For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth;
Job turns from arguing with his three friends to speaking straight to God, and he reads his suffering as a bitter charge written against him. Two questions press: is God dragging up sins from decades back, and what does it mean to inherit them now?
Job has no scroll in front of him. He reads his wounds as though they were words.
Because God did not respond, it seemed to Job that God counted him as an enemy (v. 24)… He felt that God was writing bitter things against him — not literally, but at least in effect. He also felt that God was bringing up the sins of his youth, since his more recent sins would not be as blatant as those of his youth (v. 26).
One writer takes the line to mean that Job feared his old sins were landing on him at that moment. He sets that beside what Job still had to learn about himself.
Sadly he had rested in being clean in his own eyes, and in other people's eyes. But he had to learn that being clean in God's eyes was a very different thing… "For you write bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth" — it may be that they are coming upon me now.
Job means the line as an accusation against God. But he cannot make it without admitting something about himself.
And yet at once he renews his charges against God. He is not yet ready for God to strip away all his imagined righteousness… God accuses him of those almost forgotten sins of youth (ah, Job, it seems that even you must admit there have been sins). He watches him, and makes his imagined robe of righteousness look like a moth-eaten garment.
Job wanted to know what was wrong in him. One writer points out what Job could not see while it was happening.
He wished to find out all that was wrong in himself, and begged to know why he was driven back and forth like a leaf or dry stubble. He did not yet know the grace that was giving him self-judgment. He sees only a record kept of bitter things, and himself made to inherit the iniquities of his youth.
Job wanted to put his case to God, but had no one to stand between. One writer hears that cry in these words.
How these words, beautiful in their very anguish, cry aloud for the blessed go-between, the Mediator! Blessed be God, we can come with confidence to the throne of grace, to receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Job could only grope in the dark.
Job complains that God charges his youth against him. A psalm prays about the same sins of youth, and asks God not to remember them.
"Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your loving kindnesses, for they are from of old" (v. 6)… And He will answer too the prayer that follows, "Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions" (v. 7). Where there is faith that depends on Him, He will not remember the sins of our youth against us. Nor will He remember our transgressions against us.
- Written — Job reads his suffering as a charge God is drafting against him. The writing is not literal, but it is real in effect.
- Inherited — he fears the sins of his youth are landing on him now, since his later sins were not as blatant as those early ones.
- Exposed — the complaint hides a confession. Even Job has to admit there were sins, and his imagined robe of righteousness starts to look moth-eaten.
- Misread — the bitter things were grace at work, giving him self-judgment. Job did not yet know it.
- Answered — Job groped in the dark for a mediator. We can come to God with confidence, and where faith depends on Him, He will not remember the sins of our youth against us.
And thou puttest my feet in the stocks, and markest all my paths; thou settest a bound about the soles of my feet; --
Job has stopped arguing with his friends and now speaks straight to God. What comes out is not a prayer but a charge: he feels shamed, watched and fenced in like a prisoner, by the very One he wants an answer from.
Job names a real device, not a vague picture. A Bible dictionary defines the word behind "stocks":
sad: stocks in which the feet were shut up. Job 13:27; Job 33:11; Acts 16:24.
So Job is not just saying God limits him. He is saying God has shamed him in public and left nothing about him unrecorded:
"You put my feet also in the stocks" — you make me an object of shame before everybody — "and look closely at all my paths; you set a mark on the heels of my feet." Someone might think the heels were hidden. But no — everything is marked.
(Kelly follows an older reading, "you set a print upon the heels of my feet"; the ESV has "you set a limit for the soles of my feet.")
A man locked in stocks cannot dodge what is thrown at him. Job felt the blows were more than he had earned:
He felt that the punishment he was suffering went beyond what he deserved. He was like a man with his feet in the stocks, and so an easy target for those who wanted to throw things at him.
Read on its own the verse sounds like a description of pain. In context, it is one of several charges Job brings against God. What he defends is his own record:
And yet at once he renews his charges against God. He is not yet ready to let God strip away the righteousness he imagines he has. God holds him as an enemy. He drives him like a withered leaf in the wind. He charges him with those almost forgotten sins of youth — ah, Job, it seems that even you must admit there have been sins. He watches him, and makes the robe of righteousness Job imagines he wears look like a moth-eaten garment. So Job charges his Maker, and does not pause to hear what He will reply.
The watching Job resents is doing something in him. It forces him to examine himself, and he reads that as hostility:
He asked only for a break from suffering, and that God's dread would not overwhelm him. He wanted to find out everything that was wrong in himself. He did not yet know the grace that was giving him self-judgment. He sees only a record kept of bitter things: his feet put in the stocks, his ways watched, the very soles of his feet marked.
This line is not left behind. Later in the book Elihu repeats it almost word for word (Job 33:11). Set beside Job's claim of innocence, it exposes a contradiction:
He was so clean, so innocent, so free from iniquity. And yet he says of God, "He finds occasions against me, He counts me for His enemy. He puts my feet in the stocks and watches all my paths." Here is an obvious contradiction. How could a holy, just, and righteous Being count a pure and innocent man His enemy? Impossible. Either Job was deceiving himself, or God was unrighteous.
The complaint was no slip of the tongue, so it could not be left alone:
Elihu does not misrepresent Job, and he is not seizing on some chance expression. Such charges must be met, and Job convinced that they are false, or he could never have peace in his own soul, and a dark stain would rest on God's honour.
Job's facts are right: God does watch every path. His reading of God's motive is wrong:
"He never withdraws His eyes from the righteous." Even a Job might find this a painful trial rather than a gain in his time of distress. He cried out in his anguish, "What is man, that You make so much of him, and that You set Your heart on him, visit him every morning and test him every moment?" But Job, with all his outward perfection, had not yet seen God as he was to see Him... How blessed it is, once we have truly seen Him, to know that every step we take matters to Him!
- Watched — God marks every path, even the heels a man thinks no one sees. On the facts, Job is right.
- Misread — Job reads that attention as a jailer's watch. He says God has shamed him in public, like a prisoner in the stocks.
- Defended — behind the complaint sits a robe of righteousness Job is not yet willing to let go.
- Unrecognised — the very pressure forcing him to examine himself was grace at work, and he could not yet see it.
- Answered — Elihu quotes the line back to Job. The charge had to be met, or Job could never have peace and a stain would rest on God's honour.
One who, as a rotten thing consumeth, as a garment that the moth eateth.
Job has stopped arguing with his friends. He now speaks to God, and asks why God treats him as an enemy. The chapter ends with no answer — only a picture of quiet ruin, something rotting away, something eaten through. Who is this wasting figure?
Job wanted his own wrongs named, and he could not see why God pressed him so hard. One writer traces how the speech reaches this line:
He wanted to find out all that was wrong in himself. He begged to know why God drove him back and forth like a leaf or dry stubble. He did not yet know the grace that was giving him self-judgment. He sees only a record kept of bitter things. He sees himself made to inherit the sins of his youth. God puts his feet in the stocks, watches his ways, and marks the very soles of his feet. And all the while he was only wasting away like a rotten thing, or a moth-eaten garment.
The second image turns on a detail of ancient life. Cloth was wealth, and people stored it:
This is the clothes-moth, whose damage is well known. In the East garments were kept in large quantities, as property and as gifts. Moths do not attack clothing that is worn; they lay their eggs in what is laid up, and there the young find their food. From this comes the lesson to lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can spoil or destroy.
The moth ruins what people hoard and guard. Job describes a slow, hidden loss that nothing stops.
Older versions read this line as "he wastes away" — Job speaking about himself. The ESV reads "Man," and the words hold true both ways:
Verse 28 is true of all mankind. But Job was thinking of himself as decaying, and complaining about it. Sin belongs to the nature we received from Adam. We cannot escape the decay it brings, and that decay ends in death.
The moth-eaten garment carries a second meaning. It is the robe of righteousness Job believes he is wearing:
And yet at once he renews his charges against God. He is not yet ready to lose the righteousness he imagines he has. God holds him as an enemy. He drives him like a withered leaf before the wind. He charges him with those almost forgotten sins of youth (ah, Job, it seems that even you must admit there have been sins). He watches him, and makes his imagined robe of righteousness look like a moth-eaten garment. So Job accuses his Maker, and does not pause to hear what He will reply.
Job never claimed to be sinless. His mistake was smaller and far more common:
Did he say there was no sin in him? He never said anything of the kind; he never had the presumption to say, "I am clean in your eyes." No, far from it. Unfortunately he had rested in being clean in his own eyes, and in the eyes of other people. But he had to learn that being clean in God's eyes was a very different thing. He begins to learn that more and more deeply… "You watch closely all my paths; you set a mark on the soles of my feet." You might think the soles of the feet are hidden. But no — God marks everything. "And he, like a rotten thing, wastes away, like a garment that is moth-eaten."
This is where the first round of the argument ends. One writer names the note it ends on:
This address closes the first round of the debate. Its ending is a most beautiful song of mourning over the frailty and uncertainty of human life. Man comes up like a flower, and is cut down and withers. We are listening to the wail of Psalm 90, but without its faith in God, and not yet followed by the triumph of Psalm 91.
- Decay — Two pictures, one point: something rots, something is eaten through. Both show a loss that works from the inside, where no one can stop it.
- Moths — Moths ruin what is stored, not what is worn. They feed on the treasure we guard most.
- Everyone — Job means himself, but the words fit all of us: a nature inherited from Adam, and a decay that ends in death.
- Robes — The garment the moth eats is also the righteousness Job has defended all chapter. God is letting him see how it looks under His eye.
- Answer — Job ends in a lament with no answer yet — Psalm 90's wail without Psalm 90's faith, and not yet Psalm 91's triumph. The cry is real; the reply is still coming.