Job 13:14

Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, &c.?— That is, "You ask me, why I should consider my case as thus desperate? (for that is the meaning of these phrases.) Why should you be thus slow to believe that God will deliver you out of your troubles? This looks as if you were conscious of some wickedness rendering you unworthy of such a deliverance." Job answers to this charge immediately: "It is not the want of a due hope or trust in God, occasioned by any wickedness whereof I am conscious, that makes me thus despair of my condition; for, though he slay me, (Job 13:15.) yet will I trust in him; but still I will maintain mine own ways, my own integrity before him; Job 13:16. He also shall be my salvation; for an hypocrite,—a sycophant, or false accuser, as the Hebrew word ףּחנ chanep, sometimes signifies,—shall not come before him, to charge me with crimes of which I am not guilty, in the future judgment." If we understand the word rendered hypocrite in its ordinary signification, it will afford a good sense: as thus, He also shall be my salvation, for I am no hypocrite. Here Job gives a very poetical turn to his speech; supposes himself as already dead, and standing before the tribunal of God; and bids his friends, as in that awful presence, say what they had to charge him with; Job 13:17. As if he had said, "I address myself to my trial, and plead not guilty; Job 13:19. Who is he that will litigate the matter with me? for now I will be silent, and expire." This is the Hebrew, rendered as literally as possible; and the meaning, I think, is clear; namely, "Who is he that will bring a charge against me? for you are now to consider me as dead, and standing before the tribunal of God." The translators, who certainly mistook the meaning of the words, have added an if, and so spoiled the whole turn of the sentence, thus: For now if I hold my peace, I shall give up the ghost: but there is no if in the Hebrew. It is literally as rendered above. Here, then, we must suppose Job to break off his speech for a moment, to see whether his friends would venture to accuse him of any thing when summoned before the Supreme Judge, in this solemn and affecting manner: and as they had no particular crime to charge him with, nothing but a groundless suspicion against him, we may conclude, that they must needs remain as silent upon this occasion as Job, and as if they had expired with him: upon which this holy man seems to recollect himself, and, as fearing that he might have been too bold in his appeal, addresses himself in the following verses to the Judge himself; beseeching him, in the most submissive manner, before he enters into judgment with him, to grant him two things: to withdraw his afflicting hand from him, and to veil the terrors of his majesty, that it might not strike him with too great a dread; and then to question him, and he would answer; or permit him to speak, and vouchsafe to inform him what his guilt was, and what were the reasons of these severe afflictions. See the 20th and following verses. This beautiful passage evidently shews, as well as several others in his speeches, that Job looked forward to a day of judgment, when he hoped to have his innocence cleared. See Peters, p. 165, 166.