Job's Fifth Speech
In this speech Job repeats his bitter complaints of God's injustice, and man's contemptuous abandonment of one formerly so loved and honoured. He appeals in broken utterances to his friends to pity him; then from them he would fain appeal to posterity, wishing that he might engrave in the rock a declaration of his innocence, sure that those who read it in the after-time would feel the ring of sincerity and exonerate him of guilt. But, baffled by the callous unbelief of his friends and the impossibility of an appeal to generations unborn, he is driven, as he had been driven before, from man to God. Already he had uttered the conviction that God would vindicate him to the world. Now he reiterates the conviction and rises to a still loftier height in the assurance that he will be permitted to know of his vindication. He does not expect to be restored to life, nor yet to escape from Sheol, nor to renew the old fellowship with God. His deepest anxiety is that his honour should be cleared from stain, and the thought that this will be accomplished, and that he shall be allowed to see God reversing the verdict against him, fills him with overwhelming emotion.
1-22. After reproaching the friends for unfeeling conduct. Job again rejects their insinuations as to the reason of his calamities. He declares that God is treating him with unjustifiable severity, and that he has become estranged from all.