My days are swifter than a runner; they fly away without a glimpse of joy.   They skim past like boats of papyrus, like eagles swooping down on their prey.   If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression, and smile,’   I still dread all my sufferings, for I know you will not hold me innocent.   Since I am already found guilty, why should I struggle in vain?   Even if I washed myself with soap and my hands with cleansing powder,   you would plunge me into a slime pit so that even my clothes would detest me.   “He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court.   If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together,   someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more.   Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot. – Job 9:25-35

The water reference in this passage is somewhat obscure, but it was such an interesting passage for me as a follower of Christ that I had to comment.  Job is continuing his responding to Bildad’s advice.

In many ways he is revealing the hopelessness that has come out in previous passages, but in this passage there is an interesting reference to “someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together”.  Job feels separated from God and he does not know how to get closer.

This is the first time I can remember where someone to mediate has been mentioned.  This someone seems different than Moses, Abraham, or Elijah.  I think the someone that Job is seeking is the “God-man” Jesus, the great mediator between us and God who will one day walk the beaches of Galilee.

The problem that Job identifies as part of the reason he is estranged from God is that he does not feel like he can get “clean enough” to come close to God.  The reality is that none of us flawed followers can get “clean enough” on our own (Leviticus (8:1-10)).  We need to let God do the cleaning.

Prayer: God You desire to be close to us.  Help us to trust your son Jesus to be the mediator between us.