4 I would set my cause in order before him, And fill my mouth with arguments.
See now, I have set my cause in order. I know that I am righteous.
Be it far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn't the Judge of all the earth do right?" Yahweh said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sake." Abraham answered, "See now, I have taken it on myself to speak to the Lord, who am but dust and ashes. What if there will lack five of the fifty righteous? Will you destroy all the city for lack of five?" He said, "I will not destroy it, if I find forty-five there." He spoke to him yet again, and said, "What if there are forty found there?" He said, "I will not do it for the forty's sake." He said, "Oh don't let the Lord be angry, and I will speak. What if there are thirty found there?" He said, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." He said, "See now, I have taken it on myself to speak to the Lord. What if there are twenty found there?" He said, "I will not destroy it for the twenty's sake." He said, "Oh don't let the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. What if ten are found there?" He said, "I will not destroy it for the ten's sake."
Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'He brought them forth for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?' Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
Moses said to Yahweh, Then the Egyptians will hear it; for you brought up this people in your might from among them; and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you Yahweh are in the midst of this people; for you Yahweh are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you shall kill this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying, Because Yahweh was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness. Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying, Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation. Pardon, Please, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, and according as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after that Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will compass us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what will you do for your great name?
Teach us what we shall tell him; For we can't make our case by reason of darkness.
For your name's sake, Yahweh, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
Put me in remembrance; let us plead together: set you forth [your cause], that you may be justified.
My God, turn your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies' sake. Lord, hear; Lord, forgive; Lord, listen and do; don't defer, for your own sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your 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).