The Book of Job

Word Study

"just," Hebrew yitzdaq (יִצְדַּק) from tsadaq, to be righteous, be justified, be declared in the right. Job concedes Bildad's premise, "I know it is so of a truth", God is indeed just and great, but he immediately drives it to the question that torments him: "how should man be just with God?" The verb tsadaq is a courtroom word: how can a mortal be declared righteous, be justified, when he stands before the infinite and holy God as his judge? This is not an idle question; it is the question, the deepest question of all religion, and the very question the Gospel exists to answer. Job feels its weight crushingly. He knows that if God should enter into judgment with him, "he cannot answer him one of a thousand" (v3); that even "if I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me" (v20).

"with God," im-El (עִם־אֵל), in relation to, before, over against God. The small phrase carries the whole weight of Job's question. He is not asking how a man may be reckoned righteous by his neighbours, or measured against other men, but how he stands when he is set over against God Himself. Job sees clearly what Bildad and Eliphaz never grasped in their smug formulas: measured against the true holiness of God, no man can stand. "How should man be just with God?" is the cry of an awakened conscience that has stopped comparing itself to other men and has looked, instead, at God. It is the question that will one day be answered in blood at Calvary, but Job stands in the darkness before the dawn, feeling the full terror of the gap between a holy God and sinful man, and finding, as yet, no bridge.

Explanation

Job grants that God is just, but that very truth terrifies him: "how should man be just with God?" How can a mortal be declared righteous before the holy God who is his judge? Job knows that if God contends with him, he could not answer one charge in a thousand, that even his own mouth would condemn him. This is the deepest question of all, and Job feels its full weight because he has stopped measuring himself against other men and looked at God instead. He sees the gap between a holy God and sinful man, and as yet finds no bridge across it.

Gospel Focus

"How should man be just with God?" is the question the entire Gospel was given to answer. Job could not see the answer; we can. A man is made just with God not by his own righteousness, which is filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), but by the righteousness of Another, received by faith. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). "By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). The impossible gap Job felt, God bridged Himself: "he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). At the cross the holy God remained perfectly just while justifying the ungodly, for the penalty was paid in full by Christ (Romans 3:26). So the question that crushed Job has a glorious answer: man is made just with God by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, who was made sin for us and clothes us in His own perfect righteousness. What Job could only ask in the dark, the Gospel proclaims in the light: the God against whom no man could stand has provided the very righteousness by which we stand accepted before Him.

Word Study

"great things," Hebrew gedoloth (גְּדֹלוֹת). Before Job voices his complaint, he pours out an awed confession of God's greatness. He is the One "which removeth the mountains" (v5), "which shaketh the earth out of her place" (v6), "which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not" (v7), "which alone spreadeth out the heavens" (v8), who made "Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades" (v9), and does "great things past finding out." Job's doctrine of God is magnificent and true; his problem is not too small a view of God but the seeming distance between that great God and his own suffering.

"past finding out," ein cheqer (אֵין חֵקֶר), unsearchable, beyond investigation. Notice the words "past finding out": God's works and ways exceed all human investigation. There is no searching them out; a man may look as long as he likes and never reach the bottom of them. This is exactly the note God Himself will strike at the end of the book, when out of the whirlwind He points Job to the very same wonders, the stars, the sea, the created order, to bring him to rest not in explanations but in the greatness of God (Job 38-41). Job already knows the truth here; what he lacks is the trust to rest in it while the darkness lasts.

"wonders," niphla'oth (נִפְלָאוֹת), marvels, things too wonderful to comprehend. Job adds, "yea, and wonders without number." These are not merely large works but marvels, things beyond the reach of the mind that beholds them, and they cannot even be counted. His confession of God's unsearchable greatness is right, and it is the ground on which faith must finally stand: a God whose wonders are "without number" can be trusted even where His ways cannot be traced.

Explanation

Job breaks into an awed confession of God's greatness: the One who moves mountains, shakes the earth, commands the sun, spreads out the heavens, and made the constellations, doing "great things past finding out." His view of God is high and true. His trouble is not a small God but the felt distance between that great God and his own pain. The words "past finding out" and "without number" are the key: God's ways exceed all human tracing, the very truth God will press on Job from the whirlwind at the book's close. Job knows it; what he lacks is trust to rest in it in the dark.

Gospel Focus

"Great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number", the God whose power and wisdom exceed all searching is the God who drew near to us in Jesus Christ. Paul echoes Job's very language: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Romans 11:33). But the same unsearchable God has made Himself known: "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8) are now preached to men. The Creator who stretched out the heavens is the very One who was "manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16), for "all things were made by him" (John 1:3), and "by him all things consist" (Colossians 1:17). The hands that made Arcturus and Orion were stretched out on a cross. This is the wonder without number: that the God whose ways are past finding out stooped to become one of us, to die for us, and to make us just with Himself. When our own sufferings feel unsearchable, we look not merely to God's power in creation but to His love at Calvary, where the unsearchable God proved that He can be trusted even in the dark. The God of wonders without number has done the greatest wonder of all: He has redeemed us.

Word Study

"daysman," Hebrew mokiach (מוֹכִיחַ) from yakach, one who decides, arbitrates, umpires between two parties. This is the mountain-peak of Job 9, and one of the great cries of the Old Testament. Job has said, "he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment" (v32), there is no common ground on which the infinite God and mortal man can meet in court. And then the anguished longing: "neither is there any daysman betwixt us." A "daysman" is an arbiter, a mediator, an umpire, one who stands between two parties and hands down a decision that settles the case. Job feels the desperate need for such a one, but he laments that there is none. Here is the deepest cry of fallen humanity, and Job, in his darkness, names the very thing the whole Bible is moving toward.

"lay his hand upon us both," yashet yado al-sheneinu (יָשֵׁת יָדוֹ עַל־שְׁנֵינוּ), place his hand on us both, joining the two. Job describes what such an arbiter would have to do: he must be able to lay a hand on each party at once, joining God and man together. That is the impossible requirement, someone who can touch God on the one side and man on the other, and bridge the infinite gap. There is no mere man who can be daysman between God and men, and there is no God so distant that He remains untouchable. What is needed is One who is both. Job could only long; the Gospel supplies. For "there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5), the One who is truly God and truly man, who can lay one hand on the Father in His deity and the other on us in His humanity, and join us together for ever.

Explanation

Job's greatest cry: there is no "daysman", no arbiter or umpire, who can stand between God and man and "lay his hand upon us both." He feels that God is "not a man, as I am", so there is no common ground where they can meet, and he longs for a mediator who could touch both sides and bridge the gap, yet finds none. This is the deepest need of fallen humanity, and Job names it exactly. What is needed is One who is both God and man at once, someone no mere mortal could be. Job could only long for such a mediator; the Gospel provides Him.

Gospel Focus

"Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both", Job's aching lament is the Old Testament's clearest cry for the incarnation, and it is answered fully in Jesus Christ. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Here is the wonder of who Jesus is: He is the one true God made flesh, and He is truly man, and so He alone can be the daysman Job longed for. The one Mediator is not a third party alongside God, but the one God Himself come in flesh to reconcile us to Himself. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19); "great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). The eternal Spirit who is God took to Himself real humanity, that in the man Christ Jesus God and man might meet. On the cross He laid one hand, as it were, upon God, satisfying divine justice, and the other upon man, bearing our sin, and joined the two for ever. There is no other daysman; we need no other. "For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Job cried into the dark for a mediator who could touch both God and man; his cry is answered in the LORD Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, in whom the holy God and sinful man are brought together and made one.