Bible Commentaries

Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire ^a to reason with God.

(a) For although he knew that God was just, which was revealed in his ordinary working and another in his secret counsel, yet he uttered his affection to God, because he was not able to understand the reason he punished him.

But ye [are] forgers of lies, ye [are] all ^b physicians of no value.

(b) You do not well apply your medicine to the disease.

Will ye speak ^c wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?

(c) He condemns their zeal, who did not have knowledge, nor regarded they to comfort him, but always granted on God's justice, as though it was not evidently seen in Job, unless they had undertaken the probation of it.

Your ^d remembrances [are] like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.

(d) Your fame will come to nothing.

Wherefore do I ^e take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?

(e) Is not this a revealed sign of my affliction and that I do not complain without cause, seeing that I am thus tormented as though I should tear my own flesh, and put my life in danger?

He also [shall be] my salvation: for an ^f hypocrite shall not come before him.

(f) By which he declares that he is not a hypocrite as they charged him.

Behold now, I have ordered [my] cause; I know that I shall be ^g justified.

(g) That is, cleared and not cut off for my sins, as you think.

Who [is] he [that] will plead ^h with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall ⁱ give up the ghost.

(h) To prove that God punishes me for my sins.

(i) If I do not defend my cause, every man will condemn me.

^k Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.

(k) He shows what these two things are.

How many [are] ^l mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.

(l) His pangs move him to reason with God, not denying that he had sinned: but he desired to understand what his great sins were that he deserved such rigor, in which he sinned by demanding a reason from God why he punished him.

For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess ^m the iniquities of my youth.

(m) You punish me now for the sins that I committed in my youth.

Thou puttest my feet also in the ⁿ stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.

(n) You make me your prisoner, and so press me that I cannot stir hand or foot.