Job 13King James Version
Job says he would rather speak directly to God than listen to them any more. You are forgers of lies, physicians of no value. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. One of the greatest lines in the book.
Job declares he wants to argue his case directly before God, not through the friends. He accuses the friends of speaking lies for God, plastering over the truth with falsehood. He warns them: do not speak for God falsely, or God will rebuke you. He is resolved to face God even if it kills him. He asks for two things: that God remove his hand from him, and that God call him and he will answer, or let him speak and God respond.
Job's faith is not optimism or compliance. It is the willingness to stand in God's presence with his case, even while fearing the encounter.
15: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him." One of the most quoted lines in the entire Bible. Faith that includes holding God accountable and refusing to lie about what has happened.
The ancient courtroom metaphor runs through this chapter. Job wants to argue his case before the divine judge. He is not denying God's authority; he is invoking it. An innocent man in the ancient world could demand to stand before the king and speak. Job is extending this legal right upward into the divine realm.
Job speaks. He directly addresses and rebukes the three friends in the first half of the chapter. In the second half he turns to God with his case. The shift is significant: the friends are no longer the audience he cares about.
Chapter 13 is the theological core of the book. "Though he slay me" is the summit of the book's portrait of faith: not faith that everything will be fine, but faith that refuses to abandon the relationship even at the cost of life. The second clause, I will maintain mine own ways before him, is equally important. Job's faith includes his insistence on his own integrity.
This verse is the one for the night when you do not know if you will survive what is happening but you cannot let go. It is not a declaration of certainty that things will improve. It is a declaration of allegiance in the dark.
1Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.
2What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you.
3Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.
4But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
5O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.
6Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
7Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?
8Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?
9Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?
10He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons.
11Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you?
12Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
13Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.
14Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?
15Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
16He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.
17Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.
18Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
19Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.
20Only do not two things unto me: then will I not hide myself from thee.
21Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.
22Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.
23How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.
24Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?
25Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
26For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
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.
28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.