Albert Barnes Commentary Job 33:13

"Why dost thou strive against him, For that he giveth not account of any of his matters?" — Job 33:13 (ASV)

Why do you strive against him? — By refusing to submit to him and by questioning his wisdom and goodness.

For he does not give an account of any of his actions — the margin, as in Hebrew, reads “does not answer.” The idea is that it is as useless as it is improper to contend with God. He does his own pleasure and deals with people as he deems best and right. He does not state the reason for his actions, nor do people have any power to force from him a statement of the causes why he afflicts us.

This is still true. He does not often make known the reason for his actions to the afflicted, and it is impossible to know now the causes why he has brought on us the calamity with which we are afflicted.

The general reasons why people are afflicted may be better known now than they were in the time of Elihu, for successive revelations have thrown much light on that subject. But when he comes and afflicts us as individuals; when he takes away a beloved child; when he cuts down the young, the vigorous, the useful, and the pious, it is often impossible to understand why he has done it.

All that we can do then is to submit to his sovereign will and to believe that even though we cannot see the reasons why he has done it, this does not prove that there are no reasons, or that we may never be permitted to understand them. We are required to submit to his will, not to our own reason; to acquiesce because he does it, not because we see it to be right.

If we always understood the reasons why he afflicts us, our resignation would be not to the will of God, but to our own knowledge of what is right. God, therefore, often passes before us in clouds and thick darkness to see whether we have sufficient confidence in him to believe that he does right, even when we cannot see or understand the reason for his actions.

So a child reposes the highest confidence in a parent when the child believes that the parent will do right, even though the child cannot understand why the parent does it, and the parent does not choose to let the child know. May a father not see reasons for what he does which a child could not understand, or which it might be proper for him to withhold from the child?