God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
Job has just called his three friends miserable comforters, and now he turns from them to God, tracing his ruin back to a hand he cannot understand. Is he telling the truth about God here, or will he have to take these words back later?
Handed Over
Both halves of the verse say one thing twice. Job is handed over, like goods passed to a new owner. Another translation sharpens the picture:
William KellyGod has shut me up to the unrighteous, and thrown me over into the hand of the wicked.
Who are these "wicked"? The men sitting in front of him. His friends had called him wicked, and he answers in kind:
Leslie M. GrantJob had found no help or encouragement from his three friends. He found the opposite. So he sadly declares, "God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked" (v.11). Just as Eliphaz had exaggerated Job's condition by calling him wicked, so Job exaggerates by calling his friends wicked. He felt that God was taking sides with the ungodly against him. A resisting attitude will always have wrong thoughts about God and His ways. A submissive attitude will find its thoughts wonderfully corrected.
Real Faith Inside the Complaint
There is something right in these words, and it is easy to miss. Whatever happened, God allowed it, and Job says so without flinching.
William KellyHe does not blame his ruin on raiders or other second causes. He does not explain it away by circumstances... He complained as if God were treating him harshly. Yet he admits with complete frankness that without God none of these trials could "happen." There was real faith in him, though he still had much to learn.
Where the Sight Blurs
The error is not in tracing his suffering to God. The problem is the blending. Job can no longer tell the malice of men apart from the hand of God, so he speaks as though God were the one mauling him.
Samuel RidoutIn his blind misery Job ties the scoffing of the ungodly, who are glad at his disaster, to the hand of God. In these words of Job it is hard to separate God from evil men. In his blurred view they are all acting together. What awful language to use of God: "He has also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces." It is like a wild beast tearing its prey, or a mighty giant running at a small victim to destroy it.
He is arguing with God, not walking away from Him.
Suffering Without Blaming God
Psalm 22 describes the same kind of attack: gaping mouths and circling enemies. There the sufferer is Christ, and He never turns it into a charge against God.
Samuel RidoutLet us read the account of our Lord's sufferings at the hands of man and of God, and we find no confusing of the two, nor any charging God with evil. "Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion... For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet... But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!" (Ps. 22:12-19). God had been His trust from infancy. His soul still rested on His goodness and righteousness when all the waves and billows of judgment rolled over Him.
The Secret Job Was Never Told
Job speaks as a man reading his life with one page missing. He is judging God's ways without the one fact that would explain them.
William KellyMuch of the profit the book gives depends on this: God's estimate of Job and Satan's testing were made known only in heaven. The reason for the trial stayed a secret for the present — not a secret in heaven, but a secret here on earth. Neither Job nor his friends knew anything of what God had said about him.
Commentators weigh Job's words differently. Kelly hears real faith inside them, though Job still had much to learn; Ridout calls his view blurred and his language awful.
Summary
- Handed over. Job pictures himself as goods passed into hostile hands. The "wicked" he means are the friends who came to comfort him.
- Right instinct. Job never blames raiders or circumstances. Nothing could have touched him unless God allowed it, and saying so is faith, not unbelief.
- Blurred vision. His mistake is mixing the malice of men with the hand of God. He can no longer tell them apart, so he speaks of God as an attacker.
- The perfect contrast. Psalm 22 uses the same images of gaping mouths and circling enemies. Yet Christ brings no charge against God and never loses trust.
- The missing page. Job was never told what happened in heaven. A heart that submits, instead of resisting, gets its thoughts about God corrected.