Job 23
Share
This resource is exclusive for PLUS Members
Upgrade now and receive:
- Ad-Free Experience: Enjoy uninterrupted access.
- Exclusive Commentaries: Dive deeper with in-depth insights.
- Advanced Study Tools: Powerful search and comparison features.
- Premium Guides & Articles: Unlock for a more comprehensive study.
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 Job 23:9 ).
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 ( Psalms 17:5 ).
declined--( Psalms 125:5 ).
12. esteemed--rather, "laid up," namely, as a treasure found ( Matthew 13:44 , Psalms 119:11 ); alluding to the words of Eliphaz ( Job 22:22 ). There was no need to tell me so; I have done so already ( Jeremiah 15:16 ).
necessary--"Appointed portion" (of food; as in Proverbs 30:8 ). UMBREIT and MAURER translate, "More than my law," my own will, in antithesis to "the words of His mouth" ( John 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 ( Psalms 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 ( Psalms 22:14 ).
17. Because I was not taken away by death from the evil to come (literally, "from before the face of the darkness," Isaiah 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 wor as in the first, "cloud," "obscurity." Instead of "covering the cloud (of evil) from my face," He "covers" me with it ( Job 22:11 ).