Job 40:4

And Job answers — and what an answer it is! It is the answer God was waiting for. "Look! I am vile; what shall I answer You? I will lay my hand upon my mouth." He admits that he had spoken too much, and that now he cannot answer and will go no further. He is completely silenced. He admits his own nothingness and vileness, that his words were wrong, and that he has nothing else to say. He was sure that a God who had spoken to him of creation and His creatures, showing His power, wisdom and care, could never be unjust in His dealings with man.

"My desire is that the Almighty would answer me," was Job's closing word (Job 31:35). Now he gets his wish — but what a different result! "As a prince would I go near to Him" (verse 37), he had declared. "I am vile" is what he has to say when he hears His voice.

It is one thing to weigh up the opinions of men, as Job might weigh those of his friends. It is quite another to sit in judgment on God's ways. Job had wanted to come near God's throne and plead his own case. Now here God was — ready for Job to answer, if he could, as boldly as he had rebuked. The only answer he gives is to admit that he is vile. He had no answer to God's challenge except the confession that lay in putting his hand over his mouth… He now sees how foolish his refusal to submit was. He had spoken too much. Silence was what suited him. It was God's turn to speak.

His new thoughts about God brought new thoughts about himself at once. So we find that the careful self-defence, the passionate self-importance, the loud self-praise, the long arguments in his own favour — he lays it all aside. One short sentence of three words takes its place: "I am vile." And what is there to do with this vile self? Talk about it? Set it up? Fill his mind with it? Take advice about it? Make provision for it? No — "I abhor it."

It is one thing to say "We are all vile," and quite another to feel, deep down in the heart, that "I am vile." The second of those can only be known, and felt day after day, right in God's presence.

In God's presence his mouth is stopped. Then he said, "I am vile"; "I will lay my hand on my mouth." But God must take Job further, because He is bringing him to Himself. Job must come to confess not only that there is no good in him, but that there is a great deal of evil… So Job takes God's side against himself. He laid himself before God, and abhorred himself. Then he repents in dust and ashes, for it is only in God's presence that we learn repentance.

Job goes deeper here than apologising for what he has said. He passes judgment on himself. And how true it is that we ourselves, in our sinful nature, are worse than the worst thing we have ever said or done. Then he judges what he had spoken more than once, and says he lays his hand over his mouth. It is just as Romans 3:19 says of all mankind: "so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."