Job 31:22

While dwelling on his kindness, Job shows how he had not taken advantage of any legal technicality that would have cleared him in any harsh dealing with the needy. When he saw his "help in the gate" — the judges leaning to decide in his favour — he had not pressed his case against the orphans. They were not bribed; they were giving him his just dues. If he had lifted his hand against them, he says, "let my arm drop from my shoulder-blade."

In verses 16-21 he speaks of sins of omission also. Suppose he had not helped the poor, or had ignored the plight of the widow, but had kept everything for himself, so that the fatherless went hungry. Suppose he had seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or any poor man without covering. Suppose the heart of the poor had not blessed Job, because the fleece of his sheep had never warmed him. Suppose Job had not championed the cause of the fatherless in the gate, the place of judgment. Then, he says, let my arm fall from my shoulder.

Here, at the close of his last speech, Job makes the most solemn and complete protest of his innocence. He does not deny what he had already admitted about man's condition, his own included. But he flatly refuses the idea of grievous wickedness concealed under a fair exterior, which God could now be waging war against, as his friends had supposed. He lists his personal purity — and this as a married man too — his behaviour toward his servants, his remembrance of the poor and the exposed, his hatred of idolatry and greed, his generous and hospitable ways, his hatred of hypocrisy. If he is false in any of it, he prays to be put to utter shame.

He ends this section by showing that the fear of God was a vital matter with him (v.23). It was a terror to him even to think of the reality of God's destructive power against evil. He would not dare to offend One whose magnificence filled him with awe, to the point that he said, "I cannot endure."

This chapter shows that before God gave the law, God-fearing men still held to a high standard of morality. That standard looked not only at the outward act but also at the inward motive that prompts it.

To all of this we can only say: true and excellent — but why should he speak of it? Why not let his fear of God keep him from these things, rather than boast of them?

This "righteousness," as Job 29 will show us, concerned his outward conduct, because God's searching light had not yet entered his soul. He had been charged with being a deceiver and a hypocrite. He knew he was not, 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 in itself count for righteousness before God.