Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 9:31
Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.
31. An expressive figure for, to cover again with uncleanness. The naked body ( Job 9:30) is supposed plunged in the ditch, and the clothes refuse to cover so foul an object.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch – God would treat me as if he should throw me into the gutter, and as if I were wholly defiled and polluted. The meaning is, God would not admit the proofs which I should adduce of my innocence, but would overwhelm me with the demonstrations of my guilt. I doubt not that Job urged this with some degree of impatience, and with some improper feelings. He felt, evidently, that God was so great and powerful, that it was vain to contend with him. But it is true in a higher and more important sense than he seems to have understood it. After all the efforts which we can make to justify, vindicate, or purify ourselves, it is in the power of God to overwhelm us with the consciousness of guilt. He has access to the heart. He can show us our past sins. He can recall what we have forgotten, and overwhelm us with the remembrance of our deep depravity. It is in vain, therefore, for any man to attempt to justify himself before God. After the most labored argument to prove his own innocence, after all the confidence which he can repose in his own morality and his own righteousness, still God can with infinite ease overwhelm him with the consciousness of guilt. How many people that were once relying on their own morality for their salvation, have been bowed down with a consciousness of guilt in a revival of religion! How many who halve been trusting to their own righteousness have been overwhelmed with deep and awful conviction, when they have been brought to lie on a bed of death! Let no man, therefore, rely on his own righteousness, when God accuses him with being a sinner. Let no one trust to his own morality for salvation – for soon it will all be seen to be insufficient, and the soul must appear covered over with the consciousness of guilt at the awful bar of God.
And mine own clothes shall abhor me – Margin, Make me to be abhorred. That is, they shall be filthy and offensive – like one who has been rolled in the mire. God has power to make me seem defiled and loathsome, notwithstanding all my efforts to cleanse myself.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 31. And mine own clothes shall abhor me.] Such is thine infinite purity, when put in opposition to the purity of man, that it will bear no comparison. Searched and tried by the eye of God, I should be found as a leper, so that my own clothes would dread to touch me, for fear of being infected by my corruption. This is a strong and bold figure; and is derived from the corrupted state of his body, which his clothes dreaded to touch, because of the contagious nature of his disorder.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In the ditch, i.e. in miry and puddle water, whereby I shall become most filthy. But as Jobs washing, so Gods plunging him, &c., is not understood really, as if God would make him filthy; but only judicially, that God would prove him to be a most guilty and filthy creature, notwithstanding all the professions and evidences of his purity before men.
Mine own clothes shall abhor me, i.e. I shall be so altogether filthy, that my own clothes, if they had any sense in them, would abhor to touch me: a figure called prosopopaeia.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch,…. In the filthy ditch of sin, the pit wherein is no water, the horrible pit, the mire and clay, in which all unregenerate men are, and to which hypocrites return, as the swine to its wallowing in the mire; and in which impurity self-righteous persons are, and are sooner or later made to appear, notwithstanding all their outward righteousness, holiness, purity, and perfection they boast of; and though Job was neither of these, not an unregenerate man, nor an hypocrite, nor a self-righteous person; yet he knew that, in comparison of the perfect purity and holiness of God, he should appear exceedingly impure; and that God would treat him as such, and hold him out to the view of others as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things, by continuing his afflictions, from whence it would be concluded that he was the most impure person; and indeed by the ditch may be meant the ditch of afflictions, as Sephorno, either his present ones continued, his filthy ulcers and scabs, with which his body was covered all over, or new afflictions he would bring him into, where he would sink in deep mire, there being no standing, Ps 69:2; some understand this of the grave, the ditch or pit of corruption, into which he should be cast, and there putrefy and rot: but the other senses seem best:
and mine own clothes shall abhor me; not his clothes in a literal sense; either while living, his filthy ulcers being such, that were his clothes sensible of them, they would loathe and abhor to touch him, and cover him; or when dead, his sepulchre garments, his shroud, or winding sheet, would disdain to cover such a filthy body, overspread with worms and dust; or as Vatablus paraphrases it, clothes do not become a dead body; or as Mr. Broughton,
“when I go naked to the grave, as though my clothes loathed me:”
but the words are rather to be understood figuratively, either of some of his friends that were as near and as close to him as his clothes, or had been, but now were estranged from him, and loathed and abhorred him, see Job 19:13; or better, of his best works of righteousness, which he put on as a robe, Job 29:14; and which are a covering to the saints before men, and are ornamental to them, though not justifying in the sight of God; and indeed in themselves, and compared with the holy law, and holy nature of God, are imperfect and impure; and if God was to enter into judgment with men, they would be so far from justifying them in his sight, or rendering them acceptable to him, that they would cause them to be abhorred by him, as all self-righteousness and self-righteous persons are, see Pr 21:27; yea, even the best works of men are but dung in the judgment of a good man himself, what then must they be in the account of God? Php 3:8; Job here, and in Job 9:30, has most exalted ideas of the purity, holiness, and majesty of God, so that no creature, nor creature holiness, be they ever so perfect, can stand before him, or be pure in his sight.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
31. Truly man’s defilement must be great if so be, after he has cleansed himself with the best detergents of his day, God’s purity would cast him, the naked one, into a slimy pit, so that his own clothes should conceive a horror of him “start back in terror at the idea of being put on and defiled by such a horrible creature.” Schlottmann. See sermon by Dr. Chalmers, (Job 9:30-33,) on an estimate of the morality that is without godliness.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 9:31 Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.
Ver. 31. Thou shalt plunge me in the ditch ] Thou shalt declare me to be no less loathsome than he that, having fallen into a foul guzzle, or nasty jakes, abhorreth himself and his own clothes, being ready to lay up his gorge at the sight and smell of them. The Vulgar hath it, Sordibus intinges me, thou shalt dip me in the dirt over head and ears, and stain me all over, as dyers do the cloth they colour. By the ditch, Beza and others understand the grave; and by clothes, grave clothes, q.d. My very winding sheet shall abhor my filthiness. Take the proud Pharisee for instance, and Popish merit mongers, whom the Lord abhorreth.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
abhor. Figure of speech Prosopopoeia.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
shalt: Job 9:20, Job 15:6
mine: Isa 59:6, Isa 64:6, Phi 3:8, Phi 3:9
abhor me: or, make me to be abhorred
Reciprocal: Job 4:17 – shall a man Job 7:5 – loathsome Job 30:19 – cast me Job 33:10 – he findeth Job 34:9 – It Job 40:4 – what Job 42:6 – I Psa 73:13 – Verily Jer 2:22 – For though Nah 3:6 – I will cast Zec 13:1 – a fountain Mat 27:24 – and washed Mar 7:4 – except
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
9:31 Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own {z} clothes shall abhor me.
(z) Whatever I would use to cover my filthiness with, it would disclose me even more.