Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 13:26
For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
26. for thou writest ] Or, that thou writest. To “write” is to prescribe, or ordain, Isa 10:1; Hos 8:12.
makest me to possess ] Or, inherit. Job acknowledges sins of his youth, not of his riper manhood, and he conceives that his present afflictions may be for his former sins, which in his past fellowship with God he had deemed long forgiven. It is not to be supposed that he looks back on gross youthful sins, but on such as youth is not free from, and as he feared in his own children, ch. Job 1:5. Cf. the prayer of the Psalmist, Psa 25:7.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For thou writest bitter things against me – Charges or accusations of severity. We use the word bitter now in a somewhat similar sense. We speak of bitter sorrow, bitter cold, etc. The language here is all taken from courts of justice, and Job is carrying cut the train of thought on which he had entered in regard to a trial before God. He says that the accusations which God had brought against him were of a bitter and severe character; charging him with aggravated offences, and recalling the sins of his youth, and holding him responsible for them. Rosenmuller remarks that the word write here is a judicial term, referring to the custom of writing the sentence of a person condemned (as in Psa 149:9; Jer 22:30); that is, decreeing the punishment. So the Greeks used the expression graphesthai diken, meaning to declare a judicial sentence. So the Arabs use the word kitab, writing, to denote a judicial sentence.
And makest me to possess – Hebrew Causest me to inherit – vetorysheny. He was heir to them; or they were now his as a possession or an inheritance. The Vulgate renders it, consumere me vis, etc. thou wishest to consume me with the sins of my youth. The Septuagint, and thou dost charge against me – perithekas.
The iniquities of my youth – The offences which I committed when young. He complains now that God recalled all those offences; that he went into days that were past, and raked up what Job had forgotten; that, not satisfied with charging on him what he had done as a man, he went back and collected all that could be found in the days when he was under the influence of youthful passions, and when, like other young men, he might have gone astray. But why should he not do it? What impropriety could there be in God in thus recalling the memory of long-forgotten sins, and causing the results to meet him now that he was a man? We may remark here,
(1) That this is often done. The sins and follies of youth seem often to be passed over or to be unnoticed by God. Long intervals of time or long tracts of land or ocean may intervene between the time when sin was committed in youth, and when it shall be punished in age. The man may himself have forgotten it, and after a youth of dissipation and folly he may perhaps have a life of prosperity for many years. But those sins are not forgotten by God. Far on in life the results of early dissipation, licentiousness, folly, will meet the offender, and overwhelm him in disgrace or calamity.
(2) God has power to recall all the offences of early life. He has access to the soul. He knows all its secret springs. With infinite ease he can reach the memory of a long-forgotten deed of guilt; and he can overwhelm the mind with the recollection of crimes that have not been thought of for years. He can fix the attention with painful intensity on some slight deed of past criminality; or he can recall forgotten sins in groups; or he can make the remembrance of one sin suggest a host of others. No man who has passed a guilty youth can be certain that his mind will not be overwhelmed with painful recollections, and however calm and secure he may now be, he may in a moment be harassed with the consciousness of deep criminality, and with most gloomy apprehensions of the wrath to come.
(3) A young man should be pure. He has otherwise no security of respectability in future life, or of pleasant recollections of the past, should he reach old age. He who spends his early days in dissipation must expect to reap the fruits of it in future years. Those sins will meet him in his way, and most probably at an unexpected moment, and in an unexpected place. If he ever becomes a good man, he will have many an hour of bitter and painful regret at the follies of his early life; if he does not, he will meet the accumulated results of his sin on the bed of death and in hell. Somewhere, and somehow, every instance of folly is to be remembered hereafter, and will be remembered with sighs and tears.
(4) God rules among people, There is a moral government on the earth. Of this there is no more certain proof than in this fact. The power of summoning up past sins to the recollection; of recalling those that have been forgotten by the offender himself, and of placing them in black array before the guilty man; and of causing them to seize with a giants grasp upon the soul, is a power such as God alone can wield, and shows at once that there is a God, and that he rules in the hearts of people. And
(5) If God holds this power now, he will hold it in the world to come. The forgotten sins of youth, and the sins of age, will be remembered then. The sinner walks over a volcano. It may be now calm and still. Its base may be crowned with verdure, its sides with orchards and vineyards; and far up its heights the tall tree may wave, and on its summit the snow may lie undisturbed. But at any moment that mountain may heave, and the burning torrent spread desolation every where. So with the sinner. He knows not how soon the day of vengeance may come; how soon he may be made to inherit the sins of his youth.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 13:26
Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
The iniquities of youth visited
The errors and sins of youth do often entail a very fearful responsibility and very heavy misery upon after life. Youth, which is the season of the first, and sometimes of the most violent temptation, is also unhappily the season of the greatest weakness. Of both temptation and weakness they are usually quite ignorant. The entrance of the path of active life is beset with dangers; and many are led away captive by divers lusts before ,reason had fairly become seated upon her throne. These things do not pass over the mind like an idle wind. The stream of sin cuts furrows deep and wide into the very substance of mans moral nature, overturns all that is good and lovely, overwhelms the fair blossoms and hopes of an intellectual harvest, and even if it retires, leaves, like the receding tide, but a barren surface, uncomely to the mental eye, and ungenial to all religious culture. Some of the evil consequences of early sin are found in the natural tendency of such a course of life; or, rather, in the effects which the providence of God causes, even in this world, to follow a deviation from His laws of moral government. Those who are grossly licentious in their youth pay part penalty by a premature and painful decay of their bodily faculties. Those who waste early years in mere frivolity become, in after life, men of confined intellectual views, and disinclined to all serious occupation. But temporal inconvenience and distress are not the only evil consequences arising from the iniquities of their youth. While religion does not discourage cheerfulness in youth, remember how awful is the warning which she utters to those who regard little else than mere amusement and present gratification. The habits formed in youth will mainly influence the whole future life. (J. Chevalier, B. D.)
The aggravations and sorrows of youthful iniquities
Sin is the source of all the sorrows that attend human nature; and its early workings, in the younger parts of life, lay a foundation for bitter reflections and for many sufferings afterwards. Gods writing bitter things against him seems to be an allusion to the custom of princes or judges, who used to have their decrees or sentences written, to signify their certain establishment. The iniquities of his youth were the sins committed in his younger days. His possessing these may relate to his distressing reviews of them, and to the grievous rebukes which he apprehended befell him on their account. Doctrine–That the sins of youth are highly provoking to God, and lay a foundation for bitter sorrows afterwards.
I. Why are the sins of youth highly provoking to God? Young people are apt to think themselves excusable for their sins and follies, and to be unconcerned about them. They imagine that the tricks and frolics of youth are very little, if at all displeasing to God, and that He will easily excuse and pardon them. But these thoughts of their hearts are some of their greatest and most dangerous follies. These lay them open to temptation, and harden and embolden them in the ways of sin. Such sins are transgressions, and they proceed from a corrupt and depraved nature, from evil dispositions of heart against the holy and blessed God, and from a disrelish of Him. Some peculiar circumstances aggravate youthful sins.
1. They are committed against Gods remarkable care and kindness towards you, while you are least able to help yourselves. What a kind benefactor has this God been! It must be very provoking in you to sin against such a kind and gracious, such a merciful and bounteous, such a great and good God as this.
2. They are an abuse of the most vigorous active part of your life. The glory of young men is their strength. If your strength is prostituted to sin, what provocation that must be to the God who gave it. In youth your minds are most active, and capable of being employed with sprightliness and fervour.
3. They are a waste of that valuable time of life which should be especially employed to lay in a stock for after use and service. The time of youth is the learning and improving time.
4. They strengthen and increase sinful habits within you. They are a confirmation and increase of those depraved dispositions that naturally belong to you as fallen creatures. You hereby consent to them and approve of them.
5. They destroy and pervert the advantage of tender affections. Sins of youth have a malignant influence upon your affections, making them exceeding sensual and vain. How dull and cold your affections become with regard to spiritual things!
6. They have a mischievous influence upon other young people. The evil example and enticements you set before them, are strong temptations to them to throw up all religion, and to run into the same excess of riot with you.
7. You cannot pretend, as some older persons do, that the cares or hurries of the world are your temptations to sin, or to neglects of the service of God, and of your souls concerns.
II. These provoking sins of youth lay a foundation for bitter sorrows afterwards.
1. In their own nature they tend to the bitterest sorrows. They separate between the holy God and you. They bring sufferings in character, circumstance, health, and lives.
2. They bring dreadful judgments of God in this life. His judgments concur with the natural tendencies of sin. Youthful sinners forfeit the promises of long life and prosperity, and expose themselves to the vengeance of God.
3. It is the fixed appointment of God that you shall either be brought to bitter repentance for your sins of youth in this world, or shall suffer severely for them in the next. If you live and die without sorrowing, after a godly sort, for the sins of youth, and without applying by faith to the blood of Christ for a pardon, you must unavoidably suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. Then be convinced of the need of pardoning and renewing grace. (John Guyse, D. D.)
Age lamenting the sins of youth
It would be hard, in any country which has been evangelised, to find an individual without some consciousness of sin. As God hath ever revealed Himself as a sin-hating God, He will never cease, by His dealings with man, to demonstrate this until the end of the world. The great mass of sinners certainly do not meet their recompense in this world, but they undoubtedly will in the next. This is not the great dispensation of rewards and punishments. It may be laid down, without fear of contradiction, that the consequences of the sins of the people of God are sure to meet them in this life; not that they may atone by their sufferings here for sins from whose eternal punishment they are delivered by the merits of Christ (for that were absurd to suppose), but in order that they may be better able to understand and enter into the mind of God with respect to sin, in order that they may feel its hatefulness and be purified from the love of it. The words of holy Job, which we have taken in hand to consider, give testimony to this. Job was, in the scriptural sense of the word, a just or justified man, yet we have him the greatest human example on record of suffering affliction. There is a connection between cause and effect in every part of Gods moral government of the world, and there never yet was sorrow where sin had not gone before it; not even the exception which some might feel inclined to make–the Man of Sorrows, Christ the Lord; He was afflicted because He bare our sins in His own body. We say then, with respect to the affliction of Job, that it was by no means an arbitrary or capricious dispensation of Jehovah. There was sin somewhere, or bitter things would never have been written against him. Jobs friends were good, though in their method of dealing with Job, mistaken men. Job denies their (personal) accusation, and asserts his innocence. Jobs friends were right in connecting sin with sorrow, but they were wrong in accusing Job of hypocrisy and gross dereliction from duty. Job was right in vindicating himself from the particular charges, but he erred in too strongly asserting his general innocence. Jobs error we find out from this, that his affliction was not removed until he made a full confession of his unworthiness; and the error of his friends we see in the atonement which Job was required to make for them. After pleading with God, there seems as if, suddenly, memory poured in a stream of light along the dark forgotten path of years gone by, exposing thoughts, words, and actions which he had supposed were hidden in the irrevocable past. Who can tell the searchings of that conscience, the clearness with which it saw in each stroke of the rod a remembrance of some former disobedience, compelling Job to acknowledge the justice as well as the severity of his punishment. Is it possible that a hoary head found in the way of righteousness should be thus defiled with the dust of repentance for the follies of early life; that the crown of gold which had been given to ripe and righteous age should now be dimmed and tarnished by the memorial of long forsaken transgression? Yes, David was an old man when he prayed to God, Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. It may be said that men do not sin so much from ignorance of the evil of disobedience, as from the foolish hope that it will be passed over by the Almighty–that it will never meet them again. It is under this delusion the young man acts, who, plunging into a course of transgression, takes no heed to cleanse his way according to Gods Word. Fancy the case of one, the prime of whose life has been devoted to sensualism. His bones are full of the sin of his youth. Sin cannot go unpunished; it may not be visited here on some, but hereafter their doom is certain. God will make us feel most keenly the guilt for which He pardons us; and our transgressions subsequent to our pardon will not be passed over. Think not, therefore, lightly of sin. Think not that yours will never meet you again. (C. O. Pratt, M. A.)
The possession of the iniquities of youth in afterlife
There is something striking in the expression possessing the iniquities, etc. It is as though the iniquities of youth so adhered and cleaved to a man in riper years that there was no possibility of shaking them off. The sins committed in the spring-time of life tell fearfully on its maturity and its decline. Two general points of view.
I. The warning to those who are just at the outset of life. We must make good the truth, and illustrate the fact, that men possess in afterlife the iniquities of their youth. The power of the warning must depend on the demonstration of the truth. How difficult, with reference to the things of the present state of being, it is to make up by after diligence for lost time in youth. If there have been a neglected boyhood, the consequences will propagate themselves to the extreme line of life. The ability changes with the period, and what we do not do at the right time, we want the strength to perform at any subsequent time. The same truth is exemplified with reference to bodily health. The man who has injured his constitution by the excesses of youth, cannot repair the mischief by after-abstinence and self-denial. The seeds of disease which have been sown while the passions were fresh and ungoverned, are not to be eradicated by the severest moral regimen which may be afterwards prescribed and followed. The possession of the iniquities of the youth which we wish most to exhibit is that which affects men when stirred with anxiety for the soul, and desirous to seek and obtain the pardon of sin. The indifference to religion which marks the commencement of a course will become in later life an inveterate and powerful habit. However genuine and effectual the repentance and faith of a late period of life, it is unavoidable that the remembrance of misspent years will embarrass those which you consecrate to God. Even with those who began early, it is a constant source of regret they began not earlier. By lengthening the period of irreligion, and therefore diminishing that of obedience to God, we almost place ourselves amongst the last of the competitors for the kingdom of heaven.
II. The explanation which this fact affords of proceedings which might otherwise seem at variance with Gods moral government. Job spoke matter of fact, whether or no he judged rightly in the view he took of his own case. The principle is, that the sins which righteous men have committed during the season of alienation from God, are visited upon them in the season of repentance and faith; so that they are made to possess, in suffering and trouble, those iniquities which have been quite taken away, so far as their eternal penalties are concerned, There is a vast mistake in supposing that the righteous may sin with impunity. We seem warranted in believing that peculiar trouble falls on the righteous, because riley are righteous, and because, therefore, Gods honour is intimately concerned in their being visited for transgression. If God is to be shown as displeased with the iniquities of His own people, as well as of His enemies, it must be seen in this life. The consequences of sin in Gods people must be experienced on this side the grave. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The sins of youth possessed in afterlife
Job regarded his calamities as the just demerits of his youthful failures and misdoings. Consider this sentiment–The evil deeds of a mans early history are followed by their natural and legitimate consequences in his after life. Even as it respects (he present state, men cannot sin with impunity. This sentiment is illustrated–
I. In mans physical constitution. Several species of iniquity are followed at an earlier or later period by consequences seriously felt in our bodily organisation. Many of the prevalent maladies of mankind are not the direct administrations of heaven, but the rightful consequences of actions which are violations at once of physical and moral laws; and if men will be guilty of these violations, God must work a miracle to prevent those results. Afflictive providences may be simply the sorrows which individuals unjust and cruel to themselves draw down upon their own heads. Illustrate by drunkenness, and by the sin of impurity. Than this crime there is none which more directly and surely entails physical suffering and death. Would you wish to avoid those maladies which, while they undermine and ruin the constitution, are the result of mens own follies and crimes? Then avoid the practice of sin now. Devote your bodies and spirits to the service of Christ and the duties of eternity.
II. In mans pecuniary interests and social position. Property and a respectable standing in society are blessings. We may pervert them, and thus use them for evil. We may apply them to their lawful uses, and thus make them the instruments of great and permanent good. Nothing more seriously affects a mans worldly interests and his social standing than the course and conduct of his youth. Illustrate by Hogarths picture, The Idle and Industrious Apprentice. Through all time and everywhere these two propositions will hold true.
1. If property and respectability are not possessed at the outset of life, a course of vice in youth will prevent a man ever obtaining them.
2. If possessed at the outset, the same course will certainly deprive him of their possession. Like all rules, these admit of exceptions. By a course of vice, we mean certain species of vice, such as idleness, gambling, lying, pride, dishonesty, immorality. If you yield to vicious habits, your iniquities, like the wind, will carry you away. Providence will frown on your path. God will not interrupt His general administrations to work miracles for your advancement. His blessing will not attend you; and therefore your ways will not prosper.
III. In mans mental and moral history. The mental powers we possess are among the chief blessings we hold from God. Hence the mind should be the object of careful and incessant culture. Alas! multitudes neglect the culture of the mind for the pursuit of sensual objects, and destroy its capabilities, either wholly or in part, by vice. Mental disorganisation is often the direct result of early crime. Early rioting distorts the imagination and beclouds the intellect. But the most distressing and fearful part of the inheritance remains. Is no possession entailed on mans moral nature? Habits are made by youthful sins. The conduct of youth becomes the character of the man. Mere inattention to religion in youth grows and strengthens into a character fraught with imminent danger. You may not be openly immoral. But if you disregard the claims of the Gospel, you will grow up to maturity practical unbelievers. Growing in piety as you advance in years, you will increase in favour both with God and man. Your path will be one of usefulness, peace, and glory. (W. Waiters.)
The sins of youth productive of the sorrows of age
I. The sins of youth. Disregard of parental authority, forgetfulness of God, refusal of instruction, evil company, sensuality, intemperance, vain amusements, etc.
II. The sins of youth are highly provoking to God.
1. They are committed against His tender care and love towards them when they are least able to help themselves.
2. They are an abuse of the most vigorous part of life. Then the body is most active, healthy, and strong; then the mind is clear, and gradually strengthening, and very susceptible; then the talents can be better consecrated to the service of God. But all those rich advantages are prostituted to the service of sin and Satan.
3. It is an awful waste of precious time–that time which should be employed in gaining knowledge, purity, joy, and Christian experience.
4. They are contaminating in their influence. One sinner destroyeth much good.
5. The sins of youth, if persisted in, will tend to confirm the person in the commission of crime. The tenderness of human passions gradually decreases; warnings, etc., lose their influence; afflictions, judgments, death itself, at length affect not.
III. The sins of youth lay the foundation for bitter remorse, and sometimes for severe punishment. They often subject the sinner to judicial punishment in this life. The sins of youth affect–
1. The body. It is often wasted by disease which sin has produced.
2. The mind. This frequently suffers more than the body. The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear?
(1) A painful retrospect. Scenes of wickedness; language of profanity; actions of impurity; a wicked life, and its influence upon others.
(2) Painful and harassing conviction; of infinite love abused, rejected; done despite to the Spirit of grace–trodden under foot the Son of God.
(3) Great loss; of holy pleasures; solid joy; loss of salvation to the present time. Eternal life neglected for mere phantoms.
(4) Embarrassment, in order to gain happiness when the principal seed time, and the richest facilities for obtaining spiritual life are gone. How seldom is an aged man brought to repentance!
3. The future. Frequently the prospect is dark and dreadful; a fearful looking for of judgment, etc. Application–
1. Let the young be convinced that they need saving and renewing grace.
2. Let those who now bear the iniquities of their youth apply to the Almighty Saviour. (Helps for the Pulpit.)
The man possessing the iniquities of his youth
How very different do what Job calls the iniquities of his youth appear as regards each ones own early history! One knows of none at all; another knows of some, but thinks very lightly of them; another possesses his, as Job did, which yet was not in a right way.
I. The iniquities of youth–what they are. The world judges by a poor standard, and views things through a perverted medium.
1. Iniquity in youth is of the very same character as iniquity in after life. Is there not frequent mistake on this point? How common are falsehoods in early life. Some think lightly of profane language in the young. There are several sins very common among the young–swearing, lying, stealing, fornication, etc. This is the fact, the moral law of God is fixed and unchangeable.
2. The unconverted life in youth is a course of iniquity. This some may think uncharitable; but our question is, How does God view things? How would He have us to view them? Is the case uncommon, of a man decent, decorous, virtuous, but one thing lacking, the heart given to God? There is iniquity, then, in that. For what is iniquity? That which is contrary to what is just and equal in Gods judgment.
3. In everyone who has been young there has been iniquity. There is iniquity in original sin, and in all sin in youth.
II. The ways in which God may make a man possess the iniquities of his youth.
1. In the way of retribution. The indulged love of pleasure and self-gratification in youth deadens the feelings, blunts the affections, and leaves the man a thoroughly selfish, hard-hearted creature. And if the youth be merely moral, without godliness, it often grows into the most confirmed self-righteousness in middle life.
2. In the way of conviction. His method of conviction varies in its process.
3. In the way of conversion.
4. In the way of consolation.
5. In the way of caution. Go and sin no more is the language of Christ to every pardoned penitent.
6. In the way of godly education of the young.
Some seem to think the consciousness of faults in their own youth should make them silent as to the faults of the young now, and if silent, then inactive in endeavours to correct them. This would be to help perpetuate our own and others faults. (John Hambleton, M. A.)
Possessing the sins of youth
Let it be remarked first, that they are the words of a good man. A second preliminary remark which I make is, that the words of our text were spoken by this good man when he was well advanced in life. In the beginning of the book, for example, we are informed that the patriarch had sons and daughters, and from what is said of their eating and drinking in their elder brothers house, it is clear that some of them at least must have come to mans estate. Their father must have been in middle life or beyond it. A third remark is, that these words were uttered by a good man well advanced in life, when he was under the pressure of severe and complicated affliction. Again, these words of our text are addressed to God, and that the language of the verse is of a judicial or forensic character. Job is arguing with God as the judge of the whole earth. He says in effect, Thou hast pronounced a severe and terrible sentence upon me; Thou hast written bitter things against me; Thou makest me to inherit the sins of my youth; it is obvious to me, from the numerous and terrible and varied afflictions which are befalling me, that even the transgressions of my early years, which I thought had been long ago forgotten and forgiven, are coming upon me, and He who saith, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay is demanding reparation.
I. That youth is a season often marked by folly and iniquity. A consideration of the nature of the case would lead us to conclude that this is what might be expected. If a person were sent to walk in a place where there were many and dangerous pitfalls, many steep and lofty precipices, many and fierce wild beasts, there would be danger at any time of his being injured or destroyed, but that danger would be immeasurably increased if he were sent to walk in such a place while there was little or no light. In such circumstances it is almost certain that he would sustain injury,–it is highly probable that he would lose his life. Now, analogous to the position of the individual supposed is that of a young person in the world. There are many and dangerous pitfalls, and not a few of these which are in reality the most deadly are carefully concealed. The wealth and the honour and the pleasure of the present life have roads leading from them to great moral precipices, by which has been occasioned the ruin of many souls, and the poverty and disappointment and disease that exist in the world are fraught with danger. The young are like persons who walk in the dark–they have little knowledge or experience of these things; they naturally imagine that all is gold that glitters. Having been treated with kindness and truthfulness by those with whom they have had to do in infancy, they are induced to put confidence in those with whom they are brought into contact in after life. The animal and emotional part of their nature is powerful, while the intellectual and moral part of it is weak. Passion is strong while there is comparatively little moral restraint, and the soul is like a ship with its sails spread out to a fresh breeze, while from a deficiency of ballast there is danger every hour of its foundering amidst the waters. Not only might we come to such a conclusion from a consideration of the nature of the case, but the same truth is suggested by the warnings and exhortations of Scripture. Has it not been said, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, by what means shall a young man cleanse his way, exhort young men to be sober-minded?
II. It is a very common thing for men to wish and attempt to get rid of the folly and iniquity of their youth. This is done in many ways.
1. How many are there, for example, who attempt to get rid of their sins by excusing them! Have you not heard persons speaking of the folly and sin that have been seen in the conduct of others in their younger years, concluding their remarks by saying, But these were only the follies and sins of youth. We do not wish or expect to see old heads on young shoulders; we do not wish or expect to see in the young the staid and prudent demeanour of those who are more advanced in life; men must sow their wild oats at some period or other of their lives, and surely it is better far to do it in their early days than afterwards? Now just as men are disposed to speak and think of the sins of others will they be disposed to think and speak of their own; or if there be a difference, it will be on the side of charity towards themselves.
2. How often do we attempt to palliate our sin and folly when we cannot altogether excuse them! There, for example, is the sensualist. When he thinks and speaks of his past conduct does he not seek consciously or unconsciously to diminish its enormity? Listen to him and observe the fine names which he is accustomed to use, and the convenient coloured roundabout phraseology in which he wraps up and paints his wickedness. He has been a drunkard, that is, he has not been once, but many times in a state in which the powers of mind and body were incapable, through the influence of intoxicating drink, of doing that for which God designed them, he could not think, and talk, and walk like a man; yet he speaks only of living somewhat freely, of being a little elevated at times, of having occasionally taken a glass too much, and when men speak of him as a drunkard he regards it as a gross insult.
3. Again, how often do we attempt to get rid of our sins by making some kind of atonement for them. They are willing to mortify themselves, and they engage in a course of obedience and worship with an earnest desire to make up by zeal and punctuality now for their lack of service in other days; ignorant of the free spirit of the Gospel of Jesus, they serve God in a spirit of bondage, their consciences meanwhile echoing the terrible declarations of the Scriptures, By the deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified. Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.
III. It is a very common thing for God to show men the fruitlessness of all such attempts as those of which we have been speaking and to make them possess the iniquities of their youth. There are some philosophers who hold that no thought or feeling which has ever passed through the mind of man is lost, but that it lives, although it may be in some dark recess of memory, and may at any time be brought forth in vividness and power; and there are many facts within the circle of the experience of all of us which suggest the great probability at least of this notion. The thoughts and feelings of mans soul are not like the rays of light–those of today having no connection with or dependence on those of yesterday; but they are like the branches of a tree resting on and nourished by the roots. The roots of a mans life are in the past, and he cannot, even if he would, break away from it. The gentle soul of an aged Christian, filled with the full assurance of hope, will sometimes shudder at the recollection of sinful passion long ago pardoned and subdued, even as the dark blue glassy surface of a tropical sea will sometimes heave from the influence of some remote ocean storm.
1. We observe then, first, that God often recalls our past sins to us by means of the dispensations of providence. When a man feels himself prematurely old, and knows, as he often does, that decay is the fruit of what he himself sowed in other years, how can he fail to read his sin in his punishment? But it is not only when there is a close connection between the sin and suffering that sin is brought to remembrance. There is sometimes in the very nature of the event that which is fitted to suggest scenes and circumstances of our past life. Look, for example, to the case of Jacob. He was deceived by his uncle Laban, and brought by a trick to marry Leah instead of Rachel. The conduct of Laban was a severe affliction to Jacob at the time, and it proved the source of discomfort and domestic strife afterwards; is it not in the highest degree probable that when the patriarch was so deceived and made to smart in this way, he thought of the fact that he himself had been guilty of conduct very like that of his uncle when he went in to his old blind father and said, I am thy elder son, thy son Esau? The case of Jacobs sons in the land of Egypt is a very striking illustration of this. We are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.
2. Again we observe, that God often recalls past sins to us by the preaching of the Gospel. The woman of Samaria said of Jesus, who had preached the Gospel to her, He told me all things that ever I did.
3. Now why does God thus make a man possess the sins of his youth? Is it not that we may feel our need of the mercy which God has provided for us in the Gospel of His Son? (J. B. Johnston, D. D.)
The sins of youth in the groans of age
The popular thought is, let age be grave, and youth be gay. I question its rightness for two reasons.
1. Because where there is not godliness there is the strongest reason for the greatest gravity and gloom of spirit.
2. Where this godliness is, there is even stronger reason for joy in age than in youth. Call attention to the solemnity of youthful life.
I. Youth has its sins.
1. Want of knowledge. Youth is a period of ignorance and inexperience.
2. The force of passions. In the first stages of life we are almost entirely the creatures of sense: physical appetite, not moral ideas, rule us; we are influenced by feeling, not faith; the mind is the vassal of matter.
3. Susceptibility to influence. This is a characteristic of youth; the sentiments, language, conduct of others are powerful influences in the formation of its own. Character is formed, in fact, on the principle of imitation.
II. The sins of youth descend to age. Job regarded himself as heir to them; they were his heritage, he could not shake them off. Youthful sins are bound by the indissoluble chain of causation to the mans futurity. There are three principles that secure this connection.
1. The law of retribution.
2. The law of habit.
3. The law of memory.
III. Their existence in age is a bitter thing.
1. They are bitter things to the body in old age. Every sin has an evil effect on the physical health.
2. They are bitter things to the soul in old age. To the intellect, the heart, and the conscience.
IV. They are a bitter thing in age, even where the sufferer is a godly man. Old errors cannot be corrected; old principles cannot be uprooted; old habits cannot be broken in a day. The conclusion of the whole is this,–the importance of beginning religion in youth. The chances are that unless it is commenced in youth, it will never be commenced at all. There are but few conversions in middle life. As we begin we are likely to end. (Homilist.)
The iniquities of youth repossessed
I. Explain the language of the text.
1. Thou writest bitter things against me. This refers either to the record which God keeps of our offences, or to the punishments which He has decreed against us. Men cannot bear to be reminded of their sins. God keeps a record. There is an avowed and express purpose for which our sins are written down. With every sin God writes a curse.
2. Thou makest me to possess the inequities of my youth. The conscience of the sinner himself is also made the depository of his manifold offences. It is an unspeakable mercy, if, by any means, God makes us to possess or remember the iniquities of our youth. But the manner in which He does this is often most painful and distressing. He sends affliction upon men in such ways that they are often compelled to see the very sin which they have committed in the temporal chastisement which they suffer. Some sins are brought to our recollection–
1. By bodily diseases.
2. By the ruin of our worldly circumstances.
3. By our feeling the influence of bad habits.
4. By trouble of conscience and a restless mind.
II. Apply the subject to various characters.
1. Awaken those who are secure and asleep in a careless and irreligious life.
2. Affectionately warn young people against the temptations to which they are exposed.
3. Speak words of comfort to the humble-minded. (J. Jowett, M. A.)
The influence of youthful sin
Among the reminiscences of a political leader published by a Boston journal, is one of a national convention of the party to which he belonged. He says that the first days proceedings developed the fact that the balance of power in the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency would rest with the delegation from a certain State. The delegates met in caucus at night with closed doors. In the discussion that ensued, the name of a prominent man was urged, and was received with favour. Only one of the delegates, a judge of some eminence in the State, knew him personally, and he not intimately. He was asked for his opinion. In reply, he said that he was at college with the prospective candidate, and he would relate one incident of college life. He did so, and it showed that the young man was in those days destitute of moral principle. The delegates were satisfied that, although brilliant, he was a man they could not trust, and they unanimously resolved to cast the votes of the State for his rival. The next day the vote was given, as decided, and the man to whom it was given was nominated and elected. Little did the young college man think, when he committed that escapade, that a score of years later it would be the sole cause of his missing one of the great prizes of earth–that of being the ruler of millions of people. But sin is always loss, and unless it is blotted out by the blood of Christ, it will cause the sinner to lose the greatest prize attainable to a human being in the world beyond the grave–eternal life (Luk 13:3).
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 26. Thou writest bitter things against me] The indictment is filled with bitter or grievous charges, which, if proved, would bring me to bitter punishment.
The iniquities of my youth] The levities and indiscretions of my youth I acknowledge; but is this a ground on which to form charges against a man the integrity of whose life is unimpeachable?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Thou writest, i.e. thou appointest or inflictest. A metaphor from princes or judges, who anciently used to write their sentence or decrees concerning persons or causes brought before them. See Psa 149:9; Jer 22:30; Joh 19:22.
Bitter things, i.e. a terrible sentence, or most grievous punishments.
Makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth; thou dost now at once bring upon me the punishment of all my sins, not excepting those of my youth, which because of the folly and weakness of that age are usually excused or winked at, or at least but gently punished.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
26. writesta judicial phrase,to note down the determined punishment. The sentence of the condemnedused to be written down (Isa 10:1;Jer 22:30; Psa 149:9)[UMBREIT].
bitter thingsbitterpunishments.
makest me to possessor”inherit.” In old age he receives possession of theinheritance of sin thoughtlessly acquired in youth. “To inheritsins” is to inherit the punishments inseparablyconnected with them in Hebrew ideas (Ps25:7).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For thou writest bitter things against me,…. Meaning not sins and rebellions, taken notice of by him, when his good deeds were omitted, as Jarchi; sin is indeed an evil and a bitter thing in its own nature, being exceeding sinful and abominable, and its effects and consequences; being what provokes God to anger most bitterly, and makes bitter work for repentance; as it did in Peter, who, when made sensible of it, wept bitterly, Mt 26:75; sooner or later, sin, though it is a sweet morsel rolled about in the mouth for a while, yet in the issue proves the gall of asps within, Job 20:14, bitter and distressing; and this God also puts down in the book of his remembrance, yea, writes it as with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond, Jer 17:1; but that cannot be meant here, since Job was inquiring after his sins, asking what and how many they were, and would not allow of any being committed by him that were heinous and notorious; wherefore afflictions are rather here intended, which are bitter and grievous, and not joyous, and especially such as Job was afflicted with; see Ru 1:20; and these were written by the Lord in the book of his eternal purposes and decrees, and were the things he performed, which were appointed for Job, as he full well knew, and as all the afflictions of God’s people are; and besides they were written in a judiciary way, and so against him; they were, as he apprehended, the sentence of a judge written down, and read, and pronounced, and according to it inflicted, and that with great deliberation as things are written, and in order to continue, as what is written does; and so denotes that a severe decree was gone forth against him, with design, and was and would be continued:
and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth; which had been committed through weakness and ignorance; and which, it might have been thought, would not have been taken notice of and animadverted on; or rather which Job concluded had been forgiven and forgotten, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, and would never have been brought into account any more; and yet these were not only remembered by the Lord, at least seemingly, by the afflictions that were endured; but they were by him brought to Job’s remembrance, and the guilt of them charged upon him, and stared him in the face, and loaded his conscience, and filled him with reproach, and shame, as Ephraim,
Jer 31:19; and which is deprecated by the Psalmist, Ps 25:7; and what aggravated this case and made it the more distressing was, that in Job’s apprehension it was to continue with him as an inheritance, as the word m signifies, which abides with men in their families for ever; and some respect may be had to the corruption of nature, which is hereditary, and remains with men from their youth upwards.
m “haereditare me facis”, Beza, Schmidt, Michaelis; so Junius and Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schultens; so the Targum and Ben Melech.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
26 For Thou decreest bitter things against me,
And causest me to possess the iniquities of my youth,
27 And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And observest all my ways.
Thou makest for thyself a circle round the soles of my feet,
28 Round one who moulders away as worm-eaten,
As a garment that the moth gnaweth.
He is conscious of having often prayed: “Remember not the sins of my youth, and my transgressions: according to Thy mercy remember Thou me,” Psa 25:7; and still he can only regard his affliction as the inheritance (i.e., entailed upon him by sins not repented of) of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath, to reproach himself with. He does not know how to reconcile with the justice of God the fact that He again records against him sins, the forgiveness of which he implores soon after their commission, and decrees ( , as Psa 149:9, and as used elsewhere in the book of Job with reference to the recording of judgment) for him on account of them such bitter punishment ( , amara , bitter calamities; comp. Deu 32:32, “bitter” grapes). And the two could not indeed be harmonized, if it really were thus. So long as a man remains an object of the divine mercy, his sins that have been once forgiven are no more the object of divine judgment. But Job can understand his affliction only as an additional punishment. The conflict of temptation through which he is passing has made God’s loving-kindness obscure to him. He appears to himself to be like a prisoner whose feet are forced into the holes of a , i.e., the block or log of wood in which the feet of a criminal are fastened, and which he must shuffle about with him when he moves; perhaps connected with Arab. sadda , occludere, opplere ( foramen), elsewhere (from the forcible twisting or fastening), Chald. , , Syr. sado , by which Act 16:24, = , is rendered; Lat. cippus (which Ralbag compares), codex (in Plautus an instrument of punishment for slaves), or also nervus . The verb which belongs to it, and is found also in Job 33:11 in the same connection, is of the jussive form, but is neither jussive nor optative in meaning, as also the future with shortened vowel (e.g., Job 27:22; Job 40:19) or apocopated (Job 18:12; Job 23:9, Job 23:11) is used elsewhere from the preference of poetry for a short pregnant form. He seems to himself like a criminal whose steps are closely watched ( , as Job 10:14), in order that he may not have the undeserved enjoyment of freedom, and may not avoid the execution for which he is reserved by effecting an escape by flight. Instead of , the reading adopted by Ben-Ascher, Ben-Naphtali writes , with Cholem in the first syllable; both modes of punctuation change without any fixed law also in other respects in the inflexion of , as of , a caravan, the construct is both , Job 6:19, and . It is scarcely necessary to remark that the verbs in Job 13:27 are addressed to God, and are not intended as the third pers. fem. in reference to the stocks (Ralbag). The roots of the feet are undoubtedly their undermost parts, therefore the soles. But what is the meaning of ? The Vulg., Syr., and Parchon explain: Thou fixest thine attention upon … , but certainly according to mere conjecture; Ewald, by the help of the Arabic tahhakkaka ala : Thou securest thyself … , but there is not the least necessity to depart from the ordinary use of the word, as those also do who explain: Thou makest a law or boundary (Aben-Ezra, Ges., Hahn, Schlottm.). The verb is the usual word (certainly cognate and interchangeable with ) for carved-out work (intaglio), and perhaps with colour rubbed in, or filled up with metal (vid., Job 19:23, comp. Eze 23:14); it signifies to hew into, to carve, to dig a trench. Stickel is in some measure true to this meaning when he explains: Thou scratchest, pressest (producing blood); by which rendering, however, the Hithpa. is not duly recognised. Raschi is better, tu t’affiches , according to which Mercerus: velut affixus vestigiis pedum meorum adhaeres, ne qu elabi possim aut effugere . But a closer connection with the ordinary use of the word is possible. Accordingly Rosenm., Umbreit, and others render: Thou markest a line round my feet (drawest a circle round); Hirz., however, in the strictest sense of the Hithpa.: Thou diggest thyself in (layest thyself as a circular line about my feet). But the Hithpa. does not necessarily mean se insculpere , but, as sibi exuere, sibi solvere, sibi propitium facere , it may also mean sibi insculpere, which does not give so strange a representation: Thou makest to thyself furrows (or also: lines) round the soles of my feet, so that they cannot move beyond the narrow boundaries marked out by thee. With , Job 13:28, a circumstantial clause begins: While he whom Thou thus fastenest in as a criminal, etc. Observe the fine rhythmical accentuation achalo asch . Since God whom he calls upon does not appear, Job’s defiance is changed to timidity. The elegiac tone, into which his bold tone has passed, is continued in Job 14.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(26) For thou writest bitter things against me.Exquisitely plaintive and affecting is this confession.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
26. Thou writest A judicial term, observes Rosenmuller, referring to the custom of writing the sentence of a person condemned, thus decreeing the punishment. Psa 149:9. Among the Arabs a writing is used to denote a judicial sentence.
Bitter things Prof. Lee mentions an Oriental adage, “Disease and want are two things more bitter than the juice of the colocynth.”
Possess Inherit.
Iniquities Same as in Job 13:23, from , to be bent or distorted. “Evil is a departure from man’s appointed path.”
The iniquities of my youth Nature is ever slow to punish the transgressor. God’s mercy is thus proclaimed through the constitution of things he has himself founded. Youth is blindly led to presume upon apparent security. Nature, however, never forgets. She “lays up the depths in storehouses;” so all transgressions are housed against a retributive future. At the period of man’s greatest feebleness, amid the infirmities of many years, she lets loose against the transgressor imprisoned evils the sins of youth. They prove a fearful heritage, upon which the man as naturally enters as a child does upon the estate of a deceased parent. Thus, in a sense vastly different from that, the Italian artist thought, “the remembrance of youth is a sigh.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 13:26. Thou writest bitter things against me The author of the Divine Legation, zealous to support his allegorical scheme, is always desirous, for that end, to point out inconsistencies in this book. “The great point Job insists upon (says he) throughout the whole book is, his innocence; and yet, to our surprize, we hear him thus expostulating with God: Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. This can be accounted for no otherwise than by understanding it of the Jewish people:”but why so? May not the best man that ever lived find something to condemn in the levities and sins of his youth, or when he was a boy or child? for the Hebrew word neuraii, sometimes denotes a state of childhood. See Schultens and Grey. We may certainly allow him to have had respect to some actual sins of his youth, without any detriment to his argument, drawn from that present uprightness of heart and life which he now pleads; and had long practised; for, by the way, it is not his innocence, strictly speaking, which Job insists on, but his integrity. Peters.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“Thou… makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.” Job 13:26
Note the unity and continuity of life. There is a philosophy which asserts that the human body changes its atoms or particles, say, every seven years, and in view of that philosophy it has been attempted to show that human identity practically changes. The suggestion is not without fancy and beauty; at the same time it is simply driven out of court by certain moral instincts which insist that time has nothing whatever to do with the mitigation of deep moral offences. Who, for example, would say that a man is no longer to be charged with murder after seven years have elapsed since the perpetration of the crime? Who would admit a forger to his countinghouse on the plea that more than seven years have passed by since the forgery was committed, and therefore the identity of the man had changed? We have to elect between theories which are fanciful, and practices which are well-proved and established: as a mere matter of fact, it would be universally acknowledged that no man would be admitted to trust and fellowship who had committed murder or forgery even thirty years ago; he would be still held to be the same man, and his offence would be resented with undiminished indignation. Here, then, is a law, the action of which we must faithfully recognise: Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; this plain word stands for ever, and nothing can change its application. As a matter of fact, we know that after long years the trangressions against health which we have committed remind us by practical consequences of their reality. We are constantly telling men that they treated themselves hardly in their youth, that in their youth they ruined their constitution, that in their youth they laid foundations for this or that disease. This being the case bodily, it is also the case spiritually. So mysterious is the connection between the body and the mind that what is done in the one affects the other for good or for evil. A man cannot think a bad thought without taking so much quality out of his brain. A man cannot even silently muse upon the possibility of doing forbidden things without returning from his contemplation shorn and weakened and dishonoured. The brain gives off its quality very subtly, but most surely; so much so, that he who has been indulging evil thoughts finds himself unprepared to discuss great questions or undertake perilous adventures. Another law that is recognised in this text in the law of delay in the infliction of punishment or in the realisation of facts. The penalty does not immediately succeed the transgression. Herein men have hardened themselves to a high degree of impenitence against God. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” We have illustrations of this even in physical life. Men notice with wonder that people who have been infected with rabies do not instantly fall down dead: the poison mingles with the blood slowly, and probably months, in some cases even years will elapse, before the fatal result is developed. This is looked upon as a scientific fact; it occasions no moral disturbance in the men who regard it as such: why, then, should it be thought a thing incredible that a man of fifty should have to suffer for wrongs which he did at twenty? Is it not matter rather for religious wonder and thankfulness that the law should be so continuous and inevitable in its operations and executions? In science this would be thought admirable, and would be held up as an instance of the solidarity and majesty of nature; the moral teacher must be none the less ready to avail himself of it for his superior purposes. A text of this kind justifies the preacher in exhorting his hearers to beware what they sow. to take care of themselves in their youth, and to proceed along the line of life with the caution of men who know that every word will be heard again, that every deed will repeat itself in some consequence, and that character is but the summing-up and consummation of works done day by day from the very beginning of life.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job 13:26 For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
Ver. 26. For thou writest bitter things against me ] As it were by a judicial rescript thou decreest my doom; and accordingly thou inflictest hard and heavy things upon me, as is most elegantly described in the following verses by metaphor fetched from the course of courts, Humanitus dictum ex usu forensi (Jun.). Sin is an evil and a bitter thing, Jer 2:19 Heb 12:15 Act 8:23 ; and hath bitter effects, Rth 1:20 Exo 1:14 . This made that holy man, Mr Paul Baine, say, The sweet ways of my youth did breed such worms in my soul, as that my heavenly Father will have me yet a little while continue my bitter worm seed, because they cannot otherwise be throughly killed. I thank God, saith he in another place, sustentation I have, but sweet spirituals I taste not any (Mr Clark in his Life). It is reported of this good man that, when he came first to Cambridge, his conversation was so irregular, that his father, being grieved at it, before his death left with a friend forty pounds by the year, desiring that his son might have it if he amended his manners, else not: he afterwards had it, as he well deserved, as proving a notable instrument of much good to many, and particularly to that Reverend Dr Sibbs, whom he converted; howbeit, in his last sickness he had many fears and doubts, and God letting Satan loose upon him, he went out of this world with far less comfort than many weaker Christians enjoy; his case being not unlike his who saith in the next words,
And makest me to possess (or to inherit) the iniquities of my youth] Which I took for pardoned long since (and so no doubt but they were); but Job’s affliction renewed the remembrance of them to his conscience, as it is the best art of memory. Satan also made him believe that now he was punished for the new and the old, as we say, and that God meant to make him answer for all the sins of his life at once, having watched a time to be revenged on him for all together. Youth is a slippery age, and soon slips into sin. There is great cause that a young man should cleanse his ways, Psa 119:9 , where the word Nagnar, signifying a lad, or stripling, comes from a root signifying to shake off, or to be tossed to and fro. And the other word, rendered cleanse, signifieth to be clean as glass, which will soon gather a new dustiness. Such must cleanse their ways, by cleaving to the word; or otherwise, they may one day groan as much under the sins then committed as many do under the blows and bruises then received. See the former note.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
writest: Job 3:20, Rth 1:20, Psa 88:3-18
makest: Job 20:11, Psa 25:7, Pro 5:11-13, Jer 31:19, Joh 5:5, Joh 5:14
Reciprocal: Rth 1:21 – the Lord 1Ki 17:18 – art thou come Job 7:20 – I have sinned Job 10:14 – then Psa 119:9 – shall Psa 139:3 – compassest Ecc 11:10 – remove
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 13:26. For thou writest That is, thou appointest; bitter things against me A terrible sentence, or most grievous punishments. It is a metaphor taken from the custom of princes or judges, who anciently used to write their sentences, or decrees, concerning persons or causes brought before them. And makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth Dost now, at once, bring upon me the punishment of all my sins, not excepting those of my youth, which were committed before I well knew what I did.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
13:26 For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess {m} the iniquities of my youth.
(m) You punish me now for the sins that I committed in my youth.