Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 27:10

Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?

10. will he delight himself?] Or, doth he delight himself? The wicked man has no consolation, no resource, in the manifold conditions of life when men need higher help than their own; he has no pleasure in God nor fellowship with Him, and cannot appeal to Him.

It is manifest that in these verses the speaker means to contrast his own condition of mind with that of the godless man. He has hope in God, in death and in trouble, for he delighteth himself in God at all times. Such words as those in Job 27:8 ; Job 27:10, are not out of place in the mouth of Job, comp. ch. Job 16:19 seq., Job 19:25 seq., Job 23:10 seq., Job 31:2-6. It is less easy, however, to combine what is implied in the words of Job 27:9, “Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?” with Job’s repeated complaints that God refused to hear him, e. g. ch. Job 13:24, Job 19:7, and many other passages. The only solution would be to consider that he had fought his way through to an assured trust in God, such as he had cherished during his past life (ch. Job 12:4 seq.), or rather, that such a trust here suddenly broke upon him and filled his mind, and enabled him to look now for release from his calamities and restoration in a word to anticipate that issue of his afflictions which actually ensued. And such is the construction which some of the ablest commentators (e.g. Ewald) put upon the language. Such a change of view in regard to the issue of his afflictions implies a complete revolution in Job’s mind, for he had hitherto consistently and even pertinaciously (ch. Job 17:1-2; Job 17:10-16) contended that his malady was mortal, and continued to do this even so late as ch. Job 23:14, “For he will perform the thing appointed for me.” Such a revolution, however, may be conceived and admitted, provided Job’s subsequent utterances are in harmony with it. Unfortunately, however, they are not; for in ch. Job 30:20 he exclaims, “I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear me, I stand up and thou gazest at me”; and in Job 27:23 of the same chapter he says, “For I know that thou wilt bring me unto death” (i. e. through his present afflictions). Here he is found again occupying the same position in regard to his malady under the hand of God as he had consistently maintained throughout. It is very hard to reconcile such expressions with ch. Job 27:7-10, on the assumption that the last-named passage really belongs to Job.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Will he delight himself in the Almighty? – A truly pious man will delight himself in the Almighty. His supreme happiness will be found in God. He has pleasure in the contemplation of his existence, his perfections, his law, and his government. Coverdale renders this, Hath he such pleasure and delight in the Almighty that he dare alway call upon God? The idea of Job is that a hypocrite has not his delight in the Almighty; and, therefore, his condition is not such as he would defend or choose. Job bad been charged with defending the character of the wicked and with maintaining that they were the objects of the divine favor. He now says that he maintained no such opinion. He was aware that the only real and solid happiness was to be found in God, and he knew that a hypocrite would not find delight there. This is true to the letter. A hypocrite has no real happiness in God. He sees nothing in the divine perfections to love; nothing in the divine plan affections. The hypocrite, therefore, is a miserable man. He professes to love what he does not love; tries to find pleasure in what his heart hates; mingles with a people with whom he has no sympathy, and joins in services of prayer and praise which are disgusting and irksome to his soul. The pious man rejoices that there is just such a God as Yahweh is. He sees nothing in him which he desires to be changed, and he has supreme delight in the contemplation of his perfections.

Will he always call upon God? – That is, he will not always call upon God. This is literally true. The hypocrite pray:

(1) when he makes a profession of religion;

(2) on some extraordinary occasion – as when a friend is sick, or when he feels that he himself is about to die, but he does not always maintain habits of prayer.

He suffers his business to break in upon his times for prayer; neglects secret devotion on the slightest pretence, and soon abandons it altogether. One of the best tests of character is the feeling with which we pray, and the habit which we have of calling on God. The man who loves secret prayer has one of the most certain evidences that he is a pious man; compare the notes at Job 20:5.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Will he be able to delight and satisfy himself with God alone, and with his love and favour, when he hath no other matter of delight? This I now do, and this a hypocrite cannot do, because his heart is chiefly set upon the world; and when that fails him, his heart sinks, and the thoughts of God are unsavoury and troublesome to him. He may by his afflictions be driven to prayer: but if God doth not speedily answer him, he falls into despair, and neglect of God and of prayer; whereas I constantly continue in prayer, notwithstanding the grievousness and the long continuance of my calamities.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

10. Alluding to Job22:26.

always callHe may doso in times of prosperity in order to be thought religious. But hewill not, as I do, call on God in calamities verging on death.Therefore I cannot be a “hypocrite” (Job 19:25;Job 20:5; Psa 62:8).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Will he delight himself in the Almighty?…. That is, the hypocrite; no, he will not; he may seem to delight in, him, but he does not truly and sincerely; not in him as the Almighty, or in his omnipotence, into whose hands it is a fearful thing to fall, and who is able to destroy soul and body in hell; nor his omniscience, who, searches and knows the hearts of all men, and the insincerity of the hypocrite, covert to men soever he is; nor in his holiness, which at heart he loves not; nor in his ways and worship, word, ordinances, and people, though he makes a show of it, Isa 58:2;

will he always call upon God? God only is to be called upon, and it becomes all men to call upon him for all blessings, temporal and spiritual; and this should be done in faith, with fervency, in sincerity and uprightness of soul, and with constancy, always, at all times both of prosperity and adversity; but an hypocrite does not, and cannot call upon God in a sincere and spiritual manner; nor is he constant in this work, only by fits and starts, when it is for his worldly interest and external honour so to do. Now Job was one that delighted in God, was uneasy at his absence, longed for communion with him, sought earnestly after him, frequently and constantly called upon him, though he was wrongly charged with casting off the fear of God, and restraining prayer before him, and therefore no hypocrite. Some understand f all this as affirmed of the hypocrite, setting forth his present seeming state of happiness; as that he has a hope of divine favour, and of eternal felicity; has much peace and tranquillity of mind in life, and at death; is heard of God when trouble comes, and so gets out of it, and enjoys great prosperity; professes much delight and pleasure in God, and his ways, and is a constant caller upon him, and keeps close to the external duties of religion; and yet, notwithstanding all this, is in the issue, when death comes, exceeding miserable, as the following part of the chapter shows.

f Schultens.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(10) Will he delight himself?It is only the godly who can say, Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with Thee; and again, I will praise Thy name, because it is so comfortable; but this man hath no promise that he can plead, and therefore no assurance of access at all times to the presence of God.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. Delight himself Same as in Job 22:26. If the ungodly have no such experience as his own, Job would have his friends infer that he must be righteous.

Always Hebrew, In all time. Delight in God manifests itself in habitual communion with him. The question of Job is an unconscious exponent of his own unceasing life of prayer.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“Handfuls of Purpose”

For All Gleaners

“Will he always call upon God?” Job 27:10

It would seem as if the emphasis should be laid upon the word “always.” There is mutable worship enough. Occasional prayers are known to those who are not Christians, even in name. Probably, all men in Christian countries are conscious of occasional high impulses and noble aspirations; they enter with sympathy and enthusiasm into religious psalmody or other forms of religious worship: but they do so in a merely sentimental manner; they express an impulse, not a conviction; they enjoy a luxury, rather than reveal a hunger of the heart which God alone can satisfy. Our worship is to be proved by its continuity. We are not to serve God, so to say, in fits and starts, now very ardent, and now very cold; now engaging ourselves with all industry as if everything depended upon us, and now allowing the work to fall into desuetude and contempt. Will he always call upon God, in health, in sickness, in wealth, in poverty, in the bright summer day, in the cold winter night, on the land where all things seem to be solid, on the water where everything is restless and in peril? Will he always serve God, in the ardour of youth, in the sobriety of manhood, in the repose of old age? We must not boast ourselves of our religion until it has been tried in every possible combination of circumstances, for the one in which it has not been tried may prove that we never knew the inmost secret of God: “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” We are to watch and be sober, to persevere unto the end, to drive away slumber from the eyelids, lest whilst we sleep the Bridegroom should come. There is little or no fear of our forgetting prayer in the day of trouble, of loneliness, or of bitter grief; sorrow always makes us mindful of our religious obligations and opportunities, the fear is that we may wax fat and kick, that in our prosperity we may forget God, that at high noon we may imagine we ourselves kindled the sun: “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” To see a man praying when he seems to have no need of prayer is to see what approaches almost the dignity of a miracle. It may be easy to cry unto God when we have lack of food, but to invoke his benediction upon a plentiful table, and to do it with a humble heart, may be a test of the reality of our religion. Sweet is the word, Always pray always, every day of the week, every hour of the wakeful night; not praying as a duty, or accepting it as a discipline, but enjoying it as a supreme delight, and valuing it as the widest and noblest liberty. “Pray without ceasing.”

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

Job 27:10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?

Ver. 10. Will he delight himself in the Almighty? ] viz. When trouble cometh upon him, as in the former verse. No, this is Christianorum propria virtus, a practice that none can skill of but God’s people, saith Jerome, to rejoice in tribulation, and then to continue instant in prayer, Rom 12:12 , for deliverance, with some confidence grounded upon former experience. Crux enim iis inuncta est, saith Bernard. Together with the cross, they have an unction from the Father; anointed they are with that oil of gladness, the Spirit of glory and of God, which resteth upon them, 1Pe 2:14 , and refresheth them amidst all their sorrows and sufferings; and hence their delight in the Almighty, yea, though he frown and lay upon them, as he did upon Job, with his own bare hand. Not so the hypocrite; for what reason? he hateth God in his heart, as doth every evildoer, Joh 3:20 . Est enim talium poena Deus, utpote qui lux est: et quid talibus tam invisum? (Bernard.) God is light, and therefore hated as a punishment to such inauspicate night birds. He is holiness, but the hypocrite filthiness, as his name also importeth. How then can he delight himself in the Almighty? What complacence can there be, where is such an utter contrariety? They that love the Lord hate evil, Psa 31:23 , but so doth not any hypocrite; leave it he may, but not loathe it. Part with it he may (as Jacob did with Benjamin, lest otherwise he should starve; or as Phaltiel with Michal, lest he should lose his head), but his heart is glued to it still; he hath a month’s mind to be doing, if he dare. Finally, he is without faith, and therefore without joy and peace of conscience. And as for his spider web of hope, a little wind bloweth it down. The world hath his heart, and so the love of the Father cannot be in him, 1Jn 2:15 . He leaneth upon the Lord, and saith, Is not the Lord among us? Mic 3:11 , yet is he rooted in the delights of life. Like as the apricot tree leaneth against the wall, but is fast rooted in the earth.

Will he always call upon God? ] Heb. In every time? No, nor scarce at any time. Indeed, as beggars have learned to cant, so have some hypocrites to pray; Isa 26:16 , “They have poured forth a charm when thy chastening was upon them.” “When he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned and inquired after God,” Psa 78:34 . But this was only a prayer of the flesh for ease, and not of the Spirit for grace. They spoke God fair (as the devil did Christ) only to be rid of him. Thus Pharaoh, when on the rack, roared out a confession, and called for a prayer. Joab, in danger of death, hangs on the horns of the altar. The captivated Jews fasted and prayed for seventy years, to get off their chains rather than their sins, Zec 7:5 , which Daniel therefore reckoned lost labour, Job 9:13 . But many wicked men, though in prosperity they have some short winded wishes (such as was that of Balaam, Num 23:10 , wherewith compare that of David, Psa 26:9 , and see a difference), or perhaps are able by strength of wit and memory to pray handsomely; yet in adversity they set their mouths against heaven, as hunger bitten wolves, and howl upward; they curse their king and their God, and look upward, saith Isaiah, Isa 8:21 ; they murmur and mutiny, as the Israelites in the wilderness; they ban and blaspheme, as did that Israelitish woman’s son, Lev 14:11 , and Micah’s mother, Jdg 17:2 . A parrot may be taught to talk like a man (histories tell us of one at Rome that could repeat the whole creed), but let him be but beaten, and he returns to his own natural harsh voice. So a hypocrite, while all goes well with him, may seem very devout at his orisons, but lay thy hand upon him (saith Satan to God concerning Job, presuming thereby to prove him a hypocrite), and he will curse thee to thy face, Job 2:5 . But say he be somewhat better conditioned, as they call it, and for a while pray to God for ease and help; yet he will not pray always, he will not persevere in prayer, follow on to pray, wait upon God for an answer, and be content to want it, if God see good to deny it. He cannot draw nigh to God “with a true heart” (such a heart as is well satisfied, if God may be glorified, though himself be not gratified) “in full assurance of faith,” Heb 10:22 ; which is, saith Brentius, Orationis medulla, the marrow of prayer. Hence St James calleth it “the prayer of faith,” Job 5:15 . Afflictions cause a saint to seek out God’s promise, the promise to seek faith, faith to seek prayer, and prayer to find God; to find him at length, for he is a God that hideth himself, Isa 45:15 . But what saith faith? “I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him,” Isa 8:17 . See this exemplified in the woman of Canaan, who fetched Christ out of his retiring room by the force of her faith, Mar 7:24 , and prayed on, though denied. She would not be said nay, or set down either with silence or sad answers, but showed herself a woman of a well knit resolution, such as could credere invisibilia, sperare dilata, et amare Deum se ostendentem contrarinm, as Luther speaketh: Believe things invisible, hope for things deferred, and love God when he shows himself most angry and opposite. Now this the hypocrite (who is an infidel) cannot skill of. He is short spirited, and cannot hold out in prayer, cannot, as our Saviour taught by that parable, Luk 18:1 , always pray, and not faint, , shrink back, as sluggards do in work, or cowards in war. Oratio est res ardua, et magni laboris, saith Luther. Prayer is a hard work, and a man must tug at it and stick to it, as Jacob did, who wrestled and raised dust, as the Hebrew word signifieth; he held fast, and hung on, yea, he held with his hands when his thigh was lamed. Let me go, saith God, bespeaking his own liberty. No, thou shalt not, saith Jacob, until thou bless me. Lo, such is the generation of them that seek God in sincerity, of them that seek thy face; this is Jacob, Psa 24:6 . “One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that I will seek after,” saith David, Psa 27:4 . If his suit had not been honest, he would never have begun it; but being so, he will never give it over till he hath prevailed; he will pray till he faint, and then to it again, Psa 119:81-82 . “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer,” Rom 12:12 . So doth not the hypocrite, for want of an inward principle. If God come not at a call, he is out of patience, and ready to say, with that profane prince, 2Ki 6:33 , “Behold, this evil is of the Lord; and what should I wait for the Lord any longer?” Away to the witch of Endor, to the god of Ekron. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. This Job would not do, and therefore no hypocrite.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

always = continually.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

delight: Job 22:26, Job 22:27, Psa 37:4, Psa 43:4, Hab 3:18

will he always: Psa 78:34-36, Mat 13:21, Luk 18:1, Act 10:2, Eph 6:18, 1Th 5:17

Reciprocal: Job 1:5 – Thus Job 15:4 – restrainest Job 34:9 – delight Psa 14:4 – and Psa 116:2 – therefore Psa 119:20 – at all times Psa 119:24 – testimonies Isa 43:22 – thou hast been Isa 58:14 – delight Eze 20:31 – and shall Luk 21:36 – pray

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job 27:10. Will he delight himself in the Almighty? When he has nothing else to delight in? No: his delight is in the things of the world, which now sink under him. Will he always call upon God? Will he have the confidence to pray to God, and expect any comfort from him? Nay, will he not rather despond in such a case, and cease to call upon him? Certainly those who do not delight in God will not long call upon him.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments