Job 30:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Job had tremendous difficulty interpreting God’s silence towards him. We do not normally refuse to answer those we love especially when they cry to us in what they regard as their greatest hour of need. We fear to tax their trust too far and worry that we would damage their belief in us if we do not respond at such a time. Why then did God test his child, Job, beyond anything that human beings would dare to do? The answer is that God does not require any ordinary trust of his people. He requires a trust that can successfully counter all the lies of the enemy of souls and that is stronger than death, and such trust must be subject to the strongest test. He is no ordinary person and so no ordinary trust is required of him. Heaven and earth will pass away and yet we are still required to believe that his word will not pass away. And where such trust is required, there must be evidence that it is capable of doing what is required. God insists on a much stronger trust from his people than any human friend can reasonably ask for. For us to lose trust in a human friend, we have only to believe that the friend is capable of error of judgment, or suffers from forgetfulness, or is overcome by circumstances beyond their control, or has changed their mind, or after all is not trustworthy. But God can fail in none of these ways. When Job’s trust in God was put to the most extreme test, and when God refrained from answering him even though he was pressed beyond measure, Job had much stronger grounds for believing that God could not forsake him than he had for believing that any human friend would stick by him. He must set against all doubts and fears the omnipotence of God which could do anything, the infinite knowledge of God which could not be mistaken about anything, the faithfulness of God which will never abandon his child, and the unchanging nature of God which can never alter a single promise. It is reasonable that these things should be capable of a much stronger trial than any human loyalty could bear.The last part of the verse probably needs us to carry over the word ‘not’ from the first half of the verse: I stand up and you do not regard me.