26 For you put bitter things on record against me, and send punishment on me for the sins of my early years;
For my soul is full of evils, and my life has come near to the underworld. I am numbered among those who go down into the earth; I have become like a man for whom there is no help: My soul is among the dead, like those in the underworld, to whom you give no more thought; for they are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest deep, even in dark places. The weight of your wrath is crushing me, all your waves have overcome me. (Selah.) You have sent my friends far away from me; you have made me a disgusting thing in their eyes: I am shut up, and not able to come out. My eyes are wasting away because of my trouble: Lord, my cry has gone up to you every day, my hands are stretched out to you. Will you do works of wonder for the dead? will the shades come back to give you praise? (Selah.) Will the story of your mercy be given in the house of the dead? will news of your faith come to the place of destruction? May there be knowledge of your wonders in the dark? or of your righteousness where memory is dead? But to you did I send up my cry, O Lord; in the morning my prayer came before you. Lord, why have you sent away my soul? why is your face covered from me? I have been troubled and in fear of death from the time when I was young; your wrath is hard on me, and I have no strength. The heat of your wrath has gone over me; I am broken by your cruel punishments. They are round me all the day like water; they have made a circle about me. You have sent my friends and lovers far from me; I am gone from the memory of those who are dear to me.
And you will be full of grief at the end of your life, when your flesh and your body are wasted; And you will say, How was teaching hated by me, and my heart put no value on training; I did not give attention to the voice of my teachers, my ear was not turned to those who were guiding me!
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Job 13
Commentary on Job 13 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 13
Job 13:1-28. Job's Reply to Zophar Continued.
1. all this—as to the dealings of Providence (Job 12:3).
3. Job wishes to plead his cause before God (Job 9:34, 35), as he is more and more convinced of the valueless character of his would-be "physicians" (Job 16:2).
4. forgers of lies—literally, "artful twisters of vain speeches" [Umbreit].
5. (Pr 17:28). The Arabs say, "The wise are dumb; silence is wisdom."
7. deceitfully—use fallacies to vindicate God in His dealings; as if the end justified the means. Their "deceitfulness" for God, against Job, was that they asserted he was a sinner, because he was a sufferer.
8. accept his person—God's; that is, be partial for Him, as when a judge favors one party in a trial, because of personal considerations.
contend for God—namely, with fallacies and prepossessions against Job before judgment (Jud 6:31). Partiality can never please the impartial God, nor the goodness of the cause excuse the unfairness of the arguments.
9. Will the issue to you be good, when He searches out you and your arguments? Will you be regarded by Him as pure and disinterested?
mock—(Ga 6:7). Rather, "Can you deceive Him as one man?" &c.
10. If ye do, though secretly, act partially. (See on Job 13:8; Ps 82:1, 2). God can successfully vindicate His acts, and needs no fallacious argument of man.
11. make you afraid?—namely, of employing sophisms in His name (Jer 10:7, 10).
12. remembrances—"proverbial maxims," so called because well remembered.
like unto ashes—or, "parables of ashes"; the image of lightness and nothingness (Isa 44:20).
bodies—rather, "entrenchments"; those of clay, as opposed to those of stone, are easy to be destroyed; so the proverbs, behind which they entrench themselves, will not shelter them when God shall appear to reprove them for their injustice to Job.
13. Job would wish to be spared their speeches, so as to speak out all his mind as to his wretchedness (Job 13:14), happen what will.
14. A proverb for, "Why should I anxiously desire to save my life?" [Eichorn]. The image in the first clause is that of a wild beast, which in order to preserve his prey, carries it in his teeth. That in the second refers to men who hold in the hand what they want to keep secure.
15. in him—So the margin or keri, reads. But the textual reading or chetib is "not," which agrees best with the context, and other passages wherein he says he has no hope (Job 6:11; 7:21; 10:20; 19:10). "Though He slay me, and I dare no more hope, yet I will maintain," &c., that is, "I desire to vindicate myself before Him," as not a hypocrite [Umbreit and Noyes].
16. He—rather, "This also already speaks in my behalf (literally, 'for my saving acquittal') for an hypocrite would not wish to come before Him" (as I do) [Umbreit]. (See last clause of Job 13:15).
17. my declaration—namely, that I wish to be permitted to justify myself immediately before God.
with your ears—that is, attentively.
18. ordered—implying a constant preparation for defense in his confidence of innocence.
19. if, &c.—Rather, "Then would I hold my tongue and give up the ghost"; that is, if any one can contend with me and prove me false, I have no more to say. "I will be silent and die." Like our "I would stake my life on it" [Umbreit].
20. Address to God.
not hide—stand forth boldly to maintain my cause.
21. (See on Job 9:34 and see Ps 39:10).
22. call—a challenge to the defendant to answer to the charges.
answer—the defense begun.
speak—as plaintiff.
answer—to the plea of the plaintiff. Expressions from a trial.
23. The catalogue of my sins ought to be great, to judge from the severity with which God ever anew crushes one already bowed down. Would that He would reckon them up! He then would see how much my calamities outnumber them.
sin?—singular, "I am unconscious of a single particular sin, much less many" [Umbreit].
24. hidest … face—a figure from the gloomy impression caused by the sudden clouding over of the sun.
enemy—God treated Job as an enemy who must be robbed of power by ceaseless sufferings (Job 7:17, 21).
25. (Le 26:36; Ps 1:4). Job compares himself to a leaf already fallen, which the storm still chases hither and thither.
break—literally, "shake with (Thy) terrors." Jesus Christ does not "break the bruised reed" (Isa 42:3, 27:8).
26. writest—a judicial phrase, to note down the determined punishment. The sentence of the condemned used to be written down (Isa 10:1; Jer 22:30; Ps 149:9) [Umbreit].
bitter things—bitter punishments.
makest me to possess—or "inherit." In old age he receives possession of the inheritance of sin thoughtlessly acquired in youth. "To inherit sins" is to inherit the punishments inseparably connected with them in Hebrew ideas (Ps 25:7).
27. stocks—in which the prisoner's feet were made fast until the time of execution (Jer 20:2).
lookest narrowly—as an overseer would watch a prisoner.
print—Either the stocks, or his disease, marked his soles (Hebrew, "roots") as the bastinado would. Better, thou drawest (or diggest) [Gesenius] a line (or trench) [Gesenius] round my soles, beyond which I must not move [Umbreit].
28. Job speaks of himself in the third person, thus forming the transition to the general lot of man (Job 14:1; Ps 39:11; Ho 5:12).