Job 9:1

It is not quite easy to see what form of the maxim of the friends it is to which Job gives his sneering assent in this verse, when he says, To be sure I know that it is so. In Job 9:10 he quotes words from Eliphaz, ch. Job 5:9, verbatim, and he may refer to the form in which this speaker put forward the principle common to them all, Shall man be righteous before God? ch. Job 4:17. In this case the second member of the verse merely explains the words that it is so,

Of a truth I know that it is so:

How shall man be righteous with God?

Job, however, gives a different turn to the words, meaning by them, How shall man substantiate his righteousness, and make it to appear, when he has to maintain it in the face of the overpowering might of God? (Job 9:3). Or, Job may attach his reply to Bildad's question, Will God pervert right? (ch. Job 8:3). To which he replies: Of course but how shall man have right with God? God's power makes right. Job does not quibble with words. He speaks from the point of view of his own circumstances and the construction which he put on them. His afflictions were proof that God held him guilty, while his own conscience declared his innocence. But he was helpless against God's judgment of him. In the view of his friends and all men, and even himself, his afflictions were God's verdict against him. And his answer is that man must be guilty before God because he cannot contend with an omnipotent power resolved to hold him guilty.