For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin;
Job, worn down by loss and by his friends' arguments, has just dared to imagine a day when God would call and he would answer. Then the mood shifts, and he feels himself under a constant, counting gaze.
Counted steps
Translations differ over the second line of the verse. Older ones read it as a question — "do you not watch over my sin?" — while the ESV reads it as Job's hope that God would not keep watch. The first line Job never disputes: God counts his steps. One writer reads the words as a plain statement about how much God knows.
J Wilson SmithAnd so we read, in Job 14:16-17, "For now you number my steps; do you not watch over my sin?" Certainly He does! God knows all!
What Job wanted covered
The two halves of the verse pull against each other. One commentator reads Job as asking God to stop watching what God alone can cover.
Leslie M. GrantHe says, "All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come" — that is, wait for death, but not wait patiently! Meanwhile God was numbering Job's steps. But Job did not want Him to watch over his sins. He considered them "sealed up in a bag," out of sight, needing only God Himself to cover them. He was right to think God could do this.
The sealed bag
The next verse gives Job's picture for his sin: a bag sewn shut. One writer weighs what that means for the man who carries it.
J Wilson SmithYes, there it lies in a bag, or bundle — a great, heavy bundle, too... The smallest bundle of sins is unbearable once it is really felt. Sin's load is leaden! A guilty conscience is a bag of vile filth. It is sealed up, sewed up; you cannot open the bag's mouth and shake out the evil contents. No, they are tightly enclosed, and your tortured conscience has to carry them. No one is so wretched as the one who carries the load of unpardoned sins.
If God kept the record
Job dreads a God who watches sin. One writer cites this verse while setting out three truths a repentant person learns before God.
Hamilton SmithIn the presence of the Lord the repentant soul learns three great truths. First, no sinner can stand before God on the ground of his own merit. If the Lord marks iniquities in the sense of observing them, or keeping them in memory so as to punish, there is no hope for man — none can stand (Job 10:14; Job 14:16). Second, if there is no standing before God through our own merits, there is forgiveness through His mercy. Third, if God forgives it is so that He may be feared, and not so that men may think lightly of their sin or of His mercy.
A flicker of courage
One commentator hears a small turn upward in Job here, and points to where the whole book is heading.
William KellyJob turns from this very solemn scene in his mind to call on the Lord. He says, "You would call, and I would answer You; You would long for the work of Your hands." His heart is beginning to get a little courage... But the Lord does not leave Job until he sees more. He was not merely a man looking up to God. He was a man who knew God's love — a love that was taking him up and chastening him, so that he might be blessed more than ever before. That is the great object of the Book of Job.
The eye that never turns away
Job feels God's attention as pressure. Another writer says the same attention turns to joy once we have truly seen God.
F. W. GrantHis interest is the first thing to consider: "He never withdraws His eyes from the righteous." In his distress, even a Job might find this a painful trial rather than a gain... But Job, with all his outward perfection, had not yet seen God as he was to see Him... How blessed, then, when we have truly seen Him, to know that every step we take in the way matters to Him! — that there is not an hour of the day but He has some thought about how we should spend it!
Summary
- Counted. God numbers every step. Job never disputes it: God knows all.
- Sealed. Job pictures his sin sewn shut in a bag — a load the carrier cannot open, empty, or set down.
- Marked. If God kept a record of sins to punish, no one could stand. The answer is not that God stops looking. It is that with Him there is forgiveness.
- Chastened. God does not leave Job until he sees love behind the dealing, taking him up so that he might be blessed more than before.
- Delighted. The unbroken eye that felt like pressure becomes the believer's comfort: every step matters to Him.