The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
Job has lost his wealth, his children and his health. Now he answers his friend Bildad by naming everyone who has walked away — brothers, relatives, close friends, and at last the people under his own roof. The strange thing is where he lays the blame: not on them, but on God.
Who the verse is describing
One writer traces the widening circle of desertion in verses 12–15:
Leslie M. GrantJob's brothers had removed themselves from him, and Job blamed God for this. His acquaintances, relatives and close friends had distanced themselves from him (vv.12-14). Even those living in his own house, including maid servants, acted toward him as though he had been a stranger, a foreigner not to be considered (v.15).
The shame goes deeper than being ignored:
Samuel RidoutHis own slaves look at him as a stranger. He has to beg his own servant over and over before the man will even answer him.
Job traces it all to God's hand
Job does not blame bad luck. He says God did it. One writer marks the exact point where Job goes wrong:
William Kelly"He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope He has pulled up like a tree. He has kindled His wrath against me …" — there he was wrong — "and counts me as His adversary… He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me." You know what that does to the heart, if you have ever tasted it.
There is honesty in this. His friends said God was against Job. Job does not dodge it — he says it himself, and in more detail than they did.
William KellyDid they say that God was against Job? "God has overthrown me," he admits. If it was any comfort to them to know it, he confesses that his trouble came from God's hand… He himself, not they, points to how completely he was deserted — by his wife, his brothers, his servants, his whole household.
Every prop taken away
One writer sees love and wisdom behind this stripping, not cruelty:
Samuel RidoutWe can be sure that divine love, as well as divine wisdom, put this afflicted child of God through fresh attacks from Satan… Every prop is to be removed and every joy on earth taken away. Still Job will hold fast to the God he has trusted, even if only dimly. And through the very trials he must pass through, Job will learn the greatest lesson of all, for all eternity: that God is all in all. As a step to that knowledge, he will see that he is nothing.
The false props we lean on
One writer, thinking of Job's furnace, describes what a person finds out about himself:
G. V. WigramWhen the soul turns to seek His face, and Him only as our goal and object, we discover with amazement how many false props we have had. We see how often we have been leaning on the love and approval of others, and not on a Father's love alone.
Not everyone left
The verse lists who left. It is worth remembering who came: Job's three friends travelled to him when no one else would.
J. G. BellettThey came to Job when everyone had deserted him. Children mocked him, young men pushed his feet aside, his relatives failed him, his closest friends forgot him, his servants gave him no answer, and his wife refused him… And they did go. They sat with him in his place of ashes and broken pottery for seven days.
Out of this darkness comes the Redeemer
Ten verses later Job says the words the book is remembered for. This abandonment is their setting:
William Kelly"I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth." It was beautiful at such a time, in the deepest desolation and distress, with not one friend left among men, and God Himself striking him. How like Christ he is, up to a point, in his circumstances! How little like Him in that steady acknowledgment of God's holiness, which is as free from hardness as it is from complaining!
Summary
- Stranger at home. The people in Job's own house now treat him as a foreigner. He has to beg his own servant for an answer.
- Stripped on purpose. Divine love and wisdom remove every prop, so Job learns that God is all in all — and that he himself is nothing.
- False props exposed. The loss uncovers how much we lean on the approval of others instead of on a Father's love alone.
- Read wrong. Job is right that the blow comes from God's hand. He is wrong to read it as God's wrath against an enemy.
- Redeemer found. In that same desolation, with not one friend left, Job says he knows his Redeemer lives. The darkest hour holds the brightest confession.