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Commentary on Job 13 verses 1–12
Job here warmly expresses his resentment of the unkindness of his friends.
I. He comes up with them as one that understood the matter in dispute as well as they, and did not need to be taught by them, Job 13:1, Job 13:2. They compelled him, as the Corinthians did Paul, to commend himself and his own knowledge, yet not in a way of self-applause, but of self-justification. All he had before said his eye had seen confirmed by many instances, and his ear had heard seconded by many authorities, and he well understood it and what use to make of it. Happy are those who not only see and hear, but understand, the greatness, glory, and sovereignty of God. This, he thought, would justify what he had said before (Job 12:3), which he repeats here (Job 13:2): "What you know, the same do I know also, so that I need not come to you to be taught; I am not inferior unto you in wisdom." Note, Those who enter into disputation enter into temptation to magnify themselves and vilify their brethren more than is fit, and therefore ought to watch and pray against the workings of pride.
II. He turns from them to God (Job 13:3): Surely I would speak to the Almighty; as if he had said, "I can promise myself no satisfaction in talking to you. O that I might have liberty to reason with God! He would not be so hard upon me as you are." The prince himself will perhaps give audience to a poor petitioner with more mildness, patience, and condescension, than the servants will. Job would rather argue with God himself than with his friends. See here, 1. What confidence those have towards God whose hearts condemn them not of reigning hypocrisy: they can, with humble boldness, appear before him and appeal to him. 2. What comfort those have in God whose neighbours unjustly condemn them: if they may not speak to them with any hopes of a fair hearing, yet they may speak to the Almighty; they have easy access to him and shall find acceptance with him.
III. He condemns them for their unjust and uncharitable treatment of him, Job 13:4. 1. They falsely accused him, and that was unjust: You are forgers of lies. They framed a wrong hypothesis concerning the divine Providence, and misrepresented it, as if it did never remarkably afflict any but wicked men in this world, and thence they drew a false judgment concerning Job, that he was certainly a hypocrite. For this gross mistake, both in doctrine and application, he thinks an indictment of forgery lies against them. To speak lies is bad enough, though but at second hand, but to forge them with contrivance and deliberation is much worse; yet against this wrong neither innocency nor excellency will be a fence. 2. They basely deceived him, and that was unkind. They undertook his cure, and pretended to be his physicians; but they were all physicians of no value, "idol-physicians, who can do me no more good than an idol can." They were worthless physicians, who neither understood his case nor knew how to prescribe to him - mere empirics, who pretended to great things, but in conference added nothing to him: he was never the wiser for all they said. Thus to broken hearts and wounded consciences all creatures, without Christ, are physicians of no value, on which one may spend all and be never the better, but rather grow worse, Mar 5:26.
IV. He begs they would be silent and give him a patient hearing, Job 13:5, Job 13:6. 1. He thinks it would be a credit to them if they would say no more, having said too much already: "Hold your peace, and it shall be your wisdom, for thereby you will conceal your ignorance and ill-nature, which now appear in all you say." They pleaded that they could not forbear speaking (Job 4:2, Job 11:2, Job 11:3); but he tells them that they would better have consulted their own reputation if they had enjoined themselves silence. Better say nothing than nothing to the purpose or that which tends to the dishonour of God and the grief of our brethren. Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is accounted wise, because nothing appears to the contrary, Pro 17:28. And, as silence is an evidence of wisdom, so it is a means of it, as it gives time to think and hear. 2. He thinks it would be a piece of justice to him to hear what he had to say: Hear now my reasoning. Perhaps, though they did not interrupt him in his discourse, yet they seemed careless, and did not much heed what he said. He therefore begged that they would not only hear, but hearken. Note, We should be very willing and glad to hear what those have to say for themselves whom, upon any account, we are tempted to have hard thoughts of. Many a man, if he could but be fairly heard, would be fairly acquitted, even in the consciences of those that run him down.
V. He endeavours to convince them of the wrong they did to God's honour, while they pretended to plead for him, Job 13:7, Job 13:8. They valued themselves upon it that they spoke for God, were advocates for him, and had undertaken to justify him and his proceedings against Job; and, being (as they thought) of counsel for the sovereign, they expected not only the ear of the court and the last word, but judgment on their side. But Job tells them plainly, 1. That God and his cause did not need such advocates: "Will you think to contend for God, as if his justice were clouded and wanted to be cleared up, or as if he were at a loss what to say and wanted you to speak for him? Will you, who are so weak and passionate, put in for the honour of pleading God's cause?" Good work ought not to be put into bad hands. Will you accept his person? If those who have not right on their side carry their cause, it is by the partiality of the judge in favour of their persons; but God's cause is so just that it needs no such methods for the support of it. He is a God, and can plead for himself (Jdg 6:31); and, if you were for ever silent, the heavens would declare his righteousness. 2. That God's cause suffered by such management. Under pretence of justifying God in afflicting Job they magisterially condemned him as a hypocrite and a bad man. "This" (says he) "is speaking wickedly" (for uncharitableness and censoriousness are wickedness, great wickedness; it is an offence to God to wrong our brethren); "it is talking deceitfully, for you condemn one whom yet perhaps your own consciences, at the same time, cannot but acquit. Your principles are false and your arguings fallacious, and will it excuse you to say, It is for God?" No, for a good intention will not justify, much less will it sanctify, a bad word or action. God's truth needs not our lie, nor God's cause either our sinful policies or our sinful passions. The wrath of man works not the righteousness of God, nor may we do evil that good may come, Rom 3:7, Rom 3:8. Pious frauds (as they call them) are impious cheats; and devout persecutions are horrid profanations of the name of God, as theirs who hated their brethren, and cast them out, saying, Let the Lord be glorified, Isa 66:5; Joh 16:2.
VI. He endeavours to possess them with a fear of God's judgment, and so to bring them to a better temper. Let them not think to impose upon God as they might upon a man like themselves, nor expect to gain his countenance in their bad practices by pretending a zeal for him and his honour. "As one man mocks another by flattering him, do you think so to mock him and deceive him?" Assuredly those who think to put a cheat upon God will prove to have put a cheat upon themselves. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. That they might not think thus to jest with God, and affront him, Job would have them to consider both God and themselves, and then they would find themselves unable to enter into judgment with him.
1.Let them consider what a God he is into whose service they had thus thrust themselves, and to whom they really did so much disservice, and enquire whether they could give him a good account of what they did. Consider, (1.) The strictness of his scrutiny and enquiries concerning them (Job 13:9) "Is it good that he should search you out? Can you bear to have the principles looked into which you go upon in your censures, and to have the bottom of the matter found out?" Note, It concerns us all seriously to consider whether it will be to our advantage or no that God searches the heart. It is good to an upright man who means honestly that God should search him; therefore he prays for it: Search me, O God! and know my heart. God's omniscience is a witness of his sincerity. But it is bad to him who looks one way and rows another that God should search him out, and lay him open to his confusion. (2.) The severity of his rebukes and displeasure against them (Job 13:10): "If you do accept persons, though but secretly and in heart, he will surely reprove you; he will be so far from being pleased with your censures of me, though under colour of vindicating him, that he will resent them as a great provocation, as any prince or great man would if a base action were done under the sanction of his name and under the colour of advancing his interest." Note, What we do amiss we shall certainly be reproved for, one way or other, one time or other, though it be done ever so secretly. (3.) The terror of his majesty, which if they would duly stand in awe of they would not do that which would make them obnoxious to his wrath (Job 13:11): "Shall not his excellency make you afraid? You that have great knowledge of God, and profess religion and a fear of him, how dare you talk at this rate and give yourselves so great a liberty of speech? Ought you not to walk and talk in the fear of God? Neh 5:9. Should not his dread fall upon you, and give a check to your passions?" Methinks Job speaks this as one that did himself know the terror of the Lord, and lived in a holy fear of him, whatever his friends suggested to the contrary. Note, [1.] There is in God a dreadful excellency. He is the most excellent Being, has all excellencies in himself and in each infinitely excels any creature. His excellencies in themselves are amiable and lovely. He is the most beautiful Being; but considering man's distance from God by nature, and his defection and degeneracy by sin, his excellencies are dreadful. His power, holiness, justice, yea, and his goodness too, are dreadful excellencies. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. [2.] A holy awe of this dreadful excellency should fall upon us and make us afraid. This would awaken impenitent sinners and bring them to repentance, and would influence all to be careful to please him and afraid of offending him.
2.Let them consider themselves, and what an unequal match they were for this great God (Job 13:12): "Your remembrances (all that in you for which you hope to be remembered when you are gone) are like unto ashes, worthless and weak, and easily trampled on and blown away. Your bodies are like bodies of clay, mouldering and coming to nothing. Your memories, you think, will survive your bodies, but, alas! they are like ashes which will be shovelled up with your dust." Note, the consideration of our own meanness and mortality should make us afraid of offending God, and furnishes a good reason why we should not despise and trample upon our brethren. Bishop Patrick gives another sense of this verse: "Your remonstrances on God's behalf are no better than dust, and the arguments you accumulate but like so many heaps of dirt."
42. All that are confounded to this present state of being by an earthly temper of mind, mean, by all that they do, to leave the remembrance of themselves to the world. Some in the toils of war, some in the towering walls of edifices, some in eloquent books of this world’s lore, they are eagerly toiling and striving and building up for themselves a name of remembrance. But whereas life itself runs on to an end with speed, what is there in it that will stand stedfast, when even its very self by nature running rapidly speeds away. For a breath of air seizes the ashes, as it is written; The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff, which the wind scattereth away from the face of the earth. [Ps. 1, 4] And so the remembrance of fools is rightly compared to ‘ashes,’ in that it is placed there, where it is liable to be carried away by a breath of air. For howsoever a man may toil to achieve the glory of his name, he has placed his ‘remembrance like ashes,’ in that the wind of mortality hurries it away in a moment. Contrary to which it is written of the just man, The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. [Ps. 112, 6] For by the very circumstance, that he imprints his deeds upon the eyes of God alone, he sets firm the name of his remembrance in the eternal world. It goes on;
And your necks shall be brought down to the mire.
43. As the sight is used to be denoted by the eye, so is pride by the ‘neck.’ Thus ‘the neck is brought down to the mire,’ when every proud man is humbled in death, and the flesh that was lifted up rots in corruption. For let us contemplate how and like what the carcases of the rich lie in their graves, what that form of death is in the lifeless flesh, what the rottenness of corruption. And surely these were the very persons who were lifted up with honours, swollen with the things gotten by them, who looked down upon others, and exulted to stand as it were alone. Yet, while they never considered whereunto they were going, they knew nothing at all what they were. But ‘the neck is brought down to the mire,’ in that they lie neglected in rottenness, who swelled high in emptiness. ‘The neck is brought down to the mire,’ because what the might of flesh is good for, the rottenness of corruption evidences.
The author seems to say that Job’s friends will abstain from pronouncing reproaches, because of the fear of God and the terror that he inspires.
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SUMMARY
Job 13:12 is a scathing and deeply frustrated retort from Job to his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, in which he utterly dismisses their conventional wisdom and elaborate arguments as devoid of substance and fragile. He likens their "remembrances"—their solemn pronouncements and revered theological maxims—to "ashes," signifying their worthlessness and insubstantiality in the face of his profound suffering. Furthermore, he condemns their "bodies," metaphorically referring to the strong points of their arguments or their imposing presence, as being as flimsy and easily broken as "bodies of clay," thereby underscoring the profound futility and transience of human counsel when it lacks true empathy and divine insight.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Job 13:12 is rich in literary devices that amplify its cutting critique. The verse employs two vivid similes: "like unto ashes" and "to bodies of clay." These comparisons are not merely descriptive but serve as potent condemnations, drawing parallels between the friends' esteemed wisdom and substances that are inherently worthless or fragile. Underlying these similes is a profound metaphor where human wisdom and arguments are implicitly treated as perishable, insubstantial substances. The structure of the verse also demonstrates synthetic parallelism, where the second clause ("your bodies to bodies of clay") expands upon and reinforces the idea presented in the first ("Your remembrances are like unto ashes"), intensifying the message of worthlessness and fragility. Furthermore, there is a strong element of irony as Job, the suffering victim, exposes the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of his seemingly wise counselors, turning their presumed authority into an object of scorn. The use of hyperbole also contributes to the dramatic effect, as Job exaggerates the worthlessness of their counsel to convey his extreme frustration.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
This verse delivers a profound theological critique, challenging the human tendency to confine divine truth within rigid, conventional frameworks, especially concerning the mystery of suffering. It underscores the vast chasm between finite human understanding and infinite divine wisdom, asserting that even well-intentioned counsel can be spiritually bankrupt if it lacks genuine empathy, divine insight, and humility. Job's friends represent a common human inclination to rationalize God's ways based on limited experience and a flawed retribution theology, rather than humbly submitting to His inscrutable sovereignty. The verse serves as a powerful reminder that true comfort and wisdom in times of distress originate not from human intellectual constructs, but from God alone, often revealed in ways that defy our neat categories and expose the limits of our own understanding. It calls believers to a posture of humility and dependence on God's revelation rather than human speculation.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Job's searing indictment in this verse calls us to a profound humility when attempting to interpret the mysteries of God's providence, particularly in the crucible of suffering. It serves as a stark warning against the spiritual arrogance of presuming to fully understand or explain God's actions, especially when offering counsel to those in distress. Our words, even those well-intended or rooted in traditional piety, can become "ashes" if they lack genuine empathy, are devoid of true divine insight, or are used to condemn rather than comfort. We are reminded that all human wisdom, arguments, achievements, and even our physical beings are transient and fallible. True stability, strength, and comfort are found only in God, who is unchanging and whose ways are higher than our ways. This verse compels us to listen more than we speak, to acknowledge the limits of our understanding, and to approach others' suffering with compassion and a humble recognition of our own frailties, always pointing to God's character rather than our own interpretations. It challenges us to examine the foundation of our own "wisdom" and ensure it is built on the solid rock of God's truth and grace, not the crumbling clay of human reasoning.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Why does Job use such harsh language towards his friends?
Answer: Job's harsh language is a direct reflection of his profound anguish, frustration, and sense of betrayal. His friends, rather than offering genuine comfort, have relentlessly accused him of hidden sin, effectively adding to his immense suffering. Their "wisdom" is not only unhelpful but actively harmful, failing to acknowledge his innocence or the true, mysterious nature of his trials. Job perceives their arguments as a betrayal of friendship and a misrepresentation of God's character, prompting this sharp, unvarnished critique. He sees their words as empty and their defenses as flimsy, utterly inadequate for his situation, and believes they are speaking falsely on God's behalf (Job 13:7).
What is the significance of the "ashes" and "clay" imagery?
Answer: The imagery is deeply symbolic and powerfully conveys Job's contempt for his friends' counsel. "Ashes" represent worthlessness, futility, and the residue of something consumed or destroyed. It signifies that the friends' "remembrances" or arguments are insubstantial, devoid of life, and ultimately useless in Job's profound suffering. It's the byproduct of destruction, not creation or sustenance. "Clay" symbolizes human frailty, commonness, and susceptibility to being broken or molded. It highlights the transient and fragile nature of human arguments and even human beings themselves, contrasting with the enduring truth and power of God. Both images underscore the inadequacy and impermanence of human wisdom when confronted with divine mystery and suffering, echoing themes found in passages like Isaiah 64:8 where humanity is likened to clay in the hands of the divine Potter, emphasizing our dependence and fragility before God.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Job's lament in Job 13:12 powerfully foreshadows the ultimate inadequacy of all human wisdom and self-righteousness in the face of divine truth and the reality of sin. The "ashes" of human counsel and the "clay" of human defenses find their antithesis and ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Unlike Job's friends, who offered empty accusations and flawed theology, Jesus embodies perfect wisdom and offers true, lasting comfort. His words are not "ashes" but "spirit and life" (John 6:63), and His body, though formed of "clay" in His humanity, was not fragile in its divine purpose but offered as the ultimate, unbreakable sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:10). While Job's friends sought to justify God through human reasoning and rigid dogma, Christ perfectly reveals God's justice and mercy through His own suffering, death, and resurrection, demonstrating that true wisdom and comfort come not from human arguments but from the divine person of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!. He is the solid rock, not crumbling clay, upon whom all true understanding and hope are built (Matthew 7:24-27), and His wisdom far surpasses any human philosophy or tradition (Colossians 2:3).