A Confused Confidence (Job 13:6–14:22)

The Bible is filled with accounts of believers who illustrate the faith of the distraught father, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Charles Spurgeon, commenting on preaching, said that it is perplexing how a preacher can often have two thoughts at the same time. So it is perplexing that believers can be confident and yet not confident at the same time. We might call this a confused confidence.

In Genesis 15, Abraham believes God for the otherwise impossible and his faith is honoured (15:6). Then in the very next chapter, he fails to believe and sleeps with Sarai’s maid servant and father’s Ishmael, not the promised son. Job was another example of this confused confidence.

Previously, we listened to Zophar’s verbal onslaught upon Job and then we began to listen to Job’s response (13:1–5). There, Job basically tells Zophar and his other two friends to shut up (CSB), characterising them as worthless physicians, spiritual quacks doing more harm than good. So it is with all who treat theology tritely, so it is with all who proclaim a prosperity and/or therapeutic gospel. Though such systems sound so spiritual and so simple, when matched against real life, they are neither. It is with this background that we continue to look at Job’s response, which we can characterise as a confused confidence. Perhaps better, an inconsistent confidence. Let’s dig in under the following headings.

I. Job Confident: Lord, I Believe! (13:6–28)
A. A Confident Rebuke (13:6–12)
B. A Confident Resolve (13:13–19)
C. A Confident Request (13:20–28)

II. Job Not So Confident: Lord, Help My Unbelief! (14:1–22)
A. Disturbed by Depravity (14:1–6)
B. Discouraged by Mortality (14:7–12)
C. Delighted by Immortality (14:13–17)
D. Depressed by Futility (14:18–22)

Job Confident: “Lord, I Believe!”

Job begins his response with confidence: “Lord, I believe!” We see this in 13:6–28. He begins by speaking to his friends before, at v. 20, shifting to speaking to God. He begins with a rebuke and then proclaims his resolve.

A Confident Rebuke

Job pulls no punches against these “worthless physicians,” warning them that their confidence in their system will work against them.

Hear now my argument and listen to the pleadings of my lips. Will you speak falsely for God and speak deceitfully for him? Will you show partiality toward him? Will you plead the case for God? Will it be well with you when he searches you out? Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man? He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality. Will not his majesty terrify you, and the dread of him fall upon you? Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defences are defences of clay.

(Job 13:6–12)

“It’s not me who’s in danger from God, but you,” summarises Ash. They are in danger of judgement for sinning against God by misrepresenting him. They have spoken deceitfully about him in their quest to defend him. God will hold them to account for their “partial theology” (see 42:7–9). What does Job mean by this?

Job is saying that, in their zeal to defend God, they have not handled truth with integrity. They have played fast and loose with it thereby making false statements about God. This is always a danger when defending God. We need to submit to God’s self-revelation and let him speak for himself. Smick comments, “If they were going to plead God’s case, they had better do it honestly. God would judge them for their deceit even if they used it in his behalf.” Too often, seeking to defend God ends up misrepresenting him in some way. Far better to take Paul’s approach: “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” (Romans 9:20).

A Confident Resolve

Having confidently confronted the wrongheaded and wrath inviting theology of his friends Job now confidently states his desire for an audience with God and in this we see a beautiful, confident hope.

Let me have silence, and I will speak, and let come on me what may. Why should I take my flesh in my teeth and put my life in my hand? Though he slay me, I will hope in him;  yet I will argue my ways to his face. This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him. Keep listening to my words, and let my declaration be in your ears. Behold, I have prepared my case; I know that I shall be in the right. Who is there who will contend with me? For then I would be silent and die.

(Job 13:13–19)

Verse 15 is translated various ways, including negatively (NIV), yet the familiar translation seems to be the best. Though Job has his doubts, nevertheless he knows enough about God that, even if he were to kill him, he would trust his character enough to trust him. “Even if slain he would not wait but would defend his ways before God and was sure God would vindicate him” (Smick). Job’s hopeful confidence is that he is not guilty of some sin as the cause behind his suffering, and therefore he is confident that God will accept his argument. Though Job will not always remain so confident, here he is having a good moment. He knows down deep that God is just and so justice will prevail. Having heard the erroneous “system” of his friends, he concludes, “I must take my case to God” (Ash).

Mckenna wisely says,

Most of us easily quote Job 13:15 when we need a proof-text to declare our unswerving faith in God. Few of us, however, speak from the depths of physical pain, the psychological despair, social rejection, and spiritual condemnation that make Job’s utterance so meaningful. For him, this is a turning point. Having given up hope for healing from the counsel of his friends, he can only turn to God, with nothing to lose but his life.

When we are discouraged by affliction, we are tempted to despair because we are tempted to doubt God’s character. This is precisely where we need to fight the battle. Afflicted saint, keep trusting, even if it kills you.

A Confident Request

Job next speaks to God is perhaps an indication of the confidence he articulates in v. 15.

Only grant me two things, then I will not hide myself from your face: withdraw your hand far from me, and let not dread of you terrify me. Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me. How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy? Will you frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff? For you write bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth. You put my feet in the stocks and watch all my paths; you set a limit for the soles of my feet. Man wastes away like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

(Job 13:20–28)

His belief, at least momentarily, is strong and so he is of the view that God will listen. “Job’s will to fellowship with God is strong, and finds expression in the remainder of this chapter, when once more he speaks directly to the Lord” (Anderson). As he speaks to God, he makes several requests that are summarised in the first two: Give me relief (vv. 21–23); and give me a reason (vv. 24–28).

First Request: Relief

Job is terrified of God as he suffers these afflictions, which he assumes God has initiated (vv. 21–23). He pleads for relief. He can’t think straight, and he is deeply uncertain of how an audience with God will go. Hence this request.

Second Request: Reason

Of course this has been the fundamental issue throughout these chapters and the source of Job’s consternation. He doesn’t know the reason for these afflictions. His system, which is that of his friends, does not provide the answer and so he is deeply confused, though confident (vv. 24–28).

Job views the situation as if God has written a book about him and, as the main character, he has been written as the recipient of bitter experiences. He feels as if God is watching him from a distance and that he is doing so with the intent to make his life bitter. If only he knew the reason(s)!

David Atkinson comments, “Job is concerned to be relieved of his misery, but he is even more concerned not to find himself driven from a place of trust in God to a place of terror before God. What troubles him most is that God will turn out to be a monster, and his faith will have been misplaced. Yet surely this cannot be?” Hence, he is looking for a good, understandable reason for his affliction.

Ever been there?

Job Not So Confident: “Lord, Help My Unbelief”

In chapter 14 Job’s confidence plummets. This chapter is reminiscent of some of Job’s earlier, hopeless dialogues. Yet, as we will see, he is not completely hopeless.

As he contemplates his situation, having not received either relief or reasons, he laments over four realities.

Disturbed by Depravity

First, Job is disturbed by the reality of depravity (vv. 1–6). He is aware that mankind is “few of days and full of trouble.” He believes that his troubled existence will come to an end. And why is that? Job knows that life is filled with troubles because we live in a fallen world. Job knows the impossibility of bringing a clean thing out of an unclean (v. 4).

Job was a godly, righteous man who walked with God and was well aware of why this was so: the grace of God. Job was aware that sin had broken God’s perfect world and hence troubles abounded. He was neither ignorant nor self-righteous. He knew the truth that Paul would record in Romans: that “death spread to all men because all sinned” in Adam (Romans 5:12).

But he had not yet put together (though he was increasingly grasping it) that living in a sin-cursed world can result in suffering unrelated to one’s own sin. Importantly, in Job’s case, it was because of the Satan’s sin and that of others.

If you leave out the gospel, the doctrine of depravity and the reality of mortality can be deeply disturbing, for, as Christopher Ash observes, “Unless sin is dealt with, human beings can hope for no better than this. Here is a healthy realism about the human problem and the human predicament.” Job’s gospel-less discouragement continues in what follows.

Discouraged by Mortality

Of course this goes hand-in-hand with man’s depravity. Death exists because sin exists. Job laments that, in the natural world, a tree can be cut down and yet sprout again, but when a human being is cut down by death, he or she will not sprout’ again.

For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.

(Job 14:7–12)

Job has some discouraging doubts about future resurrection. He likens a person’s death to a dried-up river or lake, which will never again hold water. If mortality is all one can hope for, then let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we will die and be no more—forever (1 Corinthians 15:32). I think Smick is correct when he writes, “Job’s pessimism arose, not from a skepticism about resurrection, but from God’s apparent unwillingness to do anything immediately for him.” In other words, Job’s present messed with his perspective.

This is a terrible place to be: a place of hopelessness either for the present or the future. This worldview can either fuel the desires of one’s depravity, or, in Job’s case, lead to deep despair as one contemplates eternity without God. So we must ask, is there any hope? I think there is a glimmer of hope in the next stanza, and, of course, there tons of hope in the next covenant!

Delighted by Immortality

Perhaps “delighted by immortality” is too strong a description of Job’s words in 14:13–17. Then again, perhaps not. Consider:

Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.

(Job 14:13–17)

Job appears to hold onto the hope that God will hide him at his death until his anger passes. At that time, God will raise him from the dead and usher him into his blessed presence, all because his sins are forgiven (v. 17). Though Job states this in a wistful way, he does seem to have some hope of immortality, grounded in forgiveness of sins, through being delivered from depravity. “The man of faith and integrity holds on—oh so fleetingly!—to a tiny hope; is it, perhaps, even a resurrection?” (Atkinson).

We can liken Job’s description in v. 17 to someone taking out the trash, once and for all. The word translated “seal” means “to make an end of,” while “cover” speaks of plastering over. The picture is God removing transgression and iniquity from his sight—God making an end of Job’s sin. It points us to God’s propitiation for sins and for sinners. It is this action that would provide Job with hope beyond the grave. This would bring some measure of delight amid his despair. As it should you and me.

We know that there is immortality for the Christian (1 Corinthians 15:50–57). We know that we will live again. And we know this because of Jesus Christ who covered our sin by his precious blood. For this reason we delight in the gospel.

Depressed by Futility

The opening word of 14:18 (“but”) indicates a contrast, and it is a dark contrast. “Unfortunately the clouds of doubt and despair closed in swiftly” (Alden). In this closing section Job moves from delight to despair, dark despair. Job sounds depressed.

But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man. You prevail forever against him, and he passes; you change his countenance, and send him away. His sons come to honour, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not. He feels only the pain of his own body, and he mourns only for himself.

(Job 14:18–22)

For whatever reason, Job is struggling to hang on to the hope in which he dabbled (14:13–17) and so as he closes his speech to Zophar, he sounds hopeless.

In vv. 18–19, he speaks of the majestic mountains being destroyed and the waters washing away the earth. The concept of irreversible erosion is how he summarises his hopeless situation. He concludes that, in a similar way, God destroys man’s hope. Rather than God hiding the sinner in Sheol until he redemptively raises him from the dead, Job concludes that God continually and eternally overpowers the dead, rejecting them (v. 20). There is neither escape nor happiness (vv. 21–22). Job has, once again, hit rock-bottom. We can summarise, as McKenna does: “The thought of eternal life works against all the odds of reason or revelation that Job knows. As quickly as his vision of heaven opens up, it closes again with a slam. The thought is more than Job can handle. In succession, he has lost his family, his friends, and now it appears that he has lost his God.”

Yes, believers do get depressed. Believers can be so overwhelmed by affliction that they are overcome with dark despair. And it will require more than a stiff exhortation, or rebuke, to move them to delight. What they need is God’s light. They need the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:1–6).

Conclusion

Job fluctuates between confidence and consternation, determination and despair, faith and unbelief. He is a lot like us. But we have less excuse, for we have the revealed promise and the resurrected proof of life after death. We have the assurance of sins forgiven, not by offering our sacrifices (1:1–3) but by the sacrificial offering of the Son of God in our place. Let this gospel light brighten your path as you face the otherwise dark mystery of affliction. And, Christian, shine this light on those who need it.

Observe, briefly, three take-aways.

First, trusting and loving God means speaking honestly to God. It also means speaking honestly about God.

Second, remember that the fragility of life means that discouragement, even depression, can be the experience of the believer (see 2 Corinthians 1:8–9; 4:7–12).

Third, remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the promise of yours. Keep loving God when Satan tempts you to reject him.

AMEN