Job 13 Bible study: I desire to reason with God

Job is still answering. The heading was "Then Job answered" (12:1), and his answer runs to the end of chapter 14; the next heading is "Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered" (15:1). Early in this chapter he says again what he said in the last: "What you know, I know also. I am not inferior to you" (13:2); in Hebrew I am not inferior to you is the same four words as in 12:3. Then he says what he wants: "Surely I would speak to the Almighty. I desire to reason with God" (13:3) (tap reason). Eliphaz had said, "But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God" (5:8). In Hebrew, Eliphaz's But as for me and Job's Surely I are the same two words, and both verses name God with the short word El. Eliphaz would commit his cause to God; Job wants to reason with him. Then Job turns to the friends: "But you are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value" (13:4) (tap forgers, physicians, no value), and "Oh that you would be completely silent! Then you would be wise" (13:5) (tap silent). When they first came, "they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him" (2:13). These are Job's words. At the end the LORD says to Eliphaz, of him and his two friends, that they "have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7), and he also asks Job, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2). The book doesn't say which words either verse has in view, and these notes don't decide.

Job 13:21→leads toMatthew 17:7

Job asks God, "withdraw your hand far from me, and don’t let your terror make me afraid" (13:21), and "Then call, and I will answer, or let me speak, and you answer me" (13:22). On the mountain, when a voice came out of the cloud saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him" (Matthew 17:5), the disciples "fell on their faces, and were very afraid" (Matthew 17:6). Jesus came and touched them and said, "Get up, and don’t be afraid" (Matthew 17:7). Jesus doesn't name Job, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: fear in the presence of God. Some read the two together: Job asks that God's terror not make him afraid, so that God may call and he answer, and when the voice from the cloud left the disciples very afraid, Jesus touched them and told them not to be. Others read each in its own setting: Job asks God to withdraw his hand so that he can plead his cause (13:18-22), and the LORD later answers him out of the whirlwind (38:1); Matthew tells of the disciples' fear at the voice from the cloud, and says nothing of a cause or a plea. Neither reading makes Job a picture of the disciples, or says whether Job was right to ask.

יָכַחyakhachsay ya-KHAKH

Brown-Driver-Briggs lists among its senses "decide, judge" and "reprove, chide". Strong's: "to be right (i.e. correct); reciprocal, to argue; causatively, to decide, justify or convict". It comes four times in this chapter, and the WEB gives it three ways. Of himself Job says, "I desire to reason with God" (13:3). Of the friends: "He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality" (13:10), where surely reprove is the verb twice. And again of himself: "Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him" (13:15). The reasoning of "Hear now my reasoning" (13:6) is a noun Strong's derives from this verb (H8433). Eliphaz had used the verb of God, "happy is the man whom God corrects" (5:17); Job had said, "There is no umpire between us" (9:33), with a form of it; and the LORD asks, "He who argues with God, let him answer it" (40:2). It comes 17 times in the Hebrew of Job.