Job 30:11

One reading of the text gives "my," that is, Job's, cord. The other gives "His," that is, God's. Ewald takes this as a bowstring, Conant as a rein. The sense seems to be the letting loose of trouble and persecutions. They took their stand on his right, as witnesses against the sufferer. So he lost all firm ground to stand on. He could only compare himself to a place open to every method of siege and assault. The course of his life was broken up by force, and those who helped push on his ruin needed no help themselves. For they poured in as through a wide breach, rolling onward under the crash of ruin.

"They do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me. Because God has loosed my cord." There, after all, was what grieved the heart of poor Job more than anything. It was God. He does not mean the devil; it was not the devil.

Job thought God had afflicted him, and that this was why "the rabble" had cast off restraint (v.11). They saw in Job a chance to vent their evil tempers against him. In fact, this was similar to the Lord Jesus, whose words in Psalm 69:26 surely speak to us: "They persecute Him whom you have struck down." But His case was very different from Job's. God struck the Lord Jesus because of our sins. Men, ignorant of such grace, only used the occasion to heap further abuse on the Son of God.

We can only compare his anger at their taunts with the meekness of Him "who when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten." All through life, the shadows of man's rejection fell on our Lord. But in His darkest hour — "your hour, and the power of darkness" — they poured out their curses and their taunts. But He acted like One who did not hear: "I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting" (Isa. 50:6). Who is it that said this? Not a man mourning his lost greatness. This was One who gave up His glory by His own choice, out of love for His enemies. He could have delivered Himself from His troubles at any moment.

But remember: much more is needed than the stripping of self and the discovery of how hollow and deceitful the world is. A person may go through all of these, and the result be merely disappointment and a sour spirit. Indeed it can be nothing more if God is not reached. If the heart does not find its all-satisfying portion in God, a reverse of fortune leaves it desolate. The discovery of how fickle and hollow people are fills it with bitterness. This accounts for Job's language in Job 30... when once Job got into God's presence, there was an end to the self-absorption of Job 29 and the bitterness of Job 30.