Job 29:25 Commentary and Bible Study

‘I chose their way’, meaning not that Job chose to go the way they had gone, but that he made a choice for them of the way that they should go, and they took it. He did this by the counsel he gave which they saw could not be improved on. They came to him with their questions and problems, and they went away convinced that he had given them the best possible advice. He therefore sat as chief among them, for though they were free men and not under his rule, in taking his advice so readily they treated him like one who had authority over them and whom they were obliged to obey, though this was not strictly the case. He was like a king among his army saying, do this, do that, and they immediately carried out his orders, but in reality they were free from him. He became the heart and soul of the whole community, so that it turned to him not only for direction but for comfort when things went wrong; he became like a father to them all. This role was greatly to Job’s credit. It portrays him as a man of compassion whose heart was great enough to care for all he came into contact with, and truly to love his neighbour as himself. The problem was that he should not have been drawing attention to these things himself but should have let others do so. It is true that the reason that he commended himself was that no one else was going to do it because as far as he knew all had turned against him. The sustained attack he had come under therefore compelled him to come to his own defence. In summing up this chapter Barnes says, ‘It may seem, perhaps, that in this chapter there is a degree of self-commendation and praise altogether inconsistent with that consciousness and deep unworthiness which a truly pious man should have.’ Barnes offers the following mitigation for Job: 1. He was vindicating himself from charges of enormous guilt and hypocrisy. 2. It was the main object of Job to show the greatness of his distress and misery, and for this purpose he went into an extended statement of his former happiness, and especially of the respect that had been shown him. 3. He does not speak of himself as having any merit, or as relying on this for salvation. He distinctly traces it all to God. 4. Few men have ever lived to whom this description would be applicable. It must have required uncommon and very remarkable worth to have made it proper for him thus to speak, and to be able to say all this so as not to be exposed to contradiction.Nevertheless we must remember that Job came to regret these words and to wish that he had not uttered them. When, later, God speaks to him, he comes to see his own words in another light. While the Lord is not present with him, he is bold to forecast what he would say if he were to have an audience with God, but when he actually comes into the presence of the Lord it is a different matter. Then, rather than insisting on making all the same speeches again, he regards them as sin that needs to be repented of. He says, ‘I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. ³ Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. ⁴ Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. ⁵ I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. ⁶ Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:2-6).He must then have regretted giving this speech which was part of the case he made in protesting the unfairness of God’s treatment of him. It is also very different from the way that the apostle Paul handled himself who could say, ‘For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: ⁹ But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: ¹⁰ Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us’ (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).