Job 30:11-14 (ESV)
Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence.
On my right hand the rabble rise;
they push away my feet;
they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
They break up my path;
they promote my calamity;
they need no one to help them.
As through a wide breach they come;
amid the crash they roll on.
The above section is Job’s account of what has been happening since this long trial has begun. This is now how the common man that knows Job, treats him. It is not just his three friends who are digging into him. It is those who knew him before. They now disdain him. Note how in contrast this is to how he was treated before his trials began:
Job 29:7-11 (ESV)
When I went out to the gate of the city,
when I prepared my seat in the square,
the young men saw me and withdrew,
and the aged rose and stood;
the princes refrained from talking
and laid their hand on their mouth;
the voice of the nobles was hushed,
and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.
When the ear heard, it called me blessed,
and when the eye saw, it approved,
What changed? Once admired, but now admonished! Once revealed, but not rebuked! Once esteemed, but despised! What changed? Job could say, “It was Satan who did this to me!” He would be correct according to the accounts in chapters 1-2. He could said it was the evilness of mankind. He would be correct if we read chapter 1 again. But, instead he says:
Job 30:11 (ESV)
Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence.
Job, in the midst of the worse trials known to mankind, gives all the credit of this to God putting him in a humble position. Remember, it was God who claimed that Job was righteous. Let’s read it again just to remind ourselves:
Job 1:8 (ESV)
And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
Job 2:3 (ESV)
And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”
There was a reason mankind honored and respected Job. So, too, God. Even in his trials he makes sure everyone knows he believes in the sovereignty of God. He states that God “loosened his cords.” That phrase is probably better interpreted as God has unstrung my bow. In Job 29:20 Job refers to his strength as a strung bow. So, Job is honoring God by saying it is God who has taken his strength that has allowed others to ridicule and becomes his tormentors. Even in the worse of his life Job honors God.
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