If I be wicked ; rather, I am wicked ; i.e. I am accounted so—I am already condemned. The extreme afflictions raider which I suffer indicate that God has passed sentence upon me, and awarded me my punishment. Why then labour I in vain? i.e. Why argue? Why seek to justify myself, since no result is likely to follow? Nothing that I can say will alter God's foregone conclusion. read more
If I wash myself with snow-water (comp. Psalms 51:7 ). If I should succeed in purging myself of all guilt, and establishing, so far as words can do it, my spotless innocence even then what advantage should I gain? Snow-water does not really cleanse what is defiled better than any other water, but a lively fancy might suppose it to do so. Job indulges in this fancy, but then checks himself, and adds a prosaic alternative. And make my hands never so clean; rather, and make my hands clean... read more
Despair of purification. Job is possessed by a terrible thought. He imagines that God is so determined to have him as an object of condemnation that nothing he can do can set him right; even if he makes himself ever so clean, God will plunge him back in the mire, God will overwhelm him with guilt. This is, of course, a wholly false view of God, though it is not altogether inexcusable with Job in his ignorance and awful distress. I. GOD ONLY DESIRES OUR PURIFICATION . We may not... read more
Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch . Yet would God with ease undo his work, show his purity to be impure, his righteousness to be filthy rags, and thus, as it were, replunge him in the mire and clay from which he had sought to free himself, and hold him forth a more loathsome wretch than ever. And mine own clothes shall abhor me . So loathsome would he be that his very garments, stained and fouled by his disease, would shrink away from him and hate to touch him. read more
For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him; and we should come together in judgment (comp. Job 9:2-14 ). On one of two conditions only, Job thinks, could the contest be even between himself and God. Neither condition, however, was (he thought) possible; and therefore no satisfactory judgment could take place. Recent commentators observe that the Christian scheme, which Job could not anticipate, provides almost a literal fulfilment of both conditions, since the God who is to... read more
Neither is there any daysman betwixt us ; literally ' judge ' or arbitrator called a "daysman," since he appoints the day on which the arbitration is to come off. The LXX . renders by μεσίτης , "mediator." That might lay his hand upon us bosh. Moderate between us, that is; keep us both in cheek; assert an authority to which we must both submit. read more
The Mediator. The object desired by Job—and here he speaks for all sinful ones—is to obtain reconciliation with Jehovah, against whom he acknowledges himself to have sinned. He cries for a mediator, an arbiter, an umpire; one able to "lay his hand upon us both"—to bring us together, mediating between us. I. THE NECESSITY FOR THIS ARISES : 1 . From Job's consciousness of sin. In his prayer (verse 28) he confesses to God, "I know thou wilt not hold me innocent." "I am not... read more
The Daysman. Job regarded it as unfair that his Judge and his Accuser should be one and the same Person, and he craved an umpire to come between. As a matter of fact, he was mistaken. His accuser was not his Judge. Satan was his accuser, and God was the great and just Umpire of the contest. Still, men have ever felt the need of one who should come between them and God, and assist them in coming to a right understanding with God. The feeling has arisen in part from a similar mistake to Job's,... read more
Let him take his rod away from me ; rather, who would remove his rod from me. Job means that it would be a part of the duty of the "daysman" to see that God's rod was removed from him before he was called upon to plead, so that he might not labour under so erect a disadvantage as his sufferings would place him under. And let not his fear terrify me; or, and would not suffer his fear to terrify me ; i.e. would not allow Job to be placed under the disadvantage, either of pain or of fear,... read more
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The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:28
I am afraid of all my sorrows (see the comment on Job 9:27 ). I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent . The worst of all Job's sorrows is the sense of alienation from God, which his unexampled sufferings have wrought in him. Though unconscious of having deserved them, he still, not unnaturally, looks upon them as marks of God s displeasure, proofs that God does not regard him as innocent. read more