Job 13:23-28 - Homilies By E. Johnson

Self-defence before God: 1. The weak against the Strong.

I. THE CRY OF INJURED INNOCENCE . ( Job 13:23 .) He asks that he may have his sins enumerated and brought home to him, and that he may not thus ever be punished without the knowledge of the nature of his guilt.

II. SENSE OF THE SILENCE AND WITHDRAWAL OF GOD . ( Job 13:24 ) God does not answer his challenge, and still his suffering continues, as if he were a foe to whom the Almighty deigns not to utter a word. The silence, the seeming deafness and dumbness of God before his creatures' pitiful cries, is more awful than all his thunder. Oh that he would but speak, in whatever accents! Man can never cease to agonize, to pray, to wrestle with the Unseen, until he extorts some response to the cry and craving of his heart.

III. PLAINT OF THE WEAKNESS OF SELF IN THE PRESENCE OF OMNIPOTENCE . ( Job 13:25 .) He has two vivid figures to represent this weakness:

IV. SENSE OF THE AGGRAVATION OF HIS SIN . ( Job 13:26 .) In addition to his natural pains, he is loaded with the memories of long-past sins, which he had thought forgiven. The record of the sins of youth still seems to stand in the Divine book. Remembrance turns the past to pain. Men look indulgently on the "sins of youth," both in themselves and others. But here is a warning against these light views of transgression. The sowing of" wild oats" is certain, sooner or later, to be followed by a bitter harvest (comp. Psalms 25:7 ).

V. THE SENSE OF BEING FETTERED AND WATCHED . ( Job 13:27 .) He is like a criminal with his feet fastened in a block of wood, which he must carry with him wherever he goes. And all this power and violence, this watching and restraint, is put forth on one who is as helpless and broken as a worm-eaten, moth-gnawed garment ( Job 13:28 ).—J.