Job 9:27

27 When I say, I shall not speak so; I change my face, and I am tormented with sorrow. (If I say, I shall not speak thus; I shall change my face, and shall comfort myself.)

Job 9:27 Meaning and Commentary

Job 9:27

If I say, I will forget my complaint
The cause of it, the loss of his children, servants, substance, and health, and endeavour to think no more of these things, and cease complaining about them, and attempt to bury them in oblivion, and change his note:

I will leave off my heaviness;
his melancholy thoughts, words, airs, and looks; or "forsake my face" F8, put on another countenance, a more pleasent and cheerful one; the Jewish commentators generally interpret it, "my anger", either at the dispensations of Providence, or at his friends:

and comfort [myself];
that things were not worse with him than they were; or strengthen F9 himself, as the word is rendered in ( Amos 5:9 ) ; against his fears, and troubles, and dejection of mind, determining to take heart, and be of good courage, and not sink, and succumb, and faint under his burdens: none but God, Father, Son, and Spirit, can give comfort to distressed ones, whether on temporal or spiritual accounts; but good men may make use of means for comfort, such as hearing the word, reading the Scriptures, prayer, meditation, and conversation with good men.


FOOTNOTES:

F8 (ynp hbzea) "relinquam facies meas", Montanus, Bolducius, Schmidt.
F9 (hgylba) "confirmabo vel roborabo cor meum", Mercerus; so R. R.

Job 9:27 In-Context

25 My days were swifter than a courier; they fled away, and saw not good.
26 They passed away as [the] ships bearing apples, as an eagle flying to (its) meat (like an eagle flying to its food).
27 When I say, I shall not speak so; I change my face, and I am tormented with sorrow. (If I say, I shall not speak thus; I shall change my face, and shall comfort myself.)
28 I dread all my works, witting that thou sparest not the trespasser. (I fear all that I must suffer, for I know that thou sparest not the trespasser.)
29 And if I am also thus wicked, why have I travailed in vain? (And if I am held to be wicked, then why travail I in vain?)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.