The Crown of Accusation Text: Job 31:35-40
Introduction: The Courtroom of God
We come now to the end of Job's final defense, and it is the crescendo of the entire argument. For thirty chapters, Job has been weathering the storm of his suffering and the even greater storm of his friends' counsel. They have operated on a very simple, and very wrong, theological equation: righteousness plus faith equals prosperity, while sin equals suffering. Since Job is suffering spectacularly, he must be sinning spectacularly. They urge him to confess the secret sins that have brought this calamity upon him.
But Job knows this is not true. He is not claiming sinless perfection, which is a caricature his friends and many commentators try to pin on him. He is claiming covenantal integrity. He knows that, by and large, his life has been one of faithfulness. And so, in this final, breathtaking speech, he does something audacious. He formally and legally summons God to court. This is not the petulant cry of a spoiled child. This is the solemn appeal of a covenant man demanding that the covenant God, the righteous Judge of all the earth, act like Himself. Job is not putting God in the dock in order to condemn Him; he is putting God on the witness stand in order to be vindicated by Him.
This entire chapter is a great oath of clearance, a series of self-maledictions. Job has gone through a long list of potential sins, lust, deceit, adultery, injustice to his servants, materialism, idolatry, and has called down curses on himself if he is guilty. Now, he concludes by signing his testimony and demanding the Almighty present His indictment. What we are about to witness is one of the most profound adumbrations of the gospel in the entire Old Testament. Job, in his integrity, provides us with a stunning type of the confidence that is ours, not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ.
The Text
Oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature; Let the Almighty answer me! And the indictment which my accuser has written, Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it to myself like a crown. I would declare to Him the number of my steps; Like a prince I would approach Him. "If my land cries out against me, And its furrows weep together, If I have eaten its fruit without money, Or have caused its owners to lose their lives, Let briars come out instead of wheat, And stinkweed instead of barley." The words of Job are ended.
(Job 31:35-40 LSB)
The Signed Testimony (v. 35)
Job begins his final appeal with a formal legal summons.
"Oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature; Let the Almighty answer me! And the indictment which my accuser has written," (Job 31:35 LSB)
Job is not just wishing for a friendly ear. He is demanding a formal hearing before a judge. And then he says, "Behold, here is my signature." The Hebrew is literally "my tav." A tav is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it was written as a simple cross, an X. This was the mark of an illiterate man, his signature. Job is signing off on his entire life's testimony, his long oath of clearance in chapter 31. He is saying, "This is my sworn statement. I stand by it. I seal it with my mark."
Having submitted his defense, he now demands that the prosecution present its case. "Let the Almighty answer me!" He wants the indictment, the formal written charge sheet from his accuser. Job assumes there must be such a document. Given the magnitude of his suffering, he reasons that God must be acting on the basis of some terrible charge against him. He wants to see it. He wants it brought out into the open. This is the cry of a man who knows that his life, lived in the fear of God, can withstand scrutiny. He is not afraid of the light, because his deeds have been done in God.
This is a profound challenge to the way we often think about God. We think of hiding from Him, of covering our tracks. Job's approach is the opposite. He wants all the records unsealed. He is banking everything on the justice and righteousness of God, the very attributes that seem to be turned against him.
The Crown of Indictment (v. 36)
What Job says next is simply staggering. What would he do with God's formal indictment against him?
"Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it to myself like a crown." (Job 31:36 LSB)
Think about this. A list of your failings, a formal accusation from the Almighty, would be a source of ultimate shame for any normal person. It would crush you. You would hide it, burn it, do anything to keep it from the light of day. Job says he would do the opposite. He would carry it on his shoulder, like a king displaying his royal insignia or a general his epaulets. More than that, he would bind it on his head like a crown. A crown is a symbol of glory, honor, and victory.
Job is so utterly confident in his fundamental innocence, his covenant faithfulness, that he believes God's indictment would be his vindication. If the righteous God were to formally charge him, the charges would be so flimsy, so contrary to the facts of his life, that the document itself would be the proof of his integrity. It would be his trophy. He would wear his accuser's charges as his own crown of glory. This is not arrogance; it is a profound expression of faith in the justice of God. He knows God is a righteous judge, and a righteous judge must acquit the innocent.
The Princely Approach (v. 37)
Job's confidence extends to the very manner in which he would enter God's courtroom.
"I would declare to Him the number of my steps; Like a prince I would approach Him" (Job 31:37 LSB)
This is not the posture of a cowering slave or a guilty criminal, shuffling into the presence of the judge with his head down. This is the approach of a prince, a son of the king, entering his father's throne room. A prince has standing. He has access. He belongs there. Job says he would come before God with his head held high.
And he would not come with a carefully edited story. He says, "I would declare to Him the number of my steps." All of them. He is inviting a full audit of his life. He is not claiming to have never stumbled, but he is claiming that the entire trajectory of his life, every step, has been taken with a desire to walk before God in integrity. He has nothing to hide. This is the antithesis of Adam, who hid himself among the trees. Job is stepping out into the open, demanding the light. This is the confidence that flows from a life of repentance and faith, a life lived openly before the face of God.
The Witness of Creation (v. 38-40)
Job concludes his oath by calling on creation itself to testify against him if he is lying.
"If my land cries out against me, And its furrows weep together, If I have eaten its fruit without money, Or have caused its owners to lose their lives, Let briars come out instead of wheat, And stinkweed instead of barley." (Job 31:38-40 LSB)
This is a self-maledictory oath of the highest order. He is swearing his innocence in the realm of business and economics. He asks if his own land cries out against him. This is covenantal language. The ground cried out with the blood of Abel when Cain murdered him. The land itself vomits out inhabitants who defile it with wickedness. Job is asking if his stewardship of the land has been so unjust that the very furrows of his fields weep over his sin.
He gets specific. Has he eaten the fruit of the land without paying for it, essentially stealing from his workers or tenants? Has he "caused its owners to lose their lives," which could mean working them to death or foreclosing on them so unjustly that they starved? If he is guilty of this kind of eighth commandment violation, of this kind of economic oppression, then he calls down a specific curse upon himself. "Let briars come out instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley."
He is asking for the curse of the Fall, the curse of Genesis 3, to fall upon his own fields. He is saying, "If I have been a source of the curse to others, let my own livelihood be cursed." This is how seriously he takes his oath. It demonstrates that his righteousness was not just a private piety; it worked its way out into his business dealings, his treatment of the poor, and his stewardship of God's creation. And with that, his case is submitted. "The words of Job are ended." He has said all he can say. He now waits for the verdict.
The Gospel According to Job
Job's audacious confidence is a bright and shining arrow pointing directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. Job longed for a hearing. He longed for a vindicator. He stood on his own integrity, and it was a real, God-given integrity. But it was the righteousness of a man, and therefore, it was imperfect. When God finally does answer him out of the whirlwind, Job repents in dust and ashes, not because his oath was false, but because he saw the infinite holiness of God and his own creaturely finitude.
But what Job longed for, we have in full. We also have an indictment written by an accuser. The accuser is the law of God, and our accuser is Satan, and the indictment is long, detailed, and entirely accurate. Every sin, every wicked thought, every idle word is on it. If that indictment were placed on our shoulder, it would crush us into Hell. We could never wear it as a crown.
But the gospel is this: Jesus Christ, the truly innocent one, stepped into the courtroom of God on our behalf. He took the indictment that was against us, with all its legal demands, and He carried it on His shoulder. He carried it up the hill to Golgotha. And as the Apostle Paul tells us, He "canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross" (Colossians 2:14).
He took the damning indictment and, by His death and resurrection, transformed it into His crown of victory. The accusation became His accomplishment. The curse became our blessing. Job wanted to approach God like a prince based on the number of his steps. We get to approach God as sons and daughters, not based on our steps, but on the bloody footprints of Christ that lead to an empty tomb. Our confidence is not in our own integrity, but in His. We are clothed, not in our own righteousness, but in His. The indictment that should have been our shame has been transformed into the crown of our salvation, and it is all of grace.