And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
Bildad has told Job that his suffering proves his guilt. Job answers that even a real fault would be his own affair — which raises a question: does a fault a man cannot see give other men the right to name it?
Words without weight
Job's answer starts with how little the charges against him rested on:
Leslie M. GrantThey accused him of evil without knowing of any evil in him. So if he had gone wrong, only he knew it. They were just making thrusts in the dark.
His error, his affair
Job is not shrugging the fault off. He is drawing a line around it:
William KellySo Job pleads against the constant suspicion that follows him, despite his solemn declarations of innocence. If his trouble really was punishment for evil, that was his own affair.
Another writer says the friends crossed a line, and that their charges pushed Job further the wrong way:
Samuel RidoutWhat proof did they have of sins in his past? If he had truly gone wrong, the secret lay in his own heart, where they had no right to intrude. They drive him to say, as he had said already, that the wrong was not his but God's. It is this root of suspicion against the Almighty that has to be searched out, and these men's false charges will never do it.
A concession, not a confession
Job does not admit a fault. He allows a possible one and then shuts the door on it:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinBildad's fierce speech did not humble Job. He admits their words troubled his soul and broke him in pieces, but he does not change his view. He rejects the guilt they charged him with, and goes on blaming God.
Job and his friends shared one assumption, and it pushed him to a terrible conclusion:
Leslie M. GrantHe had the same mistaken idea as his friends: that God handed out suffering in proportion to a man's guilt. So he concluded that in his case God had been unfair.
The fault they never found
There was something wrong in Job. But it was not the crime his friends were hunting for, and it was the kind of thing people rarely see in themselves:
William KellyThere was a fault in Job, but not at all the kind they expected. Job's fault was this: he had a good opinion of himself, and he took great pleasure in everybody thinking so highly of him. I wonder whether any of us have that? I am afraid it is a very common thing. And that is just what people do not find out.
Wronged, but not right
Job may be right against Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Winning the argument is not the same as being right with God:
C. H. MackintoshNo doubt the friends were wrong, quite wrong — wrong in their ideas about God, wrong in the way they handled Job. But their being wrong did not make him right. If Job's conscience had been in God's presence, he would have given his friends no answer at all, even if they had been a thousand times more mistaken and harsh. He would have bowed his head quietly and let the flood of rebuke and accusation roll over him. He would have put their harshness to good use, treating it as healthy moral training for his heart.
Honest ignorance of ourselves
An error can hide in a man without his knowing it. The answer is not the friends' suspicion, and not Job's self-defence, but a clear conscience left open to God:
Numerical Bible NotesWho can claim to be free of the sins he commits without knowing it? Here you see two things at once. There is the integrity of a man who has searched and judged himself, free from every offense he knows of. And there is also the full admission that there might well be things wrong in him that he knew nothing about. As for those, trusting His grace, he could commit himself to the One who will one day bring everything to light. If none of us ought to be able to say less than this, who can say more?
Summary
- Thrusts in the dark. The friends accused Job of evil without knowing of any evil in him. Their charges were guesswork.
- His own affair. Any real error of Job's stayed in his own heart. That was between him and God, and his accusers had no right to enter.
- Not a confession. Job allows the error only as a possibility. He rejects their verdict and blames God instead.
- The wrong fault hunted. There was a fault in Job: his good opinion of himself and his pleasure in being respected. Nobody was looking there — not even Job.
- Right and still not right. The friends were wrong, but that did not make Job right. A conscience in God's presence would have used their harshness instead of answering it.