Job 23:2

_EVEN TO DAY IS MY COMPLAINT BITTER: MY STROKE IS HEAVIER THAN MY GROANING._ Today - implying, perhaps that the debate was carried on through more days than one (see 'Introduction'). BITTER - (Job 7:11; Job 10:1). BITTER - (Job 7:11; Job 10:1). MY STROKE - the hand of God on me (margin; Job 19:21; Psalms 32:4). HEAVIER THAN - is so heavy that I cannot relieve myself adequately by groaning....

1-7 Job appeals from his friends to the just judgement of God. He wants to have his cause tried quickly. Blessed be God, we may know where to find him. He is in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself; and upon a mercy-seat, waiting to be gracious. Thither the sinner may go; and there the believer may order his cause before Him, with arguments taken from his promises, his covenant, and his glory. A patient waiting for death and judgment is our wisdom and duty, and it cannot be without a holy fear and trembling. A passionate wishing for death or judgement is our sin and folly, and ill becomes us, as it did Job....

Verse Job 23:2. _EVEN TO-DAY_ IS _MY COMPLAINT BITTER_] Job goes on to maintain his own innocence, and shows that he has derived neither conviction nor consolation from the discourses of his friends. He grants that his complaint is bitter; but states that, loud as it may be, the affliction which he endures is heavier than his complaints are loud. Mr. _Good_ translates: "And still is my complaint rebellion?" Do ye construe my lamentations over my unparalleled sufferings as rebellion against God? This, in fact, they had done from the beginning: and the original will justify the version of Mr. _Good_; for מרי _meri_, which we translate _bitter_, may be derived from מרה _marah_, "he rebelled....

EVEN TO-DAY - At the present time. I am not relieved. You afford me no consolation. All that you say only aggravates my woes. MY COMPLAINT - See the notes at Job 21:3. BITTER - Sad, melancholy, distressing. The meaning is, not that he made bitter complaints in the sense which those words would naturally convey, or that he meant to find fault with God, but that his case was a hard one. His friends furnished him no relief, and he had in vain endeavored to bring his cause before God. This is now, as he proceeds to state, the principal cause of his difficulty. He knows not where to find God; he cannot get his cause before him. MY STROKE - Margin, as in Hebrew “hand;” that is, the hand that is upon me, or the calamity that is inflicted upon me. T

EXPOSITION VERSES 1-24:25 Job replies to Eliphaz in a speech of no great length, which, though it occupies two chapters, runs to only forty-two verses. He begins by justifying the vehemence of his complaints, first, on the ground of the severity of his sufferings (verse 2), and secondly, on the ground of his conviction that, if God would bring him to an open trial before his tribunal, he would acquit him (verses 3-12). By the way, he complains that God hides himself, and cannot be found (verses 3, 8, 9). He then further complains that God is not to be bent from his purpose, which is set against Job (verses 13-17). In Job 24:1. he goes over ground already trodden, maintaining the general prosperity of the wicked, and their exemption from any special earthly punishment (Job 24:2). H

EVEN TODAY [IS] MY COMPLAINT BITTER,.... Job's afflictions were continued on him long; he was made to possess months of vanity; and, as he had been complaining ever since they were upon him, he still continued to complain to that day, "even" after all the comforts his friends pretended to administer to him, as Jarchi observes: his complaints were concerning his afflictions, and his friends' ill usage of him under them; not of injustice in God in afflicting him, though he thought he dealt severely with him; but of the greatness of his afflictions, they being intolerable, and his strength unequal to them, and therefore death was more eligible to him than life; and he complained of God's hiding his face from him, and not hearing him, nor showing him wherefore he contended with him, nor admitting an hearing of his cause before him: and this complaint of his was "bitter": the things he compla...

Always remember, dear friends, that one of the great lessons of the Book of Job is this, that we may never judge a man's character by his condition. The best of men may have the most of suffering and of poverty, while the worst of men may prosper in everything. Do not imagine, because a man suddenly becomes very poor or a great sufferer, that therefore he must be a great sinner; otherwise, you will often condemn the innocent, and you will, at the same time, be guilty of flattering the wicked. Job's friends had cruelly told him that he must be a hypocrite, or else he would not have lost his property, and have been smitten with such a remarkable sickness; so he appeals to God against their unrighteous judgment. Job 23:1. _Then Job answered and said, Even today is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning._ «Although my groaning is heavy, yet it is not so burde

CHAPTER S 23-24 JOB'S REPLY _ 1. O that I knew where I may find Him (Job 23:1)_ 2. Trusting yet doubting (Job 23:10) 3. Hath God failed? (Job 24:1) 4. Job's further testimony as to the wicked (Job 24:13) Job 23:1. Job here does not disprove at once the false charges of Eliphaz. He can afford to wait till later, till their mouths are completely silenced. Then he speaks the final word. He acknowledgeth that he is still rebellious. His hand which is upon him is heavier than all his groanings. Then that outburst which reveals the longing of his t

Job still rebels, though he does his best to repress his complaints (Job 23:2). Translate as _mg._ Job 23:6 f. shows the gain Job has got. Job 23:8. He is still in quest of God, but now is convinced that if he could find Him, God would treat him reasonably (contrast Job 9:14). God's inscrutableness (Job 23:8 f.) now causes him no fear (Job 23:10). Trial will but be the touchstone that will reveal his innocence (Job 23:10)

COMPLAINT. complaining. MY. Septuagint and Syriac read "His". STROKE. hand. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Cause), App-6, for the calamity occasioned by it. Compare Job 13:21; Job 19:21....