Job 19:21

"Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!" As far as it goes, this seems excellent on Job's part. It was not the whole truth, but it was true. His certainty that it was not for any wickedness in his hands did not weaken it. He had not been knowingly holding on to any evil. Yet the plain fact stood: God was striking him. He did not blame other people. He would not try to explain it by human reasoning. It hurt so deeply just because he felt it came from God. Whatever the means used, it was God — the same God who had put a hedge of protection around him and blessed him steadily until then. He did not know how to fit the present together with the past. For that he had to wait. The answer came at last, when patience had its perfect work.

How pitiable! He had come down very low to call upon his dear friends to have pity, and they had nothing but bad suspicion which wounded him to the quick.

The plea for pity and sympathy might well move hearts of stone. But it seems Job's words fall on ears that will not listen. It was their argument that God's hand had been upon him — for his sin.

If no one else will have pity on Job, at least his friends should. They came to comfort him, so he feels they ought to show some measure of pity rather than accusation. He pleads with them, saying, "the hand of God has touched me." Should they add to his suffering, thinking it right to do so because God had made him suffer? He felt God was persecuting him. That was not true. But his friends really were persecuting him. They were not satisfied that his flesh had suffered enough.

How often have we caught ourselves judging a child of God whom we found in trouble of "mind, body, or estate." We must guard against this carefully. We ought not to imagine that every visit of the hand of God must be because of some special sin in that person. This would be an entirely false principle. The dealings of God are preventive as well as corrective.

But once more he appeals to their compassion in the face of such ruin and misery. He appeals all the more because he owned it to be the hand of God... Then the truth of God's intervention at the end flashes so brightly before his soul that he wishes his words written... And no wonder. He knows his Kinsman-Redeemer lives.

The hand of God never deals except in agreement with His heart of infinite love towards us... even if He sees good to allow sorrow to come — yes, to send it — it comes from a hand which never makes a mistake. That hand always answers to a heart whose love is perfect.