And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you?
Job has just described how short and fragile human life is. Now he turns to God with a question that is half complaint and half plea: if a man's days are already so few and so hard, why watch him so closely and bring him to court?
Who "such a one" is
Job is not describing a believer here. "Born of woman" marks out man as a creature only, with no new birth in view.
William KellyHere it is simply man born of woman, never born of God — not yet, not until a later chapter — none of these is thought of as born of God… "And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one." It does not mean "not one person," but "not one thing."
Why the question stings
Job's problem is not that he thinks himself sinless. He measures his own brief life against the God who never ends, and he already knows how that inspection would go.
F. B. HoleIn Job's far-off days human life was perhaps three times longer than it is today. Yet his life was still "few of days," and then it was "full of trouble," just as it is today. So, seen in the light of the eternal God, man is only like a fading flower or a passing shadow. Job knew this about himself, so he knew he could not stand God's inspection, or stand before Him in judgment. He also knew that he was not clean in God's sight, and he was sure no one could produce the clean out of the unclean.
The words Job should have weighed
Job's question is true as far as it goes. But he does not stay with it; he turns from the truth he has just spoken and asks God to look away.
Samuel RidoutBut how sadly true verses 1 and 2 are! And will the mighty God enter into judgment with such a frail creature — not only frail, but impure by nature! Ah, let Job weigh his own words well. Instead he moves on in self-pity, begging to be left alone for a while, until like a hired worker he finishes his day! (verses 3-6).
Behind the question lies an assumption of Job's own. He is sure he already knows what God is doing with him.
Leslie M. GrantBecause life is so short, Job wondered why God troubles Himself to bring him to judgment, as he thought God was doing.
A courtroom no one survives
Job's instinct is sound. No one can afford to be brought into judgment with God. The believer's answer is not to deny that verdict but to accept it in advance.
J. N. DarbyBut first let us recognize that we are all subject to condemnation, and in ourselves liable to judgment as responsible to God… The Christian has, through grace, anticipated this. He has recognized by divine teaching that condemnation is his own portion. He knows that in him, that is, in his flesh, nothing good lives. He has said in spirit, "Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you" [older translations: "no man living shall be justified"].
The light Job did not yet have
What keeps the chapter so dark is the horizon. Job reasons only about this present world, where a felled tree can sprout but a dead man cannot.
J. N. DarbyIn Job 14, he does not go beyond this present world of sight, and in his bitterness of spirit he has no sense of resurrection… Job was right, but he did not see beyond it, and here he did not know Him who is the resurrection and the life.
Why God opened His eyes on him
Job asks the question as though God's eye on him were hostile. By the end of the book, that same light has done what his friends could not do.
James BoydMan was never so exposed as a sinner as in the presence of the Son of God, and yet who was so attractive to the sinner?… In the presence of the light of God Job goes down in self-judgment. He says, "I despise myself." When his three friends had said all they had to say, his confidence in himself was still unshaken. He felt himself to be morally superior to them. But the light of God brought him down: "now my eye sees You" was what killed the sinful pride of his heart.
Summary
- Frail — man here is "born of woman," not born of God. He is a fading flower and a passing shadow. Nothing clean comes out of an unclean source.
- Exposed — Job knows he could not survive God's inspection. His own words condemn the self-defence he keeps making.
- Mistaken — he treats God's eye on him as a summons to court, and begs to be left alone.
- Answered — if God enters into judgment, no one living stands. Grace lets a person own that verdict now instead of meeting it later.
- Broken open — the eye Job wanted turned away was the very thing that brought him down, until he could say, "now my eye sees You."