Will you frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff?
Job is deep in suffering and has turned from arguing with his three friends to speaking directly to God. He has just asked why God hides His face, and now he asks why such power would bother with such weakness.
A Man With No Strength Left
Job never claimed to be free of sin. He had rested in looking clean to himself and to other people, and here he shows a man with no strength of his own.
William KellyDid he say that there was no sin in him? He never said anything of the kind; he was never so bold as to say, "I am clean in Your eyes." No, no, far from it. Sadly, he had rested in being clean in his own eyes and in the eyes of other people. 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. "Why do You hide Your face and count me as Your enemy? Will You frighten a driven leaf?" Was that a person pretending to any strength?
Too Small To Be Worth Chasing
Job's question is not only about weakness but about worth. He cannot see why God would trouble Himself with something so small. (Where the ESV says "dry chaff," older translations read "dry stubble.")
Leslie M. GrantBecause God did not respond, Job thought God considered him an enemy (v.24). He compared himself to a leaf or to dry stubble, not worth any attention. Why would God frighten an object so insignificant?
A Complaint That Becomes An Accusation
Job speaks honestly, but his words turn into charges against God. He states his case and does not wait to hear the reply.
Samuel RidoutAnd yet at once he renews his charges against God. He is not yet ready to let go of his imagined righteousness. God holds him as an enemy. God drives him like a withered leaf before the wind. God accuses him of those almost forgotten sins of youth (ah, Job, it seems that even you must admit there have been sins). So Job charges his Maker, and does not pause to hear what He will reply.
What Job Could Not Yet See
Job asked for relief, and for the reason behind his suffering. He could not see what that suffering was doing in him.
William KellyHe asked only for relief from suffering, and that the dread of Him should not overwhelm him. He wanted to find out all that was wrong in himself. He begged to know why he was driven to and fro 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 his youthful iniquities.
Prayer That No Form Could Have Supplied
The verse is a real prayer, torn out of a man in physical agony. Commentators place Job alongside others in Scripture who prayed like this.
James McBroomThis man, along with David and Hezekiah, shows a believer suffering in his body. "Why do You hide Your face and count me as Your enemy? Will You frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff?" (Job 13:24-25). "O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger, nor discipline me in Your wrath" (David, Ps. 6:1). For Hezekiah, see Isaiah 38. What good would a prayer book or a written form of prayer have been to men in such circumstances? No one can predict the distresses of the heart.
Worse Than Being Broken
Job feels God's hand pressing hard on him. There is a worse place to be than that.
J Wilson SmithTo be "let alone" by God is the most awful condition in which man can find himself. It is ten thousand times better to be poured from one jar to another, like Job, than to be left to drift down the stream, like Ephraim. It is better to feel the weight of God's hand in discipline — for it is a Father's hand — than to live with the sense that He has turned His face away.
Summary
- Leaf. Job pictures himself as a blown leaf and dry stubble — a man making no claim to strength of his own.
- Enemy. God's silence made Job think that God counted him an enemy and was charging old sins to his account.
- Charge. The honest cry slides into an accusation, because Job is not yet willing to give up his own righteousness.
- Grace. The self-judgment growing in Job was grace at work, though he could not see it at the time.
- Face. God's hand in discipline is a Father's hand. Fear His turned-away face, not His blows.