Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth.
Job has just heard his friends describe the short, doomed life of the wicked, and now he turns the argument around. First he asks his three friends to stop talking and look at him.
A complaint aimed at God, not at men
The demand for silence rests on what Job says just before it: his case is not with people.
F. B. HoleHis first point is this: his complaint was not to man but to God. If it had been to man, his spirit might well have been troubled, or "impatient." He reminded them that both he and they were dealing with God. Given that fact, and looking at how God was dealing with him, they would do well to lay their hands on their mouths and stop condemning him. As for himself, he was afraid and trembled when he remembered it.
Another writer weighs the same words and finds godliness in them, not rebellion.
William Kelly"As for me, is my complaint to man?" Through all of this he has a deep sense that he is dealing with God, and that is true piety. "And if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?" That is, I do not understand it, and that is what makes it so terrible.
Silence instead of an answer
A hand over the mouth is what you do when you have nothing to say. Job's friends had plenty to say — and that was the problem.
Leslie M. Grant"Look at me," he says, "and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth" (v.5). They might well keep quiet. They were not answering for God — the God who had allowed (or caused) him to be terrified and trembling (v.6). If they had really cared about Job, could they not have prayed to God about how to help the poor sufferer? They probably never thought of praying for him. They were sure they already had the right answers for God, with no need of prayer.
What he asked them to look at
Job is not asking for pity here. He points to himself as a case their rule cannot explain. What he sees frightens him too.
William KellyBut with great solemnity he calls them to hear something he admits made him shudder. It is an undeniable truth, and it flatly contradicts their narrow thoughts, their clever sayings and their unkind certainty: the wicked, instead of being cut down young, live on, grow old and become great in power, with their children settled around them.
Why the theory had to fall
Their whole case rested on a rule about how the world works. Job's evidence breaks the rule. Why they held it in the first place is the real warning.
William KellyThey had assumed that, under God's government, no wicked man prospered and no righteous man could fail to prosper. There could not be a falser view of the world as it now is... But how did these pious men come to make such a strange mistake? No one makes stranger mistakes than pious people who are not walking in dependence on God. Their very piety gives them a stronger hatred of evil. And if they lack the power of grace and the sense of their need of grace, with God Himself guarding them, no one will be more severe and no one less just.
The hand that covers Job's own mouth
Job wins this round. But at the end of the book he makes the same gesture himself.
William KellyJob had wished to come near His seat, and plead his own cause. Now here He was, if Job could answer as boldly as he had rebuked. The only answer Job gives is to admit that he is vile. He had no answer to the divine challenge beyond the confession implied in laying his hand on his mouth... The folly of refusing to submit is now before his soul. He had spoken too much; silence was what suited him. It was for Jehovah to speak.
Summary
- Silence asked. Job asks his friends to stop speaking and look at him.
- Silence justified. They were not answering for God, and they never prayed for the man they were diagnosing.
- Silence earned. The evidence is plain: the wicked often grow old, powerful and secure — a fact that made even Job shudder.
- Silence needed. Piety without dependence on God turns harsh and unfair. No one judges worse than religious people who are sure they are right.
- Silence received. In the end Job lays his own hand on his mouth. When God speaks, it is for God alone to speak.