For I was in terror of calamity from God, and I could not have faced his majesty.
Job is closing his final defence. He has listed every wrong he never did to his servants, the poor, the widow and the fatherless. Now he names the reason he never dared to do them. But the verse raises a question. Is a life ruled by the fear of God also a life that can stand before God?
The motive behind the mercy
The verse is Job's explanation, not just another claim. One writer sees it as the close of the section, where Job names what drove him:
Leslie M. GrantHe ends this section by showing that the fear of God mattered deeply to him (v.23). Just thinking about God's real power to destroy evil filled him with terror. So he would never dare to offend One whose greatness left him in awe — to the point where he said he could not endure it.
What that fear drove out
Job was a man of wealth and high position. One commentator shows what the fear of God did to his heart toward the people below him:
William KellyHe shows, very movingly, that even in his high position his heart never forgot that his servants were of the same race and the same human family as himself. There was no cold personal pride in him. And it was not only a strong sense of ties inside his own household. His compassion always went out to people who suffered — the widow and the fatherless, the needy and the naked. He did not care for them now and then, but with the steady, tireless care of a father. He also watched himself, so that he never gained the smallest advantage over them through his influence with others. The fear of God, and his angry defence of all such people, had worked in him so strongly that hardness was a complete stranger to his heart.
The same fear at work where no one was watching
That fear did not only govern Job's public dealings. It reached his private life too. One commentator sets Job beside two other men tested in the same area:
Samuel RidoutJob insists that he is pure, and points out that the fear of God moved him — God, who would certainly repay the wicked for their sin. "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" said Joseph when a woman tried to seduce him (Gen. 39:9). In a time of spiritual laziness, David let his eyes wander, and he fell (2 Sam. 11:2). Job knew that God watched his every step, and he asks God to test him and weigh him in the balance.
Restraint where the law was on his side
The verse comes right after Job's oath about the fatherless. Job could have taken the fatherless to court and won, and still stayed within his rights:
Samuel RidoutAs he speaks of his kindness to others, Job shows that he never used a legal loophole to excuse himself for dealing harshly with the needy. He saw his "help in the gate" — the judges ready to rule in his favour, not because they were bribed, but because they were giving him his due — and even then he did not press his case against the orphans.
Where the defence falls short
Commentators differ here. Some read the verse as proof that Job truly feared God. Others ask why a man who fears God needs to talk about it at all:
Samuel RidoutTo all of this we can only say: true and admirable — but why should he talk about it? Why not let his fear of God keep him from these things, instead of boasting about them?
Job's friends had called him a hypocrite. On that charge he was right to defend himself. But his defence answers the wrong court:
F. B. HoleThis "righteousness," as Job 29 will show us, had to do with his outward conduct, because the searching light of God had not yet entered his soul. His friends had charged him 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 know he was not either. But outward correctness does not in itself count as righteousness in the presence of God.
Summary
- Fear first. Job's kindness to the weak was not just soft feeling. Behind it stood his terror of God's judgment on evil.
- Fear softens. That same fear kept a rich man from growing hard. It made the widow and the orphan his constant care.
- Fear restrains. It held him back even when the judges in the gate would have ruled in his favour against the fatherless.
- Fear reaches inward. It governed his eyes and desires where no human court could ever have called him to account.
- Fear is not enough. A clear conscience before men answers his friends. But outward correctness is not righteousness before God. Job must still meet God Himself.