Job 4:6

Does reverence, not give confidence?

                Nor hope, from integrity?

 

This verse for me was a great piece of poetry. I did not want it to follow the normal course as I wanted it to stand out and ask for attention; for time to be spent turning it over in one’s mind. Maybe I overdid it.

Originally, I had the following:

Does your reverence for God not give you confidence?

                Do you not have hope from your blameless ways?

These make the message a little clearer, but I had more notes on what this could be than from writing out the eight versions.

One option I looked at was replacing reverence with piety. As if Job’s confidence was in his own perfection. It fits with the contempt the speaker has for Job’s high self-opinion, but Job’s claims were more centered around his respect for God rather than his own perfection.

Reverence is, of course, my personal choice for the term “Fear of God”, but it comes with the opinion that only God should be revered, and that God’s children do not need to fear Him.

Other terms included “reassurance”, which is no different that confidence to me, and also “safety” which means something altogether different. In my mind, safety is a false term that no harm will come to you. Safety is a goal used by Satan to entice us to seek something not intended. God certainly does not confer safety on everyone when a war breaks out. We can be confident that we will end up in heaven, but we cannot think we will be safe on earth no matter what.

One phrase was basically: “Is not your innocence your reassurance?” I do not think Job thought he was “innocent”, but certainly the idea that all do not sin or the idea that feeling confident by not thinking you sinned are not the same.

The Hope was universal, and the blameless or upright ways were equal to integrity.

If one tries to place this as a logical statement If A, then B. D if C. (Or If C ,then D.) If we take the step that Confidence equals hope (B=D), then If A, then D and If C, then B. Can we then say A=C if they both produce the same outcome? Of course not. Reverence for God does not equal Integrity, but having reverence for God can bring about Integrity or upright and blameless living.

That was fun. The idea is that great things blossom from the Fear of the Lord. It is a formula that works. If you are humble before God, He can use you. If He uses you, it can be glorious. Be glorious.