Job 9:19

If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?

It does not surprise me in the least that the word contest is found only once in the ESV.

Lest we forget ourselves let us look at context.

Job 9:18-20 English Standard Version

18 he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
19 If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?
20 Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

Job makes an emotional response to a physical sensation. That is of the world, the flesh and he blames God for how he feels and therefore subject to all the ill will that comes with living. It is a feeling of helplessness, a loss of hope.

What I see in these verses is what I see. What I believe is how I live and breathe. I am accountable to God for what I say in this world.

What I see is that I can take what I know to be true in Kingdom Living into the world but I cannot take that which I see and believe in the world and infect Kingdom Living. The Sword of the Spirit protects the Way.

Genesis 3:24

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

That has not changed from the very beginning. God does not change. 

When we are in fellowship with one another we must remember we do not summon Him. He is there to serve the Father’s will. We will be held accountable for what we say to one another. 

We should confess our weaknesses but in doing so be careful not to accuse God. I may not like what is going on in the world but it is not God’s fault. The God of justice will adjudicate justice on His terms, not according to our wishes.

I would hope that no one would be proven to be proverse. If it is so, let it be the hand of God to prove and not we ourselves.

Proverbs 27:17

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Figurative: “The iron furnace” is used metaphorically for affliction, chastisement (De 4:20; Eze 22:18-22). Iron is also employed figuratively to represent barrenness (De 28:23), slavery (“yoke of iron,” De 28:48), strength (“bars of iron,” Job 40:18), severity (“rod of iron,” Ps 2:9), captivity (Ps 107:10), obstinacy (“iron sinew,” Isa 48:4), fortitude (“iron pillar,” Jer 1:18), moral deterioration (Jer 6:28), political strength (Da 2:33), destructive power (“iron teeth,” Da 7:7); the certainty with which a real enemy will ever show his hatred is as the rust returning upon iron (Ecclesiasticus 12:10 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) “brass”); great obstacles (“walls of iron,” 2 Macc 11:9). Source International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Perhaps Proverb 27:17 could mean that we should prevent one another from becoming rusted from lack of use. Allow an instrument of good use to sit around unused and whatever skills that produced good works become dull and degraded to the point of uselessness.

My good friend has reminded me of this verse and many were the time when I saw ourselves first as the hammer and then as the anvil, but never did I see ourselves as the sword. It was always a matter of give and take.

During a worldly source search for the first uses of iron it was said that the iron first extracted to form any tool came from meteorites. The imagination can place such items in the realm of a gift from the gods, little g. Rare and precious are words that come to mind.

We do not live in the world and we have to endure the fantasies of sinners who fail to believe and connect to the Word of God which is a gift from God the Father, rare and precious. It is easy to envision the words contained in Psalms and Proverbs in worldly terms because that is where we live. But it is not where we worship.

• John 4:23
  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
• John 4:24
  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”