31
📚“I made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I lustfully consider a maiden?2 📚For what does God apportion from above? And what is the inheritance the Almighty appoints from above?
3 📚Is it not destruction for the wicked, and disaster for evildoers?
4 📚Does he not see my ways and count all my steps?
31:1-4 This chapter closes Job’s defense against the accusations of his friends. Here he sets forth his righteous behavior, not in a spirit of boasting but because his friends have driven him to it. See note on vs 38-40. The situation is not unlike that of Paul’s who was forced by the church at Corinth to defend himself against the accusations of false teachers (2 Cor 11:21-29; 2 Cor 12:1-3. See also 1 Sam 12:1-3; 1 Sam 24:8-15; 26:17-24; Ps 17:1-5. Compare Ps 26).
Job knew that he shared in the fallen condition of all men (Job 13:26; 14:4, 16, 17; 31:33). Perhaps he did not yet have that deep understanding of the depravity of human nature that some other Old Testament saints had. But he lived (probably) before God gave His law through Moses, and the law gives men a deeper knowledge of sin (Rom 7:7-9). However that may be, Job well knew that he had lived a sincere, godly, and righteous life. He is not self-righteous but has the testimony of a good conscience (compare Acts 23:1; 24:16; 2 Cor 1:12). So in his eyes he did not deserve the calamities that came on him, and the doctrine of his friends concerning divine retribution was hopelessly wrong. In the list of his virtues Job puts this one first. Not only had he kept himself from adultery and fornication, he had resolutely determined not even to let wrong desires form in his mind. He was very careful in the way he looked at a girl. In this he anticipated the teaching of Christ in the sermon on the mount (Matt 5:27-28). He understood that morality and purity were not merely a matter of outward acts but of the inner thoughts and desires.⚜
31:4 The reason for his virtuous behavior was his knowledge of God. God was always in his thoughts (vs 2,4,14,15,23,28). He feared God, wanted to please God, honored God in every sphere of his life.⚜
5 📚“If I have walked in falsehood, or if my foot has hurried after deceit
6 📚(Let me be weighed in accurate scales, that God may know my integrity),
7 📚If my step has turned out of the way, and my heart has followed my eyes, and if any stain has stuck to my hands,
8 📚Then let me sow and someone else eat it, yes, let my crops be uprooted.
31:5-8 He has led a life of complete honesty and sincerity, always holding to God’s way of holiness and virtue. He was fully aware that God hates lying and deceit.⚜
9 📚“If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked near my neighbor’s door,
10 📚Then may my wife grind for someone else, and may others bow down over her.
11 📚For that would be a wicked deed, yes, iniquity for the judges to punish.
12 📚For that would be a fire that consumes to destruction 📖, that would uproot all my increase.
13 📚“If I have despised the claim of my male or female servant when they complained to me,
14 📚Then what would I do when God rises up? And when he confronts me, what would I answer him?
15 📚Did not he who made me in the womb, make him? Did not the same one form us in the womb?
16 📚“If I have held back from the poor what they desired, or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
17 📚Or have eaten my morsel alone, without the fatherless eating of it,
18 (But from my youth I brought him up like a father, and from my birth I guided the widow),
19 📚If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or any poor person without a covering,
20 📚If he had no reason to bless me, and if he was not warmed by the fleece from my sheep,
21 📚If I have raised my hand against the fatherless, when I saw support for this in the gate 📖,
22 📚Then let my arm fall from my shoulder, and my arm be broken at the joint.
23 📚For destruction from God terrified me, and because of his majesty I could not endure.
31:16-23 He has treated the poor with kindness and compassion – a virtue God regards very highly indeed (Ex 22:22-27; Deut 24:17; Ps 68:5; 82:1-4; Prov 23:10-11).⚜
24 📚“If I have made gold my hope, or said to fine gold, ‘You are my confidence’,
25 📚If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much,
26 📚If I looked at the shining sun or the moon moving in brightness,
27 📚And my heart was secretly enticed and my mouth kissed my hand in worship,
28 📚This also would be iniquity to be judged, for I would have denied God above.
29 📚“If I rejoiced at the destruction of one who hated me, or exulted when disaster found him
30 📚(But I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against his soul),
31:29-30 He has not allowed the spirit of vengeance to possess him (Prov 20:22; 24:29; 25:21; Rom 12:19-21).⚜
31 📚If the men of my tent have not said, ‘Who is there of us who has not been satisfied with Job’s meat?’
32 📚(The stranger never had to spend the night in the street, for I opened my door to the traveller),
33 📚If I have covered my transgressions like Adam 📖, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom,
34 📚Because I feared the great multitude, or dreaded the contempt of families, so that I kept silent and did not go out the door
31:33-34 When he sinned he did not try to cover it up but confessed and forsook it. Observe that he does not deny he has sinned. He realized that true virtue is not merely what one does or does not do when others are watching, but what one does or does not do when only God is watching. Compare Ps 90:8; 139:23-24; Matt 6:6, 18; John 3:20-21; Eph 5:8-14; Heb 4:13.⚜
35 📚“(Oh, that someone would hear me! See, my desire 📖 is that the Almighty would answer me, and that my adversary would write down the indictment in a book!
36 📚Surely I would carry it around on my shoulder, and fasten it on me like a crown.
37 📚I would give him an account of all my steps. I would approach him like a prince),
31:35-37 Job longs for a hearing before God’s judgment seat (Job 13:3, 15, 18; 16:19; 23:3-5; 24:1). He has prepared his defense. He has declared the righteous life he has lived before God and men. He desperately wants to know what God has against him. If God would write out His complaint against him Job says he would wear it like a crown where all could see it. That is, he is quite sure that God has no serious accusations to make against him. He thinks he can give even to God a good account of his whole life, could approach God with the firm, bold step of a prince. So certain is Job of his integrity.⚜
38 📚“If my land cries out against me, or if its furrows complain,
39 📚If I have eaten its produce without cost to me, or caused its owners to lose their lives,
40 📚May thistles grow up instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley!” The words of Job are ended.
31:38-40 Job has an afterthought. There is one aspect of his righteousness he hasn’t mentioned – the proper way he had treated his land and those who worked for him. If he has behaved unjustly let a curse come on his land, he says. (See also vs 8,10,22.) At last he has no more to say. In legal terms, we would say the defense rests its case.
What should we think of Job’s defense? We do not like to hear an individual telling us how good and righteous he is. Some people are quite eager for men to know their good deeds, and describe them even to God (Matt 6:2; Luke 18:9-12). So when a person speaks of his righteous life we tend to suspect that he is either ignorant of himself or is covering up some sin or is proud and boastful. But in Job’s case this was not so.
Job and his friends are having a deep theological discussion which involved an important doctrine, and this discussion turns on the matter of Job’s guilt or innocence. If his life style did not merit the calamities which came on him, then the doctrine of his friends was in error. This is what Job is attempting to prove. For the sake of the truth he felt compelled to describe his righteous life as it was. And we know he did not paint a false picture, did not exaggerate his virtues.
God Himself said Job was the best man on earth in his generation (Job 2:3. See also Ezek 14:14). So his life is a beautiful example to all of us. If we wish to have God’s approval as he did, let us live as he did. But was Job not self-righteous? Verses like Job 7:20, 21 and Job 10:15 suggest otherwise. Self-righteousness is something that cleaves very naturally to man’s fallen nature, and it would not be surprising if there were some taint of it in Job. For Job had a sinful nature as all men have. But if Job was much given to self-righteousness it is hard to understand God’s unqualified approval of him in Job 1:8; 2:3 (in Job 2:3 one of the things for which God praises Job was that he maintained his integrity in spite of all that Satan had done against him).
Surely God hates self-righteousness more than we ever can. So we may judge that if Job was guilty of it he was probably less guilty of it than anyone else in his generation. And it certainly was not a dominating force in his life. And, it seems to the author of these notes, that even if there was a taint of self-righteousness in Job’s character, it is in no way central to the teaching of the book of Job.⚜