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Selected Verse: Job 7:20 - Strong Concordance

Verse	Translation	Text
Job 7:20	Strong Concordance	I have sinned [02398]; what shall I do [06466] unto thee, O thou preserver [05341] of men [0120]? why hast thou set [07760] me as a mark [04645] against thee, so that I am a burden [04853] to myself?
	King James	I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
I have sinned--Yet what sin can I do against ("to," Job 35:6) thee (of such a nature that thou shouldst jealously watch and deprive me of all strength, as if thou didst fear me)? Yet thou art one who hast men ever in view, ever watchest them--O thou Watcher (Job 7:12; Dan 9:14) of men. Job had borne with patience his trials, as sent by God (Job 1:21; Job 2:10); only his reason cannot reconcile the ceaseless continuance of his mental and bodily pains with his ideas of the divine nature. set me as a mark--Wherefore dost thou make me thy point of attack? that is, ever assail me with new pains? [UMBREIT] (Lam 3:12).

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

I have sinned--Yet what sin can I do against ("to," Job 35:6) thee (of such a nature that thou shouldst jealously watch and deprive me of all strength, as if thou didst fear me)? Yet thou art one who hast men ever in view, ever watchest them--O thou Watcher (Job 7:12; Dan 9:14) of men. Job had borne with patience his trials, as sent by God (Job 1:21; Job 2:10); only his reason cannot reconcile the ceaseless continuance of his mental and bodily pains with his ideas of the divine nature.

set me as a mark--Wherefore dost thou make me thy point of attack? that is, ever assail me with new pains? [UMBREIT] (Lam 3:12).

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
I have sinned - חטאתי châṭâ'tı̂y. This is a literal translation, and as it stands in the common version it is the language of a penitent - confessing that he had erred, and making humble acknowledgment of his sins. That such a confession became Job, and that he would be willing to admit that he was a sinner, there can be no doubt; but the connection seems rather to require a different sense - a sense implying that though he had sinned, yet his offences could not be such as to require the notice which God had taken of them. Accordingly this interpretation has been adopted by many, and the Hebrew will bear the construction. It may be rendered as a question, "Have I sinned; what did I against thee" Herder. Or, the sense may be, "I have sinned. I admit it. Let this be conceded. But what can that be to a being like God, that he should take such notice of it? Have I injured him? Have I deserved these heavy trials? Is it proper that he should make me a special mark, and direct his severest judgments against me in this manner?" compare the notes at -Job 35:6-8. The Syriac renders it in this manner, "If I have sinned, what have I done to thee?" So the Arabic, according to Walton. So the Septuagint, Εἰ ἐγὼ ἥμαρτον Ei egō hēmarton - "if I have sinned." This expresses the true sense. The object is not so much to make a penitent confession, as it is to say, that on the worst construction of the case, on the admission of the truth of the charge, he had not deserved the severe inflictions which he had received at the hand of God. What shall I do unto thee? - Or, rather, what have I done unto thee? How can my conduct seriously affect thee? It will not mar thy happiness, affect thy peace, or in any way injure a being so great as God. This sentiment is often felt by people - but not often so honestly expressed. O thou Preserver of men - Or, rather, "O thou that dost watch or observe men." The word rendered "Preserver" נצר notsēr is a participle from נצר nâtsar which means, according to Gesenius, to watch, to guard, to keep, and is used here in the sense of observing one's faults; and the idea of Job is, that God closely observed the conduct of people; that he strictly marked their faults, and severely punished them; and he asks with impatience, and evidently with improper feeling, why he thus closely watched people. So it is understood by Schultens, Rosenmuller, Dr. Good, Noyes, Herder, Kennicott, and others. The Septuagint renders it, "who knowest the mind of men?" Why hast thou set me as a mark? - The word rendered "mark" מפגע mı̂phgâ‛, means properly that which one impinges against - from פגע pâga‛, to impinge against, to meet, to rush upon anyone - and here means, why has God made me such an object of attack or assault? The Septuagint renders it, κατεντευκτήν σου katenteuktēn sou, "an accuser of thee." So that I am a burden to myself - The Septuagint renders this, ἐπὶ σοὶ φορτίον epi soi phortion, a burden to thee. The copy from which they translated evidently had עליך ‛alēykā - to thee, instead of עלי ‛ālay - to me, as it is now read in the Hebrew. "The Masoretes also place this among the eighteen passages which they say were altered by transcribers." Noyes. But the Received Text is sustained by all the versions except the Septuagint and by all the Hebrew manuscripts hitherto examined, and is doubtless the true reading. The sense is plain, that life had become a burden to Job. He says that God had made him the special object of his displeasure, and that his condition was insupportable. That there is much in this language which is irreverent and improper no one can doubt, and it is not possible wholly to vindicate it. Nor are we called to do it by any view which we have of the nature of inspiration. He was a good, but not a perfect man. These expressions are recorded, not for our imitation, but to show what human nature is. Before harshly condemning him, however, we should ask what we would be likely to do in his circumstances; we should remember also, that he had few of the truths and promises to support him which we have.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

I have sinned - חטאתי châṭâ'tı̂y. This is a literal translation, and as it stands in the common version it is the language of a penitent - confessing that he had erred, and making humble acknowledgment of his sins. That such a confession became Job, and that he would be willing to admit that he was a sinner, there can be no doubt; but the connection seems rather to require a different sense - a sense implying that though he had sinned, yet his offences could not be such as to require the notice which God had taken of them. Accordingly this interpretation has been adopted by many, and the Hebrew will bear the construction. It may be rendered as a question, "Have I sinned; what did I against thee" Herder. Or, the sense may be, "I have sinned. I admit it. Let this be conceded. But what can that be to a being like God, that he should take such notice of it? Have I injured him? Have I deserved these heavy trials? Is it proper that he should make me a special mark, and direct his severest judgments against me in this manner?" compare the notes at -Job 35:6-8. The Syriac renders it in this manner, "If I have sinned, what have I done to thee?" So the Arabic, according to Walton. So the Septuagint, Εἰ ἐγὼ ἥμαρτον Ei egō hēmarton - "if I have sinned." This expresses the true sense. The object is not so much to make a penitent confession, as it is to say, that on the worst construction of the case, on the admission of the truth of the charge, he had not deserved the severe inflictions which he had received at the hand of God.

What shall I do unto thee? - Or, rather, what have I done unto thee? How can my conduct seriously affect thee? It will not mar thy happiness, affect thy peace, or in any way injure a being so great as God. This sentiment is often felt by people - but not often so honestly expressed.

O thou Preserver of men - Or, rather, "O thou that dost watch or observe men." The word rendered "Preserver" נצר notsēr is a participle from נצר nâtsar which means, according to Gesenius, to watch, to guard, to keep, and is used here in the sense of observing one's faults; and the idea of Job is, that God closely observed the conduct of people; that he strictly marked their faults, and severely punished them; and he asks with impatience, and evidently with improper feeling, why he thus closely watched people. So it is understood by Schultens, Rosenmuller, Dr. Good, Noyes, Herder, Kennicott, and others. The Septuagint renders it, "who knowest the mind of men?"

Why hast thou set me as a mark? - The word rendered "mark" מפגע mı̂phgâ‛, means properly that which one impinges against - from פגע pâga‛, to impinge against, to meet, to rush upon anyone - and here means, why has God made me such an object of attack or assault? The Septuagint renders it, κατεντευκτήν σου katenteuktēn sou, "an accuser of thee."

So that I am a burden to myself - The Septuagint renders this, ἐπὶ σοὶ φορτίον epi soi phortion, a burden to thee. The copy from which they translated evidently had עליך ‛alēykā - to thee, instead of עלי ‛ālay - to me, as it is now read in the Hebrew. "The Masoretes also place this among the eighteen passages which they say were altered by transcribers." Noyes. But the Received Text is sustained by all the versions except the Septuagint and by all the Hebrew manuscripts hitherto examined, and is doubtless the true reading. The sense is plain, that life had become a burden to Job. He says that God had made him the special object of his displeasure, and that his condition was insupportable. That there is much in this language which is irreverent and improper no one can doubt, and it is not possible wholly to vindicate it. Nor are we called to do it by any view which we have of the nature of inspiration. He was a good, but not a perfect man. These expressions are recorded, not for our imitation, but to show what human nature is. Before harshly condemning him, however, we should ask what we would be likely to do in his circumstances; we should remember also, that he had few of the truths and promises to support him which we have.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
20 Have I sinned - what could I do to Thee?! O Observer of men, Why dost Thou make me a mark to Thee, And am I become a burden to Thee? 21 And why dost Thou not forgive my transgression, And put away my iniquity? For now I will lay myself in the dust, And Thou seekest for me, and I am no more. "I have sinned" is hypothetical (Ges. 155, 4, a): granted that I have sinned. According to Ewald and Olsh., אפעל־לך מה defines it more particularly: I have sinned by what I have done to Thee, in my behaviour towards Thee; but how tame and meaningless such an addition would be! It is an inferential question: what could I do to Thee? i.e., what harm, or also, since the fut. may be regulated by the praet.: what injury have I thereby done to Thee? The thought that human sin, however, can detract nothing from the blessedness and glory of God, underlies this. With a measure of sinful bitterness, Job calls God האדם נצר, the strict and constant observer of men, per convicium fere, as Gesenius not untruly observes, nevertheless without a breach of decorum divinum (Renan: O Espion de l'homme), since the appellation, in itself worthy of God (Isa 27:3), is used here only somewhat unbecomingly. מפגּע is not the target for shooting at, which is rather מטּרה (Job 16:12; Lam 3:12), but the object on which one rushes with hostile violence (בּ פּגע). Why, says Job, hast Thou made me the mark of hostile attack, and why am I become a burden to Thee? It is not so in our text; but according to Jewish tradition, עלי, which we now have, is only a סופרים תקון, correctio scribarum, (Note: Vid., the Commentary on Habakkuk, S. 206-208; comp. Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, S. 308ff.) for אליך, which was removed as bordering on blasphemy: why am I become a burden to Thee, so that Thou shouldest seek to get rid of me? This reading I should not consider as the original, in spite of the tradition, if it were not confirmed by the lxx, εἰμὶ δὲ ἐπὶ σοὶ φορτίον. It is not to be objected, that he who is fully conscious of sin cannot consider the strictest divine punishment even of the smallest sin unjust. The suffering of one whose habitual state is pleasing to God, and who is conscious of the divine favour, can never be explained from, and measured according to, his infirmities: the infirmities of one who trusts in God, or the believer, and the severity of the divine justice in the punishment of sin, have no connection with one another. Consequently, when Eliphaz bids Job regard his affliction as chastisement, Job is certainly in the wrong to dispute with God concerning the magnitude of it: he would rather patiently yield, if his faith could apprehend the salutary design of God in his affliction; but after his affliction once seems to him to spring from wrath and enmity, and not from the divine purpose of mercy, after the phantom of a hostile God is come between him and the brightness of the divine countenance, he cannot avoid falling into complaint of unmercifulness. For this the speech of Eliphaz is in itself not to blame: he had most feelingly described to him God's merciful purpose in this chastisement, but he is to blame for not having taken the right tone. The speech of Job is directed against the unsympathetic and reproving tone which the friends, after their long silence, have assumed immediately upon his first manifestation of anguish. He justifies to them his complaint (ch. 3) as the natural and just outburst of his intense suffering, desires speedy death as the highest joy with which God could reward his piety, complains of his disappointment in his friends, from whom he had expected affectionate solace, but by whom he sees he is now forsaken, and earnestly exhorts them to acknowledge the justice of his complaint (ch. 6). But can they? Yes, they might and should. For Job thinks he is no longer an object of divine favour: an inward conflict, which is still more terrible than hell, is added to his outward suffering. For the damned must give glory to God, because they recognise their suffering as just punishment: Job, however, in his suffering sees the wrath of God, and still is at the same time conscious of his innocence. The faith which, in the midst of his exhaustion of body and soul, still knows and feels God to be merciful, and can call him "my God," like Asaph in Ps 73, - this faith is well-nigh overwhelmed in Job by the thought that God is his enemy, his pains the arrows of God. The assumption is false, but on this assumption Job's complaints (ch. 3) are relatively just, including, what he himself says, that they are mistaken, thoughtless words of one in despair. But that despair is sin, and therefore also those curses and despairing inquiries! Is not Eliphaz, therefore, in the right? His whole treatment is wrong. Instead of distinguishing between the complaint of his suffering and the complaint of God in Job's outburst of anguish, he puts them together, without recognising the complaint of his suffering to be the natural and unblamable result of its extraordinary magnitude, and as a sympathizing friend falling in with it. But with regard to the complaints of God, Eliphaz, acting as though careful for his spiritual welfare, ought not to have met them with his reproofs, especially as the words of one heavily afflicted deserve indulgence and delicate treatment; but he should have combated their false assumption. First, he should have said to Job, "Thy complaints of thy suffering are just, for thy suffering is incomparably great." In the next place, "Thy cursing thy birth, and thy complaint of God who has given thee thy life, might seem just if it were true that God has rejected thee; but that is not true: even in suffering He designs thy good; the greater the suffering, the greater the glory." By this means Eliphaz should have calmed Job's despondency, so as to destroy his false assumption; but he begins wrongly, and consequently what he says at last so truly and beautifully respecting the glorious issue of a patient endurance of chastisement, makes no impression on Job. He has not fanned the faintly burning wick, but his speech is a cold and violent breath which is calculated entirely to extinguish it. After Job has defended the justice of his complaints against the insensibility of the friends, he gives way anew to lamentation. Starting from the wearisomeness of human life in general, he describes the greatness of his own suffering, which has received no such recognition on the part of the friends: it is a restless, torturing death without hope (Job 7:1-6). Then he turns to God: O remember that there is no second life after death, and that I am soon gone for ever; therefore I will utter my woe without restraint (Job 7:7-11). Thus far (from Job 6:1 onwards) I find in Job's speech no trace of blasphemous or sinful despair. When he says (Job 6:8-12), How I would rejoice if God, whose word I have never disowned, would grant me my request, and end my life, for I can no longer bear my suffering, - I cannot with Ewald see in its despair rising to madness, which (Job 7:10) even increases to frantic joy. For Job's disease was indeed really in the eyes of men as hopeless as he describes it. In an incurable disease, however, imploring God to hasten death, and rejoicing at the thought of approaching dissolution, is not a sin, and is not to be called despair, inasmuch as one does not call giving up all hope of recovery despair. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the book of Job is an oriental book, and therefore some allowance must be made of the intensity and strength of conception of the oriental nature: then that it is a poetical book, and that frenzy and madness may not be also understood by the intensified expression in which poetry, which idealizes the real, clothes pain and joy: finally, that it is an Old Testament book, and that in the Old Testament the fundamental nature of man is indeed sanctified, but not yet subdued; the spirit shines forth as a light in a dark place, but the day, the ever constant consciousness of favour and life, has not yet dawned. The desire of a speedy termination of life (Job 6:8-12) is in Job 7:7-11 softened down even to a request for an alleviation of suffering, founded on this, that death terminates life for ever. In the Talmud (b. Bathra, 16, a) it is observed, on this passage, that Job denies the resurrection of the dead (המתים בתחיים איוב שׁכפר מכאן); but Job knows nothing of a resurrection of the dead, and what one knows not, one cannot deny. He knows only that after death, the end of the present life, there is no second life in this world, only a being in Sheôl, which is only an apparent existence = no existence, in which all praise of God is silent, because He no longer reveals himself there as to the living in this world (Psa 6:6; Psa 30:10; Psa 88:11-13; Psa 115:17). From this chaotic conception of the other side of the grave, against which even the psalmists still struggle, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead had not been set forth at the time of Job, and of the author of the book of Job. The restoration of Israel buried in exile (Ezek 37) first gave the impulse to it; and the resurrection of the Prince of Life, who was laid in the grave, set the seal upon it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was first of all the actual overthrow of Hades. Mortis seu inferni, observes Brentius, in accordance with Scriptures, ea conditio est, ut natura sua quoscunque comprehenderit tantisper teneat nec dimittat, dum Christus, filius Dei, morte ad infernum descenderit, h.e. perierit; per hunc enim devicta morte et inferno liberantur quotquot fide renovati sunt. This great change in the destiny of the dead was incomplete, and the better hope which became brighter and brighter as the advent of death's Conqueror drew near was not yet in existence. For if after death, or what is the same thing, after the descent into Shel, there was only a non-existence for Job, it is evident that on the one hand he can imagine a life after death only as a return to the present world (such a return does, however, not take place), on the other hand that no divine revelation said anything to him of a future life which should infinitely compensate for a return to the present world. And since he knows nothing of a future existence, it can consequently not be said that he denies it: he knows nothing of it, and even his dogmatizing friends have nothing to tell him about it. We shall see by and by, how the more his friends torment him, the more he is urged on in his longing for a future life; but the word of revelation, which could alone change desire into hope, is wanting. The more tragic and heart-rending Job's desire to be freed by death from his unbearable suffering is, the more touching and importunate is his prayer that God may consider that now soon he can no longer be an object of His mercy. Just the same request is found frequently in the Psalms, e.g., Psa 89:48, comp. Psa 103:14-16 : it involves nothing that is opposed to the Old Testament fear of God. Thus far we can trace nothing of frenzy and madness, and of despair only in so far as Job has given up the hope (נואשׁ) of his restoration, - not however of real despair, in which a man impatiently and forcibly snaps asunder the bond of trust which unites him to God. If the poet had anywhere made Job to go to such a length in despair, he would have made Satan to triumph over him. Now, however, the last two strophes follow in which Job is hurried forward to the use of sinful language, Job 7:12-16 : Am I a sea or a sea-monster, etc.; and Job 7:17-21 : What is man, that thou accountest him so great, etc. We should nevertheless be mistaken if we thought there were sin here in the expressions by which Job describes God's hostility against himself. We may compare e.g., Lam 3:9, Lam 3:10 : "He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He hath made any paths crooked; He is to me as a bear lying in wait, a lion in the thicket." It is, moreover, not Job's peculiar sin that he thinks God has changed to an enemy against him; that is the view which comes from his vision being beclouded by the conflict through which he is passing, as is frequently the case in the Psalms. His sin does not even consist in the inquiries, How long? and Wherefore? The Psalms in that case would abound in sin. But the sin is that he dwells upon these doubting questions, and thus attributes apparent mercilessness and injustice to God. And the friends constantly urge him on still deeper in this sin, the more persistently they attribute his suffering to his own unrighteousness. Jeremiah (in Lamentations 3), after similar complaints, adds: Then I repeated this to my heart, and took courage from it: the mercies of Jehovah, they have no end; His compassions do not cease, etc. Many of the Psalms that begin sorrowfully, end in the same way; faith at length breaks through the clouds of doubt. But it should be remembered that the change of spiritual condition which, e.g., in Psa 6:1-10, is condensed to the narrow limits of a lyric composition of eleven verses, is here in Job worked out with dramatical detail as a passage of his life's history: his faith, once so heroic, only smoulders under ashes; the friends, instead of fanning it to a flame, bury it still deeper, until at last it is set free from its bondage by Jehovah himself, who appears in the whirlwind.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

20 Have I sinned - what could I do to Thee?!

O Observer of men,

Why dost Thou make me a mark to Thee,

And am I become a burden to Thee?

21 And why dost Thou not forgive my transgression,

And put away my iniquity?

For now I will lay myself in the dust,

And Thou seekest for me, and I am no more.

"I have sinned" is hypothetical (Ges. 155, 4, a): granted that I have sinned. According to Ewald and Olsh., אפעל־לך מה defines it more particularly: I have sinned by what I have done to Thee, in my behaviour towards Thee; but how tame and meaningless such an addition would be! It is an inferential question: what could I do to Thee? i.e., what harm, or also, since the fut. may be regulated by the praet.: what injury have I thereby done to Thee? The thought that human sin, however, can detract nothing from the blessedness and glory of God, underlies this. With a measure of sinful bitterness, Job calls God האדם נצר, the strict and constant observer of men, per convicium fere, as Gesenius not untruly observes, nevertheless without a breach of decorum divinum (Renan: O Espion de l'homme), since the appellation, in itself worthy of God (Isa 27:3), is used here only somewhat unbecomingly. מפגּע is not the target for shooting at, which is rather מטּרה (Job 16:12; Lam 3:12), but the object on which one rushes with hostile violence (בּ פּגע). Why, says Job, hast Thou made me the mark of hostile attack, and why am I become a burden to Thee? It is not so in our text; but according to Jewish tradition, עלי, which we now have, is only a סופרים תקון, correctio scribarum,

(Note: Vid., the Commentary on Habakkuk, S. 206-208; comp. Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, S. 308ff.)

for אליך, which was removed as bordering on blasphemy: why am I become a burden to Thee, so that Thou shouldest seek to get rid of me? This reading I should not consider as the original, in spite of the tradition, if it were not confirmed by the lxx, εἰμὶ δὲ ἐπὶ σοὶ φορτίον.

It is not to be objected, that he who is fully conscious of sin cannot consider the strictest divine punishment even of the smallest sin unjust. The suffering of one whose habitual state is pleasing to God, and who is conscious of the divine favour, can never be explained from, and measured according to, his infirmities: the infirmities of one who trusts in God, or the believer, and the severity of the divine justice in the punishment of sin, have no connection with one another. Consequently, when Eliphaz bids Job regard his affliction as chastisement, Job is certainly in the wrong to dispute with God concerning the magnitude of it: he would rather patiently yield, if his faith could apprehend the salutary design of God in his affliction; but after his affliction once seems to him to spring from wrath and enmity, and not from the divine purpose of mercy, after the phantom of a hostile God is come between him and the brightness of the divine countenance, he cannot avoid falling into complaint of unmercifulness. For this the speech of Eliphaz is in itself not to blame: he had most feelingly described to him God's merciful purpose in this chastisement, but he is to blame for not having taken the right tone.

The speech of Job is directed against the unsympathetic and reproving tone which the friends, after their long silence, have assumed immediately upon his first manifestation of anguish. He justifies to them his complaint (ch. 3) as the natural and just outburst of his intense suffering, desires speedy death as the highest joy with which God could reward his piety, complains of his disappointment in his friends, from whom he had expected affectionate solace, but by whom he sees he is now forsaken, and earnestly exhorts them to acknowledge the justice of his complaint (ch. 6). But can they? Yes, they might and should. For Job thinks he is no longer an object of divine favour: an inward conflict, which is still more terrible than hell, is added to his outward suffering. For the damned must give glory to God, because they recognise their suffering as just punishment: Job, however, in his suffering sees the wrath of God, and still is at the same time conscious of his innocence. The faith which, in the midst of his exhaustion of body and soul, still knows and feels God to be merciful, and can call him "my God," like Asaph in Ps 73, - this faith is well-nigh overwhelmed in Job by the thought that God is his enemy, his pains the arrows of God. The assumption is false, but on this assumption Job's complaints (ch. 3) are relatively just, including, what he himself says, that they are mistaken, thoughtless words of one in despair. But that despair is sin, and therefore also those curses and despairing inquiries!

Is not Eliphaz, therefore, in the right? His whole treatment is wrong. Instead of distinguishing between the complaint of his suffering and the complaint of God in Job's outburst of anguish, he puts them together, without recognising the complaint of his suffering to be the natural and unblamable result of its extraordinary magnitude, and as a sympathizing friend falling in with it. But with regard to the complaints of God, Eliphaz, acting as though careful for his spiritual welfare, ought not to have met them with his reproofs, especially as the words of one heavily afflicted deserve indulgence and delicate treatment; but he should have combated their false assumption. First, he should have said to Job, "Thy complaints of thy suffering are just, for thy suffering is incomparably great." In the next place, "Thy cursing thy birth, and thy complaint of God who has given thee thy life, might seem just if it were true that God has rejected thee; but that is not true: even in suffering He designs thy good; the greater the suffering, the greater the glory." By this means Eliphaz should have calmed Job's despondency, so as to destroy his false assumption; but he begins wrongly, and consequently what he says at last so truly and beautifully respecting the glorious issue of a patient endurance of chastisement, makes no impression on Job. He has not fanned the faintly burning wick, but his speech is a cold and violent breath which is calculated entirely to extinguish it.

After Job has defended the justice of his complaints against the insensibility of the friends, he gives way anew to lamentation. Starting from the wearisomeness of human life in general, he describes the greatness of his own suffering, which has received no such recognition on the part of the friends: it is a restless, torturing death without hope (Job 7:1-6). Then he turns to God: O remember that there is no second life after death, and that I am soon gone for ever; therefore I will utter my woe without restraint (Job 7:7-11). Thus far (from Job 6:1 onwards) I find in Job's speech no trace of blasphemous or sinful despair. When he says (Job 6:8-12), How I would rejoice if God, whose word I have never disowned, would grant me my request, and end my life, for I can no longer bear my suffering, - I cannot with Ewald see in its despair rising to madness, which (Job 7:10) even increases to frantic joy. For Job's disease was indeed really in the eyes of men as hopeless as he describes it. In an incurable disease, however, imploring God to hasten death, and rejoicing at the thought of approaching dissolution, is not a sin, and is not to be called despair, inasmuch as one does not call giving up all hope of recovery despair.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the book of Job is an oriental book, and therefore some allowance must be made of the intensity and strength of conception of the oriental nature: then that it is a poetical book, and that frenzy and madness may not be also understood by the intensified expression in which poetry, which idealizes the real, clothes pain and joy: finally, that it is an Old Testament book, and that in the Old Testament the fundamental nature of man is indeed sanctified, but not yet subdued; the spirit shines forth as a light in a dark place, but the day, the ever constant consciousness of favour and life, has not yet dawned. The desire of a speedy termination of life (Job 6:8-12) is in Job 7:7-11 softened down even to a request for an alleviation of suffering, founded on this, that death terminates life for ever. In the Talmud (b. Bathra, 16, a) it is observed, on this passage, that Job denies the resurrection of the dead (המתים בתחיים איוב שׁכפר מכאן); but Job knows nothing of a resurrection of the dead, and what one knows not, one cannot deny. He knows only that after death, the end of the present life, there is no second life in this world, only a being in Sheôl, which is only an apparent existence = no existence, in which all praise of God is silent, because He no longer reveals himself there as to the living in this world (Psa 6:6; Psa 30:10; Psa 88:11-13; Psa 115:17). From this chaotic conception of the other side of the grave, against which even the psalmists still struggle, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead had not been set forth at the time of Job, and of the author of the book of Job. The restoration of Israel buried in exile (Ezek 37) first gave the impulse to it; and the resurrection of the Prince of Life, who was laid in the grave, set the seal upon it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was first of all the actual overthrow of Hades.

Mortis seu inferni, observes Brentius, in accordance with Scriptures, ea conditio est, ut natura sua quoscunque comprehenderit tantisper teneat nec dimittat, dum Christus, filius Dei, morte ad infernum descenderit, h.e. perierit; per hunc enim devicta morte et inferno liberantur quotquot fide renovati sunt. This great change in the destiny of the dead was incomplete, and the better hope which became brighter and brighter as the advent of death's Conqueror drew near was not yet in existence. For if after death, or what is the same thing, after the descent into Shel, there was only a non-existence for Job, it is evident that on the one hand he can imagine a life after death only as a return to the present world (such a return does, however, not take place), on the other hand that no divine revelation said anything to him of a future life which should infinitely compensate for a return to the present world. And since he knows nothing of a future existence, it can consequently not be said that he denies it: he knows nothing of it, and even his dogmatizing friends have nothing to tell him about it. We shall see by and by, how the more his friends torment him, the more he is urged on in his longing for a future life; but the word of revelation, which could alone change desire into hope, is wanting. The more tragic and heart-rending Job's desire to be freed by death from his unbearable suffering is, the more touching and importunate is his prayer that God may consider that now soon he can no longer be an object of His mercy. Just the same request is found frequently in the Psalms, e.g., Psa 89:48, comp. Psa 103:14-16 : it involves nothing that is opposed to the Old Testament fear of God. Thus far we can trace nothing of frenzy and madness, and of despair only in so far as Job has given up the hope (נואשׁ) of his restoration, - not however of real despair, in which a man impatiently and forcibly snaps asunder the bond of trust which unites him to God. If the poet had anywhere made Job to go to such a length in despair, he would have made Satan to triumph over him.

Now, however, the last two strophes follow in which Job is hurried forward to the use of sinful language, Job 7:12-16 : Am I a sea or a sea-monster, etc.; and Job 7:17-21 : What is man, that thou accountest him so great, etc. We should nevertheless be mistaken if we thought there were sin here in the expressions by which Job describes God's hostility against himself. We may compare e.g., Lam 3:9, Lam 3:10 : "He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He hath made any paths crooked; He is to me as a bear lying in wait, a lion in the thicket." It is, moreover, not Job's peculiar sin that he thinks God has changed to an enemy against him; that is the view which comes from his vision being beclouded by the conflict through which he is passing, as is frequently the case in the Psalms. His sin does not even consist in the inquiries, How long? and Wherefore? The Psalms in that case would abound in sin. But the sin is that he dwells upon these doubting questions, and thus attributes apparent mercilessness and injustice to God. And the friends constantly urge him on still deeper in this sin, the more persistently they attribute his suffering to his own unrighteousness. Jeremiah (in Lamentations 3), after similar complaints, adds: Then I repeated this to my heart, and took courage from it: the mercies of Jehovah, they have no end; His compassions do not cease, etc. Many of the Psalms that begin sorrowfully, end in the same way; faith at length breaks through the clouds of doubt. But it should be remembered that the change of spiritual condition which, e.g., in Psa 6:1-10, is condensed to the narrow limits of a lyric composition of eleven verses, is here in Job worked out with dramatical detail as a passage of his life's history: his faith, once so heroic, only smoulders under ashes; the friends, instead of fanning it to a flame, bury it still deeper, until at last it is set free from its bondage by Jehovah himself, who appears in the whirlwind.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Sinned - Although I am free from those crying sins, for which my friends suppose thou hast sent this judgment upon me, yet, I freely confess I am a sinner, and therefore obnoxious to thy justice. What, &c. - To satisfy thy justice, or regain thy favour? Who dost know and diligently observe all mens inward motions, and outward actions; and therefore, if thou shalt be severe to mark mine iniquities, I have not what to say or do unto thee. My case is singular, none is shot at as I am.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
I have sinned; what shall I do - Dr. Kennicott contends that these words are spoken to Eliphaz, and not to God, and would paraphrase them thus: "You say I must have been a sinner. What then? I have not sinned against thee, O thou spy upon mankind! Why hast thou set up me as a butt or mark to shoot at? Why am I become a burden unto thee? Why not rather overlook my transgression, and pass by mine iniquity? I am now sinking to the dust! To-morrow, perhaps, I shall be sought in vain!" See his vindication of Job at the end of these notes on this book. Others consider the address as made to God. Taken in this light, the sense is plain enough. Those who suppose that the address is made to God, translate the Job 7:20 thus: "Be it that I have sinned, what injury can I do unto thee, O thou Observer of man? Why hast thou set me up as a mark for thee, and why am I made a burden to thee?" The Septuagint is thus: Ει εγω ἡμαρτον, τι δυνησομαι πραξαι, ὁ επισταμενος τον νουν των ανθρωπων; If I have sinned, what can I do, O thou who knowest the mind of men? Thou knowest that it is impossible for me to make any restitution. I cannot blot out my offenses; but whether I have sinned so as to bring all these calamities upon me, thou knowest, who searchest the hearts of men.

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¹² He hath bent [01869] his bow [07198], and set [05324] me as a mark [04307] for the arrow [02671].

¹⁰ But he said [0559] unto her, Thou speakest [01696] as one [0259] of the foolish women [05036] speaketh [01696]. What [01571]? shall we receive [06901] good [02896] at the hand of God [0430], and shall we not receive [06901] evil [07451]? In all this did not Job [0347] sin [02398] with his lips [08193].

²¹ And said [0559], Naked [06174] came I out [03318] of my mother's [0517] womb [0990], and naked [06174] shall I return [07725] thither: the LORD [03068] gave [05414], and the LORD [03068] hath taken away [03947]; blessed [01288] be the name [08034] of the LORD [03068].

¹⁴ Therefore hath the LORD [03068] watched [08245] upon the evil [07451], and brought [0935] it upon us: for the LORD [03068] our God [0430] is righteous [06662] in all his works [04639] which he doeth [06213]: for we obeyed [08085] not his voice [06963].

¹² Am I a sea [03220], or a whale [08577], that thou settest [07760] a watch [04929] over me?

⁶ If thou sinnest [02398], what doest [06466] thou against him? or if thy transgressions [06588] be multiplied [07231], what doest [06213] thou unto him?

⁶ If thou sinnest [02398], what doest [06466] thou against him? or if thy transgressions [06588] be multiplied [07231], what doest [06213] thou unto him?
⁷ If thou be righteous [06663], what givest [05414] thou him? or what receiveth [03947] he of thine hand [03027]?
⁸ Thy wickedness [07562] may hurt a man [0376] as thou art; and thy righteousness [06666] may profit the son [01121] of man [0120].

¹ To the chief Musician [05329] on Neginoth [05058] upon Sheminith [08067], A Psalm [04210] of David [01732]. O LORD [03068], rebuke [03198] me not in thine anger [0639], neither chasten [03256] me in thy hot displeasure [02534].
² Have mercy [02603] upon me, O LORD [03068]; for I am weak [0536]: O LORD [03068], heal [07495] me; for my bones [06106] are vexed [0926].
³ My soul [05315] is also sore [03966] vexed [0926]: but thou, O LORD [03068], how long?
⁴ Return [07725], O LORD [03068], deliver [02502] my soul [05315]: oh save [03467] me for thy mercies [02617]' sake.
⁵ For in death [04194] there is no remembrance [02143] of thee: in the grave [07585] who shall give thee thanks [03034]?
⁶ I am weary [03021] with my groaning [0585]; all the night [03915] make I my bed [04296] to swim [07811]; I water [04529] my couch [06210] with my tears [01832].
⁷ Mine eye [05869] is consumed [06244] because of grief [03708]; it waxeth old [06275] because of all mine enemies [06887].
⁸ Depart [05493] from me, all ye workers [06466] of iniquity [0205]; for the LORD [03068] hath heard [08085] the voice [06963] of my weeping [01065].
⁹ The LORD [03068] hath heard [08085] my supplication [08467]; the LORD [03068] will receive [03947] my prayer [08605].
¹⁰ Let all mine enemies [0341] be ashamed [0954] and sore [03966] vexed [0926]: let them return [07725] and be ashamed [0954] suddenly [07281].

¹⁰ He was unto me as a bear [01677] lying in wait [0693], and as a lion [0738] in secret places [04565].

⁹ He hath inclosed [01443] my ways [01870] with hewn stone [01496], he hath made my paths [05410] crooked [05753].

¹⁷ What is man [0582], that thou shouldest magnify [01431] him? and that thou shouldest set [07896] thine heart [03820] upon him?
¹⁸ And that thou shouldest visit [06485] him every morning [01242], and try [0974] him every moment [07281]?
¹⁹ How long [04100] wilt thou not depart [08159] from me, nor let me alone [07503] till I swallow down [01104] my spittle [07536]?
²⁰ I have sinned [02398]; what shall I do [06466] unto thee, O thou preserver [05341] of men [0120]? why hast thou set [07760] me as a mark [04645] against thee, so that I am a burden [04853] to myself?
²¹ And why dost thou not pardon [05375] my transgression [06588], and take away [05674] mine iniquity [05771]? for now shall I sleep [07901] in the dust [06083]; and thou shalt seek me in the morning [07836], but I shall not be.

¹² Am I a sea [03220], or a whale [08577], that thou settest [07760] a watch [04929] over me?
¹³ When I say [0559], My bed [06210] shall comfort [05162] me, my couch [04904] shall ease [05375] my complaint [07879];
¹⁴ Then thou scarest [02865] me with dreams [02472], and terrifiest [01204] me through visions [02384]:
¹⁵ So that my soul [05315] chooseth [0977] strangling [04267], and death [04194] rather than my life [06106].
¹⁶ I loathe [03988] it; I would not live [02421] alway [05769]: let me alone [02308]; for my days [03117] are vanity [01892].

¹⁴ For he knoweth [03045] our frame [03336]; he remembereth [02142] that we are dust [06083].
¹⁵ As for man [0582], his days [03117] are as grass [02682]: as a flower [06731] of the field [07704], so he flourisheth [06692].
¹⁶ For the wind [07307] passeth over [05674] it, and it is gone; and the place [04725] thereof shall know [05234] it no more.

⁴⁸ What man [01397] is he that liveth [02421], and shall not see [07200] death [04194]? shall he deliver [04422] his soul [05315] from the hand [03027] of the grave [07585]? Selah [05542].

¹⁷ The dead [04191] praise [01984] not the LORD [03050], neither any that go down [03381] into silence [01745].

¹¹ Shall thy lovingkindness [02617] be declared [05608] in the grave [06913]? or thy faithfulness [0530] in destruction [011]?
¹² Shall thy wonders [06382] be known [03045] in the dark [02822]? and thy righteousness [06666] in the land [0776] of forgetfulness [05388]?
¹³ But unto thee have I cried [07768], O LORD [03068]; and in the morning [01242] shall my prayer [08605] prevent [06923] thee.

¹⁰ Hear [08085], O LORD [03068], and have mercy [02603] upon me: LORD [03068], be thou my helper [05826].

⁶ I am weary [03021] with my groaning [0585]; all the night [03915] make I my bed [04296] to swim [07811]; I water [04529] my couch [06210] with my tears [01832].

⁷ O remember [02142] that my life [02416] is wind [07307]: mine eye [05869] shall no more [07725] see [07200] good [02896].
⁸ The eye [05869] of him that hath seen [07210] me shall see [07789] me no more: thine eyes [05869] are upon me, and I am not.
⁹ As the cloud [06051] is consumed [03615] and vanisheth away [03212]: so he that goeth down [03381] to the grave [07585] shall come up [05927] no more.
¹⁰ He shall return [07725] no more to his house [01004], neither shall his place [04725] know [05234] him any more.
¹¹ Therefore I will not refrain [02820] my mouth [06310]; I will speak [01696] in the anguish [06862] of my spirit [07307]; I will complain [07878] in the bitterness [04751] of my soul [05315].

⁸ Oh that I might have [0935] my request [07596]; and that God [0433] would grant [05414] me the thing that I long for [08615]!
⁹ Even that it would please [02974] God [0433] to destroy [01792] me; that he would let loose [05425] his hand [03027], and cut me off [01214] !
¹⁰ Then should I yet have comfort [05165]; yea, I would harden [05539] myself in sorrow [02427]: let him not spare [02550]; for I have not concealed [03582] the words [0561] of the Holy One [06918].
¹¹ What is my strength [03581], that I should hope [03176]? and what is mine end [07093], that I should prolong [0748] my life [05315]?
¹² Is my strength [03581] the strength [03581] of stones [068]? or is my flesh [01320] of brass [05153]?

¹⁰ He shall return [07725] no more to his house [01004], neither shall his place [04725] know [05234] him any more.

¹ But Job [0347] answered [06030] and said [0559],

¹ Is there not an appointed time [06635] to man [0582] upon earth [0776]? are not his days [03117] also like the days [03117] of an hireling [07916]?
² As a servant [05650] earnestly desireth [07602] the shadow [06738], and as an hireling [07916] looketh [06960] for the reward of his work [06467]:
³ So am I made to possess [05157] months [03391] of vanity [07723], and wearisome [05999] nights [03915] are appointed [04487] to me.
⁴ When I lie down [07901], I say [0559], When shall I arise [06965], and the night [06153] be gone [04059]? and I am full [07646] of tossings to and fro [05076] unto the dawning of the day [05399].
⁵ My flesh [01320] is clothed [03847] with worms [07415] and clods [01487] of dust [06083]; my skin [05785] is broken [07280], and become loathsome [03988].
⁶ My days [03117] are swifter [07043] than a weaver's shuttle [0708], and are spent [03615] without [0657] hope [08615].

¹² He hath bent [01869] his bow [07198], and set [05324] me as a mark [04307] for the arrow [02671].

¹² I was at ease [07961], but he hath broken me asunder [06565]: he hath also taken [0270] me by my neck [06203], and shaken me to pieces [06327], and set me up [06965] for his mark [04307].

³ I the LORD [03068] do keep [05341] it; I will water [08248] it every moment [07281]: lest any hurt [06485] it, I will keep [05341] it night [03915] and day [03117].

²⁰ I have sinned [02398]; what shall I do [06466] unto thee, O thou preserver [05341] of men [0120]? why hast thou set [07760] me as a mark [04645] against thee, so that I am a burden [04853] to myself?