Job 13:22

Translation
King James Version
Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.
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KJV (with Strong's)
Then call H7121 thou, and I will answer H6030: or let me speak H1696, and answer H7725 thou me.
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Complete Jewish Bible
Then, if you call, I will answer. Or let me speak, and you, answer me!
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Berean Standard Bible
Then call me, and I will answer, or let me speak, and You can reply.
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American Standard Version
Then call thou, and I will answer; Or let me speak, and answer thou me.
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World English Bible Messianic
Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you answer me.
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Geneva Bible (1599)
Then call thou, and I will answere: or let me speake, and answere thou me.
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Young's Literal Translation
And call Thou, and I--I answer, Or--I speak, and answer Thou me.
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See also
Job 14:15Job 38:3Job 40:4Job 40:5Job 9:16Job 9:32Job 42:3
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In the KJVVerse 13,176 of 31,102

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SUMMARY

Job 13:22 encapsulates Job's profound anguish and unwavering resolve as he confronts the perceived divine adversary, demanding a direct, unmediated engagement. This verse serves as a pivotal moment in Job's discourse, where he issues a bold challenge for a legal-like dialogue, seeking clarity, vindication, and a direct explanation for his inexplicable suffering from God Himself. It highlights his desperate longing for a fair hearing and a resolution to the cosmic injustice he feels, offering God the choice of initiating the dialogue or responding to Job's own presentation of his case.

CONTEXT

  • Literary Context: Job 13 is situated within the third cycle of speeches, though Zophar, unlike the previous two cycles, does not offer a response. Having thoroughly dismissed his friends' conventional wisdom as "worthless physicians" and "forgers of lies" in Job 13:4, Job turns his attention directly to God. He acknowledges God's immense power and unchallengeable sovereignty, as articulated in Job 12:13-25, yet he perceives this very power as being directed against him. This verse is part of Job's passionate plea for a direct, unhindered encounter with the Almighty, bypassing the flawed interpretations and accusations of his human companions. He desires to present his case, confident in his innocence, even if it means facing divine wrath. His demand for a direct hearing underscores his conviction that his suffering is unjust and that only God can provide the true explanation.
  • Historical & Cultural Context: The ancient Near Eastern world, including Israel, largely understood suffering through the lens of retribution theology: righteous living was believed to lead to blessing, while sin inevitably resulted in punishment. Job's friends operate entirely within this prevailing framework, assuming his immense suffering must be a consequence of hidden sin, despite Job's protestations. Job, however, vehemently denies this premise, challenging the very foundation of this theological paradigm. His demand for a direct hearing reflects ancient legal practices, where an accused person could directly confront their accuser or judge to present their defense. The concept of a divine court or judgment was also prevalent in the ancient world, and Job seeks to bring his case before the ultimate Judge, yearning for a just verdict rather than continued, unexplained affliction. He seeks not merely a theological explanation but a personal, judicial encounter.
  • Key Themes: Job 13:22 powerfully contributes to several overarching themes in the book of Job. Foremost is the Problem of Suffering and Justice, particularly the suffering of the righteous. Job's unwavering conviction of his own innocence in the face of immense pain drives his demand for an explanation from God, challenging the neat equation of sin and suffering. Relatedly, the theme of Divine Sovereignty vs. Human Integrity is central; Job acknowledges God's absolute power but steadfastly refuses to compromise his integrity or admit guilt he does not possess. His Desire for Direct Divine Dialogue underscores a deep human longing for unmediated answers from God in times of crisis, a yearning also seen in the laments of the Psalms, such as Psalm 13:1 where the psalmist cries, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?" or Job's own repeated longing for God's presence in Job 23:3. Finally, the verse highlights the Inadequacy of Human Wisdom in addressing profound theological questions, as Job dismisses his friends' counsel in favor of a direct appeal to God.

EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS

Key Word Analysis

  • Call (Hebrew, קָרָא qârâʼ, H7121): A primitive root meaning "to call out," "proclaim," "summon," or "read." In a legal context, as implied here, it signifies a formal summons or an invitation to present a case. Job is challenging God to initiate the legal proceedings, to present His charges, implying Job is ready and willing to respond. It is a bold invitation for divine interrogation, demonstrating Job's readiness to face any accusation.
  • Answer (Hebrew, עָנָה ʻânâh, H6030): A primitive root meaning "to heed," "respond," "testify," or "give an account." This word emphasizes the reciprocal nature of the desired dialogue. Whether God calls or Job speaks, the expectation is a direct and definitive response, not silence or evasion. It speaks to Job's desperate need for clarity and resolution, a genuine two-way communication rather than a one-sided affliction.
  • Speak (Hebrew, דַּבֵּר dâbar, H1696): A primitive root meaning "to arrange," but used figuratively of words, "to speak," "declare," or "converse." It denotes a more active, initiating role in the dialogue, distinct from merely answering. Job offers God the choice: either God speaks first and Job answers, or Job speaks first and God answers. This highlights Job's readiness to take the initiative in presenting his case if God prefers, underscoring his conviction that he has a valid and defensible position.

Verse Breakdown

  • "Then call thou, and I will answer": This clause presents the first option in Job's audacious challenge. Job invites God to take the role of the interrogator or prosecutor, to lay out His case or charges against Job. Job declares his readiness to stand before God and respond to any accusations or questions God might have. This demonstrates Job's profound confidence in his own innocence and his readiness to defend himself directly before the divine court. He is not hiding from God but actively seeking a confrontation, desiring an open and direct judicial process.
  • "or let me speak, and answer thou me.": This clause offers the alternative scenario. If God chooses not to initiate the dialogue or present His case, Job is prepared to take the offensive. He will present his own case, his questions, and his grievances, and he demands that God, in turn, provide a direct and definitive answer. This underscores Job's desperate need for an explanation for his suffering and his conviction that he has a valid case to present, even against the Almighty. It is a plea for true, two-way communication, not just a monologue from God or continued, unexplained suffering. The second "answer" (Hebrew: shûwb, H7725) here carries the nuance of "turning back" an answer, emphasizing the required reciprocity.

Literary Devices

Job 13:22 masterfully employs several literary techniques to convey Job's bold and desperate challenge. The most prominent is Chiasmus, an ABBA structure: "call thou (A), and I will answer (B): or let me speak (B'), and answer thou me (A')." This inverted parallelism emphasizes the reciprocal nature of the desired dialogue and Job's willingness to engage from either position (as the one responding to charges or as the one presenting charges). The verse also utilizes Legal Metaphor, framing the interaction as a courtroom proceeding where Job demands a fair hearing. His words are not merely a lament but a formal challenge, a plea for judicial process and a just verdict. Furthermore, the verse contains an implicit Rhetorical Question or challenge, daring God to engage on Job's terms, highlighting Job's audacious faith and desperation. The Antithesis between "call thou" and "let me speak" further underscores the two mutually exclusive, yet equally desired, scenarios for direct divine interaction, emphasizing Job's profound longing for any form of direct engagement.

THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS

Job 13:22 stands as a powerful testament to the human desire for divine accountability and understanding in the face of inexplicable suffering. It highlights the profound tension between God's absolute sovereignty and the human experience of injustice, prompting deep questions about the nature of divine justice, wisdom, and the problem of evil. Job's bold demand for a direct answer reflects a deep-seated need for meaning and vindication, acknowledging God's immense power while challenging His perceived actions. This verse underscores that honest lament and even direct questioning of God are part of a genuine faith journey, demonstrating that God is robust enough to handle our deepest doubts, angers, and cries for justice. It reveals a God who invites, rather than shies away from, the raw and unfiltered expressions of human pain and confusion.

REFLECTION AND APPLICATION

Job 13:22 offers profound encouragement for believers navigating seasons of confusion, pain, or perceived injustice. It validates the human impulse to bring our rawest emotions, deepest questions, and even our challenges directly before God. Job's boldness reminds us that authentic faith does not always mean quiet submission or passive acceptance, but can include wrestling, questioning, and demanding answers from the Almighty. This verse encourages us to persist in prayer and seeking God, even when His presence feels distant or His actions inexplicable. It teaches us that God is not intimidated by our honest lament or our struggle to reconcile His character with our circumstances; indeed, such wrestling can deepen our faith. While God may not answer immediately, or in the way we expect, Job's story ultimately reveals that He does eventually respond, often in ways that transcend our limited understanding, inviting us into a deeper trust in His ultimate justice, wisdom, and goodness. Our willingness to engage God directly, even in our pain, is a testament to our belief in His existence and His capacity to hear and respond.

Questions for Reflection

  • In what areas of your life are you struggling to reconcile God's character with your circumstances or perceived injustices?
  • What questions or challenges are you afraid to bring before God, perhaps out of fear or a misunderstanding of His nature?
  • How does Job's persistence in seeking a direct encounter with God inspire your own prayer life, especially when answers are slow in coming or when you feel unheard?

FAQ

Is it permissible to challenge God or demand answers from Him, as Job does?

Answer: Job 13:22, along with numerous psalms of lament (e.g., Psalm 44:23-24), demonstrates that it is indeed permissible and, at times, a deeply authentic expression of faith to bring our rawest questions, doubts, and even challenges before God. The Bible portrays a God who is robust enough to handle our honest wrestling. Job's "challenge" is not an act of rebellious defiance or unbelief, but a desperate plea for justice and understanding from a God he believes is ultimately just and good. It stems from a profound faith that God is ultimately righteous and will eventually provide answers, even if they are not what he expects. This contrasts sharply with a cynical or unbelieving challenge, instead highlighting a persistent, if anguished, trust in God's character and His willingness to engage with His creation. Such honest lament can be a pathway to deeper intimacy with God.

CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT

Job's desperate plea for a direct encounter and, crucially, for an arbiter (Job 9:33) who could stand between him and God, finds its ultimate and glorious fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Job longed for a mediator who could bridge the infinite gap between sinful humanity and the Holy One, someone who could truly represent both sides in a divine legal proceeding. The New Testament reveals Jesus as the perfect fulfillment of this longing: He is "the one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). Christ, being both fully God and fully man, uniquely qualifies to represent humanity before God as our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14) and to perfectly reveal God to humanity. Unlike Job's demand for a legal challenge, Christ's work on the cross provides the gracious and definitive answer to the problem of suffering and sin, offering vindication and reconciliation not through a courtroom battle but through His atoning sacrifice. In Christ, we have direct access to God's throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) and the ultimate answer to the question of innocent suffering, as He, the innocent Lamb of God (John 1:29), suffered for the sins of the world, allowing us to approach God not with a challenge, but with confidence, peace, and the assurance of His unfailing love.

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Commentary on Job 13 verses 13–22

I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points

Job here takes fresh hold, fast hold, of his integrity, as one that was resolved not to let it go, nor suffer it to be wrested from him. His firmness in this matter is commendable and his warmth excusable.

I. He entreats his friends and all the company to let him alone, and not interrupt him in what he was about to say (Job 13:13), but diligently to hearken to it, Job 13:17. He would have his own protestation to be decisive, for none but God and himself knew his heart. "Be silent therefore, and let me hear no more of you, but hearken diligently to what I say, and let my own oath for confirmation be an end of the strife."

II. He resolves to adhere to the testimony his own conscience gave of his integrity; and though his friends called it obstinacy that should not shake his constancy: "I will speak in my own defence, and let come on me what will, Job 13:13. Let my friends put what construction they please upon it, and think the worse of me for it; I hope God will not make my necessary defence to be my offence, as you do. He will justify me (Job 13:18) and then nothing can come amiss to me." Note, Those that are upright, and have the assurance of their uprightness, may cheerfully welcome every event. Come what will, bene praeparatum pectus - they are ready for it. He resolves (Job 13:15) that he will maintain his own ways. He would never part with the satisfaction he had in having walked uprightly with God; for, though he could not justify every word he had spoken, yet, in the general, his ways were good, and he would maintain his uprightness; and why should he not, since that was his great support under his present exercises, as it was Hezekiah's, Now, Lord, remember how I have walked before thee? Nay, he would not only not betray his own cause, or give it up, but he would openly avow his sincerity; for (Job 13:19) "If hold my tongue, and do not speak for myself, my silence now will for ever silence me, for I shall certainly give up the ghost," Job 13:19. "If I cannot be cleared, yet let me be eased, by what I say," as Elihu, Job 32:17, Job 32:20.

III. He complains of the extremity of pain and misery he was in (Job 13:14): Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth? That is, 1. "Why do I suffer such agonies? I cannot but wonder that God should lay so much upon me when he knows I am not a wicked man." He was ready, not only to rend his clothes, but even to tear his flesh, through the greatness of his affliction, and saw himself at the brink of death, and his life in his hand, yet his friends could not charge him with any enormous crime, nor could he himself discover any; no marvel then that he was in such confusion. 2. "Why do I stifle and smother the protestations of my innocency?" When a man with great difficulty keeps in what he would say, he bites his lips. "Now," says he, "why may not I take liberty to speak, since I do but vex myself, add to my torment, and endanger my life, by refraining?" Note, It would vex the most patient man, when he has lost every thing else, to be denied the comfort (if he deserves it) of a good conscience and a good name.

IV. He comforts himself in God, and still keeps hold of his confidence in him. Observe here,

1.What he depends upon God for - justification and salvation, the two great things we hope for through Christ. (1.) Justification (Job 13:18): I have ordered my cause, and, upon the whole matter, I know that I shall be justified. This he knew because he knew that his Redeemer lived, Job 19:25. Those whose hearts are upright with God, in walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit, may be sure that through Christ there shall be no condemnation to them, but that, whoever lays any thing to their charge, they shall be justified: they may know that they shall. (2.) Salvation (Job 13:16): He also shall be my salvation. He means it not of temporal salvation (he had little expectation of that); but concerning his eternal salvation he was very confident that God would not only be his Saviour to make him happy, but his salvation, in the vision and fruition of whom he should be happy. And the reason why he depended on God for salvation was because a hypocrite shall not come before him. He knew himself not to be a hypocrite, and that none but hypocrites are rejected of God, and therefore concluded he should not be rejected. Sincerity is our evangelical perfection; nothing will ruin us but the want of that.

2.With what constancy he depends upon him: Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, Job 13:15. This is a high expression of faith, and what we should all labour to come up to - to trust in God, though he slay us, that is, we must be well pleased with God as a friend even when he seems to come forth against us as an enemy, Job 23:8-10. We must believe that all shall work for good to us even when all seems to make against us, Jer 24:5. We must proceed and persevere in the way of our duty, though it cost us all that is dear to us in this world, even life itself, Heb 11:35. We must depend upon the performance of the promise when all the ways leading to it are shut up, Rom 4:18. We must rejoice in God when we have nothing else to rejoice in, and cleave to him, yea, though we cannot for the present find comfort in him. In a dying hour we must derive from him living comforts; and this is to trust in him though he slay us.

V. He wishes to argue the case even with God himself, if he might but have leave to settle the preliminaries of the treaty, Job 13:20-22. He had desired (Job 13:3) to reason with God, and is still of the same mind. He will not hide himself, that is, he will not decline the trial, nor dread the issue of it, but under two provisos: - 1. That his body might not be tortured with this exquisite pain: "Withdraw thy hand far from me; for, while I am in this extremity, I am fit for nothing. l can make a shift to talk with my friends, but I know not how to address myself to thee." When we are to converse with God we have need to be composed, and as free as possible from every thing that may make us uneasy. 2. That his mind might not be terrified with the tremendous majesty of God: "Let not thy dread make me afraid; either let the manifestations of thy presence be familiar or let me be enabled to bear them without disorder and disturbance." Moses himself trembled before God, so did Isaiah and Habakkuk. O God! thou art terrible even in thy holy places. "Lord," says Job, "let me not be put into such a consternation of spirit, together with this bodily affliction; for then I must certainly drop the cause, and shall make nothing of it." See what a folly it is for men to put off their repentance and conversion to a sick-bed and a death-bed. How can even a good man, much less a bad man, reason with God, so as to be justified before him, when he is upon the rack of pain and under the terror of the arrests of death? At such a time it is very bad to have the great work to do, but very comfortable to have it done, as it was to Job, who, if he might but have a little breathing-time, was ready either, (1.) To hear God speaking to him by his word, and return an answer: Call thou, and I will answer; or, (2.) To speak to him by prayer, and expect an answer: Let me speak, and answer thou me, v. 22. Compare this with Job 9:34, Job 9:35, where he speaks to the same purport. In short, the badness of his case was at present such a damp upon him as he could not get over; otherwise he was well assured of the goodness of his cause, and doubted not but to have the comfort of it at last, when the present cloud was over. With such holy boldness may the upright come to the throne of grace, not doubting but to find mercy there.

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) — Commentary on the Whole Bible. This section covers verses 13–22. Public domain.
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Gregory the DialogistAD 604
56. Who at the time, when He did appear by the assumption of the flesh to the eyes of mankind, disclosed to men their sins, which they were doing and knew not.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.
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