Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.
It is not so with me - as it now is, God not taking His rod away, I am not on such a footing of equality as to be able without fear to vindicate myself-literally, 'I (am) not so with myself:' which Maurer explains-`I am not so in my mind (so 'in us,' for in our mind, Job 15:9) that I have any occasion to fear.' I am conscious of no guilt to make me fear. Umbreit explains-`But now I am not in possession of my right mind;' now as it is, not from guilt, but from fear of God's omnipotence, Job has lost self-possession, so as not to be able vindicate himself, (Psalms 50:11, margin.) The English version, as explained above, is much the same in the general sense as Umbreit's view, which is preferable to Maurer's. Remarks:
(1) Weak and sinful man can never stand justified in his own righteousness before the Almighty and infinitely holy God. The publican's plea is our safest plea - "God be merciful to me a sinner!" If we would enter into a discussion of right before God, we could not answer Him "one of a thousand" (Job 9:3) queries which He might put to us, and charges which He could bring against us.
(2) Our worst trials are always below what our sins deserve, so that God's mercy beams forth from the darkest cloud; and if, instead of debating with Him as to the justice of His dealings with us, we, in childlike faith, patiently bow to them as right, not because we see the reason of them, but simply because they are His doing, the cloud will in due time clear away, and we shall bless God even for past chastisements.
(3) God's wonderful and unsearchable workings in nature, in the starry heaven, the earth, and the sea, should teach us to be humble, and not to expect we shall understand the reason of all that God doeth.
(4) In the present order of things we often see the upright and the guilty destroyed (Job 9:22-23) by the same scourge: injustice often is stronger than justice, and the wicked rule the earth (Job 9:24). Reason can very imperfectly reconcile this anomaly with the righteousness of God's moral government over the world. But faith remembers this is a fallen world, and seeming anomalies must be expected in such a state; at the same time faith believes that though "clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne" (Psalms 97:2). Moreover, faith looks beyond the present to the future, when the seeming anomalies shall be cleared up, and the people of God shall be blessed for ever (their blessedness being intensified by the retrospect of past sufferings), and the ungodly shall eternally bewail their suicidal folly in following the ways of sin, which, though promising enjoyment for a time, shall at last be found to be ways of misery and death.
(5) What Job longed for, we in the New Testament have, a Daysman or Mediator between us and God, who, as being God, knows all that God's justice demands of us in expiation of our sin, and, as being man, knows our infirmities and needs. He does not, indeed, as umpire, vindicate our cause in the way that Job in his temporary folly wished, by declaring our righteousness (for however sincere and upright in human view we be, like Job, yet "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves"); but by declaring God's righteousness in Christ for us (Romans 3:24-26; 2 Peter 1:1; 1 Corinthians 1:30), that so we may be not merely pardoned, but "justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." So His "rod" is taken away (Job 9:34), and in the spirit of adoption, "perfect love casteth out fear" (Romans 8:15; 1 John 4:18; Isaiah 12:1-2.)