Job 27:2

He begins again with unusual solemnity. He appeals to the living God, though he admits that it was God who turned aside His judgment and made his soul bitter for the present. He swears that as long as he breathed, his lips would not speak wickedness, and his tongue would not murmur deceit. It would only dishonour God for him to allow them to be in the right. So to his dying breath he would stand by his integrity, and hold fast his righteousness, never letting it go.

Job declares that he will never surrender to the unrighteous charges of the friends. He declares outright that God has taken away his right — not his judgment, as older translations put it. God has acted unjustly toward him. He has brought bitterness into the soul of one who did not deserve it!

He knows that God lives, but claims that God had taken away the justice Job felt he deserved. He knew that God is Almighty, but he accused God of making his soul bitter.

He had been charged with being a deceiver and a hypocrite. He knew he was not this, and he was not going to plead guilty to it for a moment. We too know that he was not. But outward correctness does not by itself count as righteousness in the presence of God. Job's own words here prove it, for the way he complains of God in verse 2 shows that his heart was not right in His sight.

We must take this as the sober statement of one who had "lived in all good conscience." But there is a sound of self-righteousness in it. That does not fit with knowing yourself in the presence of God. Job is not there yet. It is the cry of an honest soul that does not fully see the light.

Elihu deals fairly with Job's statements. He either quotes Job's words, sums them up, or draws obvious conclusions from them. Job had time and again declared he was righteous, or guiltless. This is the whole burden of his complaint against God. He had declared that God had taken away his judgment, and that, being innocent, if he confessed sin he would be a liar.

Jehovah asks him the serious question, "Will you even put Me in the wrong? Will you condemn Me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His?"

There was something unusual about Job's case, which he did not know at first. God was allowing Satan to bring all these things. Satan's pleasure and hope was to trip Job up and cast him down, and to make him curse God. God allowed him to have his way, but not to kill Job. That would have suited Job. But it would not have brought out the great moral of the story: blessing brought into his soul by the very things that seemed to be against him. When he began to find fault, he had to learn what that very God is like. He could never swerve from what is excellent. And in all this He had a purpose of blessing for Job — not just outward blessing, but blessing for his soul.