Job 27:7

_LET MINE ENEMY BE AS THE WICKED, AND HE THAT RISETH UP AGAINST ME AS THE UNRIGHTEOUS._ Let ... be - let mine enemy be accounted as wicked; i:e., He who opposes my asseveration of innocence must be regarded as actuated by criminal hostility. Not a curse on his enemies....

7-10 Job looked upon the condition of a hypocrite and a wicked man, to be most miserable. If they gained through life by their profession, and kept up their presumptuous hope till death, what would that avail when God required their souls? The more comfort we find in our religion, the more closely we shall cleave to it. Those who have no delight in God, are easily drawn away by the pleasures, and easily overcome by the crosses of this life....

Verse Job 27:7. _LET MINE ENEMY BE AS THE WICKED_] Let my accuser be proved a lying and perjured man, because he has laid to my charge things which he cannot prove, and which are utterly false....

LET MINE ENEMY BE AS THE WICKED - This is probably said that he might show that it was not his intention to justify the wicked, and that in all that he had said it was no part of his purpose to express approbation of their course. His friends had charged him with this; but he now solemnly disclaims it, and says that he had no such design. To show how little he meant to justify the wicked, he says that the utmost that he could desire for an enemy would be, that he would be treated as he believed the wicked would be. A similar expression occurs in Daniel 4:19, “My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies;” that is, calamities are coming upon thee indicated by the dream, such as you would desire on your foes; so in Judges 5:31. After the

EXPOSITION JOB 27:1 This chapter divides itself into three distinct portions. In the first, which extends to the end of Job 27:6, Job is engaged in maintaining, with the utmost possible solemnity (verse 2), both his actual integrity (verse 6) and his determination to hold fast his integrity as long as he lives (verses 4-6). In the second (verses 7-10) he implicates a curse upon his enemies. In the third (verses 11-23) he returns to the consideration of God's treatment of the wicked, and retracts the view which he had maintained controversially in Job 24:2, with respect to their prosperity, impunity, and equalization with the righteous in death. The retractation is so complete, the concessions are so large

LET MINE ENEMY BE AS THE WICKED,.... Job in this, and some following verses, shows, that he was not, and could not, and would not be a wicked man and an hypocrite, or however had no opinion and liking of such persons; for whatever his friends might think of him, because he had said so much of their outward prosperity in this world; yet he was far from approving of or conniving at their wickedness and hypocrisy, or choosing them for his companions, and joining with them in their actions, or imagining they were really happy persons; so far from it, that he would not be in their condition and circumstances for all the world: for if he was to wish a bad thing to the greatest enemy he had, he could not wish him any worse than to be as a wicked and unrighteous man; that is, to be a wicked and unrighteous man; which it is impossible for a good man to wish, and indeed would be a needless wish, s...

Remember that Job's friends had accused him of having committed some great sin; which would account for his great sorrows. The good man is naturally very indignant, and he uses the strongest possible language to cast away front himself with horror the charges which they brought against him in the day of his grief. Job 27:1. _Moreover Job continued his parable, and said, As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul; all the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, my tips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit._ He felt that; it would be wicked for him to confess to what he had never done; it would be deceit for him to acknowledge crimes which he had never committed. Therefore he most solemnly asseverates, by the living God, that he never will permit the falsehood to pass his lips. He had no

CHAPTER 27 JOB'S CLOSING WORDS IN SELF-VINDICATION _ 1. My righteousness I hold fast (Job 27:1)_ 2. The contrast between himself and the wicked (Job 27:7) Job 27:1. Zophar, the third friend, no longer speaks. Perhaps Job paused after his remarks in answer to Bildad and waited for Zophar's criticism. Perhaps that young hot-head hid his inability of advancing another argument under an assumed disgust. Critics have assigned Job 27:7 and Job 27:13 to Zophar and claim that Job did not speak them at all. But other critics, like Wellhausen, Kuenen and Dillman say th

THIRD SPEECH OF ZOPHAR. He once more reiterates, in spite of all Job has said, that the wicked shall perish. He bursts out Let mine enemy be as God's enemy. I can wish him no worse doom. In Job 27:8 translate as _mg._ Job 27:11 is quite in the vein of Zophar, who feels very much in the secrets of God (Job 11:5). The plurals you and ye have probably been substituted for singulars when Zophar's speech had become attributed to Job. (Peake, however, gives Job 27:11 and Job 27:12 to Job, taking them as the opening and closing verses of a suppressed description of the immoral

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