When the cattle shall, contrary to their natural and usual course, bring forth young ones of a contrary colour to their own, it will hereby be evident that this is the work of God, who hereby pleads my righteous cause against a cruel and unjust master. Or thus, When thou shall accuse me of doing thee injury, I shall have this manifest and undeniable evidence of my righteousness or innocency, that I have no cattle but of that colour which is by agreement appropriated to me. When it shall come for my hire before thy face. When it, i.e. my righteousness, shall come to, or upon my reward, i.e. when my righteousness shall appear in the very colour of that cattle which is allotted to me for my reward or hire; before thy face, i.e. thou being present and diligently observing whether I have any cattle of another colour. But the Hebrew word tabo is also of the second person, and so the sense seems to be this, When thou shalt come upon my hire or reward, to wit, to observe and see whether I have any other cattle than what belongs to me. And so these words come in by way of parenthesis; and the following words, before my face, are to be joined to the former words, thus, so shall righteousness answer for me in time to come (when thou shalt come upon my hire) before thy face. This I prefer before the other, because the phrase of coming upon his hire seems more properly to agree to a person than to his righteousness.

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