Job 7:20
Read Job 7:20 Using Other Translations
What does Job 7:20 mean?
I have sinned
Some render it, "if I have sinned" F23; be it so that I have,
as my friends say, yet since there is forgiveness with thee, why
should I be so afflicted as I am? but there is no need of such a
supplement, the words are an affirmation, I have sinned, or I am
a sinner; not that he owned that he had been guilty of any
notorious sin, or had lived a sinful course of life, on account
of which his afflictions came upon him, as his friends suggested;
but that he was not without sin, was daily guilty of it, as men,
even the best of men, ordinarily are; and being a sinner was not
a match for a holy God; he could not contend with him, nor answer
him for one sin of a thousand committed by him in thought, word,
or deed; and therefore desires him to desist and depart from him,
see ( Luke 5:8 )
;
what shall I do unto thee?
this he said, not as one in distress of mind on account of sin,
and under the load of the guilt of it, inquiring what he must do
to make satisfaction for it, how and what way he could be saved
from it; for he knew that nothing done by him in a ceremonial way
by sacrifices, nor in a moral way by the performance of duties,
could take away sin, or atone for it, or save him from it; he
knew this was only by his living Redeemer, and whom he knew and
determined should be his salvation, and he only; see ( Job 9:30 Job 9:31 ) ( Job 13:15 Job 13:16 ) ( 19:25 ) ; but rather as
it may be rendered, "what can or ought I do unto thee?"
F24 that is, more than I have done,
namely, to confess my sin unto thee; what more dost thou require
of me? or what more can be done by me, than to repent of my sin,
acknowledge it, and beg pardon for it? as he does in ( Job 7:21 ) : or "what can
I do unto thee?" thou art all over match for me, I cannot
struggle and contend with thee, a sinful man with an holy God:
O thou preserver of men?
as he is in a providential way, the supporter of men in their
lives and beings; or, "O thou keeper of men" F25, as he
is, not only of Israel, but of all others, and that night and
day; perhaps Job may refer to his setting and keeping a watch
over him, ( Job 7:12 ) ; and enclosing
and hedging him all around with afflictions, so that he could not
get out of the world as he desired; or, "O thou observer of men"
F26, of their words, ways, works, and
actions, and who kept such a strict eye upon him while wrestling
with him, and therefore what could he do? or, "O thou Saviour of
men" F1, by whom only I can be saved from
the sins I have been and am daily guilty of:
why hast thou set me as a mark against thee?
as a butt to shoot thine arrows at, one affliction after another,
thick and fast, see ( Job 16:12 ) ( Lamentations
3:12 ) ; the words I think may be rendered, "why hast thou
appointed me to meet thee", or "for a meeting with thee?"
F2 as one man challenge, another to
meet him in such a place and fight him: alas! I am not equal to
thee, I am a mere worm, not able to contend with thee the mighty
God, or to meet thee in the way of thy judgments, and to endure
the heavy strokes of thy angry hand; and so Bar Tzemach
paraphrases it,
``thou hast hated me, and not loved me; that thou hast set, or appointed me to meet thee, as a man meets his enemy in the time of his wrath, and he stirs up against him all his fury:''and to the same sense, and much in the same words, Jarchi interprets it:
so that I am a burden to myself?
weary of his life, through the many pressing and heavy
afflictions upon him, as Rebekah was of hers, because of the
daughters of Heth, ( Genesis
27:46 ) . The reading which we follow, and is followed by the
Targum, and by most interpreters, Jewish and Christian, is a
correction of the scribes, and one of the eighteen places
corrected by them; which is no argument of the corruption of the
Hebrew text, but of the contrary; since this was only placed in
the margin of the Bible, as the Masorites afterwards did with
their various readings, showing only what was their sense of
this, and the like passages; and as an instruction how in their
opinion to understand them, still retaining the other reading or
writing; and which, according to Aben Ezra, may be rightly
interpreted, and is, "so that I am a burden to thee" F3; and
which is followed by some, signifying, as Job thought at least,
that he was so offensive to him that he could not bear him, but
treated him as an enemy; was weary of him, as God is said to be
of sinners and their sins, and of the services and duties of
carnal professors, see ( Isaiah 1:14 ) (
43:24
) ; so Abendana interprets it,
``thou hast set me for a mark unto thee, as if I was a burden to thee.''
F23 Vatablus, Drusius, Schmidt; so Sept. Syr. & Ar.
F24 (Kl lepa hm) "quid faciam aut facere possum tibi", Michaelis; "debeam", Schmidt.
F25 (Mdah run) "custos hominum". V. L. Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus.
F26 "Observator", Schultens.
F1 "Sospitatur", Codurcus; "servator", Drusius, Schmidt, Michaelis. Vid. Witsii Oeconom. Foeder. l. 4. c. 3. sect. 30.
F2 (Kl enpml) "in occursum tibi", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Drusius.
F3 (Kyle) (epi soi) , Sept. "et tibi", Beza, Grotius.
