Job 9 · a question people ask
Is Job right to say God "destroys the blameless and the wicked"?
These are Job's words: "It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked" (9:22), and "If not he, then who is it?" (9:24). In the same speech he says, "God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength" (9:4), and "I would make supplication to my judge" (9:15). At its end the book sets more than one word beside Job's speeches. The LORD asks, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2), and "Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?" (40:8), with the two Hebrew verbs of Job's "Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me" (9:20). Job answers, "I have uttered that which I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know" (42:3). And the LORD says to Eliphaz, "you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7). The book sets these verses side by side and doesn't say which of Job's words each has in view, or how they fit together. These notes quote 9:22-24 as Job's words and add no verdict of their own, for or against.
The verses
““It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?”
“God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him and prospered?”
“Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn’t answer him. I would make supplication to my judge.”
“Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.”