Job's Appeal to God
D. J. Burrell, D. D. Job 23:1-6 Then Job answered and said,… This passage opens with a statement of Job's dissatisfied condition of mind (vers. 1, 2), followed by a wish that he might find God and defend himself before Him (vers. 3-7); and it concludes with a lament that he is not able to do so (vers. 8-10). In thinking over this passage, remember two things — 1. The abstract question of the possibility of any man being absolutely innocent in the sight of God is not raised here. Men are divided into two great classes — those who (however imperfectly) seek to serve God and do right, and those who live in selfishness and sin. The former class are called the righteous. In the relative sense, Job's claim as to his own character was true. 2. We are not to find in Job, as he is here exhibited, a model for ourselves when we are afflicted. Try to separate in Job's condition those things in which he was right from those things in which he was wrong. He was right — 1. In his consciousness of innocence. 2. In using his reason on the great problem of suffering. 3. In wanting to know God's opinion of him. 4. In his desire to be just before God. 5. In holding fast to his belief in God. 6. Job believed in justice as an essential element in the character of God, even though he did not see how God was just in the present instance.Job was wrong — 1. In his imperfect theory of suffering — wrong, that is, in the sense of being mistaken. 2. In his restless desire to know all the reasons for God's dealings with him. 3. In wanting to have God bring Himself down to a level of equality with him, laying aside His omniscience, and listening, as though He were only a human judge, to Job. 4. And Job was plainly wrong in his impatient fooling towards God (ver. 2). (D. J. Burrell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Job answered and said, WEB: Then Job answered,