Yet thou sayest, because I am innocent
Or, "that I am innocent"; though guilty of such flagrant and notorious crimes, acting like the adulterous woman, ( Proverbs 30:20 ) to whom the Jews are all along compared in this chapter; which shows the hardness of their hearts, and their impudence in sinning: surely his anger shall turn from me;
the anger of God, since innocent; or, "let his anger be turned from me", as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; pleading for the removing of judgments upon the foot of innocency, which is pretended: behold, I will plead with thee;
enter into judgment with thee, and examine the case closely and thoroughly: because thou sayest, I have not sinned;
it would have been much better to have acknowledged sin, and pleaded for mercy, than to insist upon innocence, when the proof was so evident; nothing can be got by entering into judgment with God, upon such a foundation; and to sin, and deny it, is an aggravation of it: the denial of sin is a double sin, as the wise man says, whom Kimchi cites.