Job 13

Chap. XIII. Ver. 1—28. Job reproves his friends, and pleads with the Almighty.—Having refuted, in the preceding chapter, the erroneous doctrine of his friends respecting divine providence, he here reproves them for their unfair treatment; and appeals to the bar of the Almighty, determined to plead his own cause before Him. He charges them with collecting a string of false principles against him, assuming their truth, and condemning him upon them. Thus were they physicians of no value, who neither understood his case, nor what remedy to apply. He charges them with “speaking wickedly and deceitfully for God,” because while they pretended to justify God, they did it on false and erroneous principles.

He charges them, therefore, to be silent, and let him alone, while he maintains his own cause before God, in whom, notwithstanding all he suffered, he was still resolved to trust:—“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” “There are several passages (says Peters) that express this good man’s hope in God for a future happy state; not in this world, (which is the strange notion of some interpreters;) for nothing could be more unlikely. Job himself, all along, considers his condition as quite hopeless in this respect, appears plainly from his so often wishing for death: and his sometimes with an earnestness which nothing can account for or excuse, but his strong hopes of immortality.” To us, however, it appears that Job’s passionate desire of death was the language rather of despair than of faith or hope: afterwards, indeed, he becomes more calm and sober and in many places looks to another state, and a future judgment; but we doubt if he had any reference to an intermediate or separate state of either happiness or misery.

All the truths of religion were gradually revealed, and the doctrine of a future state more especially. During the early ages, it was involved in much obscurity; nor were life and immortality fully brought to light but in the gospel: it was only as that was gradually developed, that men began to form any proper idea of a future state. Commentators have perhaps too eagerly anticipated these discoveries. Job, in the early part of his troubles, appears to have been equally tortured in mind as in body; and while he resolutely maintained his integrity and uprightness, still confessed himself a sinner; still professed a strong confidence in God:—“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;” while, at the same time, he is at a loss to reconcile the divine character with the treatment he received from providence.

In the latter part of this chapter, he pathetically laments his situation, and entreats a suspension of his afflictions: ‘Withdraw thine hand from me, and let not thy terror make me afraid.’ He is sensible of his sin, and pleads for mercy; but complains that he was treated as a captive enemy, or culprit slave. Thus the two last verses are beautifully paraphrased in the poetical version of Scott. “With bonds and stripes, and durance hard, by thee The punishment of slaves is laid on me: To rottenness and worms a living prey, Like a moth-eaten vest, I waste away.”

Notes on the verses

Chap. XIII. Ver. 4. Forgers of lies.—“For indeed ye are collectors of falsehoods.” Those who string together false premises, and then reason from

Ver. 12. Your remembrances.—“Your memorable sayings,” (Scott) such as they had quoted from the ancients.—Like ashes—i.e. decayed—their fire and spirit extinct in their application of them.—Your bodies—“swelling sheaves” (of words) like heaps of dirt or rubbish; alluding, as Heath and others think, to their highly figurative language.

Ver. 14. Wherefore, &c.—These proverbial forms of expression are evidently synonymous, and imply Job’s determination to run all hazards.

Ver. 15. Trust in him.—Our translators follow the Keri, or marginal reading of the Hebrew, as do also the ancient versions and best modern critics.

Ver. 26. Thou settest me to possess.—“Possess by inheritance,” says Dr. Good, or “ental upon me”—the sins of my youth. Thus the Psalmist Asaph prays, “O remember not against us former iniquities!” (Psalms 79:8).

Ver. 27. Thou lookest narrowly unto all my paths.—Just as a man would watch the motions of a captive, or runaway slave. + Thou settest a mark upon the heels of my feet. It was, and still is, in slave countries, common to mark slaves on some part of their bodies: in Job’s time and country, perhaps, this was done on the heels or bottoms of the feet. Heath remarks that these expressions evidently refer to the methods of punishing slaves, a thing not unusual.

Ver. 28. And he.—The third person used for the first; among poets.

Scott.