Job 16:20 Commentary and Bible Study

He cries out for vindication. We see a whole bundle of jangling emotions in him. His mind comes to the worst conclusion on everything. He cries out: ‘Don’t let death come. I must have a response from God.’So then, on one side was all the sorrow associated with the unkindness and rejection of his friends; on the other side was his undying but struggling hope that God would arise to help him. As Barnes says, in spite of the fact that he at times uttered unworthy things under the extreme pressure of his suffering, he showed himself to be a man who was true at heart for like a compass he always returned to right feelings and views, showing him to have an unwavering confidence in God. Verse 21 starts a new thought: ‘O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!’ He wants a friend who will pray for him, one who will take his side, understand his pain, and sympathise with him. This is not necessarily a reference to a divine Saviour; though Christ is the perfect Mediator between God and man and Job would have rejoiced to receive more light about Christ’s mediatorial work and all that is involved in it. But he feels so alone in his battle, and it is such great comfort to have someone who is with us, someone who is committed to righteousness, someone who loves God’s standards but who also loves the saints, someone who has greater skill than we do to argue our case, someone who is not overawed into dumb silence by the presence of God. Christ is the perfect Mediator, but every pastor should be a mediator in that we can find in such a person a friend on earth who will take the affairs of our soul seriously and pray with us. Job longed for an advocate, one who would take his side and defend his cause with God. He knew that it was to God that he must eventually come to; his case must be approved or disapproved by the Almighty, but he felt inadequate to argue in his case before the Lord. He needed a mediator who was up to the task of defending him before the Lord, and in his mind he modelled this advocate on the sort of advocate that appears in human courts to argue in a legal dispute. But what would this advocate plead? Would he plead the innocence of Job before God? That would be hopeless, for Job had already admitted that no man can be righteous before God (9:2). Job needed a faithful advocate who, without writing him off as a hypocrite as the comforters did, was not afraid to correct him where he was in error. But Job was not without fault in the way he asked for this. He was too confident that he had a case to make in his own defence, and that he was being treated unfairly. That does not mean that he approached God on the basis of his own merits; it only means that he felt he was being treated as a man without integrity. He wanted an advocate who would make this clear. But Christ is appointed for us as an advocate who pleads only his own merits, and not ours at all.He stresses the urgency of these things because time is short. He feels himself being hurried on towards the grave and believes that he must plead his cause during his earthly life since the state of the dead is fixed and cannot be changed. He will not have a further opportunity to appeal to the Lord’s mercy once he is removed from earth for there is no coming back into this mortal world again after death, therefore he calls it the way of no return.