_A.M. 2484. B.C. 1520._ Job complains of the unkind usage of his friends, Job 19:1. Of the shyness and strangeness of his relations and intimates, Job 19:8. Pleads for pity, Job 19:20. Testifies his firm belief of the resurrection, Job 19:23. Cautions his friends against persisting in their hard ce... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then Job answered and said_ “Tired with the little regard paid by the three friends to his defence, and finding them still insisting on their general maxims, Job desires them calmly to consider his case; to reflect that his failings, whatever they were, had not been at all prejudicial to them; but... [ Continue Reading ]
_And break me in pieces with words_ With mere empty words, void of sense or argument; with your impertinent and unedifying discourses and bitter reproaches. _These ten times have ye reproached me _ That is, many times, a certain number being put for an uncertain. _Ye make yourselves strange_ You car... [ Continue Reading ]
_Be it that I have erred_, &c. If I have sinned, I myself suffer for my sins, and therefore deserve your pity rather than your reproaches. _If you will magnify yourselves_, &c. Use imperious and contemptuous speeches against me; or seek praise from others by outreasoning me: _and plead against me my... [ Continue Reading ]
_Know now_ Consider well, _that God hath overthrown me_ Hath grievously afflicted me in various ways, and therefore it ill becomes you to aggravate my miseries. Hebrew, עותני, _gnivetani; hath perverted me;_ either my state and condition, as has now been said: or my right and cause. He oppresseth me... [ Continue Reading ]
_He hath fenced up my way_, &c. So that I can see no means or possibility of getting out of my troubles. _He hath set darkness in my paths_ So that I cannot discern what course I ought to take. _He hath stripped me of my glory_ That is, of my estate, and children, and authority, and all my comforts.... [ Continue Reading ]
_He hath destroyed me on every side_ In all respects, my person, and family, and estate. _And I am gone_ I am a lost and dead man. _My hope hath he removed_ All my hopes of the present life, but not of the life to come; _like a tree_ Which, being once plucked up by the roots, never grows again. Hope... [ Continue Reading ]
_His troops come together_ My afflictions, which are but God's instruments and soldiers marching under his conduct; _and raise up their way against me_ Cast up a bank, or make a trench about me, as an army besieging a place; or raise a causeway or path, as pioneers usually do, in low and marshy grou... [ Continue Reading ]
_He hath put my brethren far from me_, &c. I looked for some support and comfort from my kindred and friends, but they were so astonished at the number and dreadfulness of my calamities that they fled from me as a man accursed of God: and as for my neighbours, who formerly much courted my acquaintan... [ Continue Reading ]
_My kinsfolk_ Whom nature inclined to love and befriend me; _have failed_ To perform the offices of humanity which they owed me: _and my familiar friends_ To whom I was united by a stronger bond than that of nature; _have forgotten me_ Have neglected and disregarded me as much as if they had quite f... [ Continue Reading ]
_They that dwell in my house_ Hebrew, גרי ביתי, _garei beethei, peregrini domus meæ, the sojourners of my house_, that is, those that formerly were kindly entertained at my house, whether strangers, widows, or the fatherless; nay, the people of my family, even _my maids_, who, by reason of their sex... [ Continue Reading ]
_My breath is strange to my wife_, &c. I am become so loathsome that my wife will not come near me, though I have conjured her to do it, by the dear memory of our children, those common pledges of our mutual love. Houbigant translates the verse, _My wife abhors even my breath: the children of my bod... [ Continue Reading ]
_Yea, young children despised me_ Or, the _wicked_, as in the margin; and as the word עוילים also signifies, being derived from עול, _gniv-vel, inique egit, he acted unjustly._ Some render it, _fools_, reading אוילים, _evilim_, from אול. If we take the word in any of these senses, we must think tha... [ Continue Reading ]
_All my inward friends abhorred me_ מתי סודי, _methei sodi_, The men of my secret, or council; my intimates and confidants, to whom I imparted all my thoughts, counsels, and concerns. _And they whom I loved _ Sincerely and fervently; _are turned against me_ So ill do they requite me. He does not say... [ Continue Reading ]
_My bone_ Or, _bones_, the singular collectively being put for the plural: _cleaveth to my skin_ Namely, immediately, the flesh next to the skin being consumed. The sense is, Afflictions have so wasted me, that I am little more than skin and bone. _And to my flesh_ Or, _As_ to my flesh; as closely a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Have pity, have pity upon me, O ye my friends_ For such you have been, and still pretend to be; and, therefore, fulfil that relation; and, if you will not help me, yet, at least, pity me. “Nothing can be more pathetic,” says Dr. Dodd, “than the repetition in this passage, as well as the immediate a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Why do you persecute me as God?_ As if you had the same infinite knowledge which God hath, whereby you could search my heart, and know my hypocrisy, and the same sovereign authority, to say and do what you please with me. _And are not satisfied with my flesh_ That is, with the consumption and torme... [ Continue Reading ]
_O that my words were now written!_ Either, 1st, All his foregoing discourses with his friends, which he was so far from disowning or being ashamed of, that he was desirous all ages should know them, that they might judge between him and them, and decide whose cause was better, and whose arguments w... [ Continue Reading ]
_For I know_, &c. Job proceeds now to assign the reason of his confidence in the goodness of his cause, and of his willingness to have the matter depending between him and his friends published and submitted to any trial. _I know that my Redeemer liveth_ I have no knowledge, nor confidence, nor hope... [ Continue Reading ]
_And though after my skin_, &c. The style of this and other poetical books of the Scripture is concise and short, and therefore many words are to be understood in some places to complete the sense. The meaning here is, Though my skin be now, in a great measure, consumed by sores, and the rest of it,... [ Continue Reading ]
_Whom I shall see_ In the manner before and after expressed. No wonder that he repeats it again, because the meditation of it was most sweet to him; _for myself_ For my own benefit and comfort, as the phrase is often used. Or, which is of much the same importance, _on my behalf_, to plead my cause a... [ Continue Reading ]
_But ye should say_ Therefore, because this is my case, and my faith and hope are in God, it would become you, and it is your duty on this account, to say, _Why persecute we him?_ We are blameworthy that we have persecuted him with such bitter invectives, and we will do so no more; _seeing the root... [ Continue Reading ]
_Be ye afraid of the sword_ Of some considerable judgment to be inflicted on you, which is called the sword; as Deuteronomy 32:41, and elsewhere. That is, if ye continue to persecute me. So Houbigant understands him, interpreting these words in connection with the preceding, thus: _But if ye shall s... [ Continue Reading ]