Job 19:4

4 Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only[a] me.

Job 19:4 Meaning and Commentary

Job 19:4

And be it indeed [that] I have erred
Which is a concession for argument's sake, but not an acknowledgment that he had erred; though it is possible he might have erred, and it is certain he did in some things, though not in that respect with which he was charged; "humanum est errare", all men are subject to mistakes, good men may err; they may err in judgment, or from the truth in some respect, and be carried away for a while and to some degree with the error the wicked, though they shall be turned from it again; they may err in practice, and wander from the way of God's commandments; and indeed their strayings and aberrations of this sort are so many, that David says, "who can understand his errors?" ( Psalms 19:12 ) ; and they may err in words, or make a mistake in speech; but then no man should be made an offender for a word for he must be a perfect man that is free from mistakes of this kind: now Job argues that supposing this to be his case in any of the above instances; yet, says he,

mine error remaineth with myself;
I only am chargeable with it, and answerable for it; it is nothing to you, and why should you trouble yourselves about it? it will not be imputed to you, nor will you suffer on account of it; or, admitting I have imbibed an error, I do not publish it abroad; I keep it to myself; it lies and lodges in my own breast, and nobody is the worse for it: or "let it remain", or "lodge with me" F11; Why should my mistakes be published abroad, and all the world be made acquainted with them? or else this expresses his resolution to abide by what his friends called an error; and then the so is, if this is an error which I have asserted, that God afflicts both good and bad men, and that afflictions are no argument of a man's being an hypocrite and a wicked man, I am determined to continue in it; I will not give it up, I will hold it fast; it shall remain with me as a principle never to be departed from; or it may be rather his meaning is, that this notion he had imbibed would remain with him, and was likely to do so, for anything they had said, or could say to the contrary.


FOOTNOTES:

F11 (Nylt yta) "mecum maneat", Beza; to the same sense Mercerus, Schmidt, Junius and Tremellius, Piscator, Michaelis, Schultens.

Job 19:4 In-Context

2 How long will you torment me and crush me with words?
3 You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame.
4 Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me.
5 If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,
6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in His net.

Footnotes 1

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