If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?
Job is answering his friends, and his reply keeps hitting the same wall: God is too great to argue with. Here he weighs two ways a man might settle his case with such a God — raw power or a fair hearing — and finds both doors shut.
A case with no courtroom
Job never denies that God has justice on His side. His complaint is that no court will ever hear him.
Leslie M. GrantIf Job thought of strength — and he had none — it pressed on him that God is strong. If he thought of justice, of course God has both strength and justice on His side. But Job felt he was not even allowed a day in court to plead his cause.
Why the lawsuit collapses
The second half of the verse asks who could summon God to court. Older translations read it as "who will set me a time?" — who could even fix a date for the hearing? Either way the answer is nobody, and the reason lies as much in what man is as in what God is.
William KellyHow vain to think of a favourable outcome in a lawsuit with God! It would dishonour His glory to think that He could stoop to such a contest, or listen to a creature's argument against His ways. Not only must He crush all opposition, but a man's own mouth would condemn him, and he himself would be proved perverse. So he would not dare to think of such a plea for himself, but of crying out for mercy.
Majesty seen, love unseen
Job's estimate of God's power is right. What he cannot see is God's love — and he cannot get away from Him either.
J. N. DarbyHe cannot answer Him in His majesty, and he does not see His love… But he has to do with God, and he cannot help it. He cannot escape His hand. He is not a man, as we are. Job would have got away from God's presence if he could, but he could not; he was all wrong about this, but he could not get away from God.
The book does not let these words stand. One writer traces Job's charge that God destroys the blameless and the wicked alike, then turns to speak to Job himself:
Samuel RidoutOh Job, for these words you will yet loathe yourself, and repent in dust and ashes.
The missing third party
A few verses later Job asks for a "daysman" — an umpire who could stand between the two sides. No one within his reach could do it.
F. B. HoleHow clear it is that Job knew he was a sinful creature before his holy Creator, and that he had in himself no means of getting right. That being so, his only hope was for a third party to step in; but Job knew of no such third party, or "daysman." His three friends could not fill the role, and no other man could either. The daysman must be great enough to lay one of his hands on Almighty God, and gracious enough to lay the other on poor diseased and sinful Job.
The answer Job could not reach
The deadlock of this verse is not the last word. What Job could only ask for, one writer says, has now come.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHe needs another to help him, to bring him in touch with God, to make him just with God. He calls for a daysman, an umpire, one who might lay His hand on God and on him, the sinner, so that the rod may be taken from him and he may be freed from fear. We find the daysman foreshadowed later in this book. But He has come: Christ Jesus our Lord.
The change begins when a man stops calling the world wicked and says instead that he himself is wicked.
J. N. DarbyWhen I come to the point of saying (not that the world is wicked, but) that I am wicked, I have the "daysman" between me and God. He is the One who has come to me in all the wickedness of my heart, and has come to me because I am like that. Now I have not only God working in me… but God doing a work for me. He brings in a righteousness (His own) for the sinner. He works a work for us.
Summary
- Deadlock. Job tests both routes to God — force and legal argument — and both close: God is stronger, and no one can call Him to trial.
- Reason. A lawsuit against God cannot succeed. A man's own mouth would condemn him, so he can only cry out for mercy.
- Blind spot. Job's view of God's majesty is right; what he misses is His love — and he cannot escape His hand either way.
- Missing man. Job needs a mediator big enough to lay one hand on God and gentle enough to lay the other on him. He knew of no one who could do it.
- Arrival. Commentators name that Mediator as Christ. In Him God does not only work in the sinner; He works for him, bringing in a righteousness of His own.