4 I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;) And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The LORD is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
O LORD, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name?
Teach us what we shall say unto him; for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness.
For thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.
O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Job 23
Commentary on Job 23 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 23
THIRD SERIES.
Job 23:1-17. Job's Answer.
2. to-day—implying, perhaps, that the debate was carried on through more days than one (see Introduction).
bitter—(Job 7:11; 10:1).
my stroke—the hand of God on me (Margin, Job 19:21; Ps 32:4).
heavier than—is so heavy that I cannot relieve myself adequately by groaning.
3. The same wish as in Job 13:3 (compare Heb 10:19-22).
Seat—The idea in the Hebrew is a well-prepared throne (Ps 9:7).
4. order—state methodically (Job 13:18; Isa 43:26).
fill, &c.—I would have abundance of arguments to adduce.
5. he—emphatic: it little matters what man may say of me, if only I know what God judges of me.
6. An objection suggests itself, while he utters the wish (Job 23:5). Do I hereby wish that He should plead against me with His omnipotence? Far from it! (Job 9:19, 34; 13:21; 30:18).
strength—so as to prevail with Him: as in Jacob's case (Ho 12:3, 4). Umbreit and Maurer better translate as in Job 4:20 (I only wish that He) "would attend to me," that is, give me a patient hearing as an ordinary judge, not using His omnipotence, but only His divine knowledge of my innocence.
7. There—rather, "Then": if God would "attend" to me (Job 23:6).
righteous—that is, the result of my dispute would be, He would acknowledge me as righteous.
delivered—from suspicion of guilt on the part of my Judge.
8. But I wish in vain. For "behold," &c.
forward … backward—rather, "to the east—to the west." The Hebrew geographers faced the east, that is, sunrise: not the north, as we do. So "before" means east: "behind," west (so the Hindus). Para, "before"—east: Apara, "behind"—west: Daschina, "the right hand"—south: Bama, "left"—north. A similar reference to sunrise appears in the name Asia, "sunrise," Europe, "sunset"; pure Babylonian names, as Rawlinson shows.
9. Rather, "To the north."
work—God's glorious works are especially seen towards the north region of the sky by one in the northern hemisphere. The antithesis is between God working and yet not being beheld: as in Job 9:11, between "He goeth by," and "I see Him not." If the Hebrew bears it, the parallelism to the second clause is better suited by translating, as Umbreit, "doth hide himself"; but then the antithesis to "behold" would be lost.
right hand—"in the south."
hideth—appropriately, of the unexplored south, then regarded as uninhabitable because of its heat (see Job 34:29).
10. But—correcting himself for the wish that his cause should be known before God. The omniscient One already knoweth the way in me (my inward principles: His outward way or course of acts is mentioned in Job 23:11. So in me, Job 4:21); though for some inscrutable cause He as yet hides Himself (Job 23:8, 9).
when—let Him only but try my cause, I shall, &c.
11. held—fast by His steps. The law is in Old Testament poetry regarded as a way, God going before us as our guide, in whose footsteps we must tread (Ps 17:5).
declined—(Ps 125:5).
12. esteemed—rather, "laid up," namely, as a treasure found (Mt 13:44; Ps 119:11); alluding to the words of Eliphaz (Job 22:22). There was no need to tell me so; I have done so already (Jer 15:16).
necessary—"Appointed portion" (of food; as in Pr 30:8). Umbreit and Maurer translate, "More than my law," my own will, in antithesis to "the words of His mouth" (Joh 6:38). Probably under the general term, "what is appointed to me" (the same Hebrew is in Job 23:14), all that ministers to the appetites of the body and carnal will is included.
13. in one mind—notwithstanding my innocence, He is unaltered in His purpose of proving me guilty (Job 9:12).
soul—His will (Ps 115:3). God's sovereignty. He has one great purpose; nothing is haphazard; everything has its proper place with a view to His purpose.
14. many such—He has yet many more such ills in store for me, though hidden in His breast (Job 10:13).
15. God's decrees, impossible to be resisted, and leaving us in the dark as to what may come next, are calculated to fill the mind with holy awe [Barnes].
16. soft—faint; hath melted my courage. Here again Job's language is that of Jesus Christ (Ps 22:14).
17. Because I was not taken away by death from the evil to come (literally, "from before the face of the darkness," Isa 57:1). Alluding to the words of Eliphaz (Job 22:11), "darkness," that is, calamity.
cut off—rather, in the Arabic sense, brought to the land of silence; my sad complaint hushed in death [Umbreit]. "Darkness" in the second clause, not the same Hebrew word as in the first, "cloud," "obscurity." Instead of "covering the cloud (of evil) from my face," He "covers" me with it (Job 22:11).