He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
Job has just called his three friends "miserable comforters," and now he turns on the One he believes has torn him. He pictures a beast at its prey, teeth grinding, eyes fixed on him like a foe taking aim — but has Job named the right enemy?
Whose wrath is it?
The verse never names the one who tears him. It says only "He," and then "my adversary." One writer holds that Job is not accusing God outright. Reading him that way would clash with everything else he says:
William KellyHe now speaks of his own person too: "He has torn me in his wrath and hated me." He does not say it was God. I think it goes too far to suppose that he means that. But he does mean that God allowed it, and so he softens it and says only "He." It was God allowing the devil — his enemy — to do it. Otherwise his words would be dreadfully inconsistent with the rest of his language.
The grammar leaves it open
The next verse switches from "He" to "they." That makes the attacker harder to pin down:
Leslie M. GrantIn verse 9 it may be doubtful that he is referring to God, for in verse 10 he uses the plural "they" three times. But he clearly thought God was in effect moving others to tear Job in His wrath. Did he think God was responsible for the hatred of man? In fact, we know God would not approve of the persecutions Job lists in verses 9 and 10 — yet his friends were claiming to speak for God!
Commentators differ on how much of the charge lands on God. All agree that Job has merged two things that belong apart:
Samuel RidoutIn his blind misery Job ties the mockery of wicked men, 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.
Reading his own body as a verdict
Job takes his wasted frame as proof of what God thinks of him. That step, not his pain, is where he goes wrong:
Samuel RidoutHe counts his wasted body as evidence of the wrath of God, tearing him as a beast would! Job truly does not measure his words. He sees only bitter suffering, inflicted for no reason, and he is unwilling or unable to trust God in the dark. This is Job's great error, and along with it he protests his own righteousness as if he deserved credit for it.
The one thing Job could not see
Job calls the one attacking him "my adversary." The reader knows who that adversary really is, and that the truth is the reverse of what Job fears:
C Stanley"For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me." This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had only known it, God was for him.
What Job took for hatred was its opposite:
Leslie M. GrantYet in all the trouble Job was experiencing, God was acting toward him in genuine love and compassion. At the moment Job could not see this, as later he would.
A greater Sufferer, and a different response
One writer sets Job's words beside Another who met hatred of the same kind and answered it differently:
Samuel RidoutTurn to another Sorrow, next to which Job's anguish was nothing. What do we find there? Meekness, patience and confidence in God, in the face of bitter hatred from men who "ask me of things that I do not know." "When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly." In this, as in all else, there is none like Him.
Where bitterness comes from
The verse ends as a lesson about sight. What Job feels follows from the God he thinks he is looking at:
William KellyBecause of the fiery trial Job was going through, he speaks as if God were treating him harshly, as if He had somehow become his enemy. So he breaks out into bitterness. That is the natural effect of such a thought. The state of the soul always depends on how one looks, or fails to look, at God. So how important it is to know and enjoy God as He is! Then the soul is at ease and at home with Him, judging itself and resting in His love.
Summary
- Pain is real. Job's suffering is genuine. The tearing, the gnashing and the fixed stare describe what he feels.
- Sight is blurred. In his misery he cannot separate the scoffs of evil men from the hand of God. The shift from "He" to "they" leaves even the commentators divided over who is meant.
- Evidence is misread. He takes his wasted body as proof of God's wrath. That step, with his defence of his own righteousness, is his great error.
- The truth is the opposite. The arrows were Satan's, not God's. God was for Job and acting in love, though Job could not see it yet.
- The cure is a right view of God. Thinking God has become your enemy bears bitterness. Rest comes from knowing Him as He is — as the greater Sufferer showed when He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.