Job 23:1

1 Then began Job, and said: 2 Even to-day my complaint still biddeth defiance, My hand lieth heavy upon my groaning. 3 Oh that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come even to His dwelling-place! 4 I would lay the cause before Him, And fill my mouth with arguments: 5 I should like to know the words He would answer me, And attend to what He would say to me. Since מרי (for which the lxx reads ἐκ τοῦ χειρός μου, מידי; Ew. מידו, from his hand) usually elsewhere signifies obstinacy, it appears that Job 23:2 ought to be explained: My complaint is always accounted as rebellion (against God); but by this rendering Job 23:2 requires some sort of expletive, in order to furnish a connected thought: although the hand which is upon me stifles my groaning (Hirz.); or, according to another rendering of the על: et pourtant mes gmissements n'galent pas mes souffrances (Renan. Schlottm.). These interpretations are objectionable on account of the artificial restoration of the connection between the two members of the verse, which they require; they lead one to expect וידי (as a circumstantial clause: lxx, Cod. Vat. καὶ ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ). As the words stand, it is to be supposed that the definition of time, גּם־היּום (even to-day still, as Zac 9:12), belongs to both divisions of the verse. How, then, is מרי to be understood? If we compare Job 7:11; Job 10:1, where מר, which is combined with שׂיח, signifies amarum = amartiduo, it is natural to take מרי also in the signification amaritudo, acerbitas (Targ., Syr., Jer.); and this is also possible, since, as is evident from Exo 23:21, comp. Zac 12:10, the verbal forms מרר and מרה run into one another, as they are really cognates. (Note: מרר and מרה both spring from the root מר [vid. supra, p. 396, note], with the primary significat…

Job is confident that he has wrong done him by his friends, and therefore, ill as he is, he will not give up the cause, nor let them have the last word. Here, I. He justifies his own resentments of his trouble (Job 23:2): Even to day, I own, my complaint is bitter; for the affliction, the cause of the complaint, is so. There are wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery; my soul has them still in remembrance and is embittered by them, Lam 3:19, Lam 3:20. Even to day is my complaint counted rebellion (so some read it); his friends construed the innocent expressions of his grief into reflections upon God and his providence, and called them rebellion. "But," says he, "I do not complain more than there is cause; for my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Even today, after all you have said to convince and comfort me, still the pains of my body and the wounds of my spirit are such that I have reason enough for my complaints, if they were more bitter than they are." We wrong God if our groaning be heavier than our stroke, like froward children, who, when they cry for nothing, have justly something given them to cry for; but we do not wrong ourselves though our stroke be heavier than our groaning, for little said is soon amended. II. He appeals from the censures of his friends to the just judgment of God; and this he thought was an evidence for him that he was not a hypocrite, for then he durst not have made such an appeal as this. St Paul comforted himself in this, that he that judged him was the Lord, and therefore he valued not man's judgment (Co1 4:3, Co1 4:4), but he was willing to wait till the appointed day of decision came; whereas Job is impatient, and passionately wishes to have the judgment-day anticipated, and to have his cause tried quickly, as it were, by a…