Job 36:21

21 Take care; don't turn to evil because you've chosen it over affliction.

Job 36:21 Meaning and Commentary

Job 36:21

Take heed, regard not iniquity
Not any iniquity, as to show any approbation of it, love for it, and desire after it. All appearance of sin, of every sin, is to be abstained from; but particularly by the iniquity here meant may be the sin of impatience under his affliction; murmuring at the dealings of God with him; arraigning his justice, and saying very indecent things of him, as in ( Job 34:5 ) ( 35:2 ) . Or it may mean the evil he had been guilty of in so earnestly desiring the night of death:

for this thou hast chosen rather than affliction;
chose rather to die than to be afflicted as he was; or chose rather to complain of God, as if he dealt hardly with him, and did not do justly by him, than to submit patiently to the will of God, as he, ought to have done: or this he chose "through affliction" F4; through the force of it, because of it, and by means thereof; and so is a sort of excuse that Elihu makes for him; though at the same time he would have him by no means to regard such iniquity, and indulge to it.


FOOTNOTES:

F4 (ynem) "prae afflictione", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "prae miseria ex adflictione", Michaelis.

Job 36:21 In-Context

19 Will he arrange your rescue from distress or from all your exertions of strength?
20 Don't wish for the night when people vanish from their place.
21 Take care; don't turn to evil because you've chosen it over affliction.
22 Look, God is inaccessible due to his power; who is a teacher like him?
23 Who has repaid him for his action, and who would ever say, "You've done wrong"?
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