Job 13:14

The discourse may be divided into three main parts. (1) He answers his friends (Job 12:1 — 13:13). (2) He challenges God (Job 13:14-28). (3) A hope of immortality amid despair (Job 14).

Verses 14-28: here his words are addressed to God Himself. He dares to approach Him. He knows the greatness and awesomeness of God. He is perhaps also aware that he has not honoured Him as he should have done. So he says — and this would be the meaning of this difficult verse — "Come what may, I take my life in my hand and risk it."

He asks them, "Why should I take my flesh in my teeth and put my life in my hand?" Did his friends stop to think why he would open himself up to their ridicule and criticism like this? Was there not a reason for it?

Now here I am, ready to bear whatever God sends. I feel the awfulness of it, and the terrors of God are on my soul; but here I am; let Him do as seems good in His sight.

On the one hand, there was a remarkable spirit of faith. It led him to take everything that had happened from His hand. He did not concern himself with those who brought the disasters, which had stopped short of his death. He had wanted to die. If God should grant that wish and kill him, he would not lose confidence but would still trust in Him. This indeed was excellent. But at the same time Job revealed his very weak spot in his determination to "maintain," or "defend," his own ways before Him. So we see that in a true saint very real faith in God may exist, while a very determined measure of self-esteem still spoils it. This is what gives such great value to this remarkable book, since the flesh in us who are saints today is just the same as it was in Job some four thousand years ago.

So the frail creature takes his life in his hand and stands before his Maker. God can only strike dead a man who has no hope, but Job must speak out and defend his ways as upright before God. This is the thought which seems most in accord with what goes before. On the other hand, many — perhaps most — prefer the wording of the Authorized Version: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Read that way, it would be a gleam of light in the middle of awful darkness, and it seems to agree with what follows. Aware of his own uprightness, Job seems to think there may be hope. Either way, he must speak.

"Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God." That is just what he was doing. But how? He did not know. The New Testament did not exist yet. There was no one to stand between God and man, as Christ does. So he did not know how to get at Him. If he could only find Him; if he could only be before Him! He knew very well what he would find there — a faithful God. But somehow there were difficulties and riddles between God and his soul that he could not understand.

How these words, beautiful in their very anguish, cry aloud for the blessed Mediator, the one who stands between God and man! Blessed be God, we can "draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Job could only grope in darkness.