_A.M. 2484. B.C. 1520._ Job still bemoans himself, Job 17:1. Encourages good men to hold on their way, Job 17:8; Job 17:9. Declares he looks for no ease but in the grave, Job 17:10. Job in this chapter suddenly passes from one thing to another, as is usual for men in much trouble.... [ Continue Reading ]
_My breath is corrupt_ Is offensive to those around me, through my disease. But, as the word חבלה, _chubbalah_, here rendered corrupt, may signify _bound, straitened_, or distressed with _pain_, as a woman in travail, Chappelow thinks the phrase had better be rendered: _Spiritus meus constringitur,... [ Continue Reading ]
_Are there not mockers with me?_ Do not my friends, instead of comforting, mock and abuse me, as if I had made use of religion only as a cloak to cover my wickedness? Thus he returns to what he had said chap. Job 16:20), and intimates the necessity and justice of his following appeal, which otherwis... [ Continue Reading ]
_Lay down now_ Some earnest or pledge. _Put me in a surety with thee_ Let me have an assurance that God will take the hearing and determining of the cause into his own hands, and I desire no more. _Who is he that will strike hands with me?_ That is, agree and promise, or be surety to me, whereof str... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou hast hid their heart from understanding_ Rather, _thou hast hid understanding from their heart._ The minds of my friends are so blinded, that they cannot see those truths which are most plain and evident to all men of sense and experience. Hence, I desire a more wise and able judge. _Therefore... [ Continue Reading ]
_He that speaketh flattery to his friends_ “The Hebrew of this verse,” says Peters, “literally, runs thus: _He shall reckon friends for a portion_, or _inheritance, and the eyes of his children shall fail;_ that is, with expectation. They may look their eyes out before they receive any benefit or as... [ Continue Reading ]
_He_ That is, God, who is generally designed by this pronoun in this book; _hath made me also a by-word of the people_ Or, a proverb, or subject of common talk. My miseries are so great and unprecedented that they fill all people with discourse, and are become proverbial to express extreme misery. _... [ Continue Reading ]
_Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow_ Through excessive weeping and decay of spirits, which cause a dimness of the sight. _And all my members are as a shadow_ My body is so reduced, and I am grown so poor and thin, and my colour so wan and ghastly, that I look more like a ghost or a shadow than... [ Continue Reading ]
_Upright men shall be astonied at this_ Wise and good men, when they shall see me, and consider my calamities, will not be so forward to censure and condemn me as you are, but will rather stand and wonder at the depth and mysteriousness of God's judgments, which fall so heavily upon innocent men, wh... [ Continue Reading ]
_The righteous shall hold on his way_ Shall persevere in that good way upon which he hath entered, and not be turned from it by any afflictions which may befall himself, or any other good men; nor by any contempt or reproach cast upon them by the ungodly, by reason thereof. _And he that hath clean h... [ Continue Reading ]
_But as for you all_ Who have charged me so heavily. _Do you return and come now_ Recollect yourselves: reflect on what I have said, and consider my cause again; peradventure your second thoughts may be wiser. _For I cannot find one wise man among you_ Namely, as to this matter. None of you judge tr... [ Continue Reading ]
_My days are past_ The days of my life. I am a dying man, and therefore the hopes you give me of the bettering of my condition are vain. _My purposes are broken off_ Or the designs and expectations which I had in my prosperous days concerning myself and children, and the continuance of my happiness.... [ Continue Reading ]
_They change the night into day_ My distressing thoughts, griefs, and fears, so incessantly pursue and disturb me, that I can no more sleep in the night than in the day. _The light is short_ The day-light, which often gives some comfort to men in misery, seems to be gone and fled as soon as it is be... [ Continue Reading ]
_If I wait, the grave is my house_ Hebrew, אם אקוה, _im akaveh_, If I eagerly desire and expect any thing now, it is the grave, the only habitation I can promise myself; and which I am just entering. There I am going to rest in a bed where I shall not be disturbed, for which therefore I am preparing... [ Continue Reading ]
_I have said to corruption_ Hebrew, קראתי, _karati, I have called to corruption;_ to the grave, where the body will be dissolved and become corrupt. _Thou art my father_ I am near akin to thee, being formed out of thee, and thou wilt receive and embrace me, and keep me in thy house as parents do the... [ Continue Reading ]
_They shall go down to the bars of the pit_ They that would see my hope must go down into the grave, or rather into the invisible world, to behold it. Or, he means, My hope shall go down, of which he spake in the singular number, Job 17:15, and which he here changes into the plural, as is usual in t... [ Continue Reading ]