Job 13

Look, my own eyes have seen all of this. My own ears have heard it and understood it.

1Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.

2Whatever you know, I know it too. I am not any less than you are.

2What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you.

3But I want to speak to the Almighty. I want to argue my case in front of God himself.

3Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.

NoteFrom here on Job talks like a man taking a lawsuit to court, and the chapter keeps that vocabulary: "reason with" (v. 3), "pleadings" (v. 6), "contend" (v. 8), "reprove" (v. 10), "ordered my cause" and "justified" (v. 18), "plead with me" (v. 19). He is not asking for a religious conversation; he wants a legal hearing with God as the opposing party. "The Almighty" translates Shaddai, an old title for God used constantly in Job and rarely elsewhere; its exact original sense is uncertain.

4You, though, cover things over with lies. Every one of you is a doctor who cannot heal anything.

4But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.

Note"Forgers of lies" is not about forged documents. The Hebrew pictures someone smearing plaster or whitewash over a cracked wall to hide the damage. "Physicians of no value" continues the thought: Job's friends are healers whose treatment does nothing for the patient.

5If only you would all keep quiet! Staying silent would be the wisest thing you could do.

5O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.

Note"Hold your peace" is older English for "stay silent." It carries no idea of peacemaking.

6Now listen to my argument. Pay attention to the case my lips are making.

6Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.

7Will you tell lies and say they come from God? Will you speak dishonestly on his behalf?

7Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?

8Will you take his side no matter what the facts are? Will you argue the case for God?

8Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?

Note"Accept his person" translates a Hebrew idiom, literally "lift the face", the gesture of a judge raising up a favored party's face in court. It means showing partiality, deciding for someone because of who they are rather than the facts. Job's accusation is that his friends are rigging the trial in God's favor, which is exactly the corruption an honest judge is forbidden. The same idiom lies behind "accept persons" in v. 10.

9Would it turn out well for you if he examined you closely? Can you fool him the way one person fools another?

9Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?

10He will certainly correct you if you secretly play favorites like that.

10He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons.

11Would his greatness not terrify you? Would the fear of him not fall on you?

11Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you?

Note"Excellency" in 1611 English meant exalted rank or overwhelming majesty, not excellence in the modern sense of high quality.

12The wise sayings you repeat are proverbs made of ashes. Your defenses are defenses made of clay.

12Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.

Note"Remembrances" means the sayings the friends keep repeating (inherited proverbs and maxims. Ashes are what is left when something has burned away: worthless residue. The word behind "bodies" more likely means shields or defensive earthworks, so the second half reads "your defenses are defenses of clay") fortifications made of unfired mud, which collapse the moment they are struck.

13Be quiet and leave me alone so I can speak. Then let whatever comes to me come.

13Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.

14Why do I take my own flesh in my teeth and carry my life in my hands?

14Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?

NoteTwo idioms for deliberately courting danger. "Take my flesh in my teeth" is obscure even in Hebrew, but seems to mean carrying one's own body as prey in the mouth. "Put my life in mine hand" is a common Hebrew phrase for risking your life, holding it out in the open where it can be snatched away.

15Even if he kills me, I will still hope in him. But I will defend the way I have lived, right to his face.

15Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

NoteThis is the most disputed line in the book. The Hebrew as written reads "I will not wait" or "I have no hope"; a scribal reading-note preserved alongside it changes one identically-sounding word and yields "I will hope in him." Both readings are ancient. The KJV and the rendering follow the second; on the first, the line means "Though he slay me, I have no hope, yet I will still argue my case to his face." The defiant second half is the same either way.

16This itself will be my rescue, because no godless person would dare come near him.

16He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.

Note"Salvation" here means rescue or acquittal in the case Job is bringing, not salvation in a later religious sense. "Hypocrite" translates a Hebrew word meaning godless, profane, or irreligious, not, as in modern English, someone who fakes goodness. Job's point is that a godless man would never dare demand a hearing before God, so his very willingness to appear is evidence for him.

17Listen carefully to what I say. Let my statement ring in your ears.

17Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.

18Look, I have prepared my case. I know that I will be found in the right.

18Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.

Note"Ordered my cause" is courtroom language for having laid out the case in proper order, the way a party arranges arguments before a hearing. "Justified" means declared to be in the right by the court, acquitted, not made good or morally improved.

19Is there anyone who can bring a charge against me? If there is, I will fall silent and die.

19Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.

Note"Plead with me" means bring a charge against me, as an accuser in court, not beg. "Give up the ghost" is old English for breathing one's last; "ghost" here means breath or life, with no suggestion of a spirit that lingers.

20Only grant me two things, God, and then I will not hide from you.

20Only do not two things unto me: then will I not hide myself from thee.

NoteFrom here to the end of the chapter Job stops addressing his friends and speaks directly to God, the KJV signals this only by the shift from "ye" (plural, the friends) to "thou" (singular, God). The two requests are spelled out in v. 21.

21Take your hand far away from me, and do not let the terror of you frighten me.

21Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.

Note"Withdraw thine hand" asks God to stop the physical affliction; the hand is a standard image for a striking or pressing power. Job's two conditions are the ordinary conditions of a fair trial: the stronger party must stop beating him, and must stop terrifying him, so he can speak.

22Then you call, and I will answer. Or let me speak, and you answer me.

22Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.

23How many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me what I have done wrong and where I have sinned.

23How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.

NoteHebrew uses three distinct words here, and Job piles them up deliberately: one suggests going crooked or astray, one missing the mark, one rebellion or breach of trust. He is demanding an itemized charge sheet, not a general admission that he is a sinner, but a list of counts he can answer.

24Why do you hide your face from me and treat me as your enemy?

24Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?

Note"Hide thy face" is a set idiom for withdrawing favor or refusing to grant someone an audience, as a king turns away from a petitioner he will not receive. It is the opposite of the blessing in which God makes his face shine on a person.

25Would you frighten a leaf that the wind blows around? Would you chase after dry straw?

25Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?

Note"Stubble" is the dry stalk left standing after harvest, or the chaff blown off the threshing floor, the standard biblical image for something weightless and worthless. The point of both images is the mismatch: an armed pursuer chasing something the wind already carries wherever it likes.

26You write down bitter charges against me. You hand me the wrongs I did when I was young, and make me live with them.

26For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.

Note"Writest bitter things" pictures a formal written indictment being drawn up against him. "Makest me to possess" uses the language of inheritance: God is making Job the legal heir of his own youthful offenses, handing them down to him as an estate he cannot refuse.

27You lock my feet in wooden stocks and watch every path I take. You mark out how far the soles of my feet may go.

27Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.

NoteStocks were a wooden frame that clamped a prisoner's feet, holding him fixed in one place. "Lookest narrowly" means watches closely, keeping surveillance. The last clause is genuinely unclear in Hebrew: it either means God scratches a boundary line around Job's feet that they may not cross, or that he marks or brands the soles themselves, as an owner marks a slave, so that every step Job takes leaves a traceable print.

28So a person wears away like something rotting, like a piece of clothing eaten by moths.

28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.