My transgression [is] sealed up in a bag
Denoting either the concealment of it, as in ( Hosea 13:12 ) ; not from God; nor in such sense sealed up as sin is by the sacrifice and satisfaction of Christ, who has thereby removed it out of the sight of divine justice; so that when it is sought for it shall not be found, nor any more seen, which is the sense of the phrase in ( Daniel 9:24 ) ; where the words, "to make an end of sin", may be rendered, to "seal [them] up"; but this Job would not have complained of; he means it was hid as in a bag from himself, or he knew not what it was; the transgression was sealed up from him, he was entirely ignorant of and unacquainted with what it was for which he was severely afflicted: or else his sense is, that God had taken strict notice of his transgressions, and had, as it were, put them up in a bag, and set a seal upon it, that none might be lost, but might be ready to be produced against him another day; in allusion, as it is thought, to bills of indictment put up in bags sealed, to be brought into courts of judicature at a proper time, for which they are reserved:
and thou sewest up mine iniquity;
in the bag in which it is sealed; not only did he seal up the bag, but sewed a cloth over it thus sealed, for greater security: or "thou sewest to mine iniquity" F13, or adds iniquity to iniquity, as in ( Psalms 69:27 ) ; as arithmeticians do, who add one number to another until it becomes a great sum; thus God, according to Job, tacked and joined one sin to another, till it became one large heap and pile, reaching to the heavens, and calling for vengeance; or, as Sephorno interprets it, joined sins of ignorance to sins of presumption; or rather sewed or added the punishment of sin to sin, or punishment to punishment; the Targum is,
``my transgression is sealed up in a book of remembrances, and thou hast joined it to my iniquities.''
The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.