Job 27:7

In Job 27:2 Job protested his sincerity in affirming his innocence. With Job 27:7 commences a description of the misery of mind, and the outward destruction at the hand of God, which are the portion of the unrighteous. The "wicked" is the subject throughout to the end of the chapter; therefore in the words "let mine enemy be as the wicked" the emphasis falls on "wicked." The words express the speaker's abhorrence of the "wicked," they do not imprecate evil on his "enemy." It it understood that he wishes his "enemy" ill, and he can wish him nothing worse than that he should be as the "wicked" so much does he himself shrink from the thought of being as the wicked are. Others (e.g. Delitzsch) put the emphasis on "enemy," taking that expression to mean "him who accuses me of iniquity" mine enemy must appear an evil-doer, inasmuch as he charges me falsely. This makes the verse a mere parenthetical imprecation by Job on his friends, for the words taken in this sense have no connexion with Job 27:8. The speaker, rather, repudiates the idea of his being one of the wicked, and he does so because he shudders to think that the condition of the mind of the wicked man, who has no hope in God, should be his his condition of mind is very different (Job 27:8). Still even when taken in this, their only natural sense, the words of Job 27:7 have no strict logical connexion with Job 27:2. The connexion is: "I will never cease to maintain that I am a righteous man, for how comfortless in calamity is the condition of the wicked!" while strictly it should be: "I will never cease holding on to the way of righteousness, for how comfortless in affliction is the wicked man, having no hope in God!" So far as the mere language of Job 27:5 is concerned, the expressions "I will not remove mine integrity from me," "and my righteousness I hold fast," might have the meaning "I will continue to live a righteous life" (comp. ch. Job 2:9), but such a meaning is absolutely excluded here by the connexion and general scope of Job 27:2.