Job 31:1

JOB 31

JOB'S GREAT OATH OF INNOCENCE[1]

This is the third part of the trilogy.

"This priceless testament is a fitting consummation of `the words of Job' (Job 31:40)."[2] "The picture that Job here presents of himself is extraordinarily like that of a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, as revealed by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. He goes beyond act to thought, and beneath conduct to the heart."[3]

This affirmation by Job regarding his innocence mentions the sins of which his `friends' had accused him, but it also includes a denial of things which they had not mentioned. "Without any system whatever, sins against God, and sins against one's neighbor follow each other in the list."[4] This is especially important, because it removes any reason for allowing the various rearrangements of the text which certain scholars have presumed to make. Like many other Biblical books, Job does not always follow the classical rules for writing. We shall receive and interpret the text as it stands.

Job 31:1-4

JOB AFFIRMS HIS INNOCENCE REGARDING THE LUST OF THE EYE

"I made a covenant with mine eyes;

How then should I look upon a virgin?

For what is the portion from God above,

And the heritage from the Almighty on high?

Is it not calamity to the unrighteous,

And disaster to the workers of iniquity?

Doth not he see my ways,

And number all my steps?"

"How then should I look upon a virgin" (Job 31:1). Even as Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount, Job here traced adultery to the lust of the eye which precedes it. As Hesser noted, "Impure thinking is the sin which Job disclaimed in these first four verses."[5] Pope mentions that, "Critics who retain the reading here transfer the verse to the section that treats on the relations to women after Job 31:12."[6] This is exactly the kind of meddling with the sacred text which this writer finds so offensive. Pope even "emended" the word "virgin" here, making it read "folly" instead. "This list is not arranged according to conventional standards of logical development, degrees, or seriousness, or climactic order. Our standards in such things are not the same as those which in a different culture guided Job."[7]

Job, in these verses, mentions the convictions that had guided him throughout his life, those convictions being exactly the same doctrine of sin and suffering that had been maintained by Job's friends during the dialogues, indicating that, "Those ideas had been unquestioned by himself until his own personal experience had demonstrated their falsehood."[8]

The sins which Job here solemnly swears that he had not committed reveal a very high ethical standard of morality and excellence. "Here we have the high-water mark of the Old Testament ethic."[9] Job's ideas, as revealed in this chapter, are not very far from the glorious ideals proclaimed by the Christ himself.