Job 31:9-23

b.

Was upright in his domestic relations (Job 31:9-15)

c.

He was kind and neighborly. (Job 31:16-23)

TEXT 31:9-23

9 If my heart hath been enticed onto a woman,

And I have laid wait at my neighbor's door;

10 Then let my wife grind onto another,

And let others bow down upon her.

11 For that were a heinous crime;

Yea, it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges:

12 For it is a fire that consumeth unto Destruction,

And would root out all mine increase.

13 If I have despised the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant,

When they contended with me;

14 What then shall I do when God riseth up?

And when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?

15 Did not he that made me in the womb make him?

And did not one fashion us in the womb?

16 If I have withheld the poor from their desire,

Or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

17 Or have eaten my morsel alone,

And the fatherless hath not eaten thereof

18 (Nay, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father,

And her have I guided from my mother's womb);

19 If I have seen any perish for want of clothing,

Or that the needy had no covering;

20 If his loins have not blessed me,

And if he hath not been warmed with the fleece of my sheep;

21 If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless,

Because I saw my help in the gate:

22 Then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder-blade,

And mine arm be broken from the bone.

23 For calamity from God is a terror to me,

And by reason of his majesty I can do nothing.

COMMENT 31:9-23

Job 31:9The sin of adultery is repudiated by Job. The woman is a married woman, as the parallel makes plain, i.e., neighbor's door or house. The picture of laying in wait suggests that of an adulteressProverbs 7:12; Exodus 20:7; also Job 31:19; here the thought is of an adulterer who waits for his opportunity, which he might find at duskJob 24:15.

Job 31:10The work of a slave is grindingExodus 11:5; Isaiah 47:2. Samson was reduced to grinding by the PhilistinesJudges 16:21. In the second line, Job invokes the principle of the lex talionis. His hypothetical adultery would to all Hebrews be an offense against her husband. In Hebrew law, adultery always involved a married woman. Their double standard meant that the marital status of the man was immaterial (compare with Jesus-' revolutionary views, His repudiation of the double standard, and His liberation of women).[315] The second line is clearly sexual in connotation, as the verb kr-' can imply sexual intercourseDeuteronomy 28:30.

[315] This misunderstanding, i.e., thinking that this verse literally means that his wife becomes a slave, is presented in the apocryphal work, The Testament of Job; while Job sat on the dunghill, his wife carried water as a slave.

Job 31:11The A. V. rendering heinous crime comes from zimmah and is consistently used of lewdness, and indecent sexual conduct.[316] The perversion is so lewd that it deserved to receive judicial condemnation.

[316] M. Pope, JBL, 1966, p. 458.

Job 31:12This verse echoes Deuteronomy 32:22; Proverbs 6:27-29. The sure punishment for adultery is compared with deadly fireEcclesiastes 9:8 b.[317]

[317] G. R. Driver, Yestus Testamentum, 1955, pp. 88ff.

Job 31:13In this verse the issue turns to the charge of the abuse of power. If he has abused his servants, permitted the weak to suffer injustice, he again calls a curse down upon himself. The rights of slaves were few in the ancient world. Hebrew laws attempted to mitigate their harsh treatmentExodus 21:2-11; Leviticus 25:39-55; Deuteronomy 5:14; for manumission of slaves, see Jeremiah 34:8-11.[318] Job had recognized his slaves as fellow human beingsJob 31:15who had rights which were not enforceable by law. He was always ready to listen to their complaints. They often helped Job during his tragediesJob 19:15 ff. These specific social crimes reveal a remarkably advanced moral consciousness for the Near East. Job here maintains that he has not failed in either equity or mercy. Neither virtue was based in law, but in love for his fellow human beings.

[318] On the matter of slavery in the Near East and Israel, see R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, pp. 80-90; and I. Mendelsohn, Slavery in the Ancient Near East, 1949, for entire picture.

Job 31:14Jeremiah says that perfidy in dealing with slaves was a factor in God's condemnation of the southern kingdom to destruction in Babylonian exileJeremiah 34:15-22. Job here feels that he is answerable to God for his social behavior. His personal relationship with God had social significance. Salvation always has public signification and never merely private or personal meaning. The verb rise (yaqumarise in vengeance) in line one suggests rising to judgment,[319] i.e., when God visits (verb means to visit Job 7:18; inspect Job 5:24; or punish Job 35:14), Job is conscious that his appeal to God will lead to investigation and consequent vindication or negative judgment. No slave could have made such an appeal legally, but Job can and does.

[319] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1971, p. 346, suggests the root meaning vengeance.

Job 31:15Job has spoken earlier (Job 10:8 ff) of God's merciful care being lavished upon him at his birth. Here he asserts that he has extended this same care upon slaves, who legally had no such rights. We cannot lose sight of the high ethical perspective in this verse. It is remarkable for any age, but in Job's Sitz im Leben is all the more remarkable. He declares that men are one because of the creator. The same problem haunts man in the last quarter of the 20th century. Cultural stratification can be overcome only in Job's redeemer, but neither through any proposed classical Liberal Fatherhood of God-Brotherhood of Man thesis, nor neo-Marxian classless society. The evidence from Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America is adequate grounds for suspicion toward the myth that politico-economic conditions can humanize, thus unify, mankindMalachi 2:10; Proverbs 17:5 a; Acts 17:16 ff; Ephesians 6:9. Men's efforts to humanize merely proliferate bureaucracy, and then death by bureaucracy.

Job 31:16Job denies Eliphaz's charges under oathJob 22:7-9. He has not exploited the weak nor attained unjust victories in the community. It seems strange that one has raised the issueWhy are the poor and unfortunate so important? They do not prosper because they are wicked. If they were not wicked, they would not be the powerless poor. The wicked deserve their fate; so why would Eliphaz ever raise such a charge? It is completely irrational, even on his own assumptions.

Job 31:17Job has invited, or at least permitted, the poor to eat from his own tableIsaiah 58:7; Proverbs 22:9; and Matthew 25:35. He has fed the destitute; thus, he cared and shared.

Job 31:18He went far beyond heartless charity; he gave them fatherly compassion. That this expresses a behavior pattern and not a single act of charity is revealed in the Hebrew text, which says he grew up with me from my mother's womb. He has always been a righteous man. These images are, of course, hyperbolicJames 1:27.

Job 31:19He even looked around to locate the poor, fatherless, and the widows. Clothing and covering are parallel in Job 24:7 and Matthew 25:36 ff. His behavior was not a mere tax write-off for social prestige, like many of our great foundations in the western world.

Job 31:20The poor, whose loins once ached from the night cold, bless him for supplying a fleece covering. Their warmth praises him, as one's bones might praise GodPsalms 35:10.[320] Job's benevolence is rewarded by praise.

[320] For analysis of this figure, see G. R. Driver, American Journal of Semitic Literature, 1935-36, pp. 164ff.

Job 31:21The raised hand (lit. waved or shaken) is symbolic of an overt threatIsaiah 11:15; Isaiah 19:16; Zechariah 2:9. He here denies that he has exploited his power to secure an unjust verdictJob 29:7. The orphans, widows, and poor had no prospects of justice without the support (Heb. is lit. saw my help) of a person like JobJob 39:12; Proverbs 22:12.

Job 31:22If what I have just declared is not true, then may my lower arm be broken off from the upper arm.[321] Perhaps this imagery is derived from the violent mourning rites discussed in the Mosaic LawLeviticus 19:28; Leviticus 21:5.

[321] Rendering of A. Herdner, Revue des etudes semitiques, 1942-43, p. 49.

Job 31:23God alone, in all His majestic power, restrained Job from exploiting his power over others. He vividly describes his thought about God's presencelit. For a terror unto me was calamity from God. Terrien simply states the case: It was religion which justified, supported, explained, and made possible his morality (Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 4, p. 1121).