From out of the city the dying groan, and the soul of the wounded cries for help; yet God charges no one with wrong.
Job is answering his friend Eliphaz. In this chapter he turns from his own case to the world at large — the poor robbed of their clothes, working hungry among the sheaves, making oil and wine they never taste. This verse is the sharp edge of that picture. The wounded cry out, and God appears to do nothing.
The scene behind the cry
The groaning does not begin in this verse. It comes from the people Job describes just before — labourers who make wealth they are never allowed to taste. William Kelly walks through those lines and says why the silence follows:
William KellyThey make oil inside their masters' walls. The rich employ them to produce their own plenty — they make the oil, but they never have a drop of it for themselves. They tread the wine-presses and go thirsty. There is no wine for them. God does not take any notice of it, and the reason is that He is waiting for that day.
Whom God does not charge
The second half of the verse is easy to misread. Job is not saying God refuses to hear the sufferers. He is saying God does not yet call the guilty to account — while Eliphaz is quick to call Job guilty:
Leslie M. GrantCruel men would employ them to press out oil and to tread winepresses, yet would not give them even enough in wages to quench their thirst. Some were groaning as death gripped them, and the souls of the wounded were crying out. "Yet," Job says, "God does not charge them (the oppressors) with wrong" (v.12). But Eliphaz was charging Job with wrong.
Translations word the last clause differently — one reads "God regards not the folly," another "God imputes not the impiety." Both say the same thing: God has not yet charged the oppressors with their guilt.
The argument that demolishes his friends
Job's friends held one rule: suffering proves guilt. Verse 12 sets facts against that rule, and Job uses those facts as a weapon:
Samuel RidoutThe poor are robbed of the very clothes they wear. They work hungry among the sheaves. At the oil press and at the grape harvest they get no share of what they make. The oppressed groan in the city — and God takes no notice of it! It is an awful picture of facts only too well-known to them — and to us. How can Eliphaz make such facts fit in with his theory that evil is always punished in this life? But, oh, how can God close His eyes to these things, and afflict a faithful man instead of these wrong doers? This is Job's great trouble, and for this he has found no solution.
Job wins the argument and still loses his peace. He proves his friends wrong without answering his own question. Their comfort came from something missing in themselves:
William KellyUnless we judge ourselves day by day, we get hard... That is just where the friends of Job were. They were quite comfortable. There was nothing wrong with them; but Job — he must be very bad. That was their complete misjudgment.
A question Job could not yet answer
The puzzle Job raises here runs right through the Old Testament, and it stays unsolved:
William KellyIt is the enigma of psalms and prophets, and must be till Christ solves it.
The silence is delay, not absence. The day waits for the right hands:
William KellyNow Job faces this question — how is it, if the times are so bad, that the day of retribution does not come? We do not see it. It is coming; it waits for the only One who can perfectly deal with evil.
Living before the answer comes
How should a believer read their own hardship? Present conditions prove nothing about God's mind toward a person:
William KellyJob makes it perfectly clear that nothing now works out the way you would expect. You cannot judge how God feels about a person by how well that person does here below. The righteous are often tried far more. Their trial is no proof that anything is wrong with them. On the contrary, God is putting them to the test, to show that they really are His. So submission of heart is what we are all called to under trial, and perfect confidence in God.
Summary
- Cry — The groaning rises from workers who press the oil and tread the winepress, yet go thirsty. It is the sound of wealth built on people who never taste it.
- Charge — God is not withholding His hearing. He is withholding His sentence. The oppressors are not yet charged, though Eliphaz is quick to charge Job.
- Collapse — These facts wreck the theory that evil is always punished in this life. Job answers his friends and still finds no solution for himself.
- Christ — The puzzle runs unsolved through the psalms and prophets. It waits for the only One who can deal with evil perfectly. The delay is a day still to come, not a blind God.
- Confidence — Present conditions prove nothing about God's mind toward a person. Trial can be His way of showing whose they are. The call is submission of heart and full trust in Him.