Job is miserable and he wants mercy from God that his suffering could be lifted.

“If only I new how to find Him, so that I could go to His throne.  I would plead my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments” (Job 23:3).

“But He is unchangeable; who can oppose Him? He does what He desires” (Job 23:13).

Job wants to plead his case before God, because he feels like he was walked with a good conscience before Him.  But he bemoans that he cannot find God to plead his case before him.  And even if he did, who could oppose him?

“He will certainly accomplish what He has decreed for me, and He has many more things like these in mind.  Therefore I am terrified in His presence; when I consider this, I am afraid of Him…Yet I am not destroyed by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face” (Job 23::16-17).

Job is scared what else might be in store for him, knowing that God will do as he desires.  Even though he doesn’t perhaps realize that this isn’t of God but of satan.

But even in this he realizes that he has not been destroyed.  He has been preserved.  That matters as it is a theme of suffering throughout the Scripture:

 ^“Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair;  we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.  We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Cor 4:7-10).

God allows great testing, sometimes even death.  But his light continues to burn inside the man or woman who still fears the Lord.