Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:2
Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
2. my grief ] Rather, my impatience (ch. Job 4:2). The word expresses the whole demeanour which in ch. 3, and to the eyes of his friends, he shews under his trouble. He desires that it were weighed and also his calamity. Naturally he wishes them weighed against one another. It is not certain that this is expressed in the word together; that word may mean, and my whole calamity laid in the balances.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
O that my grief were thoroughly weighed – The word rendered grief here ( kaas) may mean either vexation, trouble, grief; Ecc 1:18; Ecc 2:23; or it may mean anger; Deu 32:19; Eze 20:28. It is rendered by the Septuagint here, orge – anger; by Jerome, peccata – sins. The sense of the whole passage may either be, that Job wished his anger or his complaints to be laid in the balance with his calamity, to see if one was more weighty than the other – meaning that he had not complained unreasonably or unjustly (Rosenmuller); or that he wished that his afflictions might be put into one scale and the sands of the sea into another, and the one weighed against the other (Noyes); or simply, that he desired that his sorrows should be accurately estimated. This latter is, I think, the true sense of the passage. He supposed his friends had not understood and appreciated his sufferings; that they were disposed to blame him without understanding the extent of his sorrows, and he desires that they would estimate them aright before they condemned him. In particular, he seems to have supposed that Eliphaz had not done justice to the depth of his sorrows in the remarks which he had just made. The figure of weighing actions or sorrows, is not uncommon or unnatural. It means to take an exact estimate of their amount. So we speak of heavy calamities, of afflictions that crush us by their weight. etc.
Laid in the balances – Margin, lifted up. That is, raised up and put in the scales, or put in the scales and then raised up – as is common in weighing.
Together – yachad. At the same time; that all my sorrows, griefs, and woes, were piled on the scales, and then weighed. He supposed that only a partial estimate had been formed of the extent of his calamities.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 6:2
Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed.
Heaping up one scale
We have no objection to weigh all Jobs griefs. But what shall we put in the other scale? He who counts the hairs of our head, and puts our tears in a bottle, will not make light of human grief. In His scale it will be weighed to the utmost grain. But God has two scales, whereas Job has evidently only one.
1. In one scale look how he has put his self. The first personal pronoun is heavy enough in these speeches. Jobs friends perceived his egoistic spirit, and heaped up therefore the opposite scale. What art thou compared to the Eternal? Very sublime is the God whom Eliphaz puts over against Job. He fills all–man is nothing. No mans thoughts or sufferings are to be seen or heard or reckoned against the Absolute. But should I not say I? Am I in no sense to feel myself and be an egoist? in my solemn hours I cannot but know and dwell with a very real being within me which is my ego. God and sin are nothing to me unless first of all I have a personality, What is the indwelling of Christ, unless I have a separate individuality Into which He can come? David says, I am a little lower than the angels. May I not say the same? Yes, say it; say it loud and clear. But balance it. Put into the other scale, for example, your fellow men. Other men have as intense a self as you. They, too, are crowned with glory and dignity, and have their range of feelings, strong and tender, like thyself. Let each esteem other better than himself. Put also into the other scale over against thyself the great Other. Down on the seashore when we wander, or when we look out on the starry heavens, how clearly and with all its mystery we say I. But as we say it, there comes back from the ebon walls of night the echo of the voice of That Other, which brings ourself into equilibrium. We sweep our hands out and whisper to ourselves, my power, or we lift up our heads, proud in the consciousness of our knowledge. But when God sweeps His hand across the heavens, or lifts up the might of His knowledge, then the pride of the human heart is humbled. We bow our heads in silence; not crushed out of all consciousness, but balanced and rightly weighed by the thoughts of men and God.
2. Jobs egoism arose from his sorrow. How much he makes of his afflictions. His howling is dismal. Chapters 6 and 7 are one long lamentation, with much poetry in them, but truly a terrible heaping up of one scale. What shall we do to balance human sorrow? Laugh at it? Call it nothing? Call it commonplace? Nay, let us try and put something over against it which may outweigh it. Philosopher! hast thou aught which can balance a broken heart or a soul convulsed with agony? Surely thou hast something. Let us try your maxims, your precepts of self-control and of wholesome thought. Put them into the opposite scale; Bacons Essay on Adversity, beautiful extracts from Marcus Aurelius. Put them all in. Now lift up the balance and see. Ah! they weigh nothing. Scientist! canst thou do this great work? Go and tell Job your germ theories. Explain to him the nature of his sloughing sores, and see if you can answer his complaint. No, never. Religionist, what can you put into the opposite scale? Let us hear your doctrine. God is the potter and man the clay. We are creatures of His, and He can do as seems best. Let us learn to submit to His sovereign will. The discipline is good, though bitter. Oh, what bitter drops of acid are all these to wounded souls. You only crush a man when you hurl at him, at such a time, Gods sovereignty. No, lot us put into the opposite scale human sympathy. Let us acknowledge all the pain and sorrow and affliction of the sufferer. Let us suffer it, and feel its weight. Let our tears flow. Put our sufferings and our feelings into the opposite scale. Let us seek to put Gods sympathy into the opposite scale. Not the absolute hard stern Deity Eliphaz labours to construct. Let us speak of His tenderness and pity. Is it not said, Jesus wept? Christs tears will outweigh ours. When looking down into the dark and horrid grave, listen what Christ says, Thy brother shall rise again. That is Christs sympathy to balance thy crushing pain.
3. Job asks of God the question, What have I done? Ah! well might he heap up that scale; piling up to the heavens his sins, and offences, and ignorance. Probably there would be no scale large enough to hold our iniquities. Is this right? Oh yes. Know thy sins, O soul, all of them, black as hell and heavy as lead, and high enough to hide the light of heaven. But be not men of one idea. Have two ideas. Look into the other scale and see, if you can, a drop of Christs precious blood. Lift up the scales, and see if this drop of precious blood does not balance all your sins. Yes! Thank God it does, cries out Bunyan. Nay, more, it outweighs them. The blood of Jesus Christ, Gods Son, cleanseth us from all sin. (J. D. Watters, M. A.)
Afflictions weighed
1. It is a duty to weigh the saddest estate and afflicted condition of our brethren thoroughly. But what is it to weigh them thoroughly? It is not only to weigh the matter of an affliction, to see what it is which a man suffers, but to weigh an affliction in every circumstance and aggravation of it; the circumstance of an affliction is often more considerable then the matter of the affliction. If a man would confess his sins, he is to confess not only the matter of them, as sins are the transgressions of the law, and errors against the rule, but he must eye the manner in which sin hath been committed, the circumstances with which it is clothed, these render his sin out of measure, and out of weight sinful. Likewise, would a man consider the mercies and favours received from God, would he know them thoroughly, and see how much they weigh, let him look, not only what, but how, and when, and where, and by whom he hath received them. There may be a great wickedness in a little evil committed, and a great mercy in a little good received. Secondly, He that would weigh an affliction thoroughly, must put himself in the case of the afflicted, and (as it were) make anothers grief his own: he must act the passions of his brother, and a while personate the poor, the sick, the afflicted man: he must get a taste of the wormwood and of the gall upon which his brother feedeth: in a word, he must lay such a condition to heart. In these two points, this holy art of weighing grief, consists: consideration of circumstances, and sympathy of the smart. Mere speculation moves little. We have no feeling of anothers suffering, till we have a fellow feeling. The bare theory of affliction affects no more than the bare theory of fire heats.
2. It is an addition to a mans affliction, when others are not sensible of his affliction. Our high priest is none of your senseless priests, who care not what the people endure, so they be warm and at ease.
3. We can never rightly judge till we thoroughly weigh the condition of an afflicted brother. For Job conceived that Eliphaz proceeded to judgment before he had been in consideration.
4. A man who hath not been, or is not afflicted himself, can hardly apprehend what another endures who is under affliction. If we had a Mediator in heaven that had not been tempted on earth, we might doubt whether He would be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, whether sinning infirmities or sorrowing infirmities. (J. Caryl.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. O that my grief were thoroughly weighed] Job wished to be dealt with according to justice; as he was willing that his sins, if they could be proved, should be weighed against his sufferings; and if this could not be done, he wished that his sufferings and his complainings might be weighed together; and it would then be seen that, bitter as his complaint had been, it was little when compared with the distress which occasioned it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
My grief; either,
1. My calamity, as it follows, or the cause or matter of my grief; the act being put for the object, as is usual, fear for the thing feared, &c., and the same thing being here repeated in differing words. Or,
2. My sorrow; or, my wrath, or rage, as thou didst call it, Job 5:2. So his wish is, that his sorrow or wrath were laid in one scale of the balances, and his
calamity in the other, that so it might be known whether his sorrow or wrath was greater than his misery, as was pretended.
Were throughly weighed; were fully understood and duly considered. Thy harsh rebukes and censures of my impatience, and hypocrisy, and wickedness, proceedeth from thy ignorance or insensibleness of my insupportable calamities. I desire no favour from thee. But oh that I had a just and equal judge, that would understand my case, and consider whether I have not just cause for such bitter complaints; or, at least, whether the greatness of my burden should not procure some allowance to my infirmity, if I should speak something indecently and unadvisedly, and protect me from such severe censures!
Laid in the balances together; either,
1. Together with my grief; or rather,
2. Together with any the most heavy thing to be put into the other scale, as with the sand, &c., as is expressed in the next verse; where also the particle it, being of the singular number, showeth that there was but one thing to be weighed with the sand.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. throughly weighedOh, thatinstead of censuring my complaints when thou oughtest rather to havesympathized with me, thou wouldst accurately compare my sorrow, andmy misfortunes; these latter “outweigh in the balance” theformer.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed,…. Or, “in weighing weighed” u, most nicely and exactly weighed; that is, his grievous affliction, which caused so much grief of heart, and which had been shown in words and gestures; or his “wrath” and “anger” w, as others render it: not his anger against Eliphaz, as Sephorno, but as before, meaning the same thing, his affliction; which either, as he understood, was the fruit and effect of the wrath and anger of God, who treated him as an enemy; or rather, that wrath, anger, and resentment raised in his own mind by those afflictive providences, and which broke out in hot and passionate expressions, and for which he was blamed as a foolish man, Job 5:2; or else the “complaint” x, the groans and moans he made under them; or the “impatience” y he was charged with in bearing of them; and now he wishes, and suggests, that if they were well weighed and considered by kind and judicious persons, men of moderation and temper, a great allowance would be made for them, and they would easily be excused; that is, if, together with his expressions of grief, anger, and impatience, his great afflictions, the cause of them, were but looked into, and carefully examined, as follows:
and my calamity laid in the balances together! that is, his affliction, which had a being, as the word signifies, as Aben Ezra observes, was not through the prepossessions of fear as before, nor merely in fancy as in many, or as exaggerated, and made greater than it is, which is often the case; but what was real and true, and matter of fact; it was what befell him, had happened to him, not by chance, but by the appointment and providence of God; and includes all his misfortunes, the loss of his cattle, servants, and children, and of his own health; and now to be added to them, the unkindness of his friends; and his desire is, that these might be taken up, and put together in the scales, and being put there, that the balances might be lifted up at once, and the true weight of them taken; and the meaning is, either that all his excessive grief, and passionate words, and extravagant and unwarrantable impatience, as they were judged, might be put into one scale, and all his afflictions in another, and then it would be seen which were heaviest, and what reason there was for the former, and what little reason there was to blame him on that account; or however, he might be excused, and not be bore hard upon, as he was; to this sense his words incline in Job 23:2; or else by his grief and calamity he means the same thing, his grievous afflictions, which he would have put together in a pair of balances, and weighed against anything that was ever so heavy, and then they would appear to be as is expressed in Job 6:3; Job by all this seems desirous to have his case thoroughly canvassed, and his conduct thoroughly examined into, and to be well weighed and pondered in the scale of right reason and sound judgment, by men of equal and impartial characters; but he tacitly suggests that his friends were not such, and therefore wishes that some third person, or other persons, would undertake this affair.
u “librando, libraretur”, Cocceius, Schultens. w “ira mea”, Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius, Schmidt, &c. so the Targum and Sept. x “Querela mea”, Vatablus, Mercerus. y “Impatientia”, Belgae, Castalio.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
First long strophe JUSTIFICATION BY JOB OF HIS LAMENTATION, Job 6:2-10.
First strophe His grief is so great that it cannot be weighed, Job 6:2-4.
2. Grief , vexation or wrath. See on Job 5:2. Job would have the test made, whether his vexation were greater than his calamity justified.
The balances Probably the common balance of Egypt, which was also used in early times among the Hebrews. Lepsius gives a representation from an Egyptian tomb, in which a person appears to be weighing rings of gold or silver with weights in the form of a bull’s head. The weighing of words and thoughts in scales is a figure, as Canon Cook ( SPEAKER’S Commentary) shows, derived from the remotest antiquity. In the Egyptian ritual, the day of weighing words is a common term for the day of judgment, as in chapter i; and the vignette to the 125th chapter represents the weighing of the heart in the presence of Osiris.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 6:2. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed Heath, after Schultens, renders this verse, Would to God my impatience were thoroughly weighed, and that they would in like manner poise my calamities in the balances! And the next verse he renders thus: For now are they more in number than the sand of the sea; therefore my words burst forth with vehemence. See Peters, p. 139.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 6:2 Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
Ver. 2. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed ] Heb. Were weighed by weighing. The word rendered grief signifieth also anger, and is the same with that wherewith Eliphaz began his speech, Job 5:2 , where he saith, “Wrath killeth the foolish man,” pointing at Job, as an angry man exalting folly. Here, therefore, Job beginneth his refutation, wishing that that anger or grief of his, so hardly censured, were duly weighed in an even balance; for then it would appear that there was some reason for his passion, that he had enough upon him to cry for, and that he had not complained without a cause. We read of a certain philosopher, who, hearing of his son’s death, brake out into a loud lamentation; for which being reproved, Permittite, inquit, ut homo sim, Suffer me, I pray you, said he, to show myself to be a man, that is, sensible of my sufferings.
And my calamity weighed in the balances together
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Oh. Figure of speech Ecphonesis. App-6.
my grief: i.e. the cause of my grief.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
thoroughly: Job 4:5, Job 23:2
laid: Heb. lifted up
Reciprocal: 1Sa 1:16 – out of Job 1:18 – there came Job 3:10 – hid Job 10:1 – I will speak Job 15:24 – anguish Job 16:4 – if your soul Psa 88:3 – soul Pro 14:10 – heart Mat 26:38 – My
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 6:2. O that my grief The cause of my grief; were thoroughly weighed Were fully understood and duly considered! O that I had an impartial judge! that would understand my case, and see whether I have not just cause for such bitter complaints. And my calamity laid in the balances Would to God some more equal person than you would lay my complaint and my sufferings one against the other, and judge sincerely which is heaviest!
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:2 Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the {a} balances together!
(a To know whether I complain without just cause.