Job 29:1

The Old Testament uses the word 'parable' many times for figurative language where no distinct parable is told. So Balaam 'took up his parable', Numbers 23:7, 18, and Job 'continued his parable', Job 27:1; Job 29:1.

A fresh discourse of Job begins here, and it is his final one. It divides into the three chapters that follow. Each presents a distinct portion, and the whole is a very complete summary of the case as it now appeared to the sufferer's spirit. He looks back over his past life, when divine favour lavished on him every enjoyment an upright soul could desire on earth. That favour showed in the relief of the needy and distressed quite as much as in the honour he had from everyone who knew him. Then in Job 30 he contrasts his present degradation. He is an object of scorn even to the young, and has no comfort within. The bitterest part of his cup is that he cries to God and gets no answer, while God's strong hand puts him down. Yet in Job 31 he denies, with the utmost detail and solemnity, any awareness of secret sin.

Eliphaz did not deal in vague hints. He stated Job's wrongdoing toward the needy, the naked, the weary, the hungry, the widow and the fatherless. In Job 29, Job answers these charges, and he is just as clear in declaring how well he had acted toward these very people.

If we have to look back to the past for marks of God's favour, that is nearly always a sign of present weakness. It tends to go with pride in that past and discouragement in the present… The manna of yesterday will not do for today. The bright light of yesterday's candle is the burnt wick of today. A present Christ in all His fulness, and a present Spirit bringing the Word to our need — these are the believer's proper subject and business. So from the very start Job is looking in the wrong direction.

The words Job had spoken were wholesome words, but now he goes back to the old complaint of self-occupation, self-pity and self-vindication. Some twenty times he says 'I' in this chapter. Looking back is good if we do it with praise and humility. Not once does Job utter a word of praise. It is all spoken to remind his friends, as well as himself, what a great man he was. How often it happens with the Lord's servants that they live in the past and then nourish a most subtle pride.

Turn for a moment to Job 29. You will see plainly what a strong and deep root of self-satisfaction there was in the heart of this dear and valued servant of God. The very tokens of divine favour that surrounded him fed that root. This chapter is a moving lament over the faded light of other days. Its very tone and character prove how necessary it was that Job should lose everything, so that he might learn himself in the searching light of God's presence.

Job now gives his last speech — his greatest effort to justify himself. Read chapters 29–31, and you will say that if any man could have justified himself by good works, Job was the man. There is not a man in your whole town who can say as much as Job said, and say it truly. As to his kindness to the poor, he was the very opposite of the lying charges brought against him. So he lets memory recount every good act of his life, but it all fails to give rest to his troubled spirit. I, I, I — I did this, I did not do that. But it is all of no use.