The Book of Job

Word Study

"surety," Hebrew arveni (עָרְבֵנִי) from arav, to pledge, give security, become a guarantor for another's debt. Job makes a striking request directly to God: "put me in a surety with thee." A "surety" is one who guarantees another, who pledges himself, who puts up the security so that a case can be settled. Job asks God Himself to provide the guarantee, to be, in effect, both the judge and the one who stands surety for Job. It is the same longing as the daysman of chapter 9 and the advocate of chapter 16, now in the language of a legal pledge. This paradox, God providing the pledge that satisfies God, is one of the deep mysteries the Gospel resolves. Job cannot see how it could be, but he reaches for it: a surety, provided by God, who will guarantee the sinner's standing. And in that reaching he touches, across the centuries, the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

"strike hands," yittaqea leyadi (יִתָּקַע לְיָדִי), clasp hands, the ancient gesture of striking a bargain or standing as a pledge. "Who is he that will strike hands with me?" Job asks the question and finds no one to answer it. The clasping of hands was how such a pledge was made binding between men, and no one will make it with him: no one else will take his side and pledge for him. Job feels utterly alone, abandoned by his friends, with none to guarantee his cause, and so he turns and asks God to be his surety with God.

Explanation

Job asks God to become his "surety", his guarantor, the one who pledges himself for another, since no one else will "strike hands" and take his side. Abandoned by his friends, Job asks God to be his surety with God, a paradox: God providing the pledge that satisfies God. It is the same longing as the daysman and the advocate, now in the language of a legal pledge. Job cannot see how it could be, but he reaches for it, a surety provided by God to guarantee the sinner's standing, and touches the very heart of the Gospel.

Gospel Focus

"Put me in a surety with thee", Job's cry for a God-given guarantor is answered precisely in Jesus Christ, who "was... made a surety of a better testament" (Hebrews 7:22). A surety is one who pledges himself for another, who takes on the other's obligation and guarantees it will be met. That is exactly what Christ has become for His people. He stood as our surety before God, pledging Himself to pay our debt, to bear our penalty, to guarantee our acceptance. On the cross He made good the pledge, satisfying every claim against us with His own blood. God Himself provided the surety that God's justice required, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19). Here is the paradox Job glimpsed but could not solve: how can God be the guarantor of the sinner before God? The answer is the incarnation and the cross. In Jesus, God stepped into the place of surety Himself, took our obligation, and struck hands on our behalf. No friend would strike hands with Job; but the Friend of sinners has struck hands with us, pledging His own life. Because Christ is our surety, our standing before God does not rest on our own uncertain record but on His unbreakable pledge. Job longed for a surety; the believer has one, the Lord Jesus, whose finished work guarantees our salvation for ever.

Word Study

"hold on," Hebrew veyochez (וְיֹאחֵז) from achaz, to grasp, seize, hold fast. In the middle of a bleak chapter, Job utters a bright and enduring truth: "The righteous also shall hold on his way." The verb is one of gripping and holding fast. Against the mockers and false comforters, Job affirms that the truly righteous will not be turned aside. Job himself, though he does not fully feel it, is proving this very truth: he is holding on through unimaginable suffering, refusing to let go of God, and his faith, tested to the utmost, endures.

"his way," darko (דַּרְכּוֹ). What the righteous man grips is his way, the road he has been walking with God all along. He does not find a new path under pressure, and he does not abandon the old one; the trial simply finds him on the same road, holding it fast. This is the pattern of true grace: "the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18).

"stronger and stronger," yosif ometz (יֹסִיף אֹמֶץ), shall add strength, increase in strength. "And he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger." Far from being weakened by trial, the righteous man adds strength to strength through it. This is a magnificent statement of the perseverance of faith. The godly do not merely survive their trials; they are strengthened by them, "they go from strength to strength" (Psalm 84:7). Trials that would destroy a false faith only refine and strengthen a true one. Job, in his darkness, states the law of his own perseverance, and of every believer's: the righteous hold on, and grow stronger, not because of their own strength, but because the God who holds them will not let them fall.

Explanation

In a bleak chapter, Job speaks a bright truth: "the righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger." The truly righteous are not turned aside by trial but grip their way and hold fast, growing stronger through suffering rather than weaker. It is a magnificent statement of the perseverance of faith (Psalm 84:7; Proverbs 4:18). Job himself is proving it, holding on through unimaginable pain, refusing to let go of God. Trials that destroy a false faith only refine a true one, because the God who holds His people will not let them fall.

Gospel Focus

"The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger", this perseverance is, at bottom, the work of God's grace in Christ, keeping His own to the end. We hold on because He holds us: "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation" (1 Peter 1:5). Jesus said of His sheep, "they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28). The believer perseveres not by his own unaided strength but because "he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). And our "clean hands" are ultimately not our own achievement but the gift of Christ, who cleanses us and clothes us in His righteousness. The strength that grows in trial is His: "when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10), for "my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). This is why the suffering saint, far from being crushed, emerges stronger: God is at work, using the very trial to deepen faith, "that the trial of your faith... might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7). Job held on his way through the dark; every believer, held by the same God, will hold on to the end and grow stronger, until faith gives way to sight in the presence of Christ.

Word Study

"hope," Hebrew tiqvah (תִּקְוָה), hope, expectation, from a root meaning to wait, to stretch out as a cord toward something. Having said to corruption, "Thou art my father", and to the worm, "Thou art my mother, and my sister" (v14), embracing the grave as his only home, Job cries out the question of the nearly hopeless: "And where is now my hope?" It seems that death will swallow every hope; the grave will bury it in the dust. This is the honest voice of a man at the very edge, and Scripture does not censor it. Yet even here, the word Job uses, tiqvah, hope, waiting, a cord stretched toward the future, betrays that he has not entirely let go; he is still asking, still reaching, still looking for a hope that death cannot destroy.

"who shall see it," mi yeshurennah (מִי יְשׁוּרֶנָּה), who will behold it, who will discern it. "As for my hope, who shall see it?" Job asks whether anyone can so much as catch sight of such a hope, whether there is anything there to be discerned at all. He cannot yet find it. Where can hope be found for a man whose only prospect is the grave? The Old Testament saints reached for it in shadows; only in Christ does the full light break. For the question "where is now my hope?" has, in the Gospel, a triumphant answer: our hope is not in the dust but in the risen Lord, a hope that reaches beyond the grave into resurrection life.

Explanation

Having embraced the grave as his only home, Job cries the question of the nearly hopeless: "where is now my hope?" It seems death will swallow every hope and bury it in the dust. This is the honest voice of a man at the edge, and Scripture does not censor it. Yet the very word he uses, tiqvah, hope stretched like a cord toward the future, shows he has not entirely let go; he is still reaching. Job cannot yet find the answer, but the question "where is now my hope?" finds its triumphant reply in the risen Christ.

Gospel Focus

"And where is now my hope?", Job asked it staring into the grave, and the Gospel answers with the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. Our hope is not buried in the dust; it is risen and enthroned. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). Where is our hope? It is a "lively hope", a living hope, because it rests on a living Saviour. Christ Himself "is our hope" (1 Timothy 1:1), and in Him our hope is "an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil" (Hebrews 6:19), anchored not in this failing world but in heaven itself, in the presence of God, where Jesus has gone before us. The grave that seemed to swallow Job's hope has been conquered: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:55). For those in Christ, the answer to "where is now my hope?" is no longer the dust but the risen Lord who holds the keys of death and hell. We sorrow not "as others which have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13), for our hope is Christ, and He lives. Job strained toward a hope he could not see; we hold a hope that has a face and a name, Jesus, who died, and rose, and lives for evermore, and because He lives, our hope can never die.