Job 31:1-12; ; Job 31:29-40
In Job 29:1-25 Job went on at great length about the good he had done; here he concentrates on the evil which he had not done: immorality (vv. 1-12), unrighteousness (vv. 13-15), selfishness (vv. 15-23) and idolatry (vv. 24-28). We can boast in one way or another, forgetting that it is God alone who prompts us to do good in the same way that He preserves us from doing evil.
It goes without saying that if anyone had the right to depend on his works, it was certainly the patriarch Job. Paul writes the same thing about himself in the epistle to the Philippians (Philippians 3:4). "But," he adds, "what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." His natural advantages as a good Israelite, his past righteousness as a dedicated Pharisee from then onwards were counted by him as rubbish. For this reason God has no need to take things away from him as with Job; Paul, by grace, has already put to one side all that was not of Christ.
We should notice the many unanswered challenges in the text . . . If I . . .; they seem to imply all the good things that Job thinks about himself and his past works.
Finally, ending this demonstration of all his good points, Job solemnly adds, as it were, his signature and challenges God to reply to him (v. 35).