Will you show partiality toward him? Will you plead the case for God?
Job is answering friends who have taken up God's side in the argument and used it against him. His question turns their own devotion into a charge: defending God with a lie is no defence at all.
Showing partiality — what the words mean
Older translations read the first half of the verse as "will you accept his person?" To accept someone's person is to decide by appearance — by who stands in front of you, not by the facts. One writer follows Job's words in that older wording, and notes how the warning that follows came true:
William Kelly"Hear now my reasoning, and listen to the pleadings of my lips. Will you speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for Him?" That is what they had been doing. They pretended this to be for God. "Will you accept His person? Will you contend for God? Is it good that He should search you out?" Well, that is what He did. "Or as one man mocks another, do you so mock Him? He will surely reprove you." How remarkably that was fulfilled! "He will surely reprove you, if you do secretly accept persons" — and that is what they were doing. They were accepting persons falsely — according to appearance.
Advocates who lie for their client
Job's friends were not inventing new doctrine. They bent well-known truths about God into evidence against a man they had already judged.
Samuel RidoutNext, Job boldly charges his friends with being false witnesses for God. They used well-known truths, familiar to everyone, to back up their charge that Job was wicked. What kind of physicians were they to treat a case like this? They have decided what his disease is, and they misrepresent his symptoms to fit their diagnosis! And they bring in their theory that God always punishes sin in this life, to prove that Job is a sinner! … He warns them that the course they are taking is wrong. They presume to lie for God! For are they not falsely accusing an innocent man? Are they not afraid to treat truth so lightly, and will not God deal with them? — for they are only men. Poor Job, he is the victim of the same false theory, and he is in danger of blasphemy himself — of charging God with injustice.
The commission they never received
Notice what Job assumes: God has not asked for this service. Their "pleading for God" was volunteer work, and it would end badly for the volunteers.
William KellyJob reckoned that they were speaking wickedly and deceitfully for God. God had given them no such authority, and He would surely reprove them — as in fact He did.
God refuses honour built on a false charge
The friends built their whole case on zeal for God's honour. That is why the verse cuts so deep — and why God's verdict finally went against them, not against Job.
Samuel RidoutBut God does not accept honour at the expense of truth. It is His glory that all His attributes blend in one harmonious light. Can He then accept a defence of His character and ways that rests on a false charge? Such a defence brands a man as wicked and hypocritical. Yet of that very man He Himself had declared, "There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil." Can He let so monstrous a theory of suffering pass — the one these men have built, that suffering is always the sure sign of wickedness? That it is all in wrath? What then becomes of His testing of His own people, or of the way His discipline makes them holy?
Job's alternative: speak to God, not about Him
Job has finished with his friends as counsellors. That does not mean he understands what God is doing.
F. B. HoleHe did not claim to be better than his friends, but he was certainly not beneath them. Even so, he admitted that God's dealings puzzled him. They were far above him and out of his sight. So, as verse 3 shows, what he wanted was to speak to the Almighty and reason with God, not to spend his time reasoning with his friends.
Summary
- Partiality. To "accept a person" is to judge by appearance, not by fact. Job charges his friends with doing it on God's behalf, condemning him because he looked guilty.
- Falsehood. They took true statements about God and forced them into a false verdict on a man. That is lying for God.
- No commission. God never asked them to plead His case. So Job could warn them that He would reprove them — and He did.
- Honour refused. God will not take honour at the cost of truth. He rejects any defence of Himself that rests on a false charge.
- Better direction. Job's response is the model: stop arguing about God with men who cannot help, and take the case to God Himself.