1Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. 2What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. 3But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue with the Mighty God. 4But you smear lies; you are all worthless physicians. 5O that you would be silent and stop talking, and it would be your wisdom! 6Now listen to my arguments, and pay attention to the complaint of my lips. 7Will you speak unjustly for the Mighty God, and talk deceitfully for Him? 8Will you show partiality for Him? Will you contend for the Mighty God? 9Will it be well when He searches you out? Or do you mock Him as one mocks a man? 10He will surely rebuke you if you secretly show partiality. 11Will not His loftiness make you afraid, and the dread of Him fall upon you? 12Your remembered proverbs are worthless; your backs are backs of clay. 13Keep quiet, let me be, that I may speak; then let pass over me what will! 14Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my soul in my hands? 15Though He slay me, yet will I wait for Him; but I will prove my own ways before Him. 16He also is my salvation, for a hypocrite can not come before Him. 17Listen and pay attention to my speech; to my declaration with your ears. 18Behold now, I have prepared my case; I know that I shall be justified. 19Who is he who will contend with me? For if I am silent, I will die. 20Only two things do not do to me, O God, then I will not hide myself from Your face: 21Remove Your hand far from me, and let not the dread of You make me afraid. 22Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and You respond to me. 23How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. 24Why do You hide Your face, and regard me as Your enemy? 25Will You terrify a leaf driven to and fro? And will You pursue dry stubble? 26For You write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth. 27You put my feet in the stocks, and watch all my paths. You set a limit for the soles of my feet; 28worn out like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 JOB'S REPLY TO ZOPHAR CONTINUED. (Job 13:1-28)
all this--as to the dealings of Providence (
Job 12:3).
3 Job wishes to plead his cause before God (
Job 9:34-
Job 9:35), 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 (
Pro 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 (
Judg 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-- (
Gal 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-
Ps 82:2). 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,
Jer 10:10).
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;
Job 7:21;
Job 10:20;
Job 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,
Job 7:21).
25 (
Lev 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,
Isa 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;
Hos 5:12).