Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 9:3
If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
3. if he will contend ] Or, if he would; if he (man) should desire to contend with God. “To contend” is a legal term meaning to enter a plea with, the idea of a court or judge being in the mind of the speaker. Here man is supposed to have a plea with God on the question of his innocency, or on any question involving his righteousness. The question in Job 9:4, “Who hath hardened himself against Him?” makes it probable that man is here considered the appellant. Others take the subject to be God: if He were pleased to contend with him (man), cf. Job 9:14 ; Job 9:16. This suits the second half of the verse, but seems less suitable to the general connexion.
he cannot answer him ] Or, he (man) could not answer him (God) one of a thousand of the questions with which in His infinite wisdom ( Job 9:4) He would ply him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
If he will contend with him – That is, if God enters into a controversy with man. If he chooses to charge crime on him, and to hold him responsible for his deeds. The language here is taken from courts of justice, and means that if a trial were instituted, where God should submit charges, and the matter were left to adjudication, man could not answer the charges against him; compare the notes at Isa 41:1.
He cannot answer him one of a thousand – For one of a thousand of the sins charged on him. The word thousand here is used to denote the largest number, or all. A man who could not answer for one charge brought against him out of a thousand, must be held to be guilty; and the expression here is equivalent to saying that he could not answer him at all. It may also be implied that God has many charges against man. His sins are to be reckoned by thousands. They are numerous as his years, his months, his weeks, his days, his hours, his moments; numerous as his privileges, his deeds, and his thoughts. For not one of those sins can he answer. He can give no satisfactory account before an impartial tribunal for any of them. If so, how deeply guilty is man before God! How glorious that plan of justification by which he can be freed from this long list of offences, and treated as though he had not sinned.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. If he will contend with him] God is so holy, and his law so strict, that if he will enter into judgment with his creatures, the most upright of them cannot be justified in his sight.
One of a thousand.] Of a thousand offences of which he may be accused he cannot vindicate himself even in one. How little that any man does, even in the way of righteousness, truth, and mercy, can stand the penetrating eye of a just and holy God, when all motives, feelings, and objects, come to be scrutinized in his sight, on this ground, no man living can be justified. O, how necessary to fallen, weak, miserable, imperfect and sinful man, is the doctrine of justification by faith, and sanctification through the Divine Spirit, by the sacrificial death and mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
If God be pleased to contend (to wit, in judgment; debate or plead; for so this word is oft used, as Hos 2:2; 4:1; Mic 6:1; compare Isa 45:9) with man.
One of a thousand; either to one accusation or argument among a thousand which God shall produce against him, or one time of a thousand. So far will he be from being able to maintain his own innocency against God, if God set himself against him as his adversary.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. If heGod
will contend withhimliterally, “deign to enter into judgment.”
he cannot answer, &c.He(man) would not dare, even if he had a thousand answers in readinessto one question of God’s, to utter one of them, from awe of HisMajesty.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
If he will contend with him,…. If God will contend with man, so Sephorno; enter into a controversy with him, litigate and dispute the point in law, whether he is just or not, man cannot answer to the allegations he will produce; or if man should contend with God, a potsherd strive with its maker, to what purpose would it be? he could never avail himself by such a procedure; the match is unequal, there is no striving or contending with God in a judicial, way:
he cannot answer him one of a thousand; which some understand, that God will not answer men; he will not vouchsafe to give an answer to such that plead with him, or talk with him of his judgments in providence, or pretend to vindicate themselves, their ways, and their works, before him; but this sense seems contrary to Jer 12:1; but the meaning is, that man cannot answer God; either not one man out of a thousand, that is, none at all; unless, by one of a thousand, is meant the interpreter, one among a thousand, even the Messiah, the chiefest among ten thousand; the one man of a thousand Solomon found upon search; see Job 33:23; he indeed has made himself responsible for his people, as their surety, and was able to answer for them; and he has answered for them, and made satisfaction for their sins; it was exacted, or required, that is, a full payment of their debts, or a plenary satisfaction for their sins, “and he answered”, according to Isa 53:7; but rather the sense is, that a man cannot answer, either one time of a thousand u, or one argument to one article exhibited, or to one objection or charge of a thousand brought against him by the law or justice of God; that is, for one sin of a thousand he has committed; so Mr. Broughton renders it, “to one thing of a thousand” w; this suggests that the sins of men are numerous; their debts are many, they are more than ten thousand talents, which they are not able to answer to, or pay off, no, not one of them; their iniquities are more than the hairs of their head, they cannot be understood or reckoned: and now a man cannot answer for one of a thousand, or the millions of sins he is guilty of; he cannot deny them, he cannot excuse them, he cannot make satisfaction for anyone of them; they are committed against an infinite Being, and require an infinite satisfaction, which man cannot give; they are violations of a law, and injuries to divine justice, that no man is able to atone for; whatever obedience he is capable of, or does perform, God has a prior right unto it, and therefore can never answer for former transgressions; this being the case, sinful man cannot be just with God upon the foot of his works, which is the thing this observation is made to illustrate: man’s obedience is so short, and God’s commandment or law so very broad, that these two can never be brought to meet, agree together, or answer to one another; and therefore it may be strongly concluded that a man is justified, if ever he is justified at all, in the sight of God, by faith in Christ and his righteousness, without the deeds of the law, Ro 3:28.
u “una vice ex millibus”, Schmidt. w “Ad rem unam ex mille”, Beza; “ad unum argumentum ex mille argumentis”, Vatablus; so Castalio, Bar Tzemach.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(3) If he will contend with him.If man choose to contend with God, he cannot answer Him one question of a thousand, once in a thousand times.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. One of a thousand Referring either to questions with which God, in case of argument, might ply the soul, (as in chap. 38,) or more probably to the sins which that soul has committed. It is an overwhelming thought, that in the sight of God the sins of the individual are reckoned by the thousand, for not one of which can he give account.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 9:3. If he will contend To contend is a judicial term, and signifies properly to wage law. To answer him one of a thousand, signifies to justify himself for one of the thousand crimes which shall be charged against him. Though the uncharitableness and reproaches of Job’s friends transported him into some passionate and bold expressions of his own innocence and integrity, yet he no sooner perceived that they took advantage of those expressions to charge him with presumption, as if God had unjustly afflicted him, but he made haste to free himself from that imputation. How should a man be just with God? and he who is best prepared for an account with him, can pay him nothing but his own coin; and that, rather laid up in a napkin, than husbanded and employed as it ought to have been. If he could offer him a good thought, an honest purpose and intention, he had received them from him, and, it may be, wanted courage to improve and execute them; and so the world had no more fruit of them, than if his heart had been as wicked as his neighbour’s. So that, when he has said the best he can for himself, there will be no abiding the judgment which must still be deprecated; mercy must be implored; no satisfaction or payment pretended; but an entire release and pardon begged and relied upon.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 9:3 If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
Ver. 3. If he will contend with him ] If any one would be so fool hardy, or adventurous, as to dispute with God about his judgments, he could not, though he were never so wise, or well skilled, answer him one objection of a thousand, but must needs yield and say, I am no fit match for God. The Jewish doctors (and after them Vatablus) set this sense upon the text, If he (that is, if man) should contend with him (that is, with God, as, through the Luciferian pride of his heart, he is apt enough to do), he would not answer him one of a thousand; God would not honour him so far as to answer so contemptible an adversary, and so slight and senseless arguments; if he vouchsafe an answer, it shall not be so much as the echo giveth the voice; it shall not be to one article or argument of a thousand. Egregius quidem sensus, saith Mercer; this is a good sense, but the other is better, and well agreeth with Job 9:14 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
will = desire to.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
he will contend: Job 9:20, Job 9:32, Job 9:33, Job 10:2, Job 23:3-7, Job 31:35-37, Job 33:13, Job 34:14, Job 34:15, Job 40:2, Isa 57:15, Isa 57:16, Rom 9:20
he cannot: Psa 19:12, Psa 40:12, 1Jo 1:8, 1Jo 3:20
Reciprocal: Ezr 9:15 – we cannot Job 11:4 – I am clean Job 13:3 – I desire Job 13:18 – I know Job 31:37 – declare Job 33:23 – one Psa 130:3 – shouldest mark Psa 143:2 – in thy sight Ecc 6:10 – neither Rom 3:19 – that 1Co 4:4 – yet Gal 2:16 – that Gal 3:11 – that
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 9:3. If he will contend with him If God be pleased to contend with man, namely, in judgment, or to debate, or plead with him; he cannot answer him one of a thousand One accusation among a thousand which God might produce against him. So far would he be from being able to maintain his own innocence against God, if God should set himself against him as his adversary.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
9:3 If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a {b} thousand.
(b) Of a thousand things, which God could lay to his charge, man cannot answer him one.