VI. (1) BUT JOB ANSWERED AND SAID. — Job replies to Eliphaz with the despair of a man who has been baulked of sympathy when he hoped to find it. We cannot trace, nor must we expect to find, the formal reply of a logical argument, fliphaz, he feels, has so misjudged his case that he is neither worth... [ Continue Reading ]
SWALLOWED UP. — That is. _words are useless and powerless to express it._ (See the margin.)... [ Continue Reading ]
THE POISON WHEREOF DRINKETH UP MY SPIRIT. — Rather, _the poison whereof my spirit imbibeth,_ the rendering of the Authorised Version being ambiguous. DO SET THEMSELVES IN ARRAY AGAINST ME. — Like hosts marshalling themselves for battle. _“_If the ox or the ass will not low or bray so long as he is... [ Continue Reading ]
OH THAT I MIGHT HAVE MY REQUEST. — Baffled in the direction of his fellow-creatures, he turns, like many others, to God as his only hope, although it is rather from God than in God that his hope lies. However exceptional Job’s trials, yet his language is the common language of all sufferers who thin... [ Continue Reading ]
EVEN THAT IT WOULD PLEASE GOD... — The sequence of thought in these verses is obscure and uncertain. The speaker may mean that, notwithstanding all that might befall him, his consolation would still be that he had never denied the words of the Holy One. The words “I would harden myself in sorrow” ar... [ Continue Reading ]
CONCEALED — _i.e.,_ denied. The same was the confidence of the Psalmist (Psalms 40:9). (Comp. Acts 20:20.)... [ Continue Reading ]
PROLONG MY LIFE. — This is the literal rendering; but some understand _be patient,_ as in our phrase, _long-_suffering.... [ Continue Reading ]
IS NOT MY HELP IN ME? — It is in passages such as these that the actual meaning of Job is so obscure and his words so difficult. The sense may be, “Is it not that I have no help in me, and wisdom is driven quite from me?” or yet again, “Is it because there is no help in me that therefore wisdom is d... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT HE FORSAKETH THE FEAR OF THE ALMIGHTY. — It is difficult to determine the precise relation of dependent clauses in an archaic language like the Hebrew; but the Authorised Version is, at all events, not correct here, the sense rather being, “Even to one that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty;” o... [ Continue Reading ]
HAVE DEALT DECEITFULLY AS A BROOK. — This is one of the most celebrated poetical similes in the book, and carries us to life in the desert, where the wadys, so mighty and torrent-like in the winter, are insignificant streams or fail altogether in summer. So when the writer saw the Gnadalquiver (or m... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY GO TO NOTHING. — It is doubtful whether this applies to the streams or to the caravans. Thus, “The paths of their way are turned aside and come to nought;” or, “The caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside, and go into the waste and perish.” The nineteenth verse seems to suggest the l... [ Continue Reading ]
THE TROOPS OF TEMA. — Fürst says of Tema that it was a tract in the north of the Arabian Desert, on the borders of the Syrian one, where traffic was carried on from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean by caravans (Isaiah 21:14; Jeremiah 25:23; Job 6:19). Sheba, as understood here, was probably a d... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY WERE CONFOUNDED. — Comp. Jeremiah’s description of the famine (Jeremiah 14:3). (See margin.)... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR NOW YE ARE NOTHING. — “Surely now ye are become like _it” i.e.,_ that wady; or, according to another reading followed in the text of the Authorised Version, “Ye have become nothing: ye have seen an object of terror, and are terrified: ye have seen my broken-down condition, and are dismayed at it... [ Continue Reading ]
DID I SAY, BRING UNTO ME? — “It is not as though I had abused your former kindness. I never laid myself under obligations to you; I never asked for your help before. Had I done so, I might have wearied out your patience, and brought upon myself your present conduct justly; but you cannot convict me... [ Continue Reading ]
HOW FORCIBLE ARE RIGHT WORDS! — “How forcible are words of uprightness! But what doth your reproof reprove? Open rebuke is better than secret love; better to be honestly and openly rebuked by you than be subject to the secret insinuations which are intended to pass for friendship.”... [ Continue Reading ]
DO YE IMAGINE TO REPROVE WORDS...? — “It cannot be your intent to reprove mere words, as mine confessedly are (Job 6:3), and as you seem to count them (Job 6:13). If so, they are hardly worthy the trouble bestowed upon them, but might be left to answer themselves.”... [ Continue Reading ]
YEA, YE OVERWHELM THE FATHERLESS. — Rather, probably, _Ye would cast lots upon the fatherless, and make merchandise of your friend._ This is more in accordance with the language, and preserves the parallelism.... [ Continue Reading ]
NOW THEREFORE BE CONTENT to look upon me; for it will be evident unto you if I lie; or, _for surely I shall not lie to your face. _... [ Continue Reading ]
RETURN, I PRAY YOU. — “Do not regard the case as settled, but come again and examine it; try once more before you decide there is no unrighteousness in my case;” or, as some understand it, in my _tongue,_ which is expressed immediately afterwards, and is here anticipated in the pronoun _her._ This r... [ Continue Reading ]
IS THERE INIQUITY? — Or, _injustice in my tongue? Is my taste so perverted that it cannot perceive what is perverse?_ “Ye appear to think that I am wholly incapable of judging my own cause because it is my own; but if ye will only condescend to return in due course, ye shall find that I know what is... [ Continue Reading ]