Yes, I know all this is true in principle.
    But how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight?
If someone wanted to take God to court,^[a]
    would it be possible to answer him even once in a thousand times?
For God is so wise and so mighty.
    Who has ever challenged him successfully? (Job 9:2-4)

My first question, when I read Job’s response to Bildad, is how does this differ from what Eliphaz just said? Didn’t Eliphaz say he received this vision – “Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can a mortal be pure in his sight?” (Job 5:17) Isn’t that exactly what Job says too – how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight? How is this different?

This is one of those places where translation across language, time, and culture muddies the meaning, I think. Eliphaz’s main argument, if we look at the rest of the passage, was that everybody messes up and Job, too, must have sinned and either not know it or be lying about it. He is talking about measurement – no one can quite fill that scale of goodness required by God. If we read on into chapters 9 and 10, though, we see Job’s words in an entirely different context: a court room, and on one side is Job, on the other, God. Job’s friends have suggested he approach God and present his grievance because God will surely be reasonable and absolve him, so Job is envisioning himself taking God to trial.

If Job himself sinned accidentally, as Eliphaz suggests, God will forgive him, heal him, bind his wounds. If Job’s children had been at fault, as Bildad suggests, God will surely see Job’s innocence and make restitution – he will compensate Job for his loss by replacing what he previously had with something of even better quality. Both are based in the assumption that God’s justice looks just like and agrees with ours and therefore a fault lies somewhere within the humans involved.

But Job continues to argue that God knows there is no discernible human fault, and therefore there is no point in trying to change God’s mind. When he asks how he can be declared innocent – he’s asking how it would help if he were acquitted and exonerated by the same God who has already seen his innocence and allowed him to suffer all the same. God’s justice, he argues, must look different than ours.

If it’s a question of strength, he’s the strong one.
    If it’s a matter of justice, who dares to summon him^[c] to court?
Though I am innocent, my own mouth would pronounce me guilty.
    Though I am blameless, it^[d] would prove me wicked.

Job’s faith in God’s omnipotence and sovereignty has led him to determine there is absolutely no sense in contradicting God. Job feels very strongly in the injustice of what he’s suffering, but he knows that his God is the very standard of justice, the ruler by which all rightness is measured, so if he argues with God, he’ll always be wrong. Just because Job doesn’t like it and doesn’t agree with the standard due to the pain it has caused him doesn’t mean God is going to change to accommodate him – the universe does not bow Job’s preferences, desires, and whims, but God’s. No matter what I do, Job says, I’m wrong. I can’t win. There’s no point.

If I decided to forget my complaints,
    to put away my sad face and be cheerful,
I would still dread all the pain,
    for I know you will not find me innocent, O God.
Whatever happens, I will be found guilty.
    So what’s the use of trying? (Job 9:27-29)

Do you feel the lament in his words? How desperately Job wanted his friends to be right – how desperately he wanted his efforts to have meant something! He worked hard for what he had. And he had it. He had it! He had what he wanted, what he felt he deserved! And it was yanked from his blistering hands. Even if he listened to them now, he says, it would never be the same. He would always be waiting to lose it again the same way.

His friends just want him to cheer up, old chap! and be done with it, I think because it makes them uncomfortable to see him in pain, and despite the years that have passed between us, this human condition has not changed. Thou shalt not make others suffer just because thou art suffering. Don’t rain on our parade. How could you be so selfish to spoil our fun with your misery? How we fake a cheerful face even while our insides shudder! This, we are conditioned, is what others want from us. This, we are conditioned, is only common curtesy. In our modern world, we’ve taken it so far we’ve created something the world is now calling “toxic positivity,” the complete and utter denial and stuffing of pain of any kind in the name of “staying positive.” But Job fails to see how fake cheerfulness would fix his very real pain.

Even if I were to wash myself with soap
    and clean my hands with lye,
you would plunge me into a muddy ditch,
    and my own filthy clothing would hate me. (Job 9:30-31)

I think we can sum up Job’s argument in chapter 9 in this one word: powerless. He is trying to explain to his friends how very powerless he has recently discovered himself to be. They are doing their best to convince him he is not powerless, that he has his integrity and his reputation and that counts for something, but their arguments hold no sway over Job because he knows that his power is simply a far cry from enough. “It will never happen to you” is an empty consolation to the one who has already suffered the tragedy. “It will never happen again” is equally empty, a mirage that has already vanished.

And in this moment – “what’s the use of trying?” – it seems like the Accuser may just win the point after all. Remember, his hypothesis was that without the incentive, even Job would see no reason to be good. “He will surely curse you to your face,” he taunted God. You are nothing to him but a wallet.

Which brings us to another chance for our hero to fall. It’s a compelling one. Once again, he’s given a choice, and it looks like he’s leaning hard the wrong way. If there is no use in trying, if he gives up and finally curses God, the Accuser wins. On bated breath, all of heaven watches Job say –

God is not a mortal like me,
    so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial.
If only there were a mediator between us,
    someone who could bring us together.
The mediator could make God stop beating me,
    and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment.
Then I could speak to him without fear,
    but I cannot do that in my own strength. (Job 9:32-35)

“I wish there was a Jesus.”

I intended when I started this post to combine chapters 9 and 10. Job isn’t finished with his turn to talk. But looking at those words has brought me to a full stop: “I wish there was a Jesus.” Look at them again. If only. Again. Again. At the very moment Job’s “feet were slipping, and [he] was almost gone” as Asaph would say (Psalm 73:2), he cried out for a Savior. He cried out for exactly THE Savior – that God had already planned.

I knew this story was important.

A few extra footnotes in case you’re wondering how I got there…

A mediator:

But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6)

To bring him together, or reconcile him, with God:

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

So that he would no longer live in terror of his punishment:

All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) (Ephesians 2:3-5)

And he could talk to God without fear:

So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. (Hebrews 4:14-16)