Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?
The question belongs to Bildad's first speech, which presses Job toward humility, and Job's answer to it is that affliction by itself does not prove sin. It stands inside the long exchange of Job 8 through Job 27, where the friends trouble Job with open and implied accusations and he answers them, until they fall silent while he is still in the middle of his final reply. It belongs to the book's larger treatment of providence, sin, and suffering, in which the friends insist suffering is caused by sin and thereby misjudge Job.
The form is a rhetorical question whether God distorts judgment or justice, affirming that He does not act unjustly or with partiality and that His judgments are upright. That truth was stated correctly but applied wrongly, when the friends insisted Job's suffering was caused by his sin and proved God's displeasure, misjudging him, while his reply maintains that affliction does not prove sin. Because they did not speak truthfully about God and about Job, even good-sounding claims about God from those speeches are not reliable on their own but must be tested against inspired Scripture.
Evil will ultimately be punished and good rewarded, yet adversity and affliction do not prove the sufferer is under God's displeasure, for God may use suffering to discipline those who trust Him and bring them good. Poverty, blindness, disease, and other misfortunes do not by themselves prove guilt or show that God has judged a person, and the friends' reasoning that the innocent do not perish and the righteous are not cut off was declared wrong by God. The verse rules out any system in which a person's fate turns on money rather than justice.
The question belongs to Bildad's first speech, which presses Job toward humility, and Job's answer to it is that affliction by itself does not prove sin. It stands inside the long exchange of Job 8 through Job 27, where the friends trouble Job with open and implied accusations and he answers them, until they fall silent while he is still in the middle of his final reply. It belongs to the book's larger treatment of providence, sin, and suffering, in which the friends insist suffering is caused by sin and thereby misjudge Job.
The form is a rhetorical question whether God distorts judgment or justice, affirming that He does not act unjustly or with partiality and that His judgments are upright. That truth was stated correctly but applied wrongly, when the friends insisted Job's suffering was caused by his sin and proved God's displeasure, misjudging him, while his reply maintains that affliction does not prove sin. Because they did not speak truthfully about God and about Job, even good-sounding claims about God from those speeches are not reliable on their own but must be tested against inspired Scripture.
Evil will ultimately be punished and good rewarded, yet adversity and affliction do not prove the sufferer is under God's displeasure, for God may use suffering to discipline those who trust Him and bring them good. Poverty, blindness, disease, and other misfortunes do not by themselves prove guilt or show that God has judged a person, and the friends' reasoning that the innocent do not perish and the righteous are not cut off was declared wrong by God. The verse rules out any system in which a person's fate turns on money rather than justice.