Иов 31:13

13 If I despised the cause of my servant and my maid, When they contended with me: 14 What should I do, if God should rise up, And if He should make search, what should I answer Him? 15 Hath not He who formed me in the womb formed him also, And hath not One fashioned us in the belly? It might happen, as Job 31:13 assumes, that his servant or his maid (אמה, Arab. amatun, denotes a maid who is not necessarily a slave, ‛abde, as Job 19:15, whereas שׁפחה does not occur in the book) contended with him, and in fact so that they on their part began the dispute (for, as the Talmud correctly points out, it is not בּריבי עמּם, but בּריבם עמּדי), but he did not then treat them as a despot; they were not accounted as res but personae by him, he allowed them to maintain their personal right in opposition to him. Christopher Scultetus observes here: Gentiles quidem non concedebant jus servo contra dominum, cui etiam vitae necisque potestas in ipsum erat; sed Iob amore justitiae libere se demisit, ut vel per alios judices aut arbitros litem talem curaret decidi vel sibi ipsi sit moderatus, ut juste pronuntiaret. If he were one who despised (אמאס not מאסתּי) his servants' cause: what should he do if God arose and entered into judgment; and if He should appoint an examination (thus Hahn correctly, for the conclusion shows that פקד is here a synon. of בחן Psa 17:3, and חקר Psa 44:22, Arab. fqd, V, VIII, accurate inspicere), what should he answer? Job 31:15 The same manner of birth, by the same divine creative power and the same human agency, makes both master and servant substantially brethren with equal claims: Has not He who brought me forth in my mother's womb (also) brought forth him (this my servant or my maid), and has not One fashioned us in our mother's belly? אחד, unus, viz., Go…

Job had often protested his integrity in general; here he does it in particular instances, not in a way of commendation (for he does not here proclaim his good deeds), but in his own just and necessary vindication, to clear himself from those crimes with which his friends had falsely charged him, which is a debt every man owes to his own reputation. Job's friends had been particular in their articles of impeachment against him, and therefore he is so in his protestation, which seems to refer especially to what Eliphaz had accused him of, Job 22:6, etc. They had produced no witnesses against him, neither could they prove the things whereof they now accused him, and therefore he may well be admitted to purge himself upon oath, which he does very solemnly, and with many awful imprecations of God's wrath if he were guilty of those crimes. This protestation confirms God's character of him, that there was none like him in the earth. Perhaps some of his accusers durst not have joined with him; for he not only acquits himself from those gross sins which lie open to the eye of the world, but from many secret sins which, if he had been guilty of them, nobody could have charged him, with, because he will prove himself no hypocrite. Nor does he only maintain the cleanness of his practices, but shows also that in them he went upon good principles, that the reason of his eschewing evil was because he feared God, and his piety was at the bottom of his justice and charity; and this crowns the proof of his sincerity. I. The sins from which he here acquits himself are, 1. Wantonness and uncleanness of heart (Job 31:1-4). 2. Fraud and injustice in commerce (Job 31:4-8). 3. Adultery (Job 31:9-12). 4. Haughtiness and severity towards his servants (Job 31:13-15). 5. Unmercifulness to the poo…

31:13-15 unfair to . . . servants: This might refer to violations of the fourth commandment (Deut 5:12-15). • God created both me and my servants: Job extended the implications of being created in God’s image to the poor (Prov 14:31; 22:2) and even to slaves.