Job 13

13:1-2 Job appealed to experience, as his comforters had done (3:12-17; 5:2).

13:7-10 defending God with lies: False witnesses were forbidden even if speaking on God’s behalf (Exod 20:16).

13:12 Ashes are worthless (cp. Isa 44:20).

13:20-21 Job had contemplated finding an arbiter to remove God’s heavy hand (9:33-34). Eliphaz had urged Job to accept God’s chastening (5:17).

13:22-23 Job wanted God to summon him, and then Job would answer in his own defense; or Job would speak to God, and then God would reply to substantiate the charges against Job. Since God did not take the first option, Job initiated the second one (13:23). Eventually, God did summon Job (38:1-3; 40:1-2), and Job was unable to reply (40:3-5).

13:24 God can turn away in wrath (Deut 31:18; Isa 54:8; Jer 33:5) or refuse to show friendship (Pss 30:7; 69:17; 102:2). • Job, perhaps playing on his own name (’iyyob), denied that he was God’s enemy (’oyeb).

13:25 In the Old Testament, dry straw is a common image for what can be blown away (“chaff,” Ps 83:13; Isa 40:24; Jer 13:24) or burned (Exod 15:7; Isa 47:14; Mal 4:1; see also “dry grass,” Isa 5:24; 33:11), or for what is weak (Job 41:20-21) and trifling (Isa 41:2).