torments. God scrutinised him in a way that seemed unreasonable, for Job knew that he was unable to live up to the standard of one who is perfect in all his ways. Satan had succeeded in creating this great amount of suspicion in Job’s mind towards God and had divided Job from his God by these fears so that he saw the Lord as one who was against him. The last phrase is difficult, literally, ‘On the roots of my feet, you engraved [carved, cut in or set a print].’ The roots of the feet are the bottom of the feet and so the soles of the feet. Some suggest that it means to dig a trench around the feet to prevent escape; others that a boundary line was, as it were, set around the feet. Perhaps the best interpretation is that it was as if a brand had been placed on Job’s sole so that every step could be tracked, a practice used on slaves to prevent their escape. Was he right in this assessment? No, God loved him as the beginning of the book tells us, nevertheless Satan had been allowed to misrepresent God’s intentions towards him and Job was to struggle with this misrepresentation. All he had to hold on to was the word of God given to his soul in earlier times, a word which God could not take back, containing promises which would not be revoked.

Application

The human condition is universal and inescapable. All are subject to the curse; it holds them in an ever-tightening grip. Its effect is irreversible and acts progressively throughout life. At the end is the corruption of death and even before we reach that point, death’s cold hand starts to touch us. The curse which God has designed does not leave us intact until the very last second and then strike unexpectedly, but it eats away at us almost from the moment we are born. Certainly once our prime is past, all is downhill: strength begins to fail, hair thins and turns to grey, stiffness affects the joints, the face becomes lined, health is uncertain, memory is less reliable, and sight and hearing fade. We are in the grip of a relentless process which ends in the corruption of the grave. We are like a garment that is no longer respectable and cannot be worn because it has been eaten by moths. Once it was a prize possession; now it is an object of shame.

Those who do not recognise this but live as if they are immortal find the change all the more painful when it comes. Better to recognise it early, since God has placed us in this position to teach us a vital lesson. To deliberately ignore mortality is to come totally unprepared for death. It is the great trial for which we must spend life preparing; it is the most real event that we face. What does not measure up to death does not measure up to anything.

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Job 13:27 Commentary and Bible Study