How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.
Job has stopped arguing with his friends and now speaks straight to God. He asks God Himself to name his sins, and a protest runs under the request: the punishment has outrun the crime.
A man who faces God
Job leaves the argument with his friends and takes his case to God. The moment he does, his tone about himself changes.
F. B. HoleVerse 23 shows that as soon as Job felt himself to be before God, he acknowledged iniquity and sins. He wanted to know how many they were. As the following verses reveal, he felt that the punishment he was suffering went beyond what he really deserved. He was like a man with his feet in the stocks, and so an easy target for anyone who wanted to throw things at him.
Clean in his own eyes
Job never claims to be sinless. He has settled for a verdict he and his neighbours could reach on their own. That is what he had to unlearn.
William KellyDid 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 instead 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.
A real question with a complaint inside it
The request is sincere, but it is not pure. A few lines later, the same voice that asked God to show him his sin starts filing charges against Him.
Samuel RidoutAnd yet at once he renews his charges against God. He is not yet ready to have all his imagined righteousness stripped away. God holds him as an enemy. He drives him like a withered leaf before the storm. He 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.
The missing go-between
Job wants to meet God and speak. But he has no one to bring him there, and that gap is the ache running through his words.
Samuel RidoutHow these words, beautiful in their very anguish, cry aloud for the blessed Daysman, the Mediator! Blessed be God! We can "with confidence 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.
Why God let the question stand
Job never gets the list he asks for. What he gets instead is the one thing he needed.
J. N. DarbyJob needed this, and God saw that he needed it. He was gracious and devout, but he did not know himself. He had never seen God in a way that brought him to a real knowledge of himself in His presence. So God deals with him in a way that brings his sinfulness fully out. Then He places him in His own presence, with that sinfulness now plain to his conscience.
How to pray it today
Only God can show a person what is wrong inside. The prayer that fits is not a question about one item, but an open door.
Frederick W. GrantWe need continual recourse to Him whom the psalmist called on: "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me." What incompetent judges we are in our own case! We do not say to Him, "Search out this or that," but, "Search me." And so, if we are perfectly honest in it, we invite the light to pour into all the dark corners and crannies of our lives and hearts. We are with Him without reserve — for self-judgment, but as He shows us to ourselves and so enables us.
Summary
- Turning. Once Job stands before God, he admits iniquity and sins instead of defending a clean record.
- Mirror. He never claimed to be sinless. He rested in being clean in his own eyes and other people's. God's eyes are a different measure.
- Mixture. The same breath that asks God to show him his sin also renews charges against Him. Job is not yet willing to lose his imagined righteousness.
- Mediator. Job's plea cries out for a mediator he does not have. He groped in darkness; we draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.
- Method. God answers not with a list but with Himself. He brings Job's sinfulness out, then sets him in His presence with his conscience awake. Pray it as "search me," not "search out this or that."