May 13, 2025 - Job 8-10

Eliphaz has spoken and argued that Job must have done something terrible to incur such suffering as he was experiencing.  Job has answered, “Teach me, and I will be silent; And show me how I have erred” (6:24).  That is:  “You have not given any evidence supporting your conclusion. If you can, I will shut up.  If you cannot, you need to close your mouth.”  Now, Bildad speaks similarly:  “Can the papyrus grow up without a marsh?  Can the rushes grow without water?  While it is still green and not cut down, Yet it withers before any other plant.  So are the paths of all who forget God” (8:11-13).  This is the argument of cause and effect, i.e., Job, you have forgotten God and, therefore, you are suffering as you are.  Job’s response is devastating to the argument.  Job does precisely what he, and we, must do.  He appeals to God:  “But how can a man be in the right before God?” (9:2).  “How then can I answer Him, And choose my words before Him?  For though I were right, I could not answer; I would have to implore the mercy of my judge” (9:14-15).  That is, even in his best moment, even when he might make some feeble appeal to his own righteousness, Job cannot.  Rather, he must fall upon the mercy of God.  Can anyone say, “Foreshadowing the gospel?”

Though I should seek to wash me clean

In water of the driven snow,

My soul would yet its spots retain,

And sink in conscious guilt and woe.

God’s law in all its power divine

Condemns my erring soul to death;

Declares the foulness of its sin,

And show the vileness of its worth.

There must a Mediator plead

Whom God and man may both embrace,

With God for man to intercede,

And offer us the purchased grace.

And thus the Son of God is slain

To be this Mediator crowned;

In him, my soul, be cleansed from stain,

In him thy righteousness be found.   --Henry Ustick Onderdonk (1826)