Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 13:23
How many [are] mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.
23. Job begins his plea with the demand to know the number of his sins how many iniquities and sins have I? and in general to be made aware of them. He means what great sins he is guilty of, sins that account for his present afflictions. He does not deny sinfulness, even sins of his youth ( Job 13:26); what he denies is special sins of such magnitude as to account for his calamities. Job and his friends both agree in the theory that great afflictions are evidence that God holds those whom He afflicts guilty of great offences. The friends believe that Job is guilty of such offences; he knows he is not, and he here demands to know what the sins are of which God holds him guilty.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
How many are mine iniquities and sins? – Job takes the place of the plaintiff or accuser. He opens the cause. He appeals to God to state the catalogue of his crimes, or to bring forward his charges of guilt against him. The meaning, according to Schultens, is, That catalogue ought to be great which has called down so many and so great calamities upon my head from heaven, when I am conscious to myself of being guilty of no offence. God sorely afflicted him. Job appeals to him to show why it was done, and to make a statement of the number and the magnitude of his offences.
Make me to know – I would know on what account and why I am thus held to be guilty, and; why I am thus punished.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 13:23
How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Struggles of conscience
In Luthers day the precise evil under which men laboured was this: they believed in being self-righteous, and so they supposed that they must have good works before they might trust in Christ. In our day the evil takes another shape. Men have aimed at being self-righteous in quite a singular fashion; they think they must feel worse, and have a deeper conviction of sin before they may trust in Christ. It is really the same evil, from the same old germ of self-righteousness, but it has taken another and more crafty shape. It is with this deadly evil I want to grapple. In the Puritanic age there was a great deal of experimental preaching. Some of it was unhealthy, because it took for its standard what the Christian felt and not what the Saviour said; the inference from a believers experience, rather than the message which goes before belief. We always get wrong when we say one Christians experience is to be estimated by what another has felt.
I. By way of consolation. The better a man is the more anxious he is to know the worst of his case. Bad men do not want to know their badness. It should comfort you to know that the prayer of the text has been constantly offered by the most advanced of saints. You never prayed like this years ago when you were a careless sinner. It is indeed very probable you do already feel your guilt, and what you are asking for have in measure realised.
II. By way of instruction. It sometimes happens that God answers this prayer by allowing a man to fall into more and more gross sin, or by opening the eyes of the soul, not so much by providence as by the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit. I advise you to particularise your sins; to hear a personal ministry, seek a preacher who deals with you as a man alone by yourself; seek to study much the law of God.
III. By way of discrimination. Take care to discriminate between the work of the Spirit and the work of the devil. It is the work of the Spirit to make a man feel that he is a sinner, but it never was His work to make a man feel that Christ would forget him. Satan always works by trying to counterfeit the work of the Spirit. Take care not to make a righteousness out of your feelings. Anything which keeps from Christ is sin.
IV. By way of exhortation.
1. It is a very great sin not to feel your guilt, and not to mourn over it, but then it is one of the sins that Jesus Christ atoned for on the tree. It is only Jesus who can give you that heart which you seek. Christ can soften the heart, and a man can never soften it himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
How many are my sins
The meaning of a question is often determined by its reason, spirit, tone. At this stage of the controversy between Job and his would be friends, Job turns his speech from them to God. Smarting under their reproofs, in perplexity dark and deep about the ways of God, Job turns to Him with mournful complaint. The faith that breaks forth in majestic tone–Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him–again seems to be mixed with gloomy doubts; bitterness and melancholy mark his utterances. He says to God, How many are my iniquities and my sins? We know the end of the story. Job was proved right in the main. With what motive, and in what spirit shall we ask this question? Is it wise question to ask? If God were to answer it, literally, directly, and immediately, would we not be utterly overwhelmed in despair? God answered Jobs question in a way very different from what he expected. God so revealed Himself to the patriarch that he exclaimed, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. God will deal very tenderly with a soul sincerely asking the question of the text. No man will have any arithmetical answer. But a sincere seeker desiring to know his state as a sinner will come to know enough. Sin has reference to its standard; to its action; and to its effects. All true religion has its deep foundation in the knowledge and conviction of sin. It strikes its strong roots down through the feelings into the conscience. (Donald Smith Brunton.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 23. How many are mine iniquities] Job being permitted to begin first, enters immediately upon the subject; and as it was a fact that he was grievously afflicted, and this his friends asserted was in consequence of grievous iniquities, he first desires to have them specified. What are the specific charges in this indictment? To say I must be a sinner to be thus afflicted, is saying nothing; tell me what are the sins, and show me the proofs.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That I am a sinner I confess; but that I am guilty of so many or such heinous crimes as my friends suppose I utterly deny; and if it be so, do thou, O Lord, discover it to my shame.
Make me to know my transgression and my sin, if peradventure my heart deceive me therein; for I am not conscious to myself of any enormous crime.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
23. The catalogue of my sinsought to be great, to judge from the severity with which God everanew crushes one already bowed down. Would that He would reckon themup! He then would see how much my calamities outnumber them.
sin?singular, “Iam unconscious of a single particular sin, much less many”[UMBREIT].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
How many [are] mine iniquities and sins?] Whether of ignorance or presumption, through mistake or wilfulness, voluntary or involuntary, sins of omission or commission, secret or open, or of heart, lip, or life; for by this heap of words he uses in this and the next clause he means all sorts of sins, be they what they would; he desires to know what they were, both with respect to quality and quantity, how great i they were, what heinous and capital crimes he had been guilty of, that such sore afflictions were laid upon him; and how many they were, as they were suggested to be by his friends, and who indeed call them infinite, Job 22:5; and as they might seem to be from the many afflictions endured by him, which were supposed to be for sins; though, as Schultens observes, such an interrogation as the force of a diminution and negation, as that of the Psalmist; “how many are the days of thy servant?” Ps 119:84; that is, how few are they? or rather none at all; namely, of light and joy, of pleasure and comfort; so Job represents by this his sins to be but few k in comparison of what his friends surmised, or might be concluded from his afflictions; and indeed none at all of a capital nature, and such as were of a deep die, atrocious and enormous crimes; only such as were common to good men, who all have their frailties, infirmities, and imperfections, there being not a just man that does good and sins not: Job did not pretend to be without sin, but he was not sensible of any notorious sin he could be charged with, nor was he conscious of allowing himself in any known sin, or of living and walking therein, which is inconsistent with the grace of God; moreover, as he knew his interest in his living Redeemer and surety, to whom, and not to himself, his sins and transgressions were imputed; he might ask, “how many iniquities and sins are to me” l? as the words may be literally rendered; that is, which are to be reckoned to me, to be placed to my account? none at all; see 2Co 5:19;
make me to know my transgression and my sin; not that he was ignorant of sin, of the nature and demerit of it, as unregenerate men are, who know not the plague of their own hearts, indwelling sin, internal lusts, nor the exceeding sinfulness of sinful actions, nor the effect and consequences of sin, pollution, guilt, the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and eternal death; at least do not know it as to be affected with a sense of it, to have a godly sorrow for it, repent of it, confess it, and forsake it; such knowledge as this is from the spirit of God, and which Job had; but his meaning is, that if he could not be charged with many sins, as might seem to be the case, yet if there was but one that could be produced, and was the reason of his being afflicted after this manner, he desires to know what that was, that he might, upon conviction of it, acknowledge it, repent of it, relinquish it, and guard against it; he desires to have a copy of his indictment, that he might know what he stood charged with, for what he was arraigned, condemned, and punished, as it was thought he was; this he judged a reasonable request, and necessary to be granted, that he might answer for himself.
i “vox pertinet ad mulitudinem et magnitudinem”, Pineda. k So Ben Melech interprets these words. l “sunt mihi”, Beza, Schmidt, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
23 How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Make me to know my transgression and sin! – –
24 Wherefore dost Thou hide Thy face,
And regard me as Thine enemy?
25 Wilt Thou frighten away a leaf driven to and fro,
And pursue the dry stubble?
When and , and , are used in close connection, the latter, which describes sin as failing and error, signifies sins of weakness (infirmities, Schwachheitssnde ); whereas (prop. distorting or bending) signifies misdeed, and (prop. breaking loose, or away from, Arab. fsq ) wickedness which designedly estranges itself from God and removes from favour, both therefore malignant sin ( Bosheitssnde ).
(Note: Comp. the development of the idea of the synonyms for sin in von Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, i. 483ff., at the commencement of the fourth Lehrstck.)
The bold self-confidence which is expressed in the question and challenge of Job 13:23 is, in Job 13:24, changed to grievous astonishment that God does not appear to him, and on the contrary continues to pursue him as an enemy without investigating his cause. Has the Almighty then pleasure in scaring away a leaf that is already blown to and fro? , with He interrog., like , Job 15:2, according to Ges. 100, 4. used as transitive here, like Psa 10:18, to terrify, scare away affrighted. Does it give Him satisfaction to pursue dried-up stubble? By (before an indeterminate noun, according to Ges. 117, 2) he points to himself: he, the powerless one, completely deprived of strength by sickness and pain, is as dried-up stubble; nevertheless God is after him, as though He would get rid of every trace of a dangerous enemy by summoning His utmost strength against him.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
23 How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin. 24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? 25 Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? 26 For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. 27 Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet. 28 And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
Here, I. Job enquires after his sins, and begs to have them discovered to him. He looks up to God, and asks him what was the number of them (How many are my iniquities?) and what were the particulars of them: Make me to know my transgressions, v. 23. His friends were ready enough to tell him how numerous and how heinous they were, ch. xxii. 5. “But, Lord,” says he, “let me know them from thee; for thy judgment is according to truth, theirs is not.” This may be taken either, 1. As a passionate complaint of hard usage, that he was punished for his faults and yet was not told what his faults were. Or, 2. As a prudent appeal to God from the censures of his friends. He desired that all his sins might be brought to light, as knowing they would then appear not so many, nor so mighty, as his friends suspected him to be guilty of. Or, 3. As a pious request, to the same purport with that which Elihu directed him to, ch. xxxiv. 32. That which I see not, teach thou me. Note, A true penitent is willing to know the worst of himself; and we should all desire to know what our transgressions are, that we may be particular in the confession of them and on our guard against them for the future.
II. He bitterly complains of God’s withdrawings from him (v. 24): Wherefore hidest thou thy face? This must be meant of something more than his outward afflictions; for the loss of estate, children, health, might well consist with God’s love; when that was all, he blessed the name of the Lord; but his soul was also sorely vexed, and that is it which he here laments. 1. That the favours of the Almighty were suspended. God hid his face as one strange to him, displeased with him, shy and regardless of him. 2. That the terrors of the Almighty were inflicted and impressed upon him. God held him for his enemy, shot his arrows at him (ch. vi. 4), and set him as a mark, ch. vii. 20. Note, The Holy Ghost sometimes denies his favours and discovers his terrors to the best and dearest of his saints and servants in this world. This case occurs, not only in the production, but sometimes in the progress of the divine life. Evidences for heaven are eclipsed, sensible communications interrupted, dread of divine wrath impressed, and the returns of comfort, for the present, despaired of, Psa 77:7-9; Psa 88:7; Psa 88:15; Psa 88:16. These are grievous burdens to a gracious soul, that values God’s loving-kindness as better than life, Prov. xviii. 14. A wounded spirit who can bear? Job, by asking here, Why hidest thou thy face? teaches us that, when at any time we are under the sense of God’s withdrawings, we are concerned to enquire into the reason of them–what is the sin for which he corrects us and what the good he designs us. Job’s sufferings were typical of the sufferings of Christ, from whom not only men hid their faces (Isa. liii. 3), but God hid his, witness the darkness which surrounded him on the cross when he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? If this were done to these green trees, what shall be done to the dry? They will for ever be forsaken.
III. He humbly pleads with God his own utter inability to stand before him (v. 25): “Wilt thou break a leaf, pursue the dry stubble? Lord, is it for thy honour to trample upon one that is down already, or to crush one that neither has nor pretends to any power to resist thee?” Note, We ought to have such an apprehension of the goodness and compassion of God as to believe that he will not break the bruised reed, Matt. xii. 20.
IV. He sadly complains of God’s severe dealings with him. He owns it was for his sins that God thus contended with him, but thinks it hard,
1. That his former sins, long since committed, should now be remembered against him, and he should he reckoned with for the old scores (v. 26): Thou writest bitter things against me. Afflictions are bitter things. Writing them denotes deliberation and determination, written as a warrant for execution; it denotes also the continuance of his affliction, for that which is written remains, and, “Herein thou makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth,” that is, “thou punishest me for them, and thereby puttest me in mind of them, and obligest me to renew my repentance for them.” Note, (1.) God sometimes writes very bitter things against the best and dearest of his saints and servants, both in outward afflictions and inward disquiet; trouble in body and trouble in mind, that he may humble them, and prove them, and do them good in their latter end. (2.) That the sins of youth are often the smart of age both in respect of sorrow within (Jer 31:18; Jer 31:19) and suffering without, ch. xx. 11. Time does not wear out the guilt of sin. (3.) That when God writes bitter things against us his design therein is to make us possess our iniquities, to bring forgotten sins to mind, and so to bring us to remorse for them as to break us off from them. This is all the fruit, to take away our sin.
2. That his present mistakes and miscarriages should be so strictly taken notice of, and so severely animadverted upon (v. 27): “Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, not only to afflict me and expose me to shame, not only to keep me from escaping the strokes of thy wrath, but that thou mayest critically remark all my motions and look narrowly to all my paths, to correct me for every false step, nay, for but a look awry or a word misapplied; nay, thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet, scorest down every thing I do amiss, to reckon for it; or no sooner have I trodden wrong, though ever so little, than immediately I smart for it; the punishment treads upon the very heels of the sin. Guilt, both of the oldest and of the freshest date, is put together to make up the cause of my calamity.” Now, (1.) It was not true that God did thus seek advantages against him. He is not thus extreme to mark what we do amiss; if he were, there were no abiding for us, Ps. cxxx. 3. But he is so far from this that he deals not with us according to the desert, no, not of our manifest sins, which are not found by secret search, Jer. ii.34. This therefore was the language of Job’s melancholy; his sober thoughts never represented God thus as a hard Master. (2.) But we should keep such a strict and jealous eye as this upon ourselves and our own steps, both for the discovery of sin past and the prevention of it for the future. It is good for us all to ponder the path of our feet.
V. He finds himself wasting away apace under the heavy hand of God, v. 28. He (that is, man) as a rotten thing, the principle of whose putrefaction is in itself, consumes, even like a moth-eaten garment, which becomes continually worse and worse. Or, He (that is, God) like rottenness, and like a moth, consumes me. Compare this with Hos. v. 12, I will be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness; and see Ps. xxxix. 11. Note, Man, at the best, wears fast; but, under God’s rebukes especially, he is soon gone. While there is so little soundness in the soul, no marvel there is so little soundness in the flesh, Ps. xxxviii. 3.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
(23) How many are mine iniquities?We must be careful to note that alongside with Jobs claim to be righteous there is ever as deep a confession of personal sin, thus showing that the only way in which we can understand his declarations is in the light of His teaching who convicts of sin before He convinces of righteousness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
23. He now commences his most pathetic appeal to God, which is continued through the next chapter. He begins to “reason with God,” as he had expressed his desire to do in Job 13:3. Job does not deny having committed sin, but he does deny sins proportionate to his calamities. Sin of a most heinous character has already been fore-shadowed in the insinuation of Bildad, (Job 8:6,) and in the onslaught of Zophar, (Job 11:11-12.) In the opinion of some, (see Carey on Job 2:7,) the disease with which Satan cursed Job spoke of a licentious life. This may account for his insisting so strenuously on the purity of his life, Job 31:1-12.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 13:23 How many [are] mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.
Ver. 23. How many are mine iniquities and sins? ] How many? too many to be reckoned: sin imputed to thee, sins inherent in thee, sins issuing from thee; commissions, omissions, failings in the manner of performance (for a good work may be marred in the doing, as many a garment is in the making, and many a tale in the telling); thy life is fuller of sins than the firmament is of stars or the furnace of sparks, besides thy birthblot and inward evils which might justly cause thy destruction, as a man may die of inward bleeding. When the house is well swept, and all rooms seem very clean, if the sun do but shine into it through the windows, the beams thereof discover an infinite number of motes in all places; so will it be with the best, if narrowly examined. Lesser sins, secret faults, are of daily, and almost hourly, incursion; yet we must be cleansed from them, Psa 19:12 , or else vae hominum vitro quantumvis laudabili, saith one, Woe to the life of men, though praiseworthy, as the world judgeth. A pardon there is of course for such sins, and they do not usually distract and plunge the conscience; but yet that pardon must be sued out, and these sins must be disliked and bewailed.
Make me to know my transgression and my sin
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
How many . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
many: Job 22:5, Psa 44:20, Psa 44:21
make me: Job 36:8, Job 36:9, Psa 139:23
Reciprocal: 1Ki 17:18 – art thou come Job 7:21 – why dost Job 23:5 – know Psa 26:2 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 13:23-24. How many are my sins? That I am a sinner, I confess; but not that I am guilty of such crimes as my friends suppose; if it be so, do thou, O Lord, discover it. Wherefore hidest thou thy face? Withdrawest thy favour and help, which thou hast been wont to afford me; and holdest me for thine enemy? That is, dealest as sharply with me as if I were thy professed enemy.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
13:23 How many [are] {l} mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.
(l) His pangs move him to reason with God, not denying that he had sinned: but he desired to understand what his great sins were that he deserved such rigor, in which he sinned by demanding a reason from God why he punished him.