Job 9:22-24

Accusation of God’s Justice

9:22 “It is all one! ¹  That is why I say, ² 

‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’

9:23 If a scourge brings sudden death, ³ 

he mocks ⁴  at the despair ⁵  of the innocent. ⁶ 

9:24 If a land ⁷  has been given

into the hand of a wicked man, ⁸ 

he covers ⁹  the faces of its judges; ¹⁰ 

if it is not he, then who is it? ¹¹ 

Job 12:6

12:6 But ¹²  the tents of robbers are peaceful,

and those who provoke God are confident ¹³  –

who carry their god in their hands. ¹⁴ 

Mark 7:21-22

7:21 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 7:22 adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly.

Luke 6:45

6:45 The good person out of the good treasury of his ¹⁵  heart ¹⁶  produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury ¹⁷  produces evil, for his mouth speaks ¹⁸  from what fills ¹⁹  his heart.

James 1:26

1:26 If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile.

[9:22]  ¹ tc The LXX omits the phrase “It is all one.” Modern scholars either omit it or transpose it for clarity.

[9:22]  ² tn The relationships of these clauses is in some question. Some think that the poet has inverted the first two, and so they should read, “That is why I have said: ‘It is all one.’” Others would take the third clause to be what was said.

[9:23]  ³ tc The LXX contains a paraphrase: “for the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.”

[9:23]  ⁴ sn This bold anthropomorphism means that by his treatment of the despair of the innocent, God is in essence mocking them.

[9:23]  ⁵ tn The term מַסַּת (massat), a hapax legomenon, was translated “trial” in the older versions; but it is not from נָסָה (nasah, “to tempt; to test; to try”), but from מָסַס (masas, “to flow”). It is used in the Niphal to speak of the heart “melting” in suffering. So the idea behind this image is that of despair. This is the view that most interpreters adopt; it requires no change of the text whatsoever.

[9:23]  ⁶ sn Job uses this word to refute Eliphaz; cf. 4:7.

[9:24]  ⁷ tn Some would render this “earth,” meaning the whole earth, and having the verse be a general principle for all mankind. But Job may have in mind the more specific issue of individual land.

[9:24]  ⁸ sn The details of the verse are not easy to explain, but the meaning of the whole verse seems to be about the miscarriage of justice in the courts and the failure of God to do anything about it.

[9:24]  ⁹ tn The subject of the verb is God. The reasoning goes this way: it is the duty of judges to make sure that justice prevails, that restitution and restoration are carried through; but when the wicked gain control of the land of other people, and the judges are ineffective to stop it, then God must be veiling their eyes.

[9:24]  ¹⁰ sn That these words are strong, if not wild, is undeniable. But Job is only taking the implications of his friends’ speeches to their logical conclusion – if God dispenses justice in the world, and there is no justice, then God is behind it all. The LXX omitted these words, perhaps out of reverence for God.

[9:24]  ¹¹ tn This seems to be a broken-off sentence (anacoluthon), and so is rather striking. The scribes transposed the words אֵפוֹא (’efo’) and הוּא (hu’) to make the smoother reading: “If it is not he, who then is it?”

[12:6]  ¹² tn The verse gives the other side of the coin now, the fact that the wicked prosper.

[12:6]  ¹³ tn The plural is used to suggest the supreme degree of arrogant confidence (E. Dhorme, Job, 171).

[12:6]  ¹⁴ sn The line is perhaps best understood as describing one who thinks he is invested with the power of God.

[6:45]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “the”; the Greek article has been translated here and in the following clause (“out of the evil”) as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[6:45]  ¹⁶ sn Mention of the heart shows that Jesus is not interested in what is done, but why. Motives are more important than actions for him.

[6:45]  ¹⁷ tn The word “treasury” is not repeated in the Greek text at this point, but is implied.

[6:45]  ¹⁸ sn What one utters from one’s mouth is especially singled out as the example of this principle. James seems to have known this teaching (Jas 1:26; 3:1-12).

[6:45]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”