Job 31:33-40

(33) В¶ If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom: (34) Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, and went not out of the door? (35) Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book. (36) Surely I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me. (37) I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him. (38) If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain; (39) If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life: (40) Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.

This close of the chapter is very striking, and merits more particular attention. From man, Job appeals to GOD. Now this brings the matter to a decision. Job's friends had accused him of hypocrisy. Then saith Job, let the Almighty Searcher of hearts determine it. I beg the Reader to be particularly attentive, to have a clear sense of Job's meaning. Let not the Reader suppose that Job, in this appeal, was looking up to GOD'S judgment seat, as one unconscious of sin. The opposite from this was Job's meaning. It was the sin of hypocrisy only he dared justify himself against the charge of. He had not covered, he saith, his transgressions, as his forefather Adam had done, seeking to hide himself from the presence of the LORD, amidst the trees of the garden. But he had told GOD his sins, and opened to him, in a full confession, his iniquity.

Yet at the same time, against what his three friends had observed, that his afflictions were the fruit of his hypocrisy, and GOD was now punishing him for that, here Job put in his appeal, and, in this point, desired to look up to GOD. If the Reader will compare this passage with that which we have before gone over, chap. 9:20, 21, he will be led to see, that it is in this sense the Patriarch all along is making his appeal to the justice of GOD. In no other light can we possibly look at the case, for the infinite holiness, and the infinite majesty of GOD, make it a solemn concern for any of the fallen race of Adam, even though brought into a state of justification through the blood and righteousness of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, to come before the LORD, and much less to make an appeal to the tribunal of his justice. And Job having thus given in his defense, declares his discourse to be ended.