Job 31:28

_THIS ALSO WERE AN INIQUITY TO BE PUNISHED BY THE JUDGE: FOR I SHOULD HAVE DENIED THE GOD THAT IS ABOVE._ _ THIS ALSO WERE AN INIQUITY TO BE PUNISHED BY THE JUDGE: FOR I SHOULD HAVE DENIED THE GOD THAT IS ABOVE._ The Mosaic law embodied subsequently the feeling of the godly from the earliest times against idolatry, as deserving judicial penalties: being treason against the Supreme King (Deuteronomy 13:9; Deuteronomy 17:2; Ezekiel 8:14). This passage therefore does not prove Job to have been subsequent to Moses....

24-32 Job protests, 1. That he never set his heart upon the wealth of this world. How few prosperous professors can appeal to the Lord, that they have not rejoiced because their gains were great! Through the determination to be rich, numbers ruin their souls, or pierce themselves with many sorrows. 2. He never was guilty of idolatry. The source of idolatry is in the heart, and it corrupts men, and provokes God to send judgments upon a nation. 3. He neither desired nor delighted in the hurt of the worst enemy he had. If others bear malice to us, that will not justify us in bearing malice to them. 4. He had never been unkind to strangers. Hospitality is a Christian duty, 1 Peter 4:9....

Verse Job 31:28. _FOR I SHOULD HAVE DENIED THE GOD_ THAT IS _ABOVE._] Had I paid Divine adoration to them, I should have thereby denied the God that made them....

THIS ALSO WERE AN INIQUITY TO BE PUNISHED BY THE JUDQE - Note Job 31:11. Among the Hebrews idolatry was an offence punishable by death by stoning; Deuteronomy 17:2. It is possible, also, that this might have been elsewhere in the patriarchal times a crime punishable in this manner. At all events, Job regarded it as a heinous offence, and one of which the magistrate ought to take cognizance. FOR I SHOULD HAVE DENIED THE GOD THAT IS ABOVE - The worship of the heavenly bodies would have been in fact the denial of the existence of any Superior Being. This, in fact, always occurs, for idolaters have no knowledge of the true God....

EXPOSITION The conclusion of Job's long speech (ch. 26-31.) is now reached. He winds it up by a solemn vindication of himself from all the charges of wicked conduct which have been alleged or insinuated against him. perhaps it may be said that he goes further, maintaining generally his moral rectitude in respect of all the principal duties which a man owes either to God (verses 4-6, 24-28, 35-37) or to his fellows (verses 1-3, 7-23, 29-34, 38-40). He protests that he is innocent of impure thoughts (verses 1-4); of false seeming (verses 5-8); of adultery (verses 9-12); of injustice towards dependants (verses 13-15); of hardness towards the poor and needy (verses 16-23); of covetousness (verses 24, 25); of idolatry (verses 26-28); of malevolence (verses 29, 30); of want of hospitality (verses 31, 32); of hiding his transgressions (verses 33, 34); and of injustice as a landlord (verses 38-4...

THIS ALSO [WERE] AN INIQUITY [TO BE PUNISHED BY] THE JUDGE,.... As well as adultery, Job 31:11; by the civil magistrates and judges of the earth, who are God's vicegerents, and therefore it behooves them to take cognizance of such an iniquity, and to punish for it, which affects in so peculiar a manner the honour and worship of the true God; this by the law of Moses was punished by stoning to death, Deuteronomy 13:9; however this will be taken notice of and punished by God the Judge of all, whose law is broken hereby, and who will visit this iniquity more especially on those who commit it, and their posterity after them. Idolaters of every sort shall have their part and portion in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone,...

CHAPTER 31 _ 1. My chastity and righteousness (Job 31:1)_ 2. My philanthropy (Job 31:13) 3. My integrity and hospitality (Job 31:24) 4. Let God and man disprove me (Job 31:35) Job 31:1. His final word is the final word in his self-righteous vindication. He gives Eliphaz the lie. He gives a review of his life to prove that he is clean in the sight of God and of man. Even if after this outburst his friends would have an inclination to answer him they could not have done so. He silenced them for good. But what are his declarations after all

JOB 31. THE OATH OF CLEARING. Job's final protestation of his innocence, and appeal to God to judge him. This chapter, says Duhm, is the high-water mark of the OT ethic, higher than the Decalogue or even than the prophets, since they deal with social not private morality. Duhm notes especially the humanity towards the slave based on the fact of a common creation, also that we are not to hate our enemies. (Job does not go so far as to say, Love your enemies; that is Christ's.) JOB 31:1. Job clears himself of secret sensual desires. He remembered that the all-seeing God punishes the evildoer. Job speaks from the standpoint he had occupied before his trials made him doubt the Divine justice. JOB 31:5. He clears himself of falsehood and covetousness....

DISCOURSE: 483 SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY Job 31:24; Job 31:28. _If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much; …. This also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge: for I should have denied the God that is above_. HATEFUL as boasting is, and justly condemned both by God and man, there are occasions when it is proper, and indeed necessary. For instance; when a character has been grossly calumniated, and can be vindicated only by an appeal to facts, those facts may be adduced, however much the recital of them may tend to proclaim our own praise. Samuel was constrained to assert the equity of his own administration, when the people cast reflections on him, by desiring to change the fo

THIS ALSO WERE AN INIQUITY TO BE PUNISHED BY THE JUDGE— The Hebrew of this passage is only two words, פלילי עון _avon pelili,_ which Schultens renders _iniquitas arbitratoria;_ meaning, as he explains it, such an iniquity as any one must judge to be so; and he confirms his interpretation by the use of the word פלילים _pelilim,_ Deuteronomy 32:31. _Their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being Judges 1 :_e. in the judgment or opinion even of our very enemies; so that here is nothing intimated of a judicial trial or punishment; but only the notoriety of the sin observed; and thus it is that the Chaldee paraphrase, as well as the Greek and Latin versions, interpret it; _a great_ or _heinous iniquity._ But, supposing that it were rightly rendered an iniquity to be