Job 23:6 Commentary and Bible Study

Job wanted to be totally open with the Lord and hide nothing. He wanted to come to the one who put life within him, because he was sure that it was safe to deliver the whole matter into God’s hand. He could rely on God to do what he could not do for himself and take into account every factor, act as the perfect teacher and apportion all with the measure of mercy. Yes, God had such great power that he could crush Job on a moment and make it impossible for his servant to answer him a word. He could overpower Job in an instant and simply contend with a mortal man who could not answer him one question in a thousand. Whoever thinks they can stand against the Lord in a contest by their native power, does not have the slightest inkling of either what they are or what the Lord is. Yet some foolishly boast of what they will say to God and imagine that he will be obliged to listen to them. His very presence is enough to make human beings fall down as dead before him. But Job asks God to strengthen him so that he can present his case. He is confident that the Lord will not simply desist from overpowering him, but be gracious towards him. He will recognise the frailty of the creature he has made knowing our weakness, ‘For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust’ (Psalm 103:14). Job requests to be given an opportunity to pose all his unanswered questions, and make a full defence of himself, and he imagines that he would want to do so. In his imagination God would listen to him and acknowledge that his servant was suffering disproportionately and would take steps to change his circumstances. In saying this Job has great confidence in the reasonableness of the Lord and his willingness to listen. This is right. But he really does not understand the true nature of the Lord’s glory and his own inability to dialogue with God, and the prediction that he makes of what would happen is highly unrealistic. What in fact occurs in the final chapters of the book is so different to what he imagines here, because the Lord is sublime beyond Job’s understanding and cannot be approached as Job thinks. His wisdom is so great that none have anything of any substance to say in his presence. How can the Lord not already know all things? How can anything that his creature says to him convince him that he has been taken the wrong path? This was, after all, what lay at the bottom of Job’s protest. He would convince the Lord that he had not treated him in a right way and must alter his government. What he needed was a very different approach to prayer, which starts by accepting that God can do no wrong, can never be mistaken, always works in the best interests of his people whether they understand it or not. It asks for God to answer in a way that is consistent with his own perfect character.Job felt that he must meet God face to face before the Lord would start to act in a way that made sense to him. But, is the Lord one being when he is before us face to face and another being when he is working secretly beyond our sight? Certainly not! The believer must trust God even when he cannot see what he is doing.