Job 13:6-8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hear now my reasoning Attend to it, and consider it more seriously than you have done; and hearken to the pleadings of my lips That is, to the arguments which I shall produce. Will ye speak wickedly for God? Will you utter falsehoods upon pretence of pleasing God, or of maintaining God's honour or righteousness? Doth he need such defences? Will ye accept his person? Not judging according to the right of the cause, but the quality of the person, as corrupt judges do. Will ye contend with God? Or, will ye plead, as the word, תריבון, teribun, is rendered, Judges 6:31. He means, is his cause so bad as to call for your assistance to defend it? Will you plead for him, as one person pleads for another, making use of little arts and subtle contrivances in his defence? He wants no such crafty, unprincipled advocates. “Job here convicts his friends of wickedness, in taking upon them to defend God in an improper manner, as if he needed their rash censures to vindicate the ways of his providence. This was such a fault, as they had but too much reason to fear might one time or other draw down his severe chastisements on their own heads.” See Peters.