Job 42:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 42:4

Comments

Job is now afraid of his own mouth and wants to keep his words before God to a bare minimum, in fact not to speak at all. He breaks his silence, which is the part of a new found wisdom, but only long enough to condemn himself and to assure the Lord that he intends from now on to stop all further complaints and to listen humbly to what God has to say. He is ready to be taught by his Creator and is convinced that God has profound lessons for him, even though they come through those sufferings which had caused him to chafe so much against the Lord’s government. ‘I admit’, says Job, ‘that I have been hasty, and you have rightly put me on the spot by questioning me, and you have exposed my utter folly so that I have no adequate answer to give you. You are righteous and I am sinful; you are wise and I am foolish; I have nothing further to say or questions to ask.’

Application

Job now pleads so humbly: ‘Hear me when I come.’ he is only daring to address the Lord because he has invited him.’ None of us has any right to stand before the holy God. How dare any of us stand before God, the pure and holy God? You are like a member of a rebel army; you have murdered the king’s people, and now you go to capital and say, ‘By the way, I want to be forgiven.’ We cannot just come on our own merits; we will not be received; we have forfeited any right to come. We need some ground on which to come. We need the righteousness of God. Whenever we come we remember Christ our Saviour. The mercy of God and work of Christ and his authority is the ground of our coming.

Questions

The NKJ treats the second half of the verse as the Lord’s words quoted back to him by Job. This is plausible even though other versions translate these as the words of Job, because the force expressed by the words would be inappropriate coming from Job given his new state of mind, because they are very close in Hebrew to words just spoken by the Lord in Job 38:3 and 40:7 and it would be s further instance (as in 42:3) of Job exposing the full extent of his guilt, and because in the next two verses, far from having further demands to make of God or questions to ask, he admits that following the Lord’s glorious appearance he has nothing to say, and confesses his ignorance and repents in shame.

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Purpose

Introduction

Job 42:4 Commentary and Bible Study