Job 9:28

_I AM AFRAID OF ALL MY SORROWS, I KNOW THAT THOU WILT NOT HOLD ME INNOCENT._ I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent. The apodosis to 27-`If I say, etc., I still am afraid of all my sorrows (returning), because I know that thou wilt (dost) not (by removing my sufferings) hold or declare me innocent. How then can I leave off my heaviness?' Hebrew, 'my face' - i:e., my gloomy countenance....

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 9:28. _I AM AFRAID OF ALL MY SORROWS_] _Coverdale_ translates, after the _Vulgate_, _Then am I afrayed of all my workes_. Even were I to cease from complaining, I fear lest not one of my works, however well intentioned, would stand thy scrutiny, or meet with thy approbation. _THOU WILT NOT HOLD ME INNOCENT._] _Coverdale_, after the _Vulgate_, _For I knowe thou favourest not an evil doer_; but this is not the sense of the original: Thou wilt not acquit me so as to take away my afflictions from me....

I AM AFRAID OF ALL MY SORROWS - My fears return. I dread the continuance of my griefs, and cannot close my eye to them. THOU WILT NOT HOLD ME INNOCENT - God will not remove my sorrows so as to furnish the evidence that I am innocent. My sufferings continue, and with them continue all the evidence on which my friends rely that I am a guilty man. In such a state of things, how can I be otherwise than sad? He was held to be guilty; he was suffering in such a way as to afford them the proof that he was so, and how could he be 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

I AM AFRAID OF ALL MY SORROWS,.... That they would return upon him, and surround him, and overwhelm him, so that he should not be able to stand up against them, or under them; that they would increase and continue with him, and so he should never be released from them: I KNOW THAT THOU WILT NOT HOLD ME INNOCENT: a sudden apostrophe to God as near him; the meaning is not, that he was confident that God would not justify him but condemn him in a spiritual sense; Job did not despair of his everlasting salvation, he knew and believed in his living Redeemer; he knew he should be acquitted and justified by his righteousness, and not be condemned with the world; but he was certain of this, as he thought that God would neither "cleanse" k him, as some render the word, from the worms his flesh was clad with, and from the filthy boils and ulcers he was covered with; nor clear him so as that he sh...

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 ...

As Job's afflictions were the proof of his guilt in the estimation of God, "to hold him innocent" means to remove his afflictions, as the first clause suggests....

I AM AFRAID OF ALL MY SORROWS— _I shudder in all my limbs._ Heath, after the LXX....