Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 13:27
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.
27. Thou puttest ] Rather, and puttest my feet in &c. The verse describes his afflictions under three figures, all denoting arrest, impossibility of movement or escape, and chastisement. The first words are brought up by Elihu, ch. Job 33:11, cf. Jer 20:2; Act 16:24.
settest a print upon the heels ] Rather, and drawest thee a line around the soles of my feet. The figure means that God rigidly prescribed his movements, drawing bounds, which he must not overstep, around his feet. He is a prisoner under rigid surveillance.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks – The word rendered stocks ( sad), denotes the wooden frame or block in which the feet of a person were confined for punishment. The whole passage here is designed to describe the feet; as so confined in a clog or clogs, as to preclude the power of motion. Stocks or clogs were used often in ancient times as a mode of punishment. Pro 7:22. Jeremiah was punished by being confined in the stocks. Jer 20:2; Jer 29:2, Jer 29:6. Paul and Silas were in like manner confined in the prison in stocks; Act 16:24. Stocks appear to have been of two kinds. They were either clogs attached to one foot or to both feet, so as to embarrass, but not entirely to prevent walking, or they were fixed frames to which the feet were attached so as entirely to preclude motion. The former were often used with runaway slaves to prevent their escaping again when taken, or were affixed to prisoners to prevent their escape. The fixed kinds – which are probably referred to here – were of different sorts. They consisted of a frame, with holes for the feet only; or for the feet and the hands; or for the feet, the hands, and the neck. At Pompeii, stocks have been found so contrived that ten prisoners might be chained by the leg, each leg separately by the sliding of a bar. Pict. Bible. The instrument is still used in India, and is such as to confine the limbs in a very distressing position, though the head is allowed to move freely.
And lookest narrowly unto all my paths – This idea occurs also in Job 33:11, though expressed somewhat differently, He putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths. Probably the allusion is to the paths by which he might escape. God watched or observed every way – as a sentinel or guard would a prisoner who was hampered or clogged, and who would make an attempt to escape.
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet – Margin, roots. Such also is the Hebrew – shereshy regely. Vulgate, vestigia. Septuagint, Upon the roots – eis de rizas – of my feet thou comest. The word sharash means properly root; then the bottom, or the lower part of a thing; and hence, the soles of the feet. The word rendered settest a print, from chaqah, means to cut in, to hew, to hack; then to engrave, carve, delineate, portray; then to dig. Various interpretations have been given of the passage here. Gesenius supposes it to mean, Around the roots of my feet thou hast digged, that is, hast made a trench so that I can get no further. But though this suits the connection, yet it is an improbable interpretation. It is not the way in which one would endeavor to secure a prisoner, to make a ditch over which he could not leap.
Others render it, Around the soles of my feet thou hast drawn lines, that is, thou hast made marks how far I may go. Dr. Good supposes that the whole description refers to some method of clogging a wild animal for the purpose of taming him, and that the expression here refers to a mark on the hoof of the animal by which the owner could designate him. Noyes accords with Gesenius. The editor of the Pictorial Bible supposes that it may refer to the manner in which the stocks were made, and that it means that a seal was affixed to the parts of the plank of which they were constructed, when they were joined together. He adds that the Chinese have a portable pillory of this kind, and that offenders are obliged to wear it around their necks for a given period, and that over the place where it is joined together a piece of paper is pasted, that it may not be opened without detection. Rosenmuller supposes that it means, that Job was confined within certain prescribed limits, beyond which he was not allowed to go. This restraint he supposes was effected by binding his feet by a cord to the stocks, so that he was not allowed to go beyond a certain distance. The general sense is clear, that Job was confined within certain limits, and was observed with very marked vigilance. But I doubt whether either of the explanations suggested is the true one. Probably some custom is alluded to of which we have no knowledge now – some mark that was affixed to the feet to prevent a prisoner from escaping without being detected. What that was, I think, we do not know. Perhaps Oriental researches will yet disclose some custom that will explain it.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 13:27
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
Footprints
True religion there cannot be without an abiding sense of our responsibilities. We must discover and realise our moral obligations, or we can never meet and discharge them. What is meant by moral responsibility? It implies that God will call man to account for his whole character and conduct, and will render to every man accordingly. To every man time is a state of probation, and eternity a state of retribution. The doctrine of our responsibility lies within us, graven on our very being by the Spirit of God Himself. We are apt to forget the extent of this responsibility. We look upon it as a mere generality. Note, then, we are responsible for our thoughts and our actions. The responsibility extends to every word of our lips, and to every stepping of our feet. As we walk, we write the history of our movements–write them down forever. Some footprints can outlive ages, as the geologists show us. God will remind you that He put a print into the heel of your foot, that He might bring you into judgment for your movements upon earth. Here is a thought upon a part of our responsibilities we are apt to forget. We cannot move but we carry with us our Christian obligations, and our consequent relationship to the day of judgment necessarily attending those obligations. Every single step has left behind it an eternal footprint which determines in what direction we walk, in what character we move.
1. Wherever we move we carry with us our personal and individual responsibility. In every change of place and contact with man on the travel we act as beings who must give an account to God. Then call to mind the obligations that rest on you.
2. We are all so constituted as to exert a relative influence on each other. There is no member of the human family who does not sustain some relation, either original or acquired, either public or private, either permanent or temporary; nor is there any relation which does not invest the person sustaining it with some degree of interest. Do we think as we ought of this? (J. C. Phipps Eyre, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks] bassad, “in a clog,” such as was tied to the feet of slaves, to prevent them from running away. This is still used in the West Indies, among slave-dealers; and is there called the pudding, being a large collar of iron, locked round the ankle of the unfortunate man. Some have had them twenty pounds’ weight; and, having been condemned to carry them for several years, when released could not walk without them! A case of this kind I knew: The slave had learned to walk well with his pudding, but when taken off, if he attempted to walk, he fell down, and was obliged to resume it occasionally, till practice had taught him the proper centre of gravity, which had been so materially altered by wearing so large a weight; the badge at once of his oppression, and of the cruelty of his task-masters!
And lookest narrowly] Thou hast seen all my goings out and comings in; and there is no step I have taken in life with which thou art unacquainted.
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.] Some understand this as the mark left on the foot by the clog; or the owner’s mark indented on this clog; or, Thou hast pursued me as a hound does his game, by the scent.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Thou encompassest me with thy judgments, that I may have no way or possibility to escape. When thou hast me fast in prison, thou makest a strict and diligent search into all the actions of my life, that thou mayst find matter to condemn me. Thou followest me close at the heels, either to observe my actions, or to pursue me with thy judgments, so that thou dost oft tread upon my heels, and leave the prints of thy footsteps upon them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
27. stocksin which theprisoner’s feet were made fast until the time of execution (Jer20:2).
lookest narrowlyas anoverseer would watch a prisoner.
printEither thestocks, or his disease, marked his soles (Hebrew,“roots”) as the bastinado would. Better, thou drawest (ordiggest) [GESENIUS] a line(or trench) [GESENIUS]round my soles, beyond which I must not move [UMBREIT].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks,…. Which is one kind of punishment of offenders, and a preservation of them from making their escape; and is a security and reservation of them for further punishment sometimes; and so Job looked upon his afflictions as a punishment for he knew not what, and with which he was so surrounded and enclosed, that there was no getting out of them any more than a man can whose feet are set fast in the stocks; and that he was here kept for greater afflictions still, which he dreaded. Aben Ezra interprets it, “thou puttest my feet in lime”; and this is followed by others n, suggesting, as a man’s steps in lime are marked and easily discerned, so were his by the Lord; but this seems to be foreign from the mind of Job, who would not make such a concession as this, as if his steps taken amiss were so visible:
and lookest narrowly into all my paths; so that there was no possibility of escaping out of his troubles and afflictions; so strict a watch was kept over him; see Job 7:19; according to Ben Gersom, this refers to the stocks, “it keeps all my ways”, kept him within from going abroad about the business of life, and so may refer to the disease of his body, his boils and ulcers, which kept him at home, and suffered him not to stir out of doors; but the former sense is best:
thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet; either it, the stocks, made a mark upon his heels, with which they were pressed hard, as Gersom; or rather God set one upon them, afflicting him very sorely and putting him to an excruciating pain, such as is felt by criminals when heavy blows are laid upon the soles of their feet, to which the allusion may be; or else the sense is, that he followed him closely by the heels, that whenever he took a step, it was immediately marked, and observed by the Lord, as if he trod in his steps, and set his own foot in the mark that was left.
n “Calce tinxisti pedes meos”, Gussetius, p. 550. so some in Ben Melech.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(27) Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks.This is illustrated by the language of the Psalms (Psa. 88:8; Psa. 142:7, &c.). There is a difficulty in these two verses, arising from the pronouns. Some understand the subject to be the fetter: Thou puttest my feet in the fetter that watcheth over all my paths, and imprinteth itself upon the roots of my feet, and it (the foot) consumeth like a rotten thing, and like a garment that is moth-eaten. Others refer the he to Job himself; and others to man, the subject of the following chapter. In the Hebrew future tense the third person feminine and the second person masculine are alike, and the word for fetter, which is only found here and at Job. 33:11, where Elihu quotes these words, may possibly be feminine in this place, though it is clear that Elihu understood Job to be speaking of God. Probably by the he introduced so abruptly is meant the object of all this watching and persecution.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
27. The stocks Some kind of clog for the feet, which the culprit shuffled about with him when he moved, perhaps similar to those in more recent times fastened to the feet of malefactors or fugitive slaves. “At Pompeii stocks have been found so contrived that ten prisoners might be chained by the leg, each leg separately, by the sliding of a bar.” KITTO, Pictorial Bible.
Thou settest a print Literally, Around the roots of my feet thou settest a bound. Thus he was imprisoned against any possibility of escape.
Heels Literally, roots: “that part of the feet through which, standing or going, like a tree through its roots, man is fastened to the earth.” Stickel. The figures in this verse hinge upon the swollen condition of his feet a marked feature of the elephantiasis, in the course of which, says WINER, ( Rwb., 1:115,) “the feet swell to a horrible extent.” See note Job 2:7.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 13:27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, &c. Thou puttest my feet also in a clog; thou watchest all my paths; thou settest a mark on the soles of my feet. This alludes to the custom of putting a clog on the feet of fugitive slaves with the owner’s mark, that they might be tracked and found. Heath. Houbigant renders the next verse, So that I am become like a thing consumed with rottenness; like a garment eaten up by the moth. I would just observe, that the dividing these speeches by chapters very frequently interrupts the connection; and the reader would do well in his perusal of them to neglect this division, which, though it has its uses, is of very modern date.
REFLECTIONS.1st, In vindicating his cause against his unkind friends, some severity mixes with his just self-defence.
1. He desires them to weigh what he had said, that they might be convinced that he was not so weak as they would insinuate; he spoke from experience and observation, and he was assured that both would corroborate his sentiments, and prove him at least their equal in understanding. Note; We should well weigh before we condemn; rash censures only shew the folly of those who bestow them.
2. He wishes that the cause might be brought before God, as the umpire between him and his friends; could this be granted, he feared not to carry the point. Note; Conscious simplicity fears not the eye of piercing truth.
3. He sharply upbraids their cruel treatment of him: Ye are forgers of lies, contriving and publishing positions contrary to the truth of God, and highly injurious to the character of their neighbourin saying that God never afflicted the righteous, and that his (Job’s) sufferings were on account of his wickedness: ye are all physicians of no value, idol-physicians, pretenders to science, but ignorant both of the cause of his maladies, and the method of cure, deceiving his hopes, and as useless as the idol stock or stone. Note; (1.) A deliberate lie is a crying sin; against such false tongues no innocence can protect. (2.) Whatever here below the awakened sinner flies to for help and healing, will make him worse rather than better: none can cure the miseries of a fallen spirit, but that great physician who has the balm of life and grace to minister to the sin-sick soul.
4. He begs them to hold their peace rather than speak such words as wound, instead of healing; and observes, that their wisdom would better appear in silence, than in arguments so weak, and urged with such unkindness. He earnestly intreats them to hear his reasoning, and not be inattentive to, or disregard his pleadings, as they seemed to do. Note; (1.) Hastiness to speak, and rashness to utter without mature deliberation, expose the folly, instead of displaying the wisdom of a disputant. (2.) Truth needs only a fair hearing; but prejudice is deaf, and the best of men often suffer unheard or unnoticed.
5. He expostulates with them on the folly, sin, and danger of their conduct; who, while they pretended to plead the cause of God and truth, dishonoured him by falsehood, and misrepresented his dispensations; Will you speak wickedly for God? in condemning a righteous man as a hypocrite, and talk deceitfully for him, by pretending to vindicate his justice at the expence of his truth. Will ye accept his person, according to human partiality, and, construing my afflictions into signs of guilt, refuse to examine my case, and judge me unheard? Will ye contend for God? does his cause need such advocates? or will your pretext to plead for him excuse the falsehood of your principles, or the rash censure of your conclusions? Is it good that he should search you out? would he not then detect the evil of your principles, and the cruelty of your conduct? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? pretending to be on his side, yet speaking to his dishonour. He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons; however you may deceive yourselves with imaginations of zeal for the honour of his perfections, he will resent your accusations of an upright man, condemned unjustly by you: Shall not his excellency make you afraid? or his height, his glorious perfections, of power, holiness, truth, &c. and his dread fall upon you, as false witnesses for him, doing so bad a thing under a pretence of zeal for his glory. Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay; your arguments are light as ashes, and as weak as a fortification composed of eminences of clay; or he suggests their weak and mortal state, as a reason why they should be afraid to provoke the holy and avenging God. Note; (1.) A good intention will not excuse, much less justify, an ill thing. (2.) They who plead for God had need be serious inquirers after truth themselves, and neither wilfully nor wickedly condemn those whom God hath not condemned. (3.) Whatever deceit we may put on others or ourselves, God is not mocked; he searcheth the heart, is no respecter of persons, and will assuredly reprove the evil that he discerns, however secretly committed, or coloured over with whatever pious pretext. (4.) The consideration of God’s excellency and our meanness, his perfections and our vanity, should awaken in our mind a holy awe, and make us afraid to provoke his displeasure.
2nd, Full of matter, he resolved to utter his speech, and begs a moment’s diligent attention to the declaration that he was going to make.
1. Whatever became of him, whatever censures his friends laid on him, speak he must; he would not smother the protestations of his innocence, nor pine to death in silent vexations: for, to hold his tongue under such circumstances of suffering and wrong, would be to burst with grief and expire: or, as some render the words, At all events I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand; come what will come, I will maintain my integrity. Note; If we have the testimony of a good conscience, we need fear no evil.
2. He strongly maintains his simplicity before God. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: the severity of my trials shall not make me quit my dependance on him; and the consciousness of my integrity till death will I never renounce. I will maintain mine own ways before him, that I have walked in truth and all good conscience. Not that herein he placed his hope of salvation; no; He also shall be my salvation, in his rich and free grace is my trust, whatever becomes of me here below; but this he never could hope to partake of, if allowed guile had been chargeable upon him; for an hypocrite shall not come before him: this he was fully assured of, and as sure that this character was not applicable to himself, as his friends had insinuated. Behold, now I have ordered my cause, am ready to maintain it against every accuser; I know that I shall be justified from the malicious accusations of men, from the sin he had confessed, and in his own heart enjoy the consciousness of his acceptance before God. Who is he that will plead with me? let him appear, and I am prepared to answer every allegation. Note; (1.) Whatever discouragements are in our way, confidence in God is our great duty and support. (2.) They who plead the salvation of Jesus Christ, and trust in it in living loving faith, are conscious that no charge lies against them in the court of heaven. (3.) Though sincerity is not our justification before God, it is a comfortable evidence to our own souls of an interest in his salvation, while hypocrisy gives the lie to every hope.
3. He turns from his friends to make his address to God. Two things he desires, and then he will undertake to open his cause: (1.) That his afflictions be removed, or suspended; and (2.) That the terror of the Divine Majesty be withdrawn; and that such a manifestation of his presence might be made, as would not confound and dismay him; then, as Defendant, he would answer, or as Plaintiff interrogate, and reason with God on his dealings with him: a daring proposal, for which he was afterwards, by Elihu, and God himself, justly censured. Note; In their distress men are too apt to utter what, on reflection, they must deeply condemn.
3rdly, Having proposed a fair trial, Job now,
1. Begs to be informed of the number and nature of his sins, being confessedly a sinner, though not chargeable with any of the grosser crimes. Some understand this as the language of humility; others, as a complaint of hard measure, to suffer without knowing the cause, or being conscious of having given any particular provocation: the latter sense seems most to correspond with the succeeding expostulations. Note; Who can understand his errors? they who know most, know but a little of the evil that they stand chargeable with before God.
2. He grieves bitterly at the absence of a sense of God’s favour, a more afflictive burden than all his other losses; and cannot bear the thought of having the God he loved to treat him as an enemy, and frown on him in displeasure. Note; (1.) Those alone who have enjoyed communion with God know the misery of darkness, and distance from him. (2.) An apprehension of God’s wrath is a kind of hell upon earth. (3.) When God seems to depart from us, it becomes us to examine and see what hath provoked him; for assuredly there is a cause.
3. He expostulates with God on his treatment of him, as beneath his majesty to crush a worm, who is as unable to resist him as the stubble the furious whirlwind: perhaps he meant it to move his commiseration. He complains of the hard measure that he endured, for which the iniquities of his youth were raked up against him, as those which afforded most cause for condemnation; and intimates God’s severity in putting him into such a state of suffering, marking every false step, as if solicitous to catch at the least infirmity to vindicate his procedure, and to increase his anguish, under which already he pined away, as a corpse turning to putrefaction, and as a garment moth-eaten: under such misery to add to his sufferings seemed bitter, not to say cruel. Note; (1.) They have sadly-mistaken notions of the divine compassions, who can entertain a thought of his breaking with his wrath the heart which is bleeding in humiliation. (2.) However lightly youthful sins may be considered, God frequently makes his servants possess the bitter remembrance of them. (3.) They who think God too strict and severe, prove their own ignorance of themselves and him. (4.) Man is a perishing worm. How vile does disease make our bodies! but how much more odious has sin made the souls of all men by nature! What a blessed hope to be fixed out of the reach of both for ever on the resurrection-day!
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 13:27 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.
Ver. 27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks ] Mercer here observeth an elegant gradation in God’s proceeding with Job, as himself describeth it, rising higher and higher in his discourse. 1. God hid his face, and denied him his favour. 2. He counted him as his enemy. 3. He broke him like a leaf or stubble. 4. He wrote bitter things against him. 5. He made him possess the sins of his youth. 6. For his young sins he claps him up close prisoner now in his old age, and there keeps him as with a strict guard following him close at heels if he but stir a foot. Was there ever sorrow like unto Job’s sorrow? was ever greater severity and rigour showed upon any godly person? Where, then, shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? &c. God’s wrath is like Elijah’s cloud, little at first, as a man’s hand, but soon after very dismal and dreadful; or as thunder, of which we hear at first a little noise afar off, but soon after a terrible crack. Well might Moses say, “Who knoweth the power of thine anger?” Psa 90:11 , Cavebis autem, si pavebis. You will beware if you will be frightened.
And lookest narrowly into all my paths
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
settest a print = they make a print on my feet.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
puttest: Job 33:11, 2Ch 16:10-12, Pro 7:22, Act 16:24
and lookest: Heb. and observest, Job 10:6, Job 14:16, Job 16:9
settest: Job 2:7
heels: Heb. roots
Reciprocal: Job 7:8 – thine eyes Job 10:14 – then Job 14:3 – bringest Job 36:8 – if Psa 139:3 – compassest
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 13:27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks Thou encompassest me with thy judgments, so that I have no way or possibility to escape. And lookest narrowly unto all my paths Makest a strict and diligent search into all the actions of my life, that thou mayest find matter for which to condemn me. Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet Thou followest me close at the heels, either to observe my actions, or to pursue me with thy judgments; insomuch, that thou dost often, as it were, tread upon my heels, and leave the prints of thy footsteps upon them. Bishop Patricks paraphrase here is, I can no more escape than a malefactor, whose feet are in the stocks, who is encompassed with a vigilant guard, and cannot stir a foot from the place where he is. Heath thinks there is an allusion, in these words, to the custom of putting a clog on the feet of fugitive slaves, that they might be tracked and found.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
13:27 Thou puttest my feet also in the {n} stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
(n) You make me your prisoner, and so press me that I cannot stir hand or foot.