Lay Down My Pride: Knowing Our Place (Job 31:35-40)
Dear response requester,
We all want answers. I hope we ask for them through prayers.
However, let’s not be demanding. Let’s accept that only God can be all-knowing.
Read how Job longed for an explanation of his calamity, how
he desired a reply from the Almighty.
Job 31:35-40 (NASB)
35 Oh that
I had one to hear me!
Here is my signature;
Let the Almighty
answer me!
And the indictment
which my adversary has written,
36 I would
certainly carry it on my shoulder,
I would tie it to
myself like a garland.
37 I would
declare to Him the number of my steps;
Like a prince, I
would approach Him.
38 “If my
land cries out against me,
And its furrows weep
together;
39 If I
have eaten its fruit without money,
Or have caused its
owners to lose their lives,
40 May the
thorn-bush grow instead of wheat,
And stinkweed instead
of barley.”
The words of Job are
ended.
This is the final chapter of Job’s speech with his friends.
Our passage here starts with Job wishing that he is heard and that he’ll be
answered by God. What answers does he want? Read his questions from my previous
epistle in the link below:
https://therhymingepistles.blogspot.com/2021/06/hold-my-heart-letting-it-all-out-to-god.html
The King James Version’s verse 35 doesn’t mention anything about a signature. What it says instead is “behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me”, so I had to look up the Hebrew text. The image below is a snipped shot of the verse from the Hebrew Interlinear Bible of Scripture4All.org.
According to the New Bible Commentary edited by Carson et
al. (1994), this is how Job ends his “oath of innocence by saying, I sign now,
as if it were a written document.” The chapter is his final defense of his
character. He said if he wasn’t honest, then he’ll accept if another reaps what
he sowed (vv. 5-8). If he lusted after another woman, let his wife have
relations with other men (vv. 9-10). If he was inconsiderate of his servants,
he can’t defend himself (vv. 13-14). If he didn’t provide for the needy (vv.
16-20, 31-32), if he mistreated the orphan (v.21), if he worshipped idols (vv.
24-27), if he cursed his enemy (vv. 29-30), or if he wronged his land (vv.
38-39), then he’ll willingly welcome any calamity as a consequence.
Verse 35 also states that he wishes to read his indictment.
An indictment is “a formal written statement framed by a prosecuting authority
and found by a jury (such as a grand jury) charging a person with an offense”
(Merriam-Webster). In the next verse, Job declares he would wear it proudly.
The commentary says he was confident that it would prove his innocence.
Until the end of his speeches, Job maintains his
uprightness. However, he lost sight of one thing. His perspective got warped
because he was so down. He didn’t see his place in front of God. He will be
reproached for that by Elihu and by God Himself. Job focused on getting the answer to
his question “Why?” when he should be asking “Who?” Pastor Sandy Adams (Job 13)
said, “When you know who, suddenly you don’t need to know why.” Who is it that
made these things happen? Who allowed it? Who is in control? Who do you run to
for help? Who do you put your hope and trust in? It’s God. Who is Job that he
should be answered by God, that God should defend His ways to him? His friends
tried to defend God, but they did it wrongly. I guess that’s why Job wanted a
direct conversation with God.
Where Job erred was when he wants God to explain to him as
if God owes him that. It’s as if God has wronged him. I blame his friends
because they tell him he’s being punished for sinning. To them, it’s “either
God is unjust or Job has sinned”, and they didn’t accept the former, so they
insisted on the latter (Adams, Job 8). Because Job knows he was blameless, he
considered the former. He even said in Job 19:6 that God has wronged him. In
Job’s sad mind, he was right and God was wrong, so he deserved an answer. Here,
we see his pride. He was just being honest with his emotions, but he still
thought of himself highly that he dare demanded to debate with God.
Job was willing to accept the penalty if he committed sin though. In
verse 40, he calls for thorns and weeds to grow in his land if he had aggrieved
its owners, but this chapter is about the things he didn’t do. If he did, he
would have pointed it out as the reason for his misery and repented.
The moral I’d like to enter
your heart is not to be so proud that you forget who your life’s about. It’s
not you; it’s God. You live for Him. He doesn’t answer to you like you’re the
master and He’s the genie. Let’s lay down whatever amount of pride we have and
look at life with our sight set on God having His way in it. Spoiler alert: God
did give Job His answer and it’s one that humbles Job. I did mention above that
he'll be reproached. In the next chapters, Elihu does it to him, too. Elihu
does it first, and then God.
If there’s one thing
we could boast about, it’s Christ’s praise we should shout. No one can match
His love, for only He’s the God made flesh from heaven above. Only He is
sinless. Only He can sanctify our blemishes. Let’s be proud of Him that our
vision won’t dim. Looking at our own strengths will just fail us. The possibilities are endless with Jesus.
Adams, S. (n.d.). Job 13. Job | Making Sense of Suffering. Westminster, California, United
States of America: Through the Word.
Adams, S. (n.d.). Job 8. Job | Making Sense of Suffering. Westminster, California, United
States of America: Through the Word.
Carson, D. A., France, R. T., Motyer, J. A., & Wenham,
G. J. (1994). New Bible Commentary: 21st
Century Edition. Inter-Varsity Press.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Indictment. Retrieved from Merriam-Webster.com: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indictment
Next: You Are the One: God is God (Job 38:1-11)
Previous: Unpredictable: No One Can Calculate God (Job 23:8-17)
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