Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:20
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?
20. The first half of the verse reads,
Have I sinned: what do I unto thee, O thou watcher of men?
I have sinned ] Rather as above, have I sinned; the words being put as a supposition, equivalent to, if I have sinned. Job makes the supposition, he hardly concedes the fact, which is not meantime the point. His object is to pursue the idea that even sin (supposing it) on man’s part cannot affect God, and ought not to be the reason for such unsparing pains as man has to suffer. In ch. Job 14:3-4, where Job is calmer and more self-possessed, the same argument occurs, but is there supported by a reference to the universal sinfulness of mankind, which descends to the individual by inheritance and makes him more excusable and pitiable. Here the moral relations of men and God are less before his mind, it is God’s natural Greatness in contrast with the natural littleness of man that engages his attention, and he thinks that in this there is a reason why men even if sinful should be less severely reckoned with.
what shall I do unto thee? ] Rather, what do I unto thee? that is, how do I affect thee by my sin? The idea is repeatedly expressed in the Poem that God is too high to be affected by men’s actions, whether sinful or righteous, cf. ch. Job 22:2 seq., Job 35:5 seq.
thou preserver of men ] Rather, thou watcher, or keeper, of men. “Watcher” or keeper, elsewhere a word of comfort to the godly (Deu 32:10; Psa 31:23; Psa 121:4), is here used in an invidious sense to express the constant espionage exercised by God over men, that He may detect their sin and bring them to a reckoning, cf. ch. Job 13:27, Job 14:16.
a mark against thee ] lit. unto thee. The word mark here does not mean a target at which to discharge arrows (ch. Job 6:4, Job 16:4), but a stumbling-block or obstacle against which one strikes. Job feels that he is continually in the way of God, an obstacle against which the Almighty is always of set purpose striking Himself. The thought is one of unprecedented boldness.
am a burden to myself ] Or, am become a burden, &c., that is, weary of myself and of my life, cf. 2Sa 15:33. The Septuagint seems to have read, “a burden unto thee ”; and according to Jewish tradition this was the original reading, but was corrected by the scribes as savouring of impiety.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
20, 21. Third, Job makes the supposition that he has sinned, and asks, how such a thing can affect God? and, why He does not take away his sin instead of plaguing him unto death because of it?
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I have sinned – chata’ty. 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, Ei ego hemarton – 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 notser is a participle from natsar which means, according to Gesenius, to watch, to guard, to keep, and is used here in the sense of observing ones 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 mphga, means properly that which one impinges against – from paga, 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, katenteukten sou, an accuser of thee.
So that I am a burden to myself – The Septuagint renders this, epi soi phortion, a burden to thee. The copy from which they translated evidently had aleyka – to thee, instead of alay – 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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 7:20
I have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee, O Thou Preserver of men!
The sinners surrender to his Preserver
I.
A confession. I have sinned. In words this is no more than a hypocrite, nay, a Judas, might say. Do not many call themselves miserable sinners who are indeed despicable mockers? Yet seeing Jobs heart was right his confession was accepted.
1. It was very brief, but yet very full. It was more full in its generality than if he had descended to particulars. We may use it as a summary of our life. I have sinned. What else is certain in my whole career? This is most sure and undeniable.
2. It was personal. I have sinned, whatever others may have done.
3. It was to the Lord. He addresses the confession not to his fellow men but to the Preserver of men.
4. It was a confession wrought by the Spirit. See verse 18, where he ascribes his grief to the visitation of God.
5. It was sincere. No complimentary talk, or matter of ritualistic form, or passing acknowledgment. His heart cried, I have sinned, and he meant it.
6. It was feeling. He was cut to the quick by it. Read the whole chapter. This one fact, I have sinned, is enough to brand the soul with the mark of Cain, and burn it with the flames of hell.
7. It was a believing confession. Mingled with much unbelief, Job still had faith in Gods power to pardon. An unbelieving confession may increase sin.
II. An inquiry. What shall I do unto Thee? In this question we see–
1. His willingness to do anything, whatever the Lord might demand, thus proving his earnestness.
2. His bewilderment: he could not tell what to offer, or where to turn; yet something must be done.
3. His surrender at discretion. He makes no conditions, he only begs to know the Lords terms.
4. The inquiry may be answered negatively. What can I do to escape Thee? Thou art all around me. Can past obedience atone? Alas! as I look back I am unable to find anything in my life but sin. Can I bring a sacrifice? Would grief, fasting, long prayers, ceremonies, or self-denial avail? I know they would not.
5. It may be answered evangelically. Confess the sin. Renounce it. Obey the message of peace: believe in the Lord Jesus, and live.
III. A title. O Thou Preserver of men! Observer of men, therefore aware of my case, my misery, my confession, my desire for pardon, my utter helplessness. Preserver of men. By His infinite long-suffering refraining from punishment. By daily bounties of supply keeping the ungrateful alive. By the plan of salvation delivering men from going down to the pit. By daily grace preventing the backsliding and apostasy of believers. Address upon the point in hand–
1. The impenitent, urging them to confession.
2. The unconcerned, moving them to inquire, What must I do to be saved?
3. The ungrateful, exhibiting the preserving goodness of God as a motive for love to Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
What to do in case of sin
1. What to do in case of sin is a point of the highest consideration.
2. Sincere confession of sin makes the soul very active and inquisitive about the remedies of sin.
3. A soul truly sensible of sin is ready to submit to any terms which God shall put upon him.
4. God is to be consulted and inquired after in all doubtful cases, especially in our sin cases. (J. Caryl.)
Complaining to God
It is his God whom the pious Job is thus apostrophising. I, the poor pismire in the dust, will my error or my wrong-doing affect Omnipotence? Ah! pardon my transgression, whatever it be, ere it be too late! A little while, and I shall lie down in the dust, and even Thy keen eye will look for me in vain. What are we to say to such language? It is a monotone that you will hardly find monotonous. Where is the patience, the submission, so calm, so dutiful, so beautiful of the Job whom we knew before? Is there a trace of it left? Surely from first to last we have not as yet one touch of such meek acquiescence in suffering, as we have seen, some of us, on beds of pain–such as we would pray earnestly to attain unto, in some measure, in our own hour of trial. We see nothing of the frame of mind in which a Moslem, whose very name implies submission, or a Stoic, a Marcus Aurelius, to say nothing of a Christian, would wish to meet the sharpest pang. We feel–do we not? that the very object of these wild cries is partly to intensify our sense of the woes that fell on Job, yet mainly to make us feel how boundless is his bewilderment at finding this terrible measure of suffering meted out as the seeming recompense for a life of innocence. And yet we are intended to feel with him. Admirable, pious, well-intentioned as are the words of Eliphaz, they seem to belong to another spiritual world than that of Jobs cries. We cannot but feel the sharp contrast between them, and you will feel with me that some great question must be at stake, some vital problem stirring in the air, or we should not be called on to listen, on the one hand, to the calm, well-rounded, unimpeachable teaching of Eliphaz, and, on the other, to the bitter, impassioned complaints, the almost rebellious cries of one whose praise is in all the Churches. This, then, is the one question which will be pressed on us more and more as we read the book, How is it that the saint, the saintly hero, who stands in the forefront of the drama, uses language which we dare not use, which we would pray to be preserved from using in our bitterest hour of suffering. How is it that, thus far at least, the foremost of his opponents speaks nothing which is not to be found on the lips of psalmist or prophet, little that is not worthy of lips which have been touched by a still higher teaching? How is it that, for all this, we shall, as we know, in due time have the highest of all authorities for holding that he and they, in their insight into the highest truths, fall below the Job whom they rebuke, and whom we ourselves cannot but reprove? Surely, so far, the great Judge of this debate must be listening with full approval to the good Eliphaz; with stern, if pitiful displeasure to the wild cries of Job. (Dean Bradley.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 20. 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 20th verse 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: , , ; 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I have sinned: although I am innocent and free from those crying sins, for which my friends suppose thou hast sent this uncommon judgment upon me; yet if thou be strict to mark what is amiss, I freely confess that I am a sinner, and therefore obnoxious to thy justice, and I humbly beg thy pardon for it, as it follows, Job 3:21; and therefore accept of this confession.
What shall I do unto thee, to satisfy thy justice, or regain thy favour? I can do nothing to purchase or deserve it, and therefore implore thy mercy to pardon my sins. O thou preserver of men; O thou who, as thou wast the Creator of man, delightest to be, and to be called, the Preserver and Saviour of men; and that waitest to be kind and gracious to men from day to day, as occasion requires; do not deal with me in a way contrary to thy own nature and name, and to the manner of thy dealing with all the rest of mankind. Otherwise, O thou observer of men; thou who dost exactly know and diligently observe all mens inward motions and outward actions; and therefore if thou shalt be severe to mark mine iniquities, as thou seemest to be, I have not what to say or do unto thee: compare Job 9:3,15,29; 14:4.
As a mark against thee; into which thou wilt shoot all the arrows of thy indignation.
I am a burden to myself, i.e. I am weary of myself, and of my life, being no way able to resist or endure the assaults of so potent an adversary.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. I have sinnedYet what sincan I do against (“to,” Job35:6) thee (of such a nature that thou shouldst jealously watchand deprive me of all strength, as if thou didst fear me)? Yet thouart one who hast men ever in view, ever watchest themO thouWatcher (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 hismental and bodily pains with his ideas of the divine nature.
set me as a markWhereforedost thou make me thy point of attack? that is, ever assail me withnew pains? [UMBREIT] (La3:12).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I have sinned,…. Some render it, “if I have sinned” w; be it so that I have, as my friends say, yet since there is forgiveness with thee, why should I be so afflicted as I am? but there is no need of such a supplement, the words are an affirmation, I have sinned, or I am a sinner; not that he owned that he had been guilty of any notorious sin, or had lived a sinful course of life, on account of which his afflictions came upon him, as his friends suggested; but that he was not without sin, was daily guilty of it, as men, even the best of men, ordinarily are; and being a sinner was not a match for a holy God; he could not contend with him, nor answer him for one sin of a thousand committed by him in thought, word, or deed; and therefore desires him to desist and depart from him, see Lu 5:8;
what shall I do unto thee? this he said, not as one in distress of mind on account of sin, and under the load of the guilt of it, inquiring what he must do to make satisfaction for it, how and what way he could be saved from it; for he knew that nothing done by him in a ceremonial way by sacrifices, nor in a moral way by the performance of duties, could take away sin, or atone for it, or save him from it; he knew this was only by his living Redeemer, and whom he knew and determined should be his salvation, and he only; see Job 9:30; but rather as it may be rendered, “what can or ought I do unto thee?” x that is, more than I have done, namely, to confess my sin unto thee; what more dost thou require of me? or what more can be done by me, than to repent of my sin, acknowledge it, and beg pardon for it? as he does in Job 7:21: or “what can I do unto thee?” thou art all over match for me, I cannot struggle and contend with thee, a sinful man with an holy God:
O thou preserver of men? as he is in a providential way, the supporter of men in their lives and beings; or, “O thou keeper of men” y, as he is, not only of Israel, but of all others, and that night and day; perhaps Job may refer to his setting and keeping a watch over him, Job 7:12; and enclosing and hedging him all around with afflictions, so that he could not get out of the world as he desired; or, “O thou observer of men” z, of their words, ways, works, and actions, and who kept such a strict eye upon him while wrestling with him, and therefore what could he do? or, “O thou Saviour of men” a, by whom only I can be saved from the sins I have been and am daily guilty of:
why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? as a butt to shoot thine arrows at, one affliction after another, thick and fast, see Job 16:12 La 3:12; the words I think may be rendered, “why hast thou appointed me to meet thee”, or “for a meeting with thee?” b as one man challenge, another to meet him in such a place and fight him: alas! I am not equal to thee, I am a mere worm, not able to contend with thee the mighty God, or to meet thee in the way of thy judgments, and to endure the heavy strokes of thy angry hand; and so Bar Tzemach paraphrases it,
“thou hast hated me, and not loved me; that thou hast set, or appointed me to meet thee, as a man meets his enemy in the time of his wrath, and he stirs up against him all his fury:”
and to the same sense, and much in the same words, Jarchi interprets it:
so that I am a burden to myself? weary of his life, through the many pressing and heavy afflictions upon him, as Rebekah was of hers, because of the daughters of Heth, Ge 27:46. The reading which we follow, and is followed by the Targum, and by most interpreters, Jewish and Christian, is a correction of the scribes, and one of the eighteen places corrected by them; which is no argument of the corruption of the Hebrew text, but of the contrary; since this was only placed in the margin of the Bible, as the Masorites afterwards did with their various readings, showing only what was their sense of this, and the like passages; and as an instruction how in their opinion to understand them, still retaining the other reading or writing; and which, according to Aben Ezra, may be rightly interpreted, and is, “so that I am a burden to thee” c; and which is followed by some, signifying, as Job thought at least, that he was so offensive to him that he could not bear him, but treated him as an enemy; was weary of him, as God is said to be of sinners and their sins, and of the services and duties of carnal professors, see Isa 1:14; so Abendana interprets it,
“thou hast set me for a mark unto thee, as if I was a burden to thee.”
w Vatablus, Drusius, Schmidt; so Sept. Syr. Ar. x “quid faciam aut facere possum tibi”, Michaelis “debeam”, Schmidt. y “custos hominum”. V. L. Pagninus, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus. z “Observator”, Schultens. a “Sospitatur”, Codurcus “servator”, Drusius, Schmidt, Michaelis. Vid. Witsii Oeconom. Foeder. l. 4. c. 3. sect. 30. b “in occursum tibi”, Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Drusius. c , Sept. “et tibi”, Beza, Grotius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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., 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 , 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. is not the target for shooting at, which is rather (Job 16:12; Lam 3:12), but the object on which one rushes with hostile violence ( ). 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, , which we now have, is only a , correctio scribarum ,
(Note: Vid., the Commentary on Habakkuk, S. 206-208; comp. Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, S. 308ff.)
for , 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, .
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 ( ); 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 Sheol , 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 ( ) 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.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(20) I have sinnedi.e., Putting the case that I have sinned, yet what then can I do unto Thee, O thou keeper of men? with a possible allusion to Job. 7:12, though the verb is not the same.
O thou preserver of men.Why hast Thou set me as a mark for Thee to expend all Thine arrows upon? or, Why hast Thou made me to be Thy stumbling-block, so that Thou ever comest into collision against me, so that I am become a burden to myself?
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. I have sinned “If I have sinned, what shall I be able to do,” etc. Septuagint. Many regard it as hypothetical, thus: Have I sinned? what do I unto thee, (in what way can it affect thee,) thou observer ( ) of men? as if he referred to the sin to which Eliphaz seems to allude. Compare Job 35:6. The English version is a literal rendering of the original. The context, however, demands a conditional reading: Be it that I have sinned, what reparation or satisfaction can I make unto thee? “If I have deserved thy wrath, it is useless for thee to pour it forth on me.” Hitzig. There is no question in Job’s mind as to his having been a sinner. The question at issue is one of specific sin. Sin belongs to man as man. The cry of the world is a twofold one: “I have sinned,” and, “What shall I do unto thee?” The thought of sin involves the thought of God, as darkness that of light, and death that of life. “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” Psa 51:4. The Semitic mind was keenly alive to the nature of sin. Its varied ritual unceasingly pictured in characters of blood the enormity of moral guilt. “There is no philosophy from which the moral element is more entirely absent than the Hindu. Yet the confession of human sin finds acknowledgment even there. MULLEN’S Relig. Aspects of Hindu Philos., p. 224 . The older hymns of the Vedas clearly recognised sin as an evil to be deprecated. “Deliver me from sin, as from a rope; let us obtain thy path of righteousness. Varuna, take all fear away from me; be kind to me, O just king! Take away my sin for afar from thee I am not the master even of a twinkling of the eye.” Rig Veda, 2:28, 5: see also 2:29. 1. A mark against thee Job regards himself as a mark, , a butt or target for God, ( , for thee, not against thee,) against which the arrows of the Almighty were directed. Job 6:4. A burden to myself The Septuagint version renders, A burden to thee. The Masorites place this among the eighteen passages which they say were altered by transcribers. But the text agrees with the other Versions, and with most of the MSS. that have come down to us. The heaviest burden which sinful man is called to bear is himself.
Job 7:20-21. I have sinned, &c. As if he said, “Though I am no such wicked and ungodly wretch as these men imagine me to be, for thou knowest the uprightness of my heart, yet I acknowledge myself a sinner, and humble myself under thy afflicting hand; renouncing every sin or error that I may have been guilty of, whether known or unknown. Let my confession and repentance, then, prevail with thee for pardon; take away this heavy load of evils from me; and thereby remove the cause of those suspicions which my friends have entertained against me. For now, if I expire under thy rod, their suspicions are confirmed, and my character entirely stained beyond redress: and shouldst thou seek me in the morning (the usual hour of judicature) to judge between me and my friends, behold I am not, the determination comes too late: when I am dead and gone, there will be no convincing them of the rashness of their censures; which, as they arose from the dreadful evils that they see me suffer, can only be removed by a visible removal of those evils.” He must have entered very little into the spirit of this poem, who does not see how great a part of Job’s calamity the unjust suspicions of his friends were to him; and how he labours and turns himself every way to remove them, or to support himself under them. Heath, Houbigant, and others, render the 20th verse, Be it that I have sinned; what injury can I do to thee, O thou Observer of man? Why hast thou set me up as a mark for thee, and why am I made a burthen to thee?
REFLECTIONS.1st, Job proceeds to justify his desire of death, as the period to the miseries that he underwent. Is there not an appointed time, or a warfare to man upon earth, where he must combat with a variety of evils, till by death he receives his discharge? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling, and full of toil and labour? As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, wearied with the toils of the day, and longing for repose, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work, so do I long for death to relieve me from my miseries, and bring me to that reward which God hath promised to bestow in mercy on every man according to his work. I am made to possess, as if this was the only portion he was heir to, months of vanity, or empty ones, destitute of all joy, comfort, and usefulness, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. Restless upon his bed, no sweet report closed his eyes, to sooth his pains; or, if he slumbered, visions of the night scared and terrified him. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone, or measured? when shall the welcome day return, and these lingering hours be past? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. I turn, and turn again; every posture is uneasy; and, tired out upon my bed, I watch for the break of day. My flesh is clothed with worms, that bred in his ulcers, and clods of dust, from the ashes in which he sat. My skin is broken, and become loathsome: my days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, hastening to their end, and are spent without hope of any recovery of his former prosperity. So that it need not be wondered that he courted death, overwhelmed as he was with such miseries, without the prospect of relief. Note; (1.) If we awake refreshed from beds of sleep, let us thankfully acknowledge to whom we owe it. (2.) Our vile bodies should ever humble us: one stroke of disease may make them loathsome to others and a burthen to ourselves. (3.) As our days are incessantly hastening to an end, how diligent should we be to improve them, that, when the thread of life is cut, we may not die without hope!
2nd, Job now directs his discourse to God. If his friends care not for him, he hopes that God will remember him, either to ease or release him. 2. He pours forth his passionate complaint: in anguish, in bitterness, he expostulates with God on his afflictions. Am I a sea, proud and raging, or a whale, ravenous and oppressive, that thou settest a watch over me? hemming me in with sore afflictions, and preventing my escape by death, which I long for. Nor can it be thought strange that I should thus eagerly court it, when, at my rising up and lying down, misery pursues me closer than my shadow. Terrified with fearful dreams, my bed, instead of easing me, aggravates my complaint: my life is become insupportable; I loathe it, or am become loathsome; the most tormenting death is preferable to my present sufferings. Let me then alone, that I may close these wretched eyes in the dust. I would not wish to live alway in the most prosperous condition, how much less thus afflicted, where my days all of them are vanity, full of evil, misery, and woe. Surely this also is his infirmity; how merciful is God to disappoint his wishes, and refuse an answer to his prayers! Note; (1.) Though to depart and be with Christ makes death desirable to the believer in his best estate, yet he is not unwilling to wait, in the midst of torture, till God is pleased to give him his dismission. (2.) Asleep or awake, God can reach our spirits, and on our beds make us a terror to ourselves.
3rdly, We have, 2. We have him wisely confessing his sins, and pleading for pardon and reconciliation. I have sinned; though, respecting the charges laid by his censorious friends, he maintained his integrity, yet before God he was ready to acknowledge himself a sinner, and therefore unable to contend with him. What shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Fain would I obtain thy favour, and avoid thy displeasure, which now so heavily oppresseth me. Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? Shew me wherefore thou contender with me so sorely, that I am a burthen to myself? And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? that the cause of all my evils being removed, the dire effects of them may cease. For now, if thou wilt grant me this, I shall sleep in the dust in peace, when my iniquity is forgiven; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be: like a kind friend coming in the morning to inquire after him, and lo, he is happily released from his misery. Note; (1.) An humbling sense of sin will serve essentially to silence every complaint in our afflictions. (2.) The great concern under our severest sufferings should be, not so much to obtain ease for our bodies, as rest for our souls in the pardon of our sins. (3.) If we ask, what a sinner must do? the answer is, Apply to the sinner’s friend, the Saviour of men, and none go from him with a repulse. (4.) When our souls are at peace with God, we can comfortably commit our bodies to the dust, and take our leave of the world with as much calmness and satisfaction as when we bid good night to our friends on retiring to repose. (5.) If in the morning our spirit should be fled, and the corpse alone remain, let not weeping friends complain that we have so easily and suddenly escaped the pains of dying, if we fall asleep in Jesus.
Job 7:20 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?
Ver. 20. I have sinned ] Or, Have I sinned? Have I fallen into any foul offence, as these men charge me? Am I guilty of anything more than involuntary failings, unavoidable infirmities? although I know that these also are downright sins, fruits of the flesh properly so called, missings of the mark, as the word here signifieth, and for such I humbly confess them, I put myself into the hands of thy justice in hope of thy mercy; and what wilt thou more of thy poor creature?
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? men. Hebrew. ‘adam. App-14.
to myself. One of the emendations of the Sopherim (App-33), by which the primitive text “unto Thee” was altered to the current text (by the omission of the last letter) to “unto myself”.
I have sinned: Job 9:29-31, Job 13:26, Job 14:16, Job 22:5, Job 31:33, Job 33:9, Job 33:27, Psa 80:4
O thou preserver: Neh 9:6, Psa 36:6
why hast: Job 7:12, Job 6:4, Job 16:12-14, Psa 21:12, Lam 3:12
I am: Job 7:11, Job 3:24
Reciprocal: Jos 7:20 – Indeed 2Sa 12:13 – I have sinned 2Sa 24:17 – I have sinned Job 11:4 – I am clean Job 19:6 – God Job 30:21 – become cruel
Job 7:20. I have sinned Although I am free from those crying sins for which my friends suppose thou hast sent this uncommon judgment upon me; yet I freely confess that I am a sinner, and therefore obnoxious to thy justice. And what shall I do unto thee? To satisfy thy justice, or regain thy favour. I can do nothing to purchase or deserve it, and therefore implore thy mercy to pardon my sins; O thou Preserver of men O thou, who, as thou wast the Creator of man, delightest to be, and to be called, the Preserver and Saviour of men; and who waitest to be kind and gracious to men, from day to day: do not deal with me in a way contrary to thy own nature and name, and to the manner of thy dealing with all the rest of mankind. As Job had expressed himself before as if he thought he was treated with severity, Schultens chooses to render , notzer, observer, rather than preserver. This indeed seems to be more agreeable to the context, which intimates that the eye of God was upon Job to observe and watch him as an offender; and this construction may be justified from Jer 4:16, where the same word, in the plural number, is rendered watchers. According to this translation the meaning is, O thou observer of men, who dost exactly know and diligently observe all mens inward motions and outward actions; if thou shalt be severe to mark mine iniquities, as thou seemest to be, I have not what to say or do unto thee. Why hast thou set me as a mark, &c. Into which thou wilt shoot all the arrows of thy indignation? So that I am a burden to myself I am weary of myself and of my life, being no way able to resist or endure the strokes of so potent an adversary.
7:20 I have {n} 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?
(n) After all temptations faith steps forth and leads Job to repentance: yet it was not in such perfection that he could bridle himself from reasoning with God, because he still tried his faith.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1. He begs him to remember the vanity of his life, depending upon the breath in his nostrils, and passing as the wind. He despairs of seeing any more prosperity upon earth: hidden in the grave, he should no longer afford this spectacle of woe; and one glance of God’s eye were enough to bring him thither. There all his sorrows would end, and, once removed, he should return to this miserable world no more, vanished as the cloud, and forgotten. Note. (1.) Our life is vanishing as a cloud, and passing as the wind; and, when we lie down in the dust, there is no returning to redeem or amend the days that are fled. (2.) If we must shortly take our leave of a vain world, it highly becomes us to have our affections weaned from it, that we may with readiness wait our great change, and cast no lingering look behind.
1. Job foolishly expostulating with God, What is man, that thou shouldst magnify him? which God seemed to do, by entering the lists as an adversary, to wrestle or contend with him, as the word may be rendered, a foe so unequal, and beneath his notice; and that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him, as an enemy? and that thou shouldst visit him every morning with repeated strokes of affliction, and try him every moment, giving him no respite from sufferings? How long wilt thou not depart from me, or look off from me? turn away thy frowning face, or eye me not so fiercely, as a contending wrestler; nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle? Take off thy hand for a moment at least, just whilst I draw breath. Note; (1.) If God contends with his people, it is in mercy, because our way is perverse. (2.) The trials that we suffer here are designed, as the furnace for gold, to purge our dross, and brighten our graces; therefore we ought not to murmur under them, but seek to answer their design.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes