4 Behold, I am nought: what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.
Princes refrained from talking, and laid the hand on their mouth;
Mark me, and be astonished, and lay the hand upon the mouth.
And I said, Woe unto me! for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.
If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, [lay] the hand upon thy mouth.
And they said to him, "Keep quiet, put your hand upon your mouth, and come with us, and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and family in Israel?"
-- I am too small for all the loving-kindness and all the faithfulness that thou hast shewn unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two troops.
But Jehovah is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him!
Faithful [is] the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom *I* am [the] first.
I will rise up and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee; I am no longer worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
But Simon Peter, seeing it, fell at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.
And David's heart smote him after he had numbered the people. And David said to Jehovah, I have sinned greatly in what I have done; and now, I beseech thee, Jehovah, put away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.
-- The nations shall see, and be ashamed for all their might: they shall lay [their] hand upon [their] mouth, their ears shall be deaf.
Thine, O Lord, is the righteousness, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, in all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their unfaithfulness in which they have been unfaithful against thee.
we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy commandments and from thine ordinances.
And we are all become as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us away;
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in thy sight; that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, be clear when thou judgest. Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; for *thou* hast done [it].
I would order the cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments; I would know the words he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Would he plead against me with [his] great power? Nay; but he would give heed unto me. There would an upright man reason with him; and I should be delivered for ever from my judge.
Oh that there were arbitration for a man with +God, as a son of man for his friend!
Then wouldest thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes would abhor me. For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him; that we should come together in judgment. There is not an umpire between us, who should lay his hand upon us both. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his terror make me afraid, [Then] I will speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.
But thou art just in all that is come upon us; for thou hast acted according to truth, and we have done wickedly.
Jehovah, God of Israel, thou art righteous; for we are a remnant that is escaped, as [it is] this day. Behold, we are before thee in our trespasses; for there is no standing before thee because of this.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 40
Commentary on Job 40 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 40
Many humbling confounding questions God had put to Job, in the foregoing chapter; now, in this chapter,
Job 40:1-5
Here is,
Job 40:6-14
Job was greatly humbled for what God had already said, but not sufficiently; he was brought low, but not low enough; and therefore God here proceeds to reason with him in the same manner and to the same purport as before, v. 6. Observe,
God begins with a challenge (v. 7), as before (ch. 38:3): "Gird up thy loins now like a man; if thou hast the courage and confidence thou hast pretended to, show them now; but thou wilt soon be made to see and own thyself no match for me.' This is that which every proud heart must be brought to at last, either by its repentance or by its ruin; and thus low must every mountain and hill be, sooner or later, brought. We must acknowledge,
Job 40:15-24
God, for the further proving of his own power and disproving of Job's pretensions, concludes his discourse with the description of two vast and mighty animals, far exceeding man in bulk and strength, one he calls behemoth, the other leviathan. In these verses we have the former described. "Behold now behemoth, and consider whether thou art able to contend with him who made that beast and gave him all the power he has, and whether it is not thy wisdom rather to submit to him and make thy peace with him.' Behemoth signifies beasts in general, but must here be meant of some one particular species. Some understand it of the bull; others of an amphibious animal, well known (they say) in Egypt, called the river-horse (hippopotamus), living among the fish in the river Nile, but coming out to feed upon the earth. But I confess I see no reason to depart from the ancient and most generally received opinion, that it is the elephant that is here described, which is a very strong stately creature, of very large stature above any other, of wonderful sagacity, and of so great a reputation in the animal kingdom that among so many four-footed beasts as we have had the natural history of (ch. 38 and 39) we can scarcely suppose this should be omitted. Observe,