Scripture Daily

Context No. 1717 of 4322 · Job

Context · Reflection

Job 31:1-16: in context

1“I made a covenant with my eyes; how then should I look lustfully at a young woman? 2For what is the portion from God above, and the heritage from the Almighty on high? 3Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity? 4Doesn’t he see my ways, and count all my steps? 5“If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit 6(let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity); 7if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands, 8then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out. 9“If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor’s door, 10then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her. 11For that would be a heinous crime. Yes, it would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges, 12for it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase. 13“If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me, 14what then will I do when God rises up? When he visits, what will I answer him? 15Didn’t he who made me in the womb make him? Didn’t one fashion us in the womb? 16“If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

As Job defends his integrity, he opens with a striking statement about his eyes. I made a covenant with my eyes, he says; how then should I look with lust at a young woman? He goes on to protest that he has not walked in falsehood or deceit, that he has not been enticed into adultery, that he has not despised the cause of his servants when they had a complaint against him, remembering that the same God made them both, nor withheld from the poor and the widow. But it begins with the eyes: a covenant made, in advance, about what he would look at.

The phrase worth taking hold of is the first one: I made a covenant with my eyes. Job did not merely resist lust in the moment it arose; he made a covenant, a settled resolve decided beforehand, about what he would and would not look at. He had determined, in advance, before any particular temptation presented itself, that he would not use his eyes to feed lust; and that prior decision governed him when the moment came. This is a wisdom we often lack. We tend to fight temptation only when it is upon us, in the heat of the moment, when our resolve is weakest and the pull is strongest, and we lose more often than we win. Job's way is different and wiser: to decide beforehand, in a cool hour, what we will do, so that when the moment comes the decision is already made. A covenant with the eyes is a resolution settled in advance, a commitment about where we will and will not let our gaze go, so that we are not deciding afresh each time under pressure. This is more relevant now than ever, in a world where the eyes are constantly offered things to feed lust, on every screen and street. To make a covenant with our eyes, to decide in advance what we will look at and turn away from, rather than fighting each temptation from scratch in the moment, is a discipline that guards the heart, for the heart often follows the eyes. Job's integrity did not begin with heroic resistance in the moment; it began with a covenant made beforehand about his eyes.

Do I fight temptation only in the moment it arises, when my resolve is weakest, and lose more often than not, or can I do as Job did and make a covenant with my eyes, a settled resolve decided beforehand about what I will and will not look at, so that the decision is already made when the moment comes?

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