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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 Job's 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 one's 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! God's holiness! God's law! He had not known sin but for that law. God's requirement, God's 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 God's 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!" God's 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 God's 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, Galatians 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" (Hebrews 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 God's holiness, is one of the strange teachings of the Book of Job.

(J. Elder Cumming, D. D.)

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KJV: Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.

WEB: There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.