There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.
Parallel Translations
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There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.
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Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
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There is no arbiter betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to Job 9:33 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Samuel 2:25 If one man sins against another, God will judge him; but if a man sins against Yahweh, who will intercede for him?” Notwithstanding, they didn’t listen to the voice of their father, because Yahweh intended to kill them.
- Job 9:19 If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, ‘Who,’ says he, ‘will summon me?’
- 1 John 2:1-2 My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
- Psalms 106:23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn’t destroy them.
- 1 Kings 3:16-28 Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king, and stood before him. The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house. I delivered a child with her in the house. The third day after I delivered, this woman delivered also. We were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, just us two in the house. This woman’s child died in the night, because she lay on it. She arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, it was dead; but when I had looked at it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, whom I bore.” The other woman said, “No; but the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” The first one said, “No; but the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” They argued like this before the king. Then the king said, “One says, ‘This is my son who lives, and your son is the dead;’ and the other says, ‘No; but your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’ ” The king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. The king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.” Then the woman whose the living child was spoke to the king, for her heart yearned over her son, and she said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way kill him!” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide him.” Then the king answered, “Give her the living child, and definitely do not kill him. She is his mother.” All Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king; for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do justice.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Which might make an accord between God and me,…
Which might make an accord between God and me, speaking of impatience, and yet confessing God to be just in punishing him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 9:33 Neither is there any daysman betwixt us,…
Job 9:33 Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, [that] might lay his hand upon us both.
Ver. 33. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us] Heb. Any arguer or reprover, as Gen 31:24. We call him an umpire or referee who hath power to reprove and to lay the blame where he findeth it, and finally to compromise the business. The late judge Dyer amongst us, if there came any controversies of poor men to be tried before him, would usually say, that either the parties are wilful or their neighbours without charity, because their suits were not quietly ended at home. Now, saith Job, as there is no judge, so there is no daysman between me and God. If one man sin against another, saith good old Eli, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the Lord, who can mediate? 1Sa 2:25.
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That may lay his hand] To moderate and keep us both in compass, and to compose the difference.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Daysman; or, a reprover; or, a judge or umpire,…
Daysman; or, a reprover; or, a judge or umpire, whose office was to reprove the guilty person. That might lay his hand upon us both, i.e. use his power and authority to appoint the time and place of our meeting, to order and govern us in pleading, and to oblige us to stand to his decision. The
hand is oft put for power, and laying on the hand upon another was ofttimes an act and sign of superiority and dominion.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Let him take his rod away from me,.... Not…
Let him take his rod away from me,.... Not his government over him, of which the rod or sceptre is an ensign, Job did not want to be freed from that; but, his rod of affliction, or stroke, as the Targum, the stroke of his hand, which, though a fatherly chastisement, lay heavy upon him, and depressed his spirits; so that he could not, while it was on him, reason so freely about things as he thought he could if it was removed, and for which he here prays:
and let not his fear terrify me; not the fear of him as a father, which is not terrifying, but the fear of him as a judge; the terror of his majesty, the dread of his wrath and vengeance, the fearful apprehensions he had of him as a God of strict justice; that would by no means clear the guilty, yea, would not hold him innocent, though he was with respect to the charge of his friends; being now without those views of him as a God gracious and merciful; to these words Elihu seeks to have respect, Job 33:6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Days-man - Or, umpire. Lay his hand - Order…
Days-man - Or, umpire. Lay his hand - Order and govern us in pleading; and oblige us to stand to his decision. Our Lord Jesus is now the blessed days-man, who has mediated between heaven and earth, has laid his hand upon us both: to him the father hath committed all judgment. But this was not made so clear then, as it is now by the gospel, which leaves no room for such a complaint as this.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 33. Neither is there any day's-man] בינינו מוכיח…
Verse 33. Neither is there any day's-man] בינינו מוכיח beyneynu mochiach, a reprover, arguer, or umpire between us. DAY'S-MAN, in our law, means an arbitrator, or umpire between party and party; as it were bestowing a day, or certain time on a certain day, to decree, judge, or decide a matter.-Minshieu. DAY is used in law for the day of appearance in court, either originally or upon assignation, for hearing a matter for trial. - Idem. But arbitrator is the proper meaning of the term here: one who is, by the consent of both parties, to judge between them, and settle their differences.
Instead of לא יש lo yesh, there is not, fifteen of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., with the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic, read לו יש lu vesh, I wish there were: or, O that there were! Ειθε ην ὁ μεσιτης ἡμων, και ελεγχων και διακουων αναμεσον αμφοτερων; O that we had a mediator, an advocate, and judge between us both! - SEPT. Poor Job! He did not yet know the Mediator between God and man: the only means by which God and man can be brought together and reconciled. Had St. Paul this in his eye when he wrote 1Ti 2:5-6? For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all. Without this Mediator, and the ransom price which he has laid down, God and man can never be united: and that this union might be made possible, Jesus took the human into conjunction with his Divine nature; and thus God was manifest in the flesh.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Neither is there any daysman - Margin, One that…
Neither is there any daysman - Margin, One that should argue, or, umpire. The word daysman in English means ” “an umpire or arbiter, a mediator.” Webster. Why such a man is called a daysman I do not know. The Hebrew word rendered “daysman” מוכיח môkı̂yach is from יכח yâkach, not used in the Qal, to be before, in front of; and then to appear, to be clear, or manifest; and in the Hiphil, to cause to be manifest, to argue, prove, convince; and then to argue down, to confute, reprove; see the word used in Job 6:25 : “What doth your arguing reprove?” It then means to make a cause clear, to judge, determine, decide, as an arbiter, umpire, judge, Isa 11:3; Gen 31:37. Jerome renders it, “Non est qui utrumque valeat arguere.” The Septuagint, “if there were, or, O that there were a mediator ὁ μεσίτης ho mesitēs, and a reprover (καί ἐλέγχων kai elengchōn), and one to hear us both” (καί διακούων ἀναμέτον ἀυφοτέρων kai diakouōn anameton amphoterōn).
The word as used by Job does not mean mediator, but arbiter, umpire, or judge; one before whom the cause might be tried, who could lay the hand of restraint on either party. who could confine the pleadings within proper bounds, who could preserve the parties within the limits of order and propriety, and who had power to determine the question at issue. Job complains that there could be no such tribunal. He feels that God was so great that the cause could be referred to no other, and that he had no prospect of success in the unequal contest. It does not appear, therefore, that he desired a mediator, in the sense in which we understand that word - one who shall come between us and God, and manage our cause before him, and be our advocate at his bar. He rather says that there was no one above God, or no umpire uninterested in the controversy, before whom the cause could be argued, and who would be competent to decide the matter in issue between him and his Maker. He had no hope, therefore, in a cause where one of the parties was to be the judge, and where that party was omnipotent; and he must give up the cause in despair.
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It is not with strict propriety that this language is ever applied to the Lord Jesus, the great Mediator between God and man. He is not an umpire to settle a dispute, in the sense in which Job understood it; he is not an arbiter, to whom the cause in dispute between man and his Maker is to be referred; he is not a judge to listen to the arguments of the respective parties, and to decide the controversy. He is a mediator between us and God, to make it proper or possible that God should be reconciled to the guilty, and to propose to man the terms of reconciliation; to plead our cause before God, and to communicate to us the favors which he proposes to bestow on man.
That might lay his hand upon us both - It is not improbable that this may refer to some ancient ceremony in courts where, for some cause, the umpire or arbiter laid his hand on both the parties. Or, it may mean merely that the umpire had the power of control over both the parties; that it was his office to restrain them within proper limits, to check any improper expressions, and to see that the argument was fairly conducted on both sides. The meaning of the whole here is, that if there were such an umpire, Job would be willing to argue the cause. As it was, it was a hopeless thing, and he could do nothing more than to be silent. That there was irreverence in this language must be admitted; but it is language taken from courts of law, and the substance of it is, that Job could not hope to maintain his cause before one so great and powerful as God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain There. Septuagint, "O that an umpire, (or mediator) were…
There. Septuagint, "O that an umpire, (or mediator) were between us, and one arguing and giving ear in the midst of both!"
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain daysman--"mediator," or "umpire"; the imposition of whose hand expresses…
daysman--"mediator," or "umpire"; the imposition of whose hand expresses power to adjudicate between the persons. There might be one on a level with Job, the one party; but Job knew of none on a level with the Almighty, the other party (Sa1 2:25). We Christians know of such a Mediator (not, however, in the sense of umpire) on a level with both--the God-man, Christ Jesus (Ti1 2:5).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain Strophe c — The cause of Job’s inability to…
Strophe c — The cause of Job’s inability to make out his innocency is not his guilt, but the character and conditions of his accuser — , to wit, his omnipotence and unamenableness to human dealing and treatment. (Davidson,) Job_9:32-35.
33. Neither is there any daysman — See Excursus IV, page 90; also sermon by Dr. Chalmers, on “Necessity of a Mediator between God and Man.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 33. any daysman] i. e. any umpire, or, arbiter.…
33. any daysman] i. e. any umpire, or, arbiter. The word possibly comes from the Lat. diem dicere, to fix a day for hearing a cause.
For what art thou
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That mak’st thyself his dayes-man to prolong
The vengeance prest?
Spenser, Fae. Q. ii. 8. 28. (Wright, Bible Word-Book.)
lay his hand] i. e. impose his authority on both, and do justice between the two. There is no prophecy of the incarnation in these verses. But there is a cry of the human heart amidst its troubles that it might meet and see God as a man. Then man’s relations to Him might be understood and adjusted. That the cry is uttered under a misconception of God and of the meaning of His providence does not make the expression of man’s need any the less real or touching, for in our great darkness here misconceptions of God prevail so much over true conceptions of Him.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Neither is there any daysman betwixt us; literally "judgeor…
Neither is there any daysman betwixt us; literally "judgeor arbitrator called a "daysman," since he appoints the day on which the arbitration is to come off. The LXX renders by mesithv , "mediator." That might lay his hand upon us bosh. Moderate between us, that is; keep us both in cheek; assert an authority to which we must both submit.
The Mediator.
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"The object desired by Job and here he speaks for all sinful ones is to obtain reconciliation with Jehovah, against whom he acknowledges himself to have sinned. He cries for a mediator, an arbiter, an umpire; one able to "lay his hand upon us both to bring us together, mediating between us.
I THE NECESSITY FOR THIS ARISES:
1. From Job"s consciousness of sin. In his prayer (ver. 28) he confesses to God, "I know thou wilt not hold me innocent." "I am not innocent," is the first confession of guilt. "If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me.
2. From Job"s inability to "answer" to God. Of this he has made both complaint and confession. "Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer" (ver. 15). Fear and just humility seize him. "How much less shall I answer him?" (ver. 14). Man cannot order his own cause before the eternal Judge. "He cannot answer him one of a thousand" (ver. 3).
3. From their utter inequality. "He is not a man, as I am" (ver. 32). They could not therefore "come together in judgment." How vain of poor, ignorant, feeble, sinful man to suppose that he can answer to God that he can "appear before him!" How vain even to imagine himself justified and pure before him! Yet many "appear before" God in the presumptuous, self-excusing, self-justifying thoughts of their minds. All such self-justification condemned by Job"s wise words and just views of things.
II JOB"S CRY IS THE UNCONSCIOUS CRY OF THE UNIVERSAL HEART OF MAN FOR A MEDIATOR. Seen in all religious systems the faith in the priest the conscious ignorance of hidden spiritual verities. The uninterpreted apprehension of a spiritual world and government and future, and yet the inability to deal with these and to put one"s self in a right attitude respecting them. This cry is heard in all lands, languages, and times. "Oh that there were a daysman!" This cry prepares for and anticipates the true Mediator.
III THE RESPONSE TO THE UNIVERSAL NEED IN THE "ONE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN." Happily "himself Man." God "hath spoken unto us in his Son no longer in prophets, but in a Son, who is at the same time "the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance;" and yet "Man of our bone." "God manifested in the flesh," and yet "in all things" "made like unto his brethren." Speaking with Divine authority to us in our language, and of heavenly things on our level And revealing within the compass of a human life, and by means of human acts and human sentiments, the thought and love and pitiful mercy of God. And representing us doing what Job felt (and all have felt whose views were just) he could not do, "appear before the face of God for us." Now we "have our access through him in one Spirit unto the Father." If we cannot order our speech or our cause, he can. If we cannot answer one of a thousand, he can. For he is able, indeed, to "put his hand upon both. R.G.
The Daysman.
Job regarded it as unfair that his Judge and his Accuser should be one and the same Person, and he craved an umpire to come between. As a matter of fact, he was mistaken. His accuser was not his Judge. Satan was his accuser, and God was the great and just Umpire of the contest. Still, men have ever felt the need of one who should come between them and God, and assist them in coming to a right understanding with God. The feeling has arisen in part from a similar mistake to Job"s, but also in part from a spiritual instinct. Leaving Job"s misconception, what may we regard as the truth about this idea of the Daysman?
I WE ARE AT FEUD WITH GOD IN OUR SIN. There is an ancient quarrel between the race and its Maker. Sin is more than disease; it is rebellion. It is more than a stain on our character; it is an offence against God. It is worse than a disarrangement of earthly relations; it is a wrong attitude towards Heaven. These unearthly characteristics of sin give to it a peculiar horror and make it a deadly danger. So long as we are living in sin we are God"s enemies.
II IT IS TIME THIS FEUD WERE BROUGHT TO AN END. It only widens while it is left unchecked. The longer we sin, the deeper our antagonism to God becomes. Thus we "treasure up wrath against the day of wrath." This is no matter of mere unseemliness and impropriety. It is a fearful wrong that the child should be fighting against his Father. It must bring ruin on the child and grief to the Father.
III WE NEED A DAYSMAN TO SET US RIGHT WITH GOD. The Daysman is our Mediator. Now, the doctrine of mediation is not so popular as once it was. People say, "We want to go straight to God. He is our Father, we are his children. We want no one to come between us. We simply want to go straight home to God." There is much truth and rightness of feeling in this desire. If anything came between us and God, so as to hinder us, that would be a stumbling-block, an idol, and it would be our duty to remove it out of our way. Any abuse of sacraments, any tyranny of priestism, any person the most exalted, if even an angel from heaven, who came between so as to obstruct the way to God, would be an evil to be deplored and avoided. If even Christ stood in this position it would be our duty to forsake him. If Christianity meant a more difficult and roundabout way to God, it would be right to renounce Christianity, and to revert to a simpler theism. But the question is What is the nearest way back to God? The exile desires to go straight home. You offer to show him on the route fine mountains, ancient cities, picturesque ruins, tie will have none of them. He only wants to go home by the most direct way. But alas! he is far from home, and between him and his home there is the broad ocean. How shall he cross it? Not the Mediator is to help us over the ocean that separates us from God. He is between us and God, not as a wall that divides, but as a door in the already existing wail, or as the bridge that crosses a chasm not to separate, but to unite. We have a Daysman Christ. Our nearest Way to God, our only Way, is through him. W.F.A. (Joh_14:6)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Neither is there any daysman.
Job_9:33
Neither is there any daysman.
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The daysman
At this point of the poem we are seeing Job at his worst. He has become desperate under his accumulated miseries. In this chapter Job answers Bildad. He admits that God is just; but from His infinite justice, holiness, and power, he concludes that the best man has no hope of being approved by Him. His protest he clothes in the figure of a legal trial. God comes into court, first as plaintiff, then as defendant; first asserting His rights, snatching away that which He has a mind to claim, then answering the citation of the man who challenges His justice. In either case mans cause is hopeless. If the subject of His power calls Him to account, He appears at the bar, only to crush the appellant, and, with His infinite wisdom, to find flaws in his plea. As we study, certain deep-lying instincts begin to take shape in cravings for something which the theology of the day does not supply. The sufferer begins to feel rather than see that the problem of his affliction needs for its solution the additional factor which was supplied long after in the person and work of Jesus Christ,--a mediator between God and man. As he sees it, plaintiff and defendant have no common ground. God is a being different in nature and condition from himself. If now there were a human side to God. If there were only some daysman, some arbiter or mediator, who could lay his hand upon us both, understand both natures and both sets of circumstances,--then all would be well. This desire of Job is to be studied, not as a mere individual, but as a human experience. Jobs craving for a mediator is the craving of humanity. The soul was made for God. Christ meets an existing need. Manhood was made for Christ. With Christ goes this fact of mediation. There is a place for mediation in mans relations to God. There is a craving for mediation in the human heart to which Job here gives voice. One needs but a moderate acquaintance with the history of religion to see how this instinctive longing for someone or something to stand between man and God has asserted itself in the institutions of worship. This demand for a mediator is backed and urged by two great interlinked facts--sin and suffering. Jobs question here is, How shall man be just with God? He urges that man as he is cannot be just with God as He is. Let him be as good as he may, his goodness is impurity itself beside the infinite perfection of the Almighty. God cannot listen to any plea of man based on his own righteousness Again, this craving for a mediator is awakened by human experience of suffering; a fact which is intertwined with the fact of sin. We need, our poor humanity needs, such a daysman, partaker of both natures, the Divine and the human, to show us suffering on its heavenly as well as on its earthly side, and to flood its earthly side with heavenly light by the revelation. In Christ we have the human experience of sorrow and its Divine interpretation. Jobs longing therefore is literally and fully met. Despise not this Mediator. Seek His intervention. (Marvin R. Vincent, D. D.)
The daysman
This passage is one whose difficulty does not arise from crudities of translation, but rather from the subtle sequences of passion-moved thought. It consists of a lament over the absence of an umpire, or daysman, between God and the sin-stricken soul, and a vehement longing for such a one. In the notion of an umpire, there are three general thoughts apparent at the outset. There is a deep-seated opposition between the two parties concerned: this is only to be removed by vindicating the right; and the result aimed at is reconciliation. How far does such arbitration differ from mediation? It is mediation, with the additional element of an agreement entered into between the opposing parties. A daysman is a mediator who has been appointed or agreed on by both. Let us see how these general thoughts are applicable to this cry of Job.
I. He is labouring under a sense of hopeless sin. This is not less true because it is not persistent through the Book of Job, but intermittent; sometimes lightly felt, at other times crushing. It is on that account only a truer exhibition of human character. Here the feverish sense of it is at its strongest.
1. He is plunged in the ditch, in the mire, in the sewer; so that his clothes abhor him. The mire is his covering: he is all sin!
2. In this state he is self-condemned. He cannot answer God, he cannot come into judgment with Him! That is probably the true meaning of these words, and not the common explanation, that he is afraid to answer God. God is not a man; He is not to be answered. He is Himself the judge; He must be right. That was not always Jobs spirit, it is true; but that is his spirit in the present passage.
3. Then again, he cannot put away his pollution. He cannot make himself pure. If I wash myself in snow water, and make my hands never so clean (cleanse them with lye), yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch. Struggling to get free only shows ones utter helplessness.
4. And why does he feel so helpless? What is it that reveals his sin to him? It is the character of God! Gods holiness! Gods law! He had not known sin but for that law. Gods requirement, Gods inspection of the soul after it has done its best, seems to plunge it into the ditch.
II. It is this sense of hopeless sin that has taught Job the need of a Mediator.
1. As yet he can find none. His words do not go the length of asserting that there is not a daysman between God and any man; they are confined to his own need at the present moment--Betwixt us! For him there is none, and that is his overwhelming trouble.
2. But there is a need. He longs (more than one of the Hebrew words bring out the longing) for an umpire who should mediate between him and God.
3. This mediator must be able to lay his hand upon us both. Not surely in the poor and irreverent sense (for it is both), that by a restraining hand of power he might control the action of the Almighty. The meaning is surely the simple one, that the umpire must be one who can reach both parties.
4. On the one hand we must do justice to Gods holiness. In the mediation that must be sacred. It must issue from the trial not less glorious than before.
5. And on the other hand, the mediator must confess and deal with the sin of man. He must neither conceal nor excuse it; but, admitting, and rightly measuring the fact, he must be able to deal with it so as to satisfy God and to save man.
III. The results of such mediation are indicated. Generally there is reconciliation, the removal of that state of enmity existing between the sinner and his God.
1. Specifically, there is pardon. Let God take His rod away from me! Gods punishment, whatever form it may assume, shall pass wholly away. Thy sins be forgiven thee! That would come from such a daysman.
2. Next there is peace Let not His fear terrify me! May I look up to God, the Omnipotent and the holy God, and say, I am not afraid; for I have been reconciled unto Him! The mediator has laid a hand upon both, has reached Gods holiness, and has reached my sin.
3. Then fear passes, and trust comes. Then would I speak, and not fear Him. There can be no communion with God till the daysman has cast out the fear which has torment. Till then I can neither speak to Him nor hear Him.
IV. We have in the New Testament the antithesis of this longing cry of Job. The law (says Paul, Gal_3:19-20) was ordained in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is one. And who is the other party? It is sinful man. And Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant (Heb_12:24), laying a hand on both, mediating between two who have been long and sorely at variance; the daysman betwixt us and God, who pleads as a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour (Job_16:21). The need then of a mediator, as a spiritual necessity of the sinner who has come to look down into his own heart and to compare it with Gods holiness, is one of the strange teachings of the Book of Job. (J. Elder Cumming, D. D.)
The need of a daysman
There are two attributes of God--His might and His righteousness. The one a natural and the other a moral attribute. One manifested in creation, the other dimly discernible in the moral nature, that is, the conscience of man, and yet greatly needing a revelation to bring it home to mans heart with awful reality and power. Jobs thoughts were evidently occupied in this chapter with both these attributes. But if we are asked with which he is most occupied, we must answer, not with the highest, not with the righteousness so much as with the power of God. These verses seem to show a two-fold feeling in Jobs mind, corresponding to the two attributes--the righteousness and the power of God; but the predominating feeling was that of the irresistible power of God. Job longed for something to bridge over the terrible chasm between the Creator and himself, and not for some thing only, but some living person, some daysman, who should lay his hand upon them both. Taken critically and historically, the word daysman seems to signify an umpire. If Job felt the power of God more than His righteousness, and his own weakness more than his guilt, this is precisely what he would want. He could not, he felt, contend with God himself; could not stand on a level with the Creator in this great controversy. He felt, therefore, his need of an umpire. But what is the difference between a daysman so explained and a mediator? The difference is not great, but such as it is, it corresponds to the difference between feeling the power and the righteousness of God. The feeling of wanting a mediator is the higher. A consciousness of guilt and inward corruption is a higher feeling than that of weakness; and the longing for a Mediator a higher longing than that for a daysman. (George Wagner.)
A Mediator between God and man
When no man could redeem his neighbour from the grave--God Himself found a ransom. When not one of the beings whom He had formed could offer an adequate expiation--did the Lord of hosts awaken the sword of vengeance against His fellow. When there was no messenger among the angels who surrounded His throne, that could both proclaim and purchase peace for a guilty world--did God manifest in the flesh, descend in shrouded majesty amongst our earthly tabernacles, and pour out His soul unto the death for us, and purchase the Church by His own blood, and bursting away from the grave which could not held Him, ascend to the throne of His appointed Mediatorship; and now He, the lust and the last, who was dead and is alive, and maketh intercession for transgressors, is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through Him; and, standing in the breach between a holy God and the sinners who have offended Him, does He make reconciliation, and lay His hand upon them both. But it is not enough that the Mediator be appointed by God--He must be accepted by man. And to incite our acceptance does He hold forth every kind and constraining argument. He casts abroad over the whole face of the world one wide and universal assurance of welcome. Whosoever cometh unto Me shall not be cast out. Come unto Me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Where sin hath abounded, grace hath much more abounded. Whatsoever ye ask in My name ye shall receive. The path of access to Christ is open and free of every obstacle, which kept fearful and guilty man at an impracticable distance from the jealous and unpacified Lawgiver. He hath put aside the obstacle, and now stands in its place. Let us only go in the way of the Gospel, and we shall find nothing between us and God but the Author and Finisher of the Gospel--who, on the one hand, beckons to Him the approach of man with every token of truth and of tenderness; and on the other hand advocates our cause with God, and fills His mouth with arguments, and pleads that very atonement which was devised in love by the Father, and with the incense of which He was well pleased, and claims, as the fruit of the travail of His soul, all who put their trust in Him; and thus, laying His hand upon God, turns Him altogether from the fierceness of His indignation. But Jesus Christ is something more than the agent of our justification--He is the Agent of our sanctification also. Standing between us and God, He receives from Him of that Spirit which is called the promise of the Father; and He pours it forth in free and generous dispensation on those who believe in Him. Without this Spirit there may, in a few of the goodlier specimens of our race, be within us the play of what is kindly in constitutional feeling, and upon us the exhibition of what is seemly in a constitutional virtue; and man thus standing over us in judgment, may pass his verdict of approbation; and all that is visible in our doings may be pure as by the operation of snow water. But the utter irreligiousness of our nature will remain as entire and as obstinate as ever. The alienation of our desires from God will persist with unsubdued vigour in our bosoms; and sin, in the very essence of its elementary principle, will still lord it over the inner man with all the power of its original ascendency--till the deep, and the searching, and the prevailing influence of the love of God be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. This is the work of the great Mediator. This is the might and the mystery of that regeneration, without which we shall never see the kingdom of God. This is the office of Him to whom all power is committed, both in heaven and in earth--who, reigning in heaven, and uniting its mercy with its righteousness, causes them to flow upon earth in one stream of celestial influence; and reigning on earth, and working mightily in the hearts of its people, makes them meet for the society of heaven--thereby completing the wonderful work of our redemption, by which on the one hand He brings the eye of a holy God to look approvingly on the sinner, and on the other hand makes the sinner fit for the fellowship, and altogether prepared for the enjoyment of God. Such are the great elements of a sinners religion. But if you turn from the prescribed use of them, the wrath of God abideth on you. If you kiss not the Son while He is in the way, you provoke His anger; and when once it begins to burn, they only are blessed who have put their trust in Him. If, on the fancied sufficiency of a righteousness that is without godliness, you neglect the great salvation, you will not escape the severities of that day when the Being with whom you have to do shall enter with you into judgment; and it is only by fleeing to the Mediator, as you would from a coming storm, that peace is made between you and God, and that, sanctified by the faith which is in Jesus, you are made to abound in such fruits of righteousness as shall he to praise and glory at the last and the solemn reckoning. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
The daysman
How is this daysman, Jesus Christ, constituted to hold this office? Job knew what were his real wants; he did not know how these wants were to be supplied, and yet he gives us in the context the whole constitution of the office of a daysman. In the depth of his woe, in the valley of his degradation, while he sat in dust and ashes, he sighed forth, If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. For He is not a mail, as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. Mark this context. Here the patriarch gives utterance to a full recognition of his guilt, of his consciousness of the wrath that had descended from heaven upon him, of the impossibility of his making himself just with God. He dwells in the ditch of corruption, and is self-abhorred; and God, whom he has offended, is not a man that he should answer Him, that they should come face to face, that they should reason together. He is not a man as I am. He looked upon God as the heathen looked upon Him,--as a God of Majesty, a God of holiness, a God of sublimity and of glory, inaccessible to man. God is not a man, that I should come near Him, said Job, and I have none to introduce me to Him. That was his misery--God is not a man, that I should speak to Him, and I have none to stand between myself and God to present my prayer to Him. Hopeless, hapless, wretched patriarch! What he wanted was a daysman betwixt the two to lay his hand upon them both. I have come here to tell you that that daysman is Christ--the man Christ Jesus. And what saith He? Behold, I am according to thy wish in Gods stead; I also am formed out of the clay. That is my plea, and that is my glory, that God has become a man as I am, and I now can answer Him. I now can come to Him face to face; I now can fill my mouth with arguments; I now can come, and by His own invitation reason with Him. He is formed out of the clay; thus is He the one between God and man; and He lays His hand upon us both. This is Jesus; therefore is He constituted a Mediator between God and man; and this He has attained by His atoning sacrifice. Atonement!--what is the meaning of that word? We pronounce it as one word; but it is really three words, at-one-ment; and that is its meaning. By reason of our sin, there are two parties opposed the one to the other; there is no clement of union, but every element of antagonism to part and keep us asunder. Christ is the atoning sacrifice, and His atonement is a complete satisfaction. This is because Christ, our daysman, is both God and man, both natures in one person. To be a mediator it is necessary to have power and influence with both parties. Christ, as our daysman, has power with God, for He Himself is God; and to obtain influence with man He became a man, and bare our sorrows and endured our griefs. He became as one of us, sin only excepted. Behold the sympathy of Jesus!--a participator in our sufferings, a sharer in our sorrows, and acquainted with our grief. It is true the majesty of God was unapproachable; no man could approach unto it; the spotless glory of that Presence was too dazzling for mortal sight to behold; His holiness was too pure to come into any contact with sin; the height of that glory was beyond what man had any power to attain unto. Then God in Christ came down to us. Oh, what grace! And whereas the Majesty of the Godhead was too august, He left it there upon His Fathers throne, and He wrapped Himself for a time in the familiar mantle of our humanity; He became a man as we are. Inasmuch as man could not approach unto God, Christ brought the Godhead to the level of our humanity, that He might raise the human race from death and sin to the enjoyment of the life of righteousness. This is the true dignity of man, that Christ has dignified him and elevated him to His Fathers glory. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me upon My throne, even as I also have overcome, and am set down upon My Fathers throne. This is the Daysman who lays His hand upon us both. Does not that span the gulf? You know a bridge, to be of use and service, must rest its springing arch upon one bank and upon the other. To stop midway spoils the bridge. The ladder that is lifted up must touch the place on which you stand and the place where you would be, So is Christ the daysman. He lays His hand upon both parties. With one hand He lays hold upon God, for He Himself is God, and with the other He stoops until He lays hold upon sinful man, for He Himself is man; and thus laying His hand upon both parties, He brings both to one--He effects an at-one-ment, and God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Oh, blessed meeting! happy reconciliation! where mercy and truth met together, and righteousness and peace kissed each other! Again: a mediator for sin must suffer, and by his sufferings he must satisfy. Here, again, the necessity for this daysman to be both God and man. If He had been God only, He could not suffer, and if He had been man only, with all His sufferings He could not satisfy. He is God and He is man. As a man He suffers, and as a God He satisfies. Brethren, what think ye of this? He is the daysman betwixt us. And now we are able to contemplate God, not as the angry lawgiver only, but, through Christ, as merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of great kindness. Now we are in our Christian liberty, and in the adoption of sons enabled to look upon God, not as robed in thunder, not as though He were girt in indignation, not as clothed in dazzling light, that no man can approach unto, but I can look upon Him as a man like as I am, touched with the feeling of my infirmities--in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. I see in Him not a master, but a brother; not an enemy, but a friend; not an angry judge, but a sympathising advocate, pleading for me. And what is His plea? Our innocence? Nay, nay, He knows we are sinners; He admits our sin, He admits it all; He offers not one single word of apology or extenuation for our fault; but He pleads His own righteousness, He pleads His own sufferings in our stead, and His death in our behalf. He is the substitute, and as such He is the daysman betwixt God and man. He lays His hand upon us both. (Robert Maguire, M. A.)
The sinners daysman
All that a sinner needs he may find in the Saviour.
I. The sinner needs a daysman. Nothing but a sense of sin will ever lead a man in reality to seek a Saviour.
1. Mark the situation in which the sinner stands before his God--a condemned criminal
2. The sinner cannot plead his own cause.
3. There are none around to befriend his cause.
II. A daysman is provided. The Gospel is called the ministry of reconciliation. It bears this name because it points to Jesus as the sinners daysman. He is fitted for the character He sustains, and He effectually discharges the office.
III. The importance of our seeking an interest in this daysman. He is not our daysman unless we have sought Him. We must come to Him, and it must be by faith. The interest in Him surely should be sought at once. (G. Hadley.)
The great arbitration case
The patriarch Job, when reasoning with the Lord concerning his great affliction, felt himself to be at a disadvantage and declined the controversy, saying, He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgment. Yet feeling that his friends were cruelly misstating his case, he still desired to spread it before the Lord, but wished for a mediator, a middleman, to act as umpire and decide the case. But what Job desired to have, the Lord has provided for us in the person of His own dear Son, Jesus Christ. There is an old quarrel between the thrice holy God and His sinful subjects, the sons of Adam.
I. First of all, let me describe what are the essentials of an umpire, an arbitrator, or a daysman.
1. The first essential is, that both parties should be agreed to accept him. Let me come to thee, thou sinner, against whom God has laid His suit, and put the matter to thee. God has accepted Christ Jesus to be His umpire in His dispute. He appointed Him to the office, and chose Him for it before He laid the foundations of the world. He is Gods fellow, equal with the Most High, and can put His hand upon the Eternal Father without fear because He is dearly beloved of that Fathers heart. But He is also a man like thyself, sinner. He once suffered, hungered, thirsted, and knew the meaning of poverty and pain. Now, what thinkest thou? God has accepted Him; canst thou agree with God in this matter, and agree to take Christ to be thy daysman too? Art thou willing that He should take this case into His hands and arbitrate between thee and God? for if God accepteth Him, and thou accept Him too, then He has one of the first qualifications for being a daysman.
2. But, in the next place, both parties must be fully agreed to leave the case entirely in the arbitrators hands. If the arbitrator does not possess the power of settling the case, then pleading before him is only making an opportunity for wrangling, without any chance of coming to a peaceful settlement. Now God has committed all power into the hands of His Son. Jesus Christ is the plenipotentiary of God, and has been invested with full ambassadorial powers. If the case be settled by Him, the Father is agreed. Now, sinner, does grace move thy heart to do the same? Wilt thou agree to put thy case into the hands of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man? Wilt thou abide by His decision?
3. Further, let us say, that to make a good arbitrator or umpire, it is essential that he be a fit person. If the case were between a king and a beggar, it would not seem exactly right that another king should be the arbitrator, nor another beggar; but if there could be found a person who combined the two, who was both prince and beggar, then such a man could be selected by both. Our Lord Jesus Christ precisely meets the case. There is a very great disparity between the plaintiff and the defendant, for how great is the gulf which exists between the eternal God and poor fallen man? How is this to be bridged? Why, by none except by one who is God and who at the same time can become man. Now the only being who can do this is Jesus Christ. He can put His hand on thee, stooping down to all thine infirmity and thy sorrow, and He can put His other hand upon the Eternal Majesty, and claim to be co-equal with God and co-eternal with the Father. Dost thou not see, then, His fitness? There cannot surely be a better skilled or more judicious daysman than our blessed Redeemer.
4. Yet there is one more essential of an umpire, and that is, that he should be a person desirous to bring the case to a happy settlement. In the great case which is pending between God and the sinner, the Lord Jesus Christ has a sincere anxiety both for His Fathers glory and for the sinners welfare, and that there should be peace between the two contending parties. It is the life and aim of Jesus Christ to make peace. He delighteth not in the death of sinners, and He knows no joy greater than that of receiving prodigals to His bosom, and of bringing lost sheep back again to the fold. Thou seest then, sinner, how the case is. God has evidently chosen the most fitting arbitrator. That arbitrator is willing to undertake the case, and thou mayest well repose all confidence in Him: but if thou shalt live and die without accepting Him as thine arbitrator, then, the ease going against thee, thou wilt have none to blame but thyself.
II. And now I shall want, by your leave, to take you into the court where the trial is going on and show you the legal proceedings before the great Daysman. The man, Christ Jesus, who is God over all, blessed forever, opens His court by laying down the principles upon which He intends to deliver judgment, and those principles I will now try to explain and expound. They are two fold--first, strict justice; and secondly, fervent love. The arbitrator has determined that let the case go as it may there shall be full justice done, justice to the very extreme, whether it be for or against the defendant. He intends to take the law in its sternest and severest aspect, and to judge according to its strictest letter. He will not be guilty of partiality on either side. But the arbitrator also says that He will judge according to the second rule, that of fervent love. He loves His Father, and therefore He will decide on nothing that may attain His honour or disgrace His crown. He so loves God, the Eternal One, that He will suffer heaven and earth to pass away sooner than there shall be one blot upon the character of the Most High. On the other hand, He so loves the poor defendant, man, that He will be willing to do anything rather than inflict penalty upon him unless justice shall absolutely require it. He loves man with so large a love that nothing will delight Him more than to decide in his favour, and He will be but too glad if He can be the means of happily establishing peace between the two. Let justice and love unite if they can. Having thus laid down the principles of judgment, the arbitrator next calls upon the plaintiff to state His case. Let us listen While the great Creator speaks. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children. The Eternal God charges us, and let me confess at once most justly and most truly charges us, with having broken all His commandments--some of them in act, some of them in word, all of them in heart, and thought, and imagination. He charges upon us, that against light and knowledge we have chosen the evil and forsaken the good. All this, calmly and dispassionately, according to the great Book of the law, is laid to our charge before the Daysman. No exaggeration of sin is brought against us. The plaintiffs case having thus been stated, the defendant is called upon by the Daysman for his; and I think I hear Him as He begins. First of all, the trembling defendant sinner pleads--I confess to the indictment, but I say I could not help it. I have sinned, it is true, but my nature was such that I could not well do otherwise; I must lay all the blame of it to my own heart; my heart was deceitful and my nature was evil. The Daysman at once rules that this is no excuse whatever, but an aggravation, for inasmuch as it is conceded that the mans heart itself is enmity against God, this is an admission of yet greater malice and blacker rebellion. Then the defendant pleads in the next place that albeit he acknowledges the facts alleged against him, yet he is no worse than other offenders, and that there are many in the world who have sinned more grievously than he has done. The sinner urges further, that though he has offended, and offended very greatly and grievously, yet he has done a great many good things. It is true he did not love God, but he always went to chapel. The defendant has no end of pleas, for the sinner has a thousand excuses; and finding that nothing else will do, he begins to appeal to the mercy of the plaintiff, and says that for the future he will do better. He confesses that he is in debt, but he will run up no more bills at that shop. What is the poor defendant to do now? He is fairly beaten this time. He falls down on his knees, and with many tears and lamentations he cries, I see how the case stands; I have nothing to plead, but I appeal to the mercy of the plaintiff; I confess that I have broken His commandments; I acknowledge that I deserve His wrath; but I have heard that He is merciful, and I plead for free and full forgiveness. And now comes another scene. The plaintiff seeing the sinner on his knees, with his eyes full of tears, makes this reply, I am willing at all times to deal kindly and according to loving kindness with all My creatures; but will the arbitrator for a moment suggest that I should damage and ruin My own perfections of truth and holiness; that I should belie My own word; that I should imperil My own throne; that I should make the purity of immaculate justice to be suspected, and should bring down the glory of My unsullied holiness, because this creature has offended Me, and now craves for mercy? I cannot, I will not spare the guilty; he has offended, and he must die! As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live. Still, this would rather must not be supreme. I am gracious and would spare the sinner, but I am just, and must not unsay My own words. I swore with an oath, The soul that sinneth shall die. I have laid it down as a matter of firm decree, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. This sinner is righteously cursed, and he must inevitably die; and yet I love him. The arbitrator bows and says, Even so; justice demands that the offender should die, and I would not have Thee unjust. The arbitrator, therefore, after pausing awhile, puts it thus: I am anxious that these two should be brought together; I love them both: I Cannot, on the one hand, recommend that My Father should stain His honour; I cannot, on the other hand, endure that this sinner should be cast eternally into hell; I will decide the case, and it shall be thus: I will pay My Fathers justice all it craves; I pledge Myself that in the fulness of time I will suffer in My own proper person all that the weeping, trembling sinner ought to have suffered. My Father, wilt Thou stand to this? The Eternal God accepts the awful sacrifice! Yes, sinner, and He did more than say it, for when the fulness of time came--you know the story. Here, then, is the arbitration. Christ Himself suffers; and now I have to put the query, Hast thou accepted Christ?
III. Let us now look at the daysmans success.
1. For every soul who has received Christ, Christ has made a full atonement which God the Father has accepted; and His success in this matter is to be rejoiced in, first of all, because the suit, has been settled conclusively. We have known cases go to arbitration, and yet the parties have quarrelled afterwards; they have said that the arbitrator did not rule justly, or something of the kind, and so the whole point has been raised again. But, O beloved, the case between a saved soul and God is settled once and forever. There is no more conscience of sin left in the believer.
2. Again, the case has been settled on the best principles, because, you see, neither party can possibly quarrel with the decision. The sinner cannot, for it is all mercy to him: even eternal justice cannot, for it has had its due.
3. Again, the case has been so settled, that both parties are well content. You never hear a saved soul murmur at the substitution of the Lord Jesus.
4. And through this Daysman both parties have come to be united in the strongest, closest, dearest, and fondest bond of union. This lawsuit has ended in such a way that the plaintiff and the defendant are friends for life, nay, friends through death, and friends in eternity. What a wonderful thing is that union between God and the sinner! We have all been thinking a great deal lately about the Atlantic cable. It is a very interesting attempt to join two worlds together. That poor cable, you know, has had to be sunk into the depths of the sea, in the hope of establishing a union between the two worlds, and now we are disappointed again. But oh! what an infinitely greater wonder has been accomplished. Christ Jesus saw the two worlds divided, and the great Atlantic of human guilt rolled between. He sank down deep into the woes of man till all Gods waves and billows had gone over Him, that He might be, as it were, the great telegraphic communication between God and the apostate race, between the Most Holy One and poor sinners. Let me say to you, sinner, there was no failure in the laying down of that blessed cable. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.