JOB'S FIFTH SPEECH In this speech Job repeats his bitter complaints of God's injustice, and man's contemptuous abandonment of one formerly so loved and honoured. He appeals in broken utterances to his friends to pity him; then from them he would fain appeal to posterity, wishing that he might engrav... [ Continue Reading ]
TEN TIMES] i.e. continually: cp. Genesis 31:7; Numbers 14:22.... [ Continue Reading ]
MINE ERROR REMAINETH WITH MYSELF] i.e. 'is my own affair,' or, perhaps, 'injures myself alone.'... [ Continue Reading ]
Job maintains, rightly, that his calamities were not due to his sins, but, wrongly, that they were the result of God's unjust action. As the reader knows from the Prologue, God permitted these trials in order to test and make manifest Job's uprightness. Job's ignorance of this explains and excuses m... [ Continue Reading ]
Render, 'Behold, I shriek “Violence,” and am not answered. I clamour, and there is no justice.'... [ Continue Reading ]
Job's bewildered state: his mind sees no clear course.... [ Continue Reading ]
GLORY.. CROWN] probably Job's righteousness, on which his sufferings seemed to throw doubt.... [ Continue Reading ]
MINE HOPE] viz. of recovery, or perhaps of happiness.... [ Continue Reading ]
TROOPS] of afflictions: cp. 'battalions of sorrows' ('Hamlet,' IV, 5). RAISE UP THEIR WAY] The figure is that of casting up a mound by which to attack a city.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY THAT DWELL IN MINE HOUSE] the servants or guests.... [ Continue Reading ]
Render, 'My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to the children of my (mother's) womb'; owing to his complaint.... [ Continue Reading ]
I AROSE, etc.] RV 'If I arise, they speak,' etc.; i.e. the children mock him.... [ Continue Reading ]
INWARD] i.e. intimate. 20A. The words describe his leanness. I AM ESCAPED, etc.] Some would substitute, 'And I am escaped with my flesh in my teeth' (cp. Job 13:14). 22B. 'You cannot tear me to pieces enough' An 'eater of flesh' is an Eastern expression for a slanderer. 23-27. Job had frequently e... [ Continue Reading ]
PRINTED IN A BOOK] RV 'inscribed in a book'; but since a book quickly perishes, he substitutes the wish that his words might be graven in the imperishable rock. 25-27. Render, 'But as for me I know that my vindicator is alive (i.e. exists), and hereafter He will stand above the dust (either of Job... [ Continue Reading ]
REDEEMER] Heb. _Go'el,_ from _ga'al_, 'to make a claim.' The _Go'el_ was the next of kin whose duty it was to prevent land being sold out of the clan (Leviticus 25:25), and to avenge murder. See also Ruth 3:4 and notes. Driver points out that the word means here the opposite to the Christian idea, v... [ Continue Reading ]
IN MY FLESH] rather, 'without' or 'apart from my flesh,' i.e. after death.... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR MYSELF] RM 'on my side.' NOT ANOTHER] or, 'not as another,' i.e. no longer estranged. 27B. RV 'my reins are consumed within me.' He faints with emotion at the thought of this vindication.... [ Continue Reading ]
Probably with 'many ancient authorities' (RM) we should read 'him' instead of 'me' in the second line, and translate, 'If ye say, How we will persecute him, and find the root of the matter in him,' i.e. probe relentlessly till they find the secret sin which has led to Job's afflictions. Job proceeds... [ Continue Reading ]