Job 31 explained: Job Swears He Is Innocent

Guarding eyes and honesty (vv. 1-8)

Job says he made a firm promise not even to look at a young woman with desire, and never cheated anyone, because God sees every step. He uses an ancient oath form, 'if I did this, may that happen to me,' calling down losses on himself if he is lying.

Faithful in marriage (vv. 9-12)

Job swears he never waited by a neighbor's door to sleep with his wife, a crime that could bring a death sentence in that world. His self-curse, that his own wife become another man's servant and sexual partner, is harsh, and it falls on her rather than on him alone, which many readers today find troubling.

Fair to servants and the poor (vv. 13-23)

Job says he heard his servants' complaints fairly, because the same God formed both master and servant in the womb, and he fed orphans, clothed the cold and protected widows. He never used his friends in court (held at the town gate) against the weak, and he asks that his arm break off if he did.

No trust in gold or stars (vv. 24-28)

Job says he never treated wealth as his real security. He also never blew a kiss toward the sun or moon, a common gesture of worship then, since that would betray God.

Enemies, guests, hidden sin (vv. 29-34)

Job never cursed an enemy or gloated over his fall, and no traveler went hungry or slept outside his door. He did not hide his faults out of fear of public shame; the Hebrew can mean 'as people do' or 'like Adam,' and scholars are unsure which is meant.

Signed and sealed (vv. 35-40)

Job signs his defense, literally with the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet used as a mark, and dares God to write out the charges, which he would wear proudly like a crown. He ends by swearing his land has no reason to weep against him, since he never took its harvest without paying or crushed the people bound up with it, and many scholars think these final verses originally came just before his signature.

Key verse: Job 31:35

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether Job's sweeping defense is admirable integrity that God later honors, or an overconfident self-justification that God's reply in the following chapters is meant to correct.

Something to think about

What do you think it does to a person to keep insisting on their innocence when no one around them believes it?