if the men of my tent have not said, ‘Who is there that has not been filled with his meat?’
Job has been listing, under oath, the sins he has not committed. Now he dares the men of his own tent to name one person he ever let go hungry.
Kindness that reached even his enemies
The claim sits at the end of a short run about how Job treated people who wished him harm. He would not gloat over their troubles. He would not even wish them ruin in secret. Then he calls his own household to the witness stand.
Samuel RidoutJob's strong point is his kindness to his fellow-men. Here he declares that even to his enemies he had been just. He had not been glad at their calamity, nor even in secret wished a curse to blight their life. He could call the men of his own household to bear witness. Had anyone ever said they knew a hungry man whom he had not satisfied with his own food? No stranger was ever left beside his home in the street. His door was always open to them — as we say today, "the latch string was always outside."
Who the "men of my tent" are
The witnesses are not distant admirers. They shared his living space and saw what came off his table every day.
Leslie M. GrantJob's close neighbours ("men of my tent") could bear witness that Job left no one without food (v.31). No traveller near Job had to stay in the streets: he did not forget to welcome strangers (v.32).
What the appeal claims
The verse reads oddly in English because it is a challenge, not a statement. Job invites anyone who ate at his table to contradict him.
William KellyHe could appeal to the people who knew the habits of his life best. Had one single person ever left him unhappy with the food he gave? Had a stranger near him ever been left without shelter?
The older word "meat" in this verse means food in general. The writers read it as the fare from Job's own table.
A fine portrait with one problem
Everything Job says here is true. The chapter is one of the finest descriptions of a good life anywhere. The trouble is not the content. It is the speaker.
William KellyThese wonderful questions of the Almighty laid Job in the dust for the first time... That man who was such a fine answerer of others, and particularly eloquent about himself! For there is as grand a description as you can have of an admirable saint, in Job 31. But the misfortune is, it was Job talking about himself. It is a fine thing to speak well of other people's goodness. But it is not a fine subject for yourself, and that is what betrayed Job.
Generosity that forgets itself
Real giving is meant to be hidden — even from the giver. That is where Job's account of his open table went wrong. He could still recite it.
William KellyHere lay Job's failure. Satan's attacks never touched it. Neither did the lack of sympathy, nor even the suspicion of his friends. He was a most gracious man, but he thought about it, instead of thinking only of God who worked in him. To this he had to be brought, and he was: to boast only in God, to judge himself, and to submit with all his heart. Part of the lesson was that his left hand should not know what his right hand did. This, on the contrary, right up to the end of his appeal (Job 31), he knew only too well.
From "I am clean" to "I am vile"
Job's defence closes in complete confidence. God answers it — not by disputing the facts, but by changing the man.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHis final word can be summed up in one sentence: "I am clean." The next time he opens his lips, he says, "Behold I am vile." The rest of the book will teach us how he came to this.
(Older translations read "Behold, I am vile"; the ESV has "Behold, I am of small account.")
Summary
- Witnesses. Job calls the men of his tent as witnesses. They lived closest to him, so they could expose him if his generosity were a fiction.
- Table. Their evidence is food. No one could name a single person who left his house still hungry.
- Enemies. The same kindness stretched past friends to people who hated him, whom he refused to gloat over or curse.
- Mirror. The record is true and admirable. But Job is the one reciting it. Giving is meant to be hidden even from ourselves — the left hand not knowing what the right hand does.
- Turn. A man who could sum himself up as "I am clean" is later brought to say "I am vile." The rest of the book shows how he got there.