Taking God to Court

23:1  One can hardly call Job’s words in chapters 23 and 24 a response to Eliphaz’s third speech. Job takes no notice of his friend or his argument, but he begins instead to consider the feasibility and benefit of bringing God to court so he might hope to find just resolution to his complaint. In chapter 23 Job reflects, at first confidently but ultimately with increasing terror, on the difficulty of locating God and securing his presence for the legal proceedings.

23:2  Job says, my complaint is bitter. Once again the Hebrew text is less than transparent. The word translated “bitter” (Heb. meri) normally means “rebellious; obstinate” (NASB; NJB). The NIV assumes instead a form of the adjective/noun mar, “bitter; bitterness.” For his hand is heavy, most translations (like…