Job 27:10

will he delight himself?] Or, doth he delight himself? The wicked man has no consolation, no resource, in the manifold conditions of life when men need higher help than their own; he has no pleasure in God nor fellowship with Him, and cannot appeal to Him.

It is manifest that in these verses the speaker means to contrast his own condition of mind with that of the godless man. He has hope in God, in death and in trouble, for he delighteth himself in God at all times. Such words as those in Job 27:8; Job 27:10, are not out of place in the mouth of Job, comp. ch. Job 16:19 seq., Job 19:25 seq., Job 23:10 seq., Job 31:2-6. It is less easy, however, to combine what is implied in the words of Job 27:9, "Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?" with Job's repeated complaints that God refused to hear him, e. g. ch. Job 13:24; Job 19:7, and many other passages. The only solution would be to consider that he had fought his way through to an assured trust in God, such as he had cherished during his past life (ch. Job 12:4 seq.), or rather, that such a trust here suddenly broke upon him and filled his mind, and enabled him to look now for release from his calamities and restoration in a word to anticipate that issue of his afflictions which actually ensued. And such is the construction which some of the ablest commentators (e.g. Ewald) put upon the language. Such a change of view in regard to the issue of his afflictions implies a complete revolution in Job's mind, for he had hitherto consistently and even pertinaciously (ch. Job 17:1-2; Job 17:10-16) contended that his malady was mortal, and continued to do this even so late as ch. Job 23:14, "For he will perform the thing appointed for me." Such a revolution, however, may be conceived and admitted, provided Job's subsequent utterances are in harmony with it. Unfortunately, however, they are not; for in ch. Job 30:20 he exclaims, "I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear me, I stand up and thou gazest at me"; and in Job 27:23 of the same chapter he says, "For I know that thou wilt bring me unto death" (i. e. through his present afflictions). Here he is found again occupying the same position in regard to his malady under the hand of God as he had consistently maintained throughout. It is very hard to reconcile such expressions with ch. Job 27:7-10, on the assumption that the last-named passage really belongs to Job.