Daily Devotional Sunday 29th August 2021
by William Moody
Job 13
Job Continues: Still I Will Hope in God
13:1 “Behold, my eye has seen all this,
my ear has heard and understood it.
2 What you know, I also know;
I am not inferior to you.
3 But I would speak to the Almighty,
and I desire to argue my case with God.
4 As for you, you whitewash with lies;
worthless physicians are you all.
5 Oh that you would keep silent,
and it would be your wisdom!
6 Hear now my argument
and listen to the pleadings of my lips.
7 Will you speak falsely for God
and speak deceitfully for him?
8 Will you show partiality toward him?
Will you plead the case for God?
9 Will it be well with you when he searches you out?
Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?
10 He will surely rebuke you
if in secret you show partiality.
11 Will not his majesty terrify you,
and the dread of him fall upon you?
12 Your maxims are proverbs of ashes;
your defenses are defenses of clay.
13 “Let me have silence, and I will speak,
and let come on me what may.
14 Why should I take my flesh in my teeth
and put my life in my hand?
15 Though he slay me, I will hope in him;1
yet I will argue my ways to his face.
16 This will be my salvation,
that the godless shall not come before him.
17 Keep listening to my words,
and let my declaration be in your ears.
18 Behold, I have prepared my case;
I know that I shall be in the right.
19 Who is there who will contend with me?
For then I would be silent and die.
20 Only grant me two things,
then I will not hide myself from your face:
21 withdraw your hand far from me,
and let not dread of you terrify me.
22 Then call, and I will answer;
or let me speak, and you reply to me.
23 How many are my iniquities and my sins?
Make me know my transgression and my sin.
24 Why do you hide your face
and count me as your enemy?
25 Will you frighten a driven leaf
and pursue dry chaff?
26 For you write bitter things against me
and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.
27 You put my feet in the stocks
and watch all my paths;
you set a limit for2 the soles of my feet.
28 Man3 wastes away like a rotten thing,
like a garment that is moth-eaten.Footnotes
[1] 13:15
Or Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope
[2] 13:27Or you marked
[3] 13:28Hebrew He (ESV)
As Job continues his response to his friends he challenges them. He attacks their sense of being superior to him (v2). Job still speaks of his hope in going to the Lord directly (v3). He accuses his friends of speaking falsely as they seek to defend the Lord and that God will search them out (v4-12).
Job is echoing what Jesus would say when he said for people to take the beam out of their own eye before they would take the speck out of others.
Job continues to have confidence in the Lord and utters those amazing words, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (v15). Job’s hope is that he is in the right and the Lord in the end will deal righteously (v16-18).
Job’s plea to the Lord (v20-28) is that the Lord will answer him and not hide His face from him.
One of the great torments in days of trial is the sense that God is far away and that God is not listening to us. But we must remember that God loves His people with an immeasurable love, He cares for us and misses nothing about what we are going through.
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