Commentary - Job 17:3-5

Bird's-eye view

In these verses, Job, stripped of everything and surrounded by miserable comforters, cuts straight to the heart of his predicament. He is in a legal dispute with the Almighty, and he knows that no mere man can serve as his guarantor or mediator. His so-called friends are useless; their counsel is bankrupt because God Himself has closed their minds. So, in a breathtaking move of faith that is tangled up with his profound anguish, Job appeals directly to God to be his own surety. He is asking God to put up the pledge against Himself. This is a profound, albeit raw, expression of faith in the character of God, even while being crushed by the providence of God. Job is beginning to see that the only solution to his problem with God is found in God. This is a foundational gospel insight, bubbling up from the ash heap.

The passage pivots from this desperate legal appeal to a denunciation of his friends. Job connects their foolish counsel to a spiritual blindness, one ordained by God, ensuring their own downfall. He concludes with a proverbial curse on those who betray friends for personal gain, a clear shot at the motives he perceives in Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They are talking piously, but their words are a betrayal, and such treachery, Job says, carries a generational curse. The whole section is a marvelous display of a man wrestling honestly with God's justice, his friends' folly, and the dawning realization that his only hope is a divine intervention on his own behalf.

Outline

Context In Job

Job 17 comes in the middle of the second cycle of speeches. Job has just endured another round of "comfort" from Eliphaz (Ch. 15) and has responded with his famous declaration that his friends are "miserable comforters" (Job 16:2). He has described how God has torn him apart, and yet, in the midst of that, he has also affirmed that his "witness is in heaven" (Job 16:19). This chapter continues that same train of thought. His hope is gone, his life is effectively over, and the grave is his only expected home (Job 17:1, 13-16). It is from this pit of despair that he launches his appeal. These verses are not a calm theological reflection; they are a cry from the depths, a legal summons issued by a man on his deathbed who refuses to let his integrity be slandered without a fair hearing.

His words are directed both to God and about his friends. He is done trying to reason with them. He sees their counsel for what it is: not just wrong, but spiritually obtuse. This sets the stage for his later, more profound confessions of faith, like his declaration that his Redeemer lives (Job 19:25). Before he can get to that glorious peak, he must first walk through this valley, where the only thing he can do is throw himself on the mercy of the very God who is afflicting him.

Key Issues

Commentary

v. 3 “Establish, now, a pledge for me with Yourself; Who is there that will clap my hand in pledge?

Job is using legal language here, the language of the city gate where contracts were made. When a man entered into a binding agreement or took on a debt, another man might "strike hands" or "clap hands" with the creditor, acting as a guarantor. This man, the surety, was putting his own wealth and reputation on the line. Job's situation is this: he is in a dispute with God, and he feels he is being unjustly crushed. He needs a surety, an arbiter, someone to stand with him and guarantee him a fair hearing. But who can do that when the other party is God Himself? No man is qualified. No angel would dare. Job looks around at his friends, and they are worse than useless; they are on the prosecution's team. So he turns to the only one left. In his desperation, he asks God to be his guarantor. "You be my pledge." It is a staggering request. He is, in effect, appealing from God to God. This is the logic of the gospel. The only one who can satisfy the justice of God is God. The only one who can stand as our surety before the Father is the Son. Job did not have the full revelation of the Trinity, but the Holy Spirit was leading him to speak truths that would only find their ultimate fulfillment in Christ, our great high priest and surety of a better covenant (Heb. 7:22).

v. 4 For You have hidden their heart from insight, Therefore You will not exalt them.

Here Job pivots from his plea to God to his diagnosis of his friends. Why is there no one to strike hands with him? Because God has sovereignly blinded his companions. "You have hidden their heart from insight." This is a raw statement of divine sovereignty. Job is not saying his friends are simply mistaken, or that they have a flawed argument. He is saying their inability to see the truth of his situation is a divine judgment upon them. God has closed their minds. This is what God does to the proud and the self-righteous. He gives them over to their own foolish wisdom, which is no wisdom at all. And because God has done this, Job concludes with confidence that God "will not exalt them." Their arguments will not prevail. Their tidy little theological world, where the righteous always prosper and the suffering are always getting what they deserve, will be torn down. God will not honor their brand of comfort. This is a great encouragement for the believer who is being battered by well-meaning but clueless Christians. When insight is lacking, it is often because God has hidden it. And when God has hidden it, you can be sure He will not ultimately vindicate the resulting foolishness.

v. 5 He who informs against friends for a share of the spoil, The eyes of his children also will come to an end.

Job now delivers a stinging proverbial curse. He is accusing his friends of the basest kind of treachery. They are like men who denounce their friends to the authorities in order to get a cut of the confiscated property. They are not motivated by a love for truth or a concern for Job's soul, but rather by a desire to be proven right, to secure their own standing before God by tearing Job down. They are scavengers, picking over the bones of his reputation. Job is saying that this kind of betrayal has consequences that run deep. It is a sin that brings a curse down not just on the man himself, but on his children. "The eyes of his children also will come to an end." This means their lineage will fail, their hope will be extinguished. Light, sight, and future are all tied together. Betrayal is a sin that eats the future. This is a hard word, but it is a biblical principle. Covenantal faithfulness brings generational blessing, and covenantal treachery brings generational curses. Job's friends, in their attempt to defend God, have become traitors to their friend, and in so doing, have set themselves against the very fabric of God's moral order.

Application

We live in a world that is deeply uncomfortable with the kind of raw honesty we see in Job. We prefer our religion to be neat, tidy, and encouraging. But Job teaches us that true faith is not about maintaining a pious veneer in the midst of suffering. It is about wrestling with God, even when He feels like your adversary. Job's prayer for God to be his own surety is a model for us. When we are at the end of our rope, when every human support has failed, our only recourse is to appeal from God's hard providence to His good character. We must pray, "Lord, you are the one who has struck me down, and you are the only one who can raise me up. Be my surety. Stand for me." This is precisely what the gospel offers us in Christ.

Secondly, we must take heed of the warning embodied in Job's friends. It is entirely possible to use orthodox theological statements as a club to beat the suffering. They had all the right doctrines about God's justice, but they applied them with all the compassion of a prosecuting attorney. God had hidden insight from their hearts. We should pray for humility, that God would not hide insight from us. When we encounter a brother or sister in deep affliction, our first job is not to explain it, but to sit with them in the ashes. Our theological systems must be big enough for mystery, and our hearts must be soft enough for compassion. To betray a friend in his moment of need, even with pious-sounding words, is a great evil, and it is a sin that God does not leave unpunished.