Job 9:1-35

Job's Second Speech (Job 9:10)

Job 9:10 are, perhaps, in their religious and moral aspects the most difficult in the book.

Driver in his 'Introduction to the Literature of the OT.' analyses them as follows:—'Job as well as his friends believes suffering to be a mark of God's displeasure for some grave sin. Job, however, is conscious that he has not so sinned. Hence the terrible dilemma in which he finds himself and which forces him to the conclusion that God, though He knows him to be innocent (Job 10:7), is determined to treat him as guilty, and that it is hopeless for him to attempt to clear himself.' Davidson characterises the leading features of the speech as 'awe before an Omnipotent Power, and moral terror and indignation, mixed with piteous despair at the indiscriminate severity with which it crushes men!' The strange blending of conflicting emotions is one of the most striking features in this and some other of Job's speeches. With great skill and psychological insight the poet has shown us the rebellion which, springing from God's apparent cruelty, gives place for the moment to a softened mood as the sufferer recalls his former life in God's favour. Then this, in turn, is brushed aside to make way for a darker accusation than ever; God had deliberately led him on to believe in His love that He might make all the bitterer the revelation of His hate. Then the mood changes once more and he appeals to the pity of that God, whose pitilessness he has just asserted.

2-13. Job admits that it is impossible for him to maintain his righteousness before God. But this he implies is not due to his consciousness of guilt, but to the hopelessness of attempting to defend himself against God's irresistible power which is manifested throughout creation.