Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 27:7
Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous.
7. In Job 27:2-6 Job protested his sincerity in affirming his innocence. With Job 27:7 commences a description of the misery of mind, and the outward destruction at the hand of God, which are the portion of the unrighteous. The “wicked” is the subject throughout to the end of the chapter; therefore in the words “let mine enemy be as the wicked” the emphasis falls on “wicked.” The words express the speaker’s abhorrence of the “wicked,” they do not imprecate evil on his “enemy.” It it understood that he wishes his “enemy” ill, and he can wish him nothing worse than that he should be as the “wicked” so much does he himself shrink from the thought of being as the wicked are. Others (e.g. Delitzsch) put the emphasis on “enemy,” taking that expression to mean “him who accuses me of iniquity” mine enemy must appear an evil-doer, inasmuch as he charges me falsely. This makes the verse a mere parenthetical imprecation by Job on his friends, for the words taken in this sense have no connexion with Job 27:8-10. The speaker, rather, repudiates the idea of his being one of the wicked, and he does so because he shudders to think that the condition of the mind of the wicked man, who has no hope in God, should be his his condition of mind is very different ( Job 27:8-10). Still even when taken in this, their only natural sense, the words of Job 27:7 have no strict logical connexion with Job 27:2-6. The connexion is: “I will never cease to maintain that I am a righteous man, for how comfortless in calamity is the condition of the wicked!” while strictly it should be: “I will never cease holding on to the way of righteousness, for how comfortless in affliction is the wicked man, having no hope in God!” So far as the mere language of Job 27:5-6 is concerned, the expressions “I will not remove mine integrity from me,” “and my righteousness I hold fast,” might have the meaning “I will continue to live a righteous life” (comp. ch. Job 2:9), but such a meaning is absolutely excluded here by the connexion and general scope of Job 27:2-6.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
7 10. The dreary and desolate condition of the mind of the wicked man in affliction.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let mine enemy be as the wicked – This is probably said that he might show that it was not his intention to justify the wicked, and that in all that he had said it was no part of his purpose to express approbation of their course. His friends had charged him with this; but he now solemnly disclaims it, and says that he had no such design. To show how little he meant to justify the wicked, he says that the utmost that he could desire for an enemy would be, that he would be treated as he believed the wicked would be. A similar expression occurs in Dan 4:19, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies; that is, calamities are coming upon thee indicated by the dream, such as you would desire on your foes; so in Jdg 5:31. After the mother of Sisera had anxiously looked for the return of her son from the battle, though he was then slain, the sacred writer adds, So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord. Thus, when a traitor is executed it is common for the executioner to hold up his head and say, So let all the enemies of the king die. Job means to say that he had no sympathy with wicked people, and that he believed that they would be punished as certainly and as severely as one could desire his enemy to suffer. Schnurrer supposes that by the enemy here he refers to his friends with whom he had been disputing; but this is to give an unnecessarily harsh construction to the passage.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. Let mine enemy be as the wicked] Let my accuser be proved a lying and perjured man, because he has laid to my charge things which he cannot prove, and which are utterly false.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I am so far from loving and practising wickedness, whereof you accuse me, that I abhor the thoughts of it; and if I might and would wish to be revenged of mine enemy, I could wish him no greater mischief than to be a wicked man.
He that riseth up against me; either,
1. You my friends, who, instead of comforting me, are risen up to torment me. Or rather,
2. My worst enemies.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Let . . . beLet mine enemybe accounted as wicked, that is, He who opposes my asseveration ofinnocence must be regarded as actuated by criminal hostility. Not acurse on his enemies.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let mine enemy be as the wicked,…. Job in this, and some following verses, shows, that he was not, and could not, and would not be a wicked man and an hypocrite, or however had no opinion and liking of such persons; for whatever his friends might think of him, because he had said so much of their outward prosperity in this world; yet he was far from approving of or conniving at their wickedness and hypocrisy, or choosing them for his companions, and joining with them in their actions, or imagining they were really happy persons; so far from it, that he would not be in their condition and circumstances for all the world: for if he was to wish a bad thing to the greatest enemy he had, he could not wish him any worse than to be as a wicked and unrighteous man; that is, to be a wicked and unrighteous man; which it is impossible for a good man to wish, and indeed would be a needless wish, since all that are enemies to good men, as such, must be wicked; and such were Job’s enemies, as the Chaldeans and Sabeans; but that they might be as such, in their state and circumstances, or rather as they will be in the consequence of things, most wretched and miserable; for they are always under the displeasure of God, and hated by him; and whatever fulness they may have of the things of this world, they have them with a curse, and they are curses to them, and their end will be everlasting ruin and destruction; wherefore the Septuagint version is,
“as the overthrow of the ungodly, and as the perdition of transgressors;”
though some take this to be a kind of an ironic imprecation, and that by the wicked man here, and unrighteous in the next clause, he means himself, whom his friends reckoned a wicked and unrighteous man; and then the sense is, I wish you all, my friends, and even the worst enemies I have, were but as wicked Job is, as you call him; not that he wished they might be afflicted in body, family, and estate, as he was, but that they were as good men as he was, and partook of as much of the grace of God as he did, and had the same integrity and righteousness as he had, see Ac 26:29; and such a wish as this, as it serves to illustrate his own character, so it breathes charity and good will to others; and indeed it cannot be thought the words are to be taken in such a sense as that he wished the same evils might be retorted upon his enemies, whether open or secret, which they were the means of bringing upon him, which was contrary to the spirit of Job,
Job 31:29. Some consider them not as an imprecation, but as a prediction, “mine enemy shall be as the wicked” e; and may have respect to his friends, who were so ready to charge him with wickedness, and suggests that in the issue of thin; they would be found, and not he, guilty of sin folly, and to have said the things that were not right, neither of God, nor of him, which had its accomplishment, Job 42:7;
and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous; which is but another way of expressing the same thing; for an enemy, and one that rises up against a man, is the same person; only this the better explains what enemy is intended, even an open one, that rises up in an hostile manner, full of rage and fury; and so a wicked and an unrighteous man are the same, and are frequently put together as describing the same sort of persons, see Isa 55:7.
e “erit ut impius inimieus meus”, Pagninus, Montanus, Boldacius; so Junius & Tremellius, Broughton, & Ramban.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Condition of Hypocrites. | B. C. 1520. |
7 Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous. 8 For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? 9 Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? 10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?
Job having solemnly protested the satisfaction he had in his integrity, for the further clearing of himself, here expresses the dread he had of being found a hypocrite.
I. He tells us how he startled at the thought of it, for he looked upon the condition of a hypocrite and a wicked man to be certainly the most miserable condition that any man could be in (v. 7): Let my enemy be as the wicked, a proverbial expression, like that (Dan. iv. 19), The dream be to those that hate thee. Job was so far from indulging himself in any wicked way, and flattering himself in it, that, if he might have leave to wish the greatest evil he could think of to the worst enemy he had in the world, he would wish him the portion of a wicked man, knowing that worse he could not wish him. Not that we may lawfully wish any man to be wicked, or that any man who is not wicked should be treated as wicked; but we should all choose to be in the condition of a beggar, an out-law, a galley-slave, any thing, rather that in the condition of the wicked, though in ever so much pomp and outward prosperity.
II. He gives us the reasons of it.
1. Because the hypocrite’s hopes will not be crowned (v. 8): For what is the hope of the hypocrite? Bildad had condemned it (Job 8:13; Job 8:14), and Zophar (ch. xi. 20), and Job here concurs with them, and reads the death of the hypocrite’s hope with as much assurance as they had done; and this fitly comes in as a reason why he would not remove his integrity, but still hold it fast. Note, The consideration of the miserable condition of wicked people, and especially hypocrites, should engage us to be upright (for we are undone, for ever undone, if we be not) and also to get the comfortable evidence of our uprightness; for how can we be easy if the great concern lie at uncertainties? Job’s friends would persuade him that all his hope was but the hope of the hypocrite, ch. iv. 6. “Nay,” says he, “I would not, for all the world, be so foolish as to build upon such a rotten foundation; for what is the hope of the hypocrite?” See here, (1.) The hypocrite deceived. He has gained, and he has hope; this is his bright side. It is allowed that he has gained by his hypocrisy, has gained the praise and applause of men and the wealth of this world. Jehu gained a kingdom by his hypocrisy and the Pharisees many a widow’s house. Upon this gain he builds his hope, such as it is. He hopes he is in good circumstances for another world, because he finds he is so for this, and he blesses himself in his own way. (2.) The hypocrite undeceived. He will at last see himself wretchedly cheated; for, [1.] God shall take away his soul, sorely against his will. Luke xii. 20, Thy soul shall be required of thee. God, as the Judge, takes it away to be tried and determined to its everlasting state. He shall then fall into the hands of the living God, to be dealt with immediately. [2.] What will his hope be then? It will be vanity and a lie; it will stand him in no stead. The wealth of this world, which he hoped in, he must leave behind him, Ps. xlix. 17. The happiness of the other world, which he hoped for, he will certainly miss of. He hoped to go to heaven, but he will be shamefully disappointed; he will plead his external profession, privileges, and performances, but all his pleas will be overruled as frivolous: Depart from me, I know you not. So that, upon the whole, it is certain that a formal hypocrite, with all his gains and all his hopes, will be miserable in a dying hour.
2. Because the hypocrite’s prayer will not be heard (v. 9): Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him? No, he will not; it cannot be expected he should. If true repentance come upon him, God will hear his cry and accept him (Isa. i. 18); but, if he continue impenitent and unchanged, let him not think to find favour with God. Observe, (1.) Trouble will come upon him, certainly it will. Troubles in the world often surprise those that are most secure of an uninterrupted prosperity. However, death will come, and trouble with it, when he must leave the world and all his delights in it. The judgment of the great day will come; fearfulness will surprise the hypocrites, Isa. xxxiii. 14. (2.) Then he will cry to God, will pray, and pray earnestly. Those who in prosperity slighted God, either prayed not at all or were cold and careless in prayer, when trouble comes will make their application to him and cry as men in earnest. But, (3.) Will God hear him then? In the troubles of this life, God has told us that he will not hear the prayers of those who regard iniquity in their hearts (Ps. lxvi. 19) and set up their idols there (Ezek. xiv. 4), nor of those who turn away their ear from hearing the law, Prov. xxviii. 9. Get you to the gods whom you have served, Judg. x. 14. In the judgment to come, it is certain, God will not hear the cry of those who lived and died in their hypocrisy. Their doleful lamentations will all be unpitied. I will laugh at your calamity. Their importunate petitions will all be thrown out and their pleas rejected. Inflexible justice cannot be biassed, nor the irreversible sentence revoked. See Mat 7:22; Mat 7:23; Luk 13:26, and the case of the foolish virgins, Matt. xxv. 11.
3. Because the hypocrite’s religion is neither comfortable nor constant (v. 10): Will he delight himself in the Almighty? No, not at any time (for his delight is in the profits of the world and the pleasures of the flesh, more than in God), especially not in the time of trouble. Will he always call upon God? No, in prosperity he will not call upon God, but slight him; in adversity he will not call upon God but curse him; he is weary of his religion when he gets nothing by it, or is in danger of losing. Note, (1.) Those are hypocrites who, though they profess religion, neither take pleasure in it nor persevere in it, who reckon their religion a task and a drudgery, a weariness, and snuff at it, who make use of it only to serve a turn, and lay it aside when the turn is served, who will call upon God while it is in fashion, or while the pang of devotion lasts, but leave it off when they fall into other company, or when the hot fit is over. (2.) The reason why hypocrites do not persevere in religion is because they have no pleasure in it. Those that do not delight in the Almighty will not always call upon him. The more comfort we find in our religion the more closely we shall cleave to it. Those who have no delight in God are easily inveigled by the pleasures of sense, and so drawn away from their religion; and they are easily run down by the crosses of this life, and so driven away from their religion, and will not always call upon God.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
B. NO BELIEVERS ANONYMOUS,
I.E., NO UNIVERSAL SALVATION (Job. 27:7-23)
TEXT 27:723
7 Let mine enemy be as the wicked,
And let him that riseth up against me be as the unrighteous.
8 For what is the hope of the godless, though he get him gain,
When God taketh away his soul?
9 Will God hear his cry,
When trouble cometh upon him?
10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty,
And call upon God at all times?
11.
I will teach you concerning the hand of God;
That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.
12 Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it;
Why then are ye become altogether vain?
13 This is the portion of a wicked man with God,
And the heritage of oppressors,
which they receive from the Almighty:
14 If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword;
And his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.
15 Those that remain of him shall be buried in death,
And his widows shall make no lamentation.
16 Though he heap up silver as the dust,
And prepare raiment as the clay;
17 He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on,
And the innocent shall divide the silver.
18 He buildeth his house as the moth,
And as a booth which the keeper maketh.
19 He lieth down rich, but he shall not be gathered to his fathers;
He openeth his eyes, and he is not.
20 Terrors overtake him like waters;
A tempest stealeth him away in the night.
21 The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth;
And it sweepeth him out of his place.
22 For God shall hurl at him, and not spare:
He would fain flee out of his hand.
23 Men shall clap their hands at him,
And shall hiss him out of his place.
COMMENT 27:723
Job. 27:7In this present text, Zophar gives no response. Some affirm that Job. 27:7-23 are inappropriate on Jobs lips, and ascribe the verses to Zophar. The lot of the wicked, i.e., those without God and hope, is inevitable punishment. Though the words are strong, they are not vindictive but rather express the authors abhorrence of evil.
Job. 27:8The verb rendered get gain means gain by violence, cut off, break offEze. 22:27. Note that Job. 27:9 speaks of Gods deafness to the prayers of the wicked. The verse is relating how lonely and isolated the wicked are, even in this life. The ultimate fate of the wicked is again death. Only the godly man can pray to God; all ears are deaf to the ungodly (Heb. hanephas a class of men). Why do his friends implore him to pray for forgiveness, if God does not hear the prayers of the hanephungodly?
Job. 27:9The verse continues the point from Job. 27:8If I am unrighteous, God will not hear my prayer for forgiveness. Job presents them with a theological dilemma of their own making. How devastating.
Job. 27:10The same verb rendered delight himself has already appeared in Job. 22:26. It is useless to pray to God in times of trouble if we have ignored Him in all other circumstances (at all times).
Job. 27:11He here launches on a new theological theme that of Gods immoral behavior in governing the universe. The you is again plural. Both Job and his friends claim superior knowledge.
Job. 27:12How can you be uninformed concerning the universal phenomenon of Gods injustice, if you are so wise? He charges them with intense futility, i.e., lit. become vain with a vain thing.
Job. 27:13These words are almost identical with Zophars in Job. 20:29. The wicked man is singular, but oppressors is in the plural. The preposition im should be translated from and not with (as in the A. V.[278]) Shaddai, the almighty. The portion or judgment is from God.
[278] M. Dahood, UgariticHebrew Philology (Rome, 1965), p. 32.
Job. 27:14Numerous children were thought to be a great blessing; here they are for destructionJob. 5:4; Job. 18:19; and Job. 21:8; Job. 21:11. The sword is to break (pssshatter, scatter) his offspring.
Job. 27:15His survivors, i.e., children, not destroyed by the sword will be left to the fate of death by pestilenceJer. 15:2; Jer. 18:2. The Hebrew text literally says His survivors will be buried in death by death, a death which befits the ungodly. Not to be buried2Ki. 9:10; Jer. 8:2; Jer. 14:6; Jer. 22:19or mournedPsa. 78:64; Jer. 22:10was a disaster. The strange phrase above could perhaps yield better sense by taking de Vauxs suggestion that bamotrather thanbammawetis a cultic word for tomb.[279] Contrast with Job. 21:32 where Job declares that the wicked often have a large funeral.
[279] R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1 vol. E. T.), p. 287.
Job. 27:16The image here suggests abundanceZec. 9:3. After the family is destroyed, their possessions follow the same fate. Silver and elaborate garments are greatly valued, see Gen. 24:53; Jos. 7:21; 2Ki. 5:22 ff; and Zec. 14:14.
Job. 27:17The only ones who will prosper are the righteous. What the ungodly accumulate will be divided by the godlyPsa. 39:6; Pro. 13:22.
Job. 27:18The A. V. rendering of asas mothis inappropriate since moths do not build houses. The imagery here comes from the harvest season when a watchman or guard builds temporary shelter from which to watch over unharvested crop. One could hardly derive this since from the A. V. the verbs (banahhe builds, asahhe makes) are not parallel. The verb he makes refers to the flimsy shelter (sukkah) which the watchman constructs.[280]
[280] See M. Pope, Job, p. 193, for thorough discussion.
Job. 27:19The rich lie down, but for the last time. The swiftness of the destruction of the wicked is here vividly expressed. The rendering of the A. V., he shall not be gathered to his fathers, expresses the Hebrew will do so no more. The second line containing the phrase and he is not is an attempt at rendering the Hebrew, which can be either it is not or he is not and expresses the fact that a dying man is conscious of his own demise.
Job. 27:20Dahood renders this verse terrors will overtake him like a flood, night will kidnap him like a tempest[281]Job. 22:11. As in Job. 27:19, calamity calls him from his night chambers. The wicked man is haunted by terrors night and dayIsa. 28:17; Hos. 5:10; and Amo. 5:24.
[281] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1969, p. 342.
Job. 27:21The east wind causes restless and sleepless nights; thus it signifies all that is unpleasant. This sirocco wind is scorching and violent, destroying mans peaceJob. 15:2. Even the climatic conditions crash in on the ungodly.
Job. 27:22The A. V. makes little sense. There is neither subject nor object to hurl (word God is not in the text) in the text, but the implication is that of a deadly missile.
Job. 27:23The ambiguities of this verse largely stem from the unexpressed subject of the verbs of Job. 27:22-23, which may be God, east wind, or one man. The metaphors here convey derisive mockery and contemptLam. 2:15. The rendering of the A. V. men shall clap their hands at him, understands the text as an indefinite third person one claps or men clap. When death and destruction come to the wicked, men scornfully clap their hands, while hissing (a gesture of horror) at the very thought of themJer. 49:17; Eze. 27:36; Zep. 2:15.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(7) Let mine enemy be as the wicked.While, however, he admits that the wicked is often a prosperous man, he declares that he has no envy for him, but would have only his adversaries to be like him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. Let mine enemy be, etc. Rather, Mine enemy must appear as the wicked, etc. The sentiments his antagonists have expressed are such as are held by the wicked. They who counsel to acts of hypocrisy as these had done, should be regarded as wicked. There is here no imprecation. It is simply the announcement of an important truth: he who consciously antagonizes truth must be himself accounted as untrue.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 27:7 Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous.
Ver. 7. Let mine enemy be as the wicked ] q.d. I need wish my greatest enemy no greater harm than to be as the wicked, for then he is sure to be wretched. So far am I from saying that God favoureth the wicked, or that he always suffereth them to escape unpunished.
And he that riseth up against me, as the unrighteous
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Sa 25:26, 2Sa 18:32, Dan 4:19
Reciprocal: Job 10:15 – If I be wicked Job 16:17 – Not for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 27:7. Let mine enemy be as the wicked I am so far from loving and practising wickedness, whereof you accuse me, that I abhor the thoughts of it; and if I might and should wish to be revenged of mine enemy, I could wish him no greater mischief than to be a wicked man. This does not imply that we may lawfully wish any man to be wicked, or that any man who is not wicked should be treated as wicked; but we ought all rather to choose to be in the condition of a beggar, an outlaw, a galley-slave, any thing rather than in the condition of the wicked, though in ever so much outward pomp and prosperity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 27:7-23. Third Speech of Zophar.He once more reiterates, in spite of all Job has said, that the wicked shall perish. He bursts out Let mine enemy be as Gods enemy. I can wish him no worse doom. In Job 27:8 translate as mg.
Job 27:11 is quite in the vein of Zophar, who feels very much in the secrets of God (Job 11:5-6). The plurals you and ye have probably been substituted for singulars when Zophars speech had become attributed to Job. (Peake, however, gives Job 27:11 and Job 27:12 to Job, taking them as the opening and closing verses of a suppressed description of the immorality of Gods government of the world.) From Job 27:13 onward we have the conventional description of the fate of the wicked.
In Job 27:15 read their widows with LXX. In Job 27:18 read for moth with Syr. spider (Job 8:14). For the frail booth made for the use of the night-watchman in a vineyard, cf. Is. Is.
Job 27:19 is obscure.In Job 27:19 a follow LXX and Syr. with mg.
Job 27:19 b perhaps means he wakes and is immediately destroyed.