Job 9:27

_IF I SAY, I WILL FORGET MY COMPLAINT, I WILL LEAVE OFF MY HEAVINESS, AND COMFORT MYSELF:_ No JFB commentary on this verse....

25-35 What little need have we of pastimes, and what great need to redeem time, when it runs on so fast towards eternity! How vain the enjoyments of time, which we may quite lose while yet time continues! The remembrance of having done our duty will be pleasing afterwards; so will not the remembrance of having got worldly wealth, when it is all lost and gone. Job's complaint of God, as one that could not be appeased and would not relent, was the language of his corruption. There is a Mediator, a Daysman, or Umpire, for us, even God's own beloved Son, who has purchased peace for us with the blood of his cross, who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through him. If we trust in his name, our sins will be buried in the depths of the sea, we shall be washed from all our filthiness, and made whiter than snow, so that none can lay any thing to our charge. We shall be clothe...

Verse Job 9:27. _I WILL FORGET MY COMPLAINT_] I will _forsake_ or _forego_ my complaining. _I will leave off my heaviness_. VULGATE, _I will_ _change my countenance _- force myself to smile, and endeavour to assume the _appearance_ of _comfort_....

IF I SAY, I WILL FORGET MY COMPLAINT - If I resolve that I will leave off complaining, and will be more cheerful, I find it all in vain. My fears and sorrows return, and all my efforts to be cheerful are ineffectual I WILL LEAVE OFF MY HEAVINESS - The word rendered “my heaviness” here (פני _pânam_) denotes literally “my face;” and the reference is to the sad and sorrowful countenance which he had. “If I should lay that aside, and endeavor to be cheerful.” AND COMFORT MYSELF - The word rendered comfort here (בלג _bâlag_) in Arabic means to be bright, to shine forth; and it would here be better rendered by “brighten up.” We have the same expression still when we say to one who is sad and melancholy, “brighten up; be cheerful.” The meaning is, that Job endeavored to appear pleasant and cheerful

EXPOSITION JOB 9:1 Job, in answer to Bildad, admits the truth of his arguments, but declines to attempt the justification which can alone entitle him to accept the favourable side of Bildad's alternative. Man cannot absolutely justify himself before God. It is in vain to attempt to do so. The contest is too unequal. On the one side perfect wisdom and absolute strength (verse 4); on the other, weakness, imperfection, ignorance. guilt (verses 17-20). And no "daysman," or umpire, between them; no third party to hold the balance even, and preside authoritatively over the controversy, and see that justice is done (verses 33-35). Were it otherwise, Job would not shrink from the controversy; but he thinks it ill arguing with omnipotent power. What he seems to lack is the absolute conviction expressed by Abraham in the emphatic words'"_ _Shall not the Judge of al

IF I SAY, I WILL FORGET MY COMPLAINT,.... The cause of it, the loss of his children, servants, substance, and health, and endeavour to think no more of these things, and cease complaining about them, and attempt to bury them in oblivion, and change his note: I WILL LEAVE OFF MY HEAVINESS; his melancholy thoughts, words, airs, and looks; or "forsake my face" h, put on another countenance, a more pleasent and cheerful one; the Jewish commentators generally interpret it, "my anger", either at the dispensations of Providence, or at his friends: AND COMFORT [MYSELF]; that things were not worse with him than they were; or strengthen i himself, as the word is rendered in Amos 5:9; against his fears, and troubles, and dejection of mind, determining to take heart, and be of good courage, and not sink, and succumb, and faint under his burdens: none but God, Father, Son, a

CHAPTER S 9-10 JOB ANSWERS BILDAD _ 1. The supremacy and power of God (Job 9:1)_ 2. How then can Job meet Him? (Job 9:11) 3. He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked (Job 9:22) 4. Confession of weakness and the need of a daysman (Job 9:25) 5. Murmuring against God (Job 10:1) 6. Welcoming death (Job 10:18) Job 9:1. The final words of Bildad seemed to have had a momentary soothing

Job again takes up his complaint, but in a quieter tone, so that he is able to imagine after all a way in which he might maintain his cause before God. He complains first of the shortness of his life. His time runs swiftly as a runner, as the light papyrus boats used on the Nile, as an eagle in its flight (Job 9:25 f.). If he should resolve to brighten up and treat his misery as a bad dream, what use? God will again put him on the rack. (We may associate Job's quieter moods with temporary relief from paroxysms of pain, which he knows full well, however, to be only temporary). All purifications are useless (Job 9:30 f.). God and he cannot come together on equal terms. If only there were an umpire between them, who could lay his hand upon both disputants, and enforce his decision upon them ...

COMPLAINT. complaining....

_my complaint_ i. e. as always, my complaining, ch. Job 7:13. _my heaviness_ lit. _my faces_, my sad mien, 1 Samuel 1:18. _comfort myself_ lit. _brighten up_, ch. Job 10:20; Psalms 39:13. The word in Arab, (_balija_) means to have a space clear of hair between the eyebrows, hence to have an open, bright countenance. A certain woman described the Prophet (Mohammed) as _ablaju'lwajhi_, bright in countenance. Then the word came to mean also _to be bright_, of the dawn or the day....