Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below.
God is still speaking out of the storm. He hands Job a challenge: if you are fit to judge Me, take My throne and do My work. This verse names the last act of that work — burying the proud out of sight. Can any man's arm do it?
The task God sets before Job
This demand closes a string of commands. One writer sets out the whole passage, ending with what God promises if Job can carry it out:
William KellySo put on majesty and grandeur; put on honour and beauty. Pour out the outbursts of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Look at everyone who is proud — make him bow. Tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them in the dust together; bind their faces in secret. Then even I will praise you, that your right hand saves you.
The last phrase follows an older translation; the ESV reads "bind their faces in the world below." God never means Job to take the offer up. Another writer reads it as irony aimed at the fault Job had shown:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinIt is Divine irony, but it was needed to humble Job still more. He was so proud. He had so stubbornly defended his own righteousness, justifying himself and accusing God. How could he do what Jehovah asked him to do?
An invitation to the throne
These commands are, in effect, an offer of God's own seat. It is a just offer, because Job had already claimed that seat by his words:
Samuel RidoutIf he really is qualified for this, Jehovah is inviting him, so to speak, to take his seat on the throne of divine judgment. What a terrible, holy irony! And yet how just it is. If Job can sit in judgment on God, he is surely qualified to run all His affairs better than He can! He can put down the proud rebellion of every evildoer, and bring men into the dust before him. Has he done that with his own proud and rebellious heart? Has he humbled even his friends? How much less the whole world.
The gap between the man and the task shows in his body. He must clothe himself in splendour while he sits in ashes:
Samuel RidoutBut had his own right hand stopped the raiders who drove away his possessions? Had it turned back the storm that swept away his children? Sadly, all it had taken up was a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself with. His clothing was sackcloth, not glory and majesty. His seat was the ashes of a ruined life, not the throne of glory.
Severity that is mercy
Words this sharp, spoken to a man who has lost everything, look cruel. The alternative would have been worse:
Samuel RidoutIs it cruel of Jehovah to deal like this with a poor, broken-hearted man? Let us ask instead: would it have been kindness to leave him wearing his pride like a garment, and raging against the Almighty? There is only one way to bring pride low. It must be brought face to face with its own nothingness in the presence of the majesty and boundless goodness of God.
Pride is not a sinner's problem only
Job was a godly man, which is what makes this exchange so searching. What God exposes here lives in believers too, and grace produces the opposite:
William KellyWhat a proud thing the flesh is, and no better in the saint than in the sinner! ... Grace produces the very opposite in every soul born of God. It makes a person ready to take God's side against self, to sit in judgment on his own ways, and to bow to His word, however scorching its blast on every way or word, thought and feeling.
The hand that can save
The challenge ends in the next verse: if Job can bury the proud, God will admit that Job can save himself. Job can do neither.
Leslie M. GrantCould Job's right hand save him? (v.14) No more than he could humble everyone who is proud. Job had to learn that only the living God is the Saviour. He saves, not those who deserve it, but those who are humbled to the dust and recognise that they deserve nothing but judgment.
The same writer turns the verse outward. Everyone reaches this dust; the only question is when.
Leslie M. GrantHowever strong a person's pride may be, everyone will be humbled down to the dust in the end... How much better to humble ourselves before God now, in sober self-judgment, before God has to bring on us the humiliation of being cast into the lake of fire!
Summary
- Dust as challenge — God tells Job to bury the proud out of sight. Only God can do that work, and He offers it to a man who had judged His ways.
- Dust as irony — God tells a man in sackcloth and ashes to robe himself in majesty. The mismatch is the argument.
- Dust as mercy — leaving Job wrapped in his pride would not have been kind. Only God's majesty brings pride face to face with its own nothingness.
- Dust as warning — the flesh is no better in a believer than in an unbeliever. Every proud person comes to the dust: now by self-judgment, or later by judgment.
- Dust as salvation — Job's right hand could not humble the proud or save him. God saves people brought low enough to admit they deserve nothing.