Job 31:6














Job only desires to be weighed in an even balance. He feels that his friends have judged him in anything but a fair manner, and he now craves for the true justice of God.

I. THE JUSTICE OF AN EVEN BALANCE IS GREATLY TO BE DESIRED. People have taken a very narrow view of justice, so narrow a view as to be practically false and most fallacious. Justice has been regarded as the power that punishes sin, and while, of course, this is true, this is not a description of the true nature and ultimate character of it, but only a statement of one of its special functions - a function which would not exist if sin had not entered the world. Yet justice would have an ample field if there were no wickedness. It is not like the executioner, whose occupation would be gone with the cessation of lawlessness. Justice is righteousness. It is the principle that insists on seeing right done. Every lover of the good must desire to see such a principle flourish. Between man and man justice is fairness. When we say God deals justly we imply that he deals fairly. This may not mean equality. For to load a mule with the same burden we would put on an elephant's back is not fair dealing st all. Equity is not equality. But it is a suitable and proportionate dealing with each individual

II. THE JUSTICE OF AN EVEN BALANCE IS RARE AMONG MEN. Job did not see it, and therefore he greatly longed for it. Many things falsify the scales of justice.

1. Prejudice. Truth should be on one side of the scales - as in the Egyptian legend of weighing the souls of the dead. But prejudice either pares the weight of truth and so lessens its value, or adds its own weight.

2. Self-interest. Justice should be impartial; but men are not. A pure detachment of mind is very difficult to acquire. Instead of considering merit, people take account of what pleases them or what may be. profitable to them.

3. Ignorance. When there is the utmost genuineness of desire to weigh justly, we may make a mistake simply because we do not put all the facts into the scale.

III. THE JUSTICE OF AN EVEn BALANCE IS FOUND WITH GOD.

1. Pure equity. He allows no prejudice to warp his judgment, no self interest to pervert his verdict. God is perfectly just in his own character. Therefore he can judge men justly. Being righteous himself, he is never prompted to act otherwise than righteously.

2. Knowledge. God makes none of the unintentional mistakes that are so common with men. The whole tangled mass of events is unravelled by his perfectly penetrating gaze. When we despair of having a case truly seen by our fellow-men, we can lift up our eyes to the great Judge of all the earth and be assured that he knows all Surely, then, it is most necessary to stand right with the justice of God, that this may vindicate and not condemn us. But only the God-given righteousness in Christ can make this possible to us. ? W.F.A.

The words of Job are ended.
Running like a golden thread through all this vehement and passionate language, we have seen a vein of thought which has given this half-rebellious questioner a claim upon our sympathy, and which even had the book ended here, would have prevented thoughtful men from joining his opponents, and from abandoning the solitary and tortured sufferer to the reproaches of his friends, and to the condemnation of the future readers of this great controversy. His soul, ripened by the hot blast of cruel affliction, is being prepared for a step, a long step forward, in that progressive revelation of God Himself to man, given us in Holy Scripture. He sickens at the sight and sense of wrong, and clinging to the conviction that, in spite of all appearances, God must be just — juster than his friends, or his own creed, or his own experience have declared Him to be — he struggles to be true, at once to himself, to his conscience, and his God. He yearns for a clearer sight of, and a nearer approach to the Divine Being against whom, as seen in the insufficient light given him, he has launched so vehement an indictment, so terrible a flood of fervid and poetic wrath. And while he has no sure and certain hope of a life beyond the grave, such as was revealed to the world in Christ, yet his pathetic moans at the finality of death give place, once to a dim aspiration, and once and again to a more loud assertion of his conviction — bursting forth like a flash of light from his darkest mood — that even if he is to die, die in his misery and desolation, God will yet be his Goel, his Vindicator; that somehow, he knows not how, he shall even after the shock of death have sight of God, and have his wrongs redressed; and therefore that he who has once been so dear to Him, and who has fallen so low in this life, will not be left to be "of all men most miserable." And we have noticed how, in his description of his early life, he moves in a serene and lofty atmosphere, puts before us a moral standard of practice and even of thought which a Christian might be thankful to attain and realise And now, he and his friends are alike silent, silent but unconvinced. Neither the one side nor the other have won the adhesion of those against whom they argue. They cannot point to any guilt on Job's part. He cannot convince them of his innocence. Neither one side nor the other have, we cannot but feel, laid their hands upon the whole truth. Yet each has exhausted his store of arguments, shot his arrows, and emptied his quiver. And deep as is the hold which Job has gained upon our interest and sympathy, yet "the light and shade has been so graduated that those sympathies are not entirely confined to one side."

(Dean Bradley.).

People
Abaddon, Adam, Job
Places
Uz
Topics
Accurate, Balance, Balances, Blameless, Blamelessness, Honest, Integrity, Measured, Righteous, Righteousness, Scales, Upright, Weigh, Weighed
Outline
1. Job makes a solemn protestation of his integrity in several duties

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Job 31:5-8

     4430   crops

Library
Thou Shalt not Steal.
This Commandment also has a work, which embraces very many good works, and is opposed to many vices, and is called in German Mildigkeit, "benevolence;" which is a work ready to help and serve every one with one's goods. And it fights not only against theft and robbery, but against all stinting in temporal goods which men may practise toward one another: such as greed, usury, overcharging and plating wares that sell as solid, counterfeit wares, short measures and weights, and who could tell all the
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works

Question of the Active Life
I. Do all Acts of the Moral Virtues come under the Active Life? II. Does Prudence pertain to the Active Life? III. Does Teaching belong to the Active or to the Contemplative Life? IV. Does the Active Life continue after this Life? I Do all Acts of the Moral Virtues come under the Active Life? S. Isidore says[407]: "In the active life all the vices are first of all to be removed by the practice of good works, so that in the contemplative life a man may, with now purified mental gaze, pass to the
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

Whether virtue is in us by Nature?
Objection 1: It would seem that virtue is in us by nature. For Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii, 14): "Virtues are natural to us and are equally in all of us." And Antony says in his sermon to the monks: "If the will contradicts nature it is perverse, if it follow nature it is virtuous." Moreover, a gloss on Mat. 4:23, "Jesus went about," etc., says: "He taught them natural virtues, i.e. chastity, justice, humility, which man possesses naturally." Objection 2: Further, the virtuous good consists
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether after Christ, it was Proper to the Blessed virgin to be Sanctified in the Womb?
Objection 1: It would seem that it was proper for the Blessed Virgin, after Christ, to be sanctified in the womb. For it has been said [4131](A[4]) that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified in the womb, in order that she might be worthy to be the mother of God. But this is proper to her. Therefore she alone was sanctified in the womb. Objection 2: Further, some men seem to have been more closely connected with Christ than Jeremias and John the Baptist, who are said to have been sanctified in the womb.
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether Corporal Alms are of More Account than Spiritual Alms?
Objection 1: It would seem that corporal alms are of more account than spiritual alms. For it is more praiseworthy to give an alms to one who is in greater want, since an almsdeed is to be praised because it relieves one who is in need. Now the body which is relieved by corporal alms, is by nature more needy than the spirit which is relieved by spiritual alms. Therefore corporal alms are of more account. Objection 2: Further, an alms is less praiseworthy and meritorious if the kindness is compensated,
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether Confession is According to the Natural Law?
Objection 1: It would seem that confession is according to the natural law. For Adam and Cain were bound to none but the precepts of the natural law, and yet they are reproached for not confessing their sin. Therefore confession of sin is according to the natural law. Objection 2: Further, those precepts which are common to the Old and New Law are according to the natural law. But confession was prescribed in the Old Law, as may be gathered from Is. 43:26: "Tell, if thou hast anything to justify
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether one Can, Without a Mortal Sin, Deny the Truth which Would Lead to One's Condemnation?
Objection 1: It would seem one can, without a mortal sin, deny the truth which would lead to one's condemnation. For Chrysostom says (Hom. xxxi super Ep. ad Heb.): "I do not say that you should lay bare your guilt publicly, nor accuse yourself before others." Now if the accused were to confess the truth in court, he would lay bare his guilt and be his own accuser. Therefore he is not bound to tell the truth: and so he does not sin mortally if he tell a lie in court. Objection 2: Further, just as
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

The Advanced Christian Reminded of the Mercies of God, and Exhorted to the Exercise of Habitual Love to Him, and Joy in Him.
1. A holy joy in God, our privilege as well as our duty.--2. The Christian invited to the exercise of it.--3. By the consideration of temporal mercies.--4. And of spiritual favors.--5. By the views of eternal happiness.--6. And of the mercies of God to others, the living and the dead.--7. The chapter closes with an exhortation to this heavenly exercise. And with an example of the genuine workings of this grateful joy in God. 1. I WOULD now suppose my reader to find, on an examination of his spiritual
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

Trials of the Christian
AFFLICTION--ITS NATURE AND BENEFITS. The school of the cross is the school of light; it discovers the world's vanity, baseness, and wickedness, and lets us see more of God's mind. Out of dark afflictions comes a spiritual light. In times of affliction, we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God. The end of affliction is the discovery of sin; and of that, to bring us to a Saviour. Doth not God ofttimes even take occasion, by the hardest of things that come upon us, to visit
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan

The Christian Business World
Scripture references: Proverbs 22:29; Romans 12:11; Psalms 24:1; 50:10-12; Haggai 2:8; Psalm 49:6,10,16,17; 62:10; Matthew 13:22; Mark 10:23,24; Job 31:24-26; Proverbs 3:9; Matthew 25:14-30; 24:45-51; 6:19-21; Luke 12:16-21. THE IDEAL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD There is often a wide difference between the methods actually employed in doing business and when they should be. Good men who are in the thick of the battle of competition and rivalry with other firms in the same line of trade, are the quickest
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

The Seventh Commandment
Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Exod 20: 14. God is a pure, holy spirit, and has an infinite antipathy against all uncleanness. In this commandment he has entered his caution against it; non moechaberis, Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The sum of this commandment is, The preservations of corporal purity. We must take heed of running on the rock of uncleanness, and so making shipwreck of our chastity. In this commandment there is something tacitly implied, and something expressly forbidden. 1. The
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times

Thoughts Upon Worldly-Riches. Sect. Ii.
TIMOTHY after his Conversion to the Christian Faith, being found to be a Man of great Parts, Learning, and Piety, and so every way qualified for the work of the Ministry, St. Paul who had planted a Church at Ephesus the Metropolis or chief City of all Asia, left him to dress and propagate it, after his departure from it, giving him Power to ordain Elders or Priests, and to visit and exercise Jurisdiction over them, to see they did not teach false Doctrines, 1 Tim. i. 3. That they be unblameable in
William Beveridge—Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life

Job
The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Job 31:6 NIV
Job 31:6 NLT
Job 31:6 ESV
Job 31:6 NASB
Job 31:6 KJV

Job 31:6 Bible Apps
Job 31:6 Parallel
Job 31:6 Biblia Paralela
Job 31:6 Chinese Bible
Job 31:6 French Bible
Job 31:6 German Bible

Job 31:6 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Job 31:5
Top of Page
Top of Page