Tuesday, August 25, 2026 ▫ Read Job 13:20–14:22
Questions from the Scripture text: What two things does Job ask God not to do to him (v20–21)? What does he want God to show him (v23)? How does he regard God’s perceived silence (v22, 24)? What effect does this have upon him (v25)? In what manner is he concerned that God might be dealing with him (v26–27)? What condition highlights man’s inability to change himself (v28–14:4)? Who is sovereign over him, i.e. able to change him (v5)? Apart from grace, what would be best for man (v6)? How is a tree different than man (v7–10)? How is man more similar to a lake bed or river bed (v11–12)? Since Job has gospel hope for eternity (v16b–17), what would he rather have from God than his recent experiences (v13–16a)? What happens with man’s hopes and initiatives in this world (v17–22)?What hope can Job have in the midst of his pain in this world? Job 13:20–14:22 looks forward to the hearing of God’s Word, publicly read, in the holy assembly on the coming Lord’s Day. In these thirty-one verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the believer’s hope is in God Himself, Who makes us new, forgives our sins, and desires us as the work of His hands.
Job is determined to trust in the Lord (v15) to be his salvation (v16). What does that look like in such painful circumstances as he finds himself? We can learn much from his basic prayers.
Don’t leave me alone, v20–22. This may sound inconsistent. Several times, we have seen Job ask that if God is going to continue to deal with him as He appears to be, just to leave him alone. But Job has come to an important conclusion: even though he cannot see it now, God is the God of gospel grace in Whom he has trusted. So, he prays that God would not leave him alone (v21a), and that God would deal with him according to grace (v21b). If God is your only hope, then cry out to Him not to withdraw His hand from you, but to deal with you graciously as your Hope instead of your Terror.
Show me my sins, v23–24. This is a profound little section. Job believes that it is an act of enmity (v24) when God hides His face instead of showing us our iniquity, sin, and transgression (v23). Job has repented of what he knows of. His friends have insisted that he suffers because of unrepented sin. But if Job is to repent, he needs to know what his sin is. It would be enmity indeed if God gave him over to sin to such an extent that he didn’t even know what his sin was. It might feel easier to our conscience, and especially to our pride, to be ignorant of our sin or to take it lightly. But that is not grace. If you are looking to God for true grace, then ask Him to make you know your sins.
But don’t treat me according to those sins, v25–28. This has been Job’s fear throughout: what if the Lord is actually dealing with me according to my sins (v26)? He is sovereign over the whole of our life (v27). If He deals with us according to our sin, we shall be destroyed and incinerated instantly (v25, 28).
Make me a clean thing, 14:1–4. Man was not created to be “of few days and full of trouble” (v1–2). Job is engaging the Lord in light of his fallenness. Even if God shows him his sins (v23–24), Job can’t cleanse himself from himself (v4). He needs God to give him a new nature. If the only principle upon which the Lord deals with him is one of justice (v3), then Job is done for.
Get me safely to eternity, 14:5–22. In the balance of the chapter, Job notes that he doesn’t have any inherent life in himself, like even the stump of a tree does (v7–8). Rather, he is like a riverbed of a river that has long since dried up (v9–12). As Ecclesiastes also observes several times, a man’s accomplishments in this life do not have “staying power” (v18–21), however much he agonizes over his endeavors (v22).
So, if Job’s life is going to be one of misery and pain under the apparent wrath of God (v13b), it would be better for him to be hidden by God in his grave (v13a) until the time of his redemption comes. He would rather just wait for the resurrection (v14), in which he is confident that he will know the grace of God (v15). His ultimate hope is in God and His forgiveness (v16–17). Note that, while Job is asking God to spare him the balance of the miseries of this life, it does not even cross his mind to take his own life. As he hopes in God for eternal forgiveness and blessedness, he does not even consider committing such a sin as suicide.
Instead, here he is with eternal hope in God, asking for a word from God that he might have resolved his perplexity about the pain in his life. By the end of the book, he would know God better. And we, with the cross and the resurrection as finished events, know even more fully this grace of God and our eternal hope in Him! Let us live in that hope, sure that when our hard service is over, our change will come (v14), and that God Himself will bring us out of the season of misery (v13), that He might delight in us, whom He has transformed (v15) and whose sin He has forgiven (v16–17).
What miseries are you enduring? How do you know that God is not treating you according to your sin? What hope do you have for when your life in this world is done? What hope do you have even now, as the work of God’s hands?
Sample prayer: Lord, two things we desire from You: that You would not withdraw Your hand far from us, and that the dread of You would not make us afraid. Make us to know our sins, and make us to know Your forgiveness and cleansing of sin. Since a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean thing, grant that Your Spirit would make us to be clean things. Give us to worship You from the new life that is in us from Christ. Come, now, and call; and, we will answer You. Desire us as the work of Your hands, covering our iniquity, and giving us to live, and work, and worship by Your grace in Christ, through Whom we ask it, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP51B “From My Sins, O Hide Your Face” or TPH433 “Amazing Grace!”
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