Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 9:30
If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
30. with snow water ] This is according to one reading ( bem). According to another ( bem), with snow. The latter is better; snowwater is turbid and foul, ch. Job 6:16; snow is the symbol of the most perfect purity, Isa 1:18, Psa 51:7. Locman’s 23rd fable illustrates this Oriental idea very well: “A negro stripped himself of his clothes one day and began rubbing his body with snow. He was asked, Why do you rub yourself with snow? He answered, Perhaps I shall become white. A wise man passing by said to him, You fellow, don’t fatigue yourself, your body may well make the snow black, but it will never make you white. The moral is &c.”
make my hands never so clean ] lit. cleanse my hands with lye, or, potash.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
If I wash myself with snow water – If I should make myself as pure as possible, and should become, in my view, perfectly holy. Snow water, it seems, was regarded as especially pure. The whiteness of snow itself perhaps suggested the idea that the water of melted snow was better than other for purification. Washing the hands formerly was an emblem of cleansing from guilt. Hence Pilate, when he gave up the Savior to death, took water and washed his hands before the multitude, and said that he was innocent of his blood; Mat 27:24. The expression used here by Job, also is imitated by the Psalmist, to denote his innocence:
I will wash mine hands in innocency:
So will I compass thine altar, O Lord. Psa 26:6.
Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain,
And washed my hands in innocency.
Psa 73:13.
So in Shakespeare, Richard III:
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous, guilty murder done!
And make my hands never so clean – Or, rather, should I cleanse my hands with lye, or alkali. The word bor, means properly purity, cleanliness, pureness; and then it is used to denote that which cleanses, alkali, lye, or vegetable salt. The ancients made use of this, mingled with oil, instead of soap, for the purpose of washing, and also in smelting metals, to make them melt more readily; see the note at Isa 1:25. The Chaldee renders it accurately, – in soap. I have no doubt that this is the sense, and that Job means to say, if he should make use of the purest water and of soap to cleanse himself, still he would be regarded as impure. God would throw him at once into the ditch, and he would be covered with moral filth and defilement again in his sight.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 9:30-32
If I wash myself with snow water.
An estimate of the morality that is without godliness
In the eyes of the pure God, the man who has made the most copious application in his power of snow water to the visible conduct, may still be an object of abhorrence; and that if God enter into judgment with him, He will make him appear as one plunged in the ditch, his righteousness as filthy rags, and himself as an unclean thing. There are a thousand things which, in popular and understood language, man can do. It is quite the general sentiment, that he can abstain from stealing, and lying, and calumny–that he can give of his substance to the poor, and attend church, and pray, and read his Bible, and keep up the worship of God in his family. But, as an instance of distinction between what he can do, and what he cannot do, let us make the undoubted assertion that he can eat wormwood, and just put the question, if he can also relish wormwood. That is a different affair. I may command the performance; but have no such command over my organs of sense, as to command a liking or a taste for the performance. The illustration is homely; but it is enough for our purpose if it be effective. I may accomplish the doing of what God bids; but have no pleasure in God himself. The forcible constraining of the hand may make out many a visible act of obedience; but the relish of the heart may refuse to go along with it. The outer man may be all in a bustle about the commandments of God; while to the inner man God is an offence and a weariness. His neighbours may look at him; and all that their eye can reach may be as clean as snow water can make it. But the eye of God reaches a great deal farther. He is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and he may see the foulness of spiritual idolatry in every one of its receptacles. The poor man has no more conquered his rebellious affections than he has conquered his distaste for wormwood. He may fear God; he may listen to God; and, in outward deed, may obey God. But he does not, and he will not, love God; and while he drags a heavy load of tasks, and duties, and observances after him, he lives in the hourly violation of the first and greatest of the commandments. Would any parent among you count it enough that you had obtained a service like this from one of your children? Would you be satisfied with the obedience of his hand, while you knew that the affections of his heart were totally away from you? The service may be done; but all that can minister satisfaction in the principle of the service, may be withheld from it; and though the very last item of the bidden performance is rendered, this will neither mend the deformity of the unnatural child, nor soothe the feelings of the afflicted and the mortified father. God is the Father of spirits; and the willing subjection of the spirit is that which He requires of us–My son, give Me thy heart; and if the heart be withheld, God says of all our visible performances, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? The heart is His requirement; and full indeed is the title which He prefers to it. He put life into us; and it is He who hath drawn a circle of enjoyments, and friendships, and interests, around us. Everything that we take delight in, is ministered to us out of His hand. He plies us every moment with His kindness; and when at length the gift stole the heart of man away from the Giver, so that he became a lover of his own pleasure rather than a lover of God, even then would He not leave us to perish in the guilt of our rebellion. Man made himself an alien, but God was not willing to abandon him; and, rather than lose him forever, did He devise a way of access by which to woo and to welcome him back again. The way of our recovery is indeed a way that His heart was set upon; and to prove it, He sent His own Eternal Son into the world, who unrobed Him of all His glories, and made Himself of no reputation. If, after all this, the antipathy of nature to God still cleave to us–if, under the power of this antipathy, the service we yield be the cold and unwilling service of constraint–if, with many of the visible outworks of obedience, there be also the strugglings of a reluctant heart to take away from this obedience all its cheerfulness, is not God defrauded of His offering? (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
Washed to greater foulness
The similitudes of grief are here piled up in heaps, with what an old author has spoken of as the rhetoric of sorrow. Physical sufferings had produced a stain on Jobs mind, and he sought relief by expressing his anguish. Like some solitary prisoner in the gloomy keep of an old castle, he graves on the walls pictures of the abject despondencies which haunt him.
I. At the outset we observe that quickened souls are conscious of guilt. They know it; they feel it; and they blush to find that they are without excuse for it. All men are sinners: to most men, however, sin appears to be a fashion of the times, a necessity of nature, a folly of youth, or an infirmity of age, which a slight apology will suffice to remove. Not till men are quickened by Divine grace do they truly know that they are sinners. How is this? Some diseases are so insidious that the sufferers fancy that they are getting better, while in very truth they are hastening to the grave. After such manner does sin deceive the sons of men: they think they are saved when they are still unrenewed. How is this, you ask again? Few give themselves the trouble to think about these matters at all. Ours is an age in which mens thoughts are keen upon politics and merchandise, practical science, and economic inventions. To natural ignorance we may attribute much of the ordinary indifference of men to their own sinfulness. They live in a benighted age. In vain you boast the enlightenment of this nineteenth century: the nineteenth century is not one whir more enlightened as to the depravity of human nature than the first century. Men are as ignorant of the plague of their own hearts today as they were when Paul addressed them. Hardly a glimmer of the humbling truth of our natural depravity dawns on the dull apprehension of the worldly wise, though souls taught from above know it and are appalled by it. In divers ways the discovery comes to those whom the Lord ordains to save. Sometimes a preacher sent of God lets in the dreadful light. Many men, like the false prophet Mokanna, hide their deformity. You may walk through a dark cellar without discerning by the eye that anything noisome is there concealed. Let the shutters be thrown open! Bid the light of day stream in! You soon perceive frogs upon the cold clammy pavement, filthy cobwebs hanging on the walls in long festoons, foul vermin creeping about everywhere. Startled, alarmed, horrified, who would not wish to flee away, and find a healthier atmosphere? The rays of the sun are, however, but a faint image of that light Divine shed by the Holy Spirit, which penetrates the thickest shades of human folly and infatuation, and exposes the treachery of the inmost heart.
II. We pass on to notice that it often happens that awakened souls use many ineffectual means to obtain cleansing. Job describes himself as washing in snow water, and making his hands never so clean. His expressions remind me of my own labour in vain. By how many experiments I tried to purify my own soul! See a squirrel in a cage; the poor thing is working away, trying to mount, yet he never rises one inch higher. In like case is the sinner who seeks to save himself by his own good works or by any other means: he toils without result. It is astonishing what pains men will take in this useless drudgery. In seeking to obtain absolution of their sins, to establish a righteousness of their own, and to secure peace of mind, men tax their ingenuity to the utmost. Job talks of washing himself with snow water. The imagery is, no doubt, meant to be instructive. Why is snow water selected?
1. The reason probably was, first, because it was hard to get. Far easier, generally, to procure water from the running brooks than from melted snow. Men set a high value on that which is difficult to procure. Forms of worship which are expensive and difficult are greatly affected by many, as snow water was thought in Jobs day to be a bath for kings; but, after all, it is an idle fashion, likely to mislead.
2. Besides, snow water enjoyed a reputation for purity. If you would have a natural filtered water gather the newly-fallen snow and melt it. Specimens yet remain among us of piety more than possible to men, religiousness above the range of mortals; which piety is, however, not of Gods grace, and consequently is a vain show. Though we should use the purest ceremonies, multiply the best of good works, and add thereto the costliest of gifts, yet we should be unable to make ourselves clean before God. You may wash yourself till you deny the existence of a spot, and yet you may be unclean.
3. Once again, this snow water is probably extolled because it descends from the clouds of heaven, instead of bubbling up from the clods of earth. Religiousness which can colour itself with an appearance of the supernatural is very taking with many. If I make my hands never so clean, is an expression peculiarly racy in the original. The Hebrew word has an allusion to soap or nitre. Such was the ordinary and obvious method anyone would take to whiten his hands when they were grimy. Tradition tells that certain stains of blood cleave to the floor. The idea is that human blood, shed in murder, can never be scrubbed or scraped off the boards. Thus is it most certainly with the dye of sin. The blood of souls is in thy skirts, is the terrible language of Jeremiah (Jer 2:34). These worthless experiments to cleanse yourselves would be ended once for all if you would have regard to the great truth of the Gospel: Without shedding of blood there is no remission The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
III. But as sure as ever quickened souls try to get purity in the wrong way, God will thrust them down into the ditch. This is a terrible predicament. I find, on looking at the passage closely, that it means head over ears in the ditch. Often it happens with those who try to get better by their own good works, that their conscience is awakened by the effort, and they are more conscious of sin than ever. The word here rendered ditch is elsewhere translated corruption. So in the sixteenth Psalm: Neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Language cannot paint abasement, reproach, or ignominy in stronger terms. Thou shalt plunge me in the ditch. Is it not as though God Himself would undertake the business of causing His people to know that by their vain ablutions they were making themselves yet more vile in His eyes? May we not regard this as the discipline of our Heavenly Fathers love, albeit when passing through the trial we do not perceive it to be so? As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Perhaps the experience I am trying to describe will come to you through the preaching of the Word. Frequently our great Lord leaves a poor wayward soul to eat the fruits of its own ways, and this is the severest form of plunging in the ditch. While striving after righteousness in a wrong way, the man stumbles into the very sin against which he struggled. His empty conceit might not have been dislodged from its secret lurking place in his depraved nature without some such perilous downfall. Thus do we, in our different spheres, fly from this to that, and from that to the other. Some hope to cleanse away sin by a supreme effort of self-denial, or of miraculous faith. Let us not play at purification, nor vainly hope to satisfy conscience with that which renders no satisfaction to God. Persons of sensitive disposition, and sedentary habits, are prone to seek a righteousness of inward feeling. Oh, that it could turn from feeling to faith; and look steadily out of inward sensation to the work finished once for all by the Lord Jesus!
IV. By such severe training the awakened one is led to look alone to God for salvation, and to find the salvation he looks for. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 30. If I wash myself with snow water] Supposed to have a more detergent quality than common water; and it was certainly preferred to common water by the ancients. Of this we find an example in an elegant but licentious author: Tandem ergo discubuimus, pueris Alexandrinis AQUAM in manus NIVATAM infundentibus, aliisque insequentibus ad pedes. – PETR. Satyr., cap. xxxi. “At length we sat down, and had snow water poured on our hands by lads of Alexandria,” c.
Mr. Good supposes that there is an allusion here to the ancient rite of washing the hands in token of innocence. See Ps 26:6: I will WASH my hands in INNOCENCY and Ps 73:13: Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and WASHED my HANDS IN INNOCENCY. And by this ceremony Pilate declared himself innocent of the blood of Christ, Mt 27:24.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
If I wash myself; either,
1. Really, by sanctification, cleansing my heart and life from all filthiness; or rather,
2. Declaratively or judicially, i.e. if I clear myself from all imputations, and fully prove my innocency before men.
With snow water, i.e. as men cleanse their bodies, and as under the law they purified themselves, with water, which he here calls water of snow, either because by its purity and brightness it resembled snow; or because in those dry countries, where fresh and pure water was scarce, snow water was much in use; or because that water might be much used among them in some of their ritual purifications, as coming down from heaven.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30. snow waterthought to bemore cleansing than common water, owing to the whiteness of snow(Psa 51:7; Isa 1:18).
never so cleanBetter,to answer to the parallelism of the first clause which expresses thecleansing material, “lye:” the Arabs used alkali mixed withoil, as soap (Psa 73:13; Jer 2:22).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
If I wash myself with snow water,…. As it came from heaven, or flowed from the mountains covered with snow, as Lebanon, see
Jer 18:14; or was kept in vessels for such use, as being judged the best for such a purpose; so it was used by the ancients n, as being what whitens the skin, and strengthens the parts by contracting the pores, and hindering perspiration; it signifies, in a figurative sense, that let him take what methods he would to cleanse himself from sin, they were all in vain, his iniquity would be seen, and remain marked before God; and indeed there is nothing that a man can do that will make him pure and clean in the sight of an holy God; this is not to be done by ceremonial ablutions, such as might be in use in Job’s time, before the law of Moses was given, and to which he may have some reference; these only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, or only externally, but could not purify the heart, so as to have no more conscience of sin; nor by moral duties, not by repentance, as Sephorno; a fountain, a flood, an ocean of tears of humiliation and repentance, would not wash away sin; if, instead of ten thousand rivers of oil, so many rivers of brinish tears could be produced, they would be of no avail to cleanse the sinner; nor any works of righteousness done by man, for these themselves need washing in the blood of the Lamb; for nothing short of the blood of Christ, and the grace of God, can do it:
and make my hands never so clean; the hands are what men work with, Ec 9:10; and so may design good works, which are sometimes called clean hands; see Ps 24:4; compared with Ps 15:1; and may be said to be so when they are done well, from a pare heart, and faith unfeigned, without selfish and sordid views, with a single eye to the glory of God; which is doing them as well, and making the hands as clean, as well can be; yet these are of no avail with respect to justification before God, and acceptance with him, or with regard to salvation, which is all of grace, and not of works, be they what they will; some render the words, “and cleanse my hands with soap” o, which cleanses them best of anything, see Jer 2:22.
n “Discubuimus, pueris aquam nivalem in manus infundentibus”, Petronius in Satyr. o Smegmate, Codurcus, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt so the Targum, and Mr. Broughton.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
30. A specimen of abortive labour. Snow water was regarded by the ancients as possessed of peculiarly cleansing power. Thus Petronius, (in Satyr:) “We reclined at table, the boys having poured snow water upon our hands.” In the fable of Lockman, the black man rubs his body with snow in order to make it white. Mohammed prays, “Lord, wash me from my sins, white with water, snow, and ice.”
Never so clean Literally, Clean with lye. , bor, was a vegetable salt, obtained from the ashes of the kali, a plant still found in Arabia. Our word, alkali, (Arabic,) the kali, is derived from this plant. Comp. Jer 2:22. Among the earliest prayers of the Vedas we find the recognition of man’s moral defilement: “Purifying waters cleanse from me whatever is impure or criminal; every evil I have done by violence, by imprecations, by injustice.” Rig Veda, 1:38. (See HARDWICK, Chrisi and Other Masters, 1:183.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 9:30-31. If I wash myself, &c. i.e. Though I should appeal to my former life, spent in a religious, holy, and virtuous manner, yet this will be in vain; as I find, from the increase of my calamities, that I shall perish under them; and, being plunged into an immature death, shall have all my former ornament of righteousness and justice defiled; myself being esteemed, at least in the sight of my friends, as an impure and wicked monster.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 9:30 If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
Ver. 30. If I wash myself with snow water ] Some take the former words, I am wicked, to be Job’s confession of his own sinfulness in comparison of God’s surpassing holiness. And then this followeth very fitly, Though I wash myself with snow water, i.e. with water as clear as snow is white. Some read it aquis vivis for aquis nivis, spring water for snow water.
And make my hands never so clean
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
never so clean = clean with soap.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 26:6, Pro 28:13, Isa 1:16-18, Jer 2:22, Jer 4:14, Rom 10:3, 1Jo 1:8
Reciprocal: Deu 21:6 – wash their hands Job 4:17 – shall a man Job 33:10 – he findeth Job 34:9 – It Psa 24:4 – He that Zec 13:1 – a fountain Mat 27:24 – and washed Mar 7:4 – except Jam 4:8 – Cleanse
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
UNIVERSAL DEPRAVITY
If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.
Job 9:30-31
I. Is there nothing good in the natural heart?Are there no features of the divine original left in the broken image?
Far be it from me to say so. A man of the world may have very honourable feelings; and an unconverted character, often, is exceedingly amiable and very charitable. We all have known very correct persons, much to be esteemed, who, nevertheless, have not the grace of God.
Each fragment of the shivered glass may give back, though distorted, the object which it was intended to reflect.
II. But this is, really, the worst part of all the inventory.For all these moral excellences are nothing before God! They do not spring from any love of Him; they are not done according to His Spirit; they do not end in His glorytherefore, in His sight, they so utterly come short that, as our article tells us, they are even of the nature of sin; and that which is so highly esteemed among men is, all the while, an abomination before God.
And yet here is the evil. All the time it is these very good qualities in the man by which the heart is deceived; giving itself an opiate which is lulling it to repose.
Far better would it be for that man if his heart was utterly and only base and vilefor, if he felt he carried about with him a thing altogether so bad and horrid, he must perforce be ashamed; he must be afraid of it; he must want it changed. Then a man must feel his own peril; and he must feel the value of a Saviour. But now the good part of the heart, without God, becomes the worstfor it is by this that we are satisfied; it is by this we grow proud; it is by this we neglect our so great salvation. So our condition becomes the most dangerousand the good which is left in our heartsif that can be called good which has no God in itthe good that is left in our hearts is our bane and our ruin.
III. Remember that sin is to be measured by what it is in the sight of God Himself.God is a Spirit; and, therefore, a sin of spirit, i.e. a sin of thought, is as great, and perhaps greater, to God, than a sin of actionjust because of the same reason, that we are material; and material sin seems the greater to us.
And so Gods scales of sin utterly confound ourselves. Take one instance in the Revelationsee the order in which things are put. The fearful, and unbelieving, the abominable, and all liarsare all of the same class!
What, then, I ask, is that natural heart, which every one of us, at this moment, is carrying about with us, every day?
A very weak thingalways changingtaking the complexion of things about ita thing which can never be trusted.
Can you doubt it? Try to keep your heart fixed for one half-hour upon a good subject: try to break one inward habit, and see if your heart is not weak.
And yet a very proud thing. It seems to be the great business of the heart to puff us up with a false consequencearraying some little thing that we think good, and keeping out of sight all the things that we know to be bad.
Rev. Jas. Vaughan.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Job 9:30-31. If I wash myself with snow-water, &c. If I clear myself from all imputations, and fully prove my innocence before men; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch That is, in miry and puddle water, whereby I shall become most filthy. As Jobs washing himself is to be understood only of his clearing himself judicially, and showing that he was innocent of the things laid to his charge, so Gods plunging him, &c., is not to be understood of his making him sinful and guilty, but of his proving him to be so, notwithstanding all the professions and evidences of his purity before men. And mine own clothes shall abhor me I shall be so filthy, that my own clothes, if they had any sense in them, would abhor to touch me. Job saw that his afflictions, coming from the hand of God, were the things that blackened him in the eyes of his friends, and caused them to think him a wicked man; and therefore, on that account, as well as because of the pain and torment they gave him, he complained of them, and of the continuance of them. Observe, reader, if we be ever so industrious to justify ourselves before men, and to preserve our credit with them; if we keep our hands ever so clean from the pollutions of gross sin; yet God, who knows our hearts, can charge us with so much secret iniquity, and internal depravity, as must for ever cut us off from all hopes of ever being able to justify ourselves before him. Paul, while a Pharisee, had made his hands, as he thought, very clean, but when the commandment came, and discovered to him that his inward parts were very wickedness, he found himself plunged in the ditch.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
9:30 If I wash {y} myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
(y) Though I seem pure in my own eyes, yet all is but corruption before God.