My Notes
What Does Job 27:10 Mean?
"Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?" Job asks a rhetorical question about the wicked: will they maintain a relationship with God? Will they delight in him? Will they pray consistently? The implied answer is no — the wicked won't sustain devotion to God because their hearts aren't oriented toward him. Their religion is utilitarian: they approach God when they need something and abandon him when they don't.
The question implicitly contrasts Job with the wicked. Job has called upon God through the worst suffering imaginable. He has maintained the conversation — angry, bitter, accusatory, but never silent. His persistence in prayer, even in protest, is itself evidence of the delight the wicked lack.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Is your prayer life transactional (praying when you need something) or relational (praying always)?
- 2.What does Job's persistent calling on God — even in anger — teach about the nature of genuine faith?
- 3.When have you been tempted to go silent with God because the conversation felt one-sided?
- 4.How is arguing with God a form of delight rather than a form of rejection?
Devotional
Will the wicked delight in God? Will they always call on him? Job asks it rhetorically, and the answer is no. The wicked pray when they need something and go silent when they don't. Their relationship with God is transactional. When it stops paying, they stop praying.
But notice the implicit contrast. Job is still calling on God. Through ten chapters of agony, he hasn't stopped. He's accusing God, demanding answers, swearing oaths against God's justice — but he hasn't gone silent. He hasn't walked away. He hasn't said: this relationship isn't worth the cost.
That persistence is the delight the wicked don't have. Not delight as happiness — Job is miserable. Delight as orientation. His soul is turned toward God even when God seems turned away from him. He can't stop talking to God because God is the only conversation that matters. Even when the conversation is a fight.
The test of genuine faith isn't whether you pray when things are good. It's whether you pray when things are devastating. The wicked call on God in emergencies and forget him in abundance. Job calls on God in devastation and won't stop even when every friend says his calling is futile.
If you're still calling on God — still praying, still arguing, still refusing to go silent even though the silence from heaven is deafening — that persistence is evidence of something the wicked don't have. You're not a fair-weather worshipper. You're someone who delights in God enough to fight with him. And the fighting is its own kind of faithfulness.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
I will teach you by the hand of God,.... To serve God, and speak truth, says one of the Jewish commentators (g); rather…
Will he delight himself in the Almighty? - A truly pious man will delight himself in the Almighty. His supreme happiness…
Job having solemnly protested the satisfaction he had in his integrity, for the further clearing of himself, here…
will he delight himself?] Or, doth he delight himself? The wicked man has no consolation, no resource, in the manifold…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture