If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn’t believe that he listened to my voice.
For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause.
He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, ‘Who,’ says he, ‘will summon me?’
Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.
I am blameless. I don’t respect myself. I despise my life.
“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent.
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?
“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good.
They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.
If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;’
I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent.
I will be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?
If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,
yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes will abhor me.
For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment.
There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.
Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid;
then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35 While I am in my pangs, I cannot but…
While I am in my pangs, I cannot but burst forth into many inconveniences, although I know still that God is just.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv16–35 Job 9:16 If I had called, and he had…
Job 9:16 If I had called, and he had answered me; [yet] would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.
Ver. 16. If l had called and he had answered] If, in confidence of mine own righteousness, I had sought some good thing at his hands, and he had therein condescended to me, yet would I not believe that he had, in mercy, hearkened to my voice; but rather, for a further mischief, that he might roll himself upon me, as Joseph upon his brethren, and as God did upon the Israelites after their quails; that he might tear them with his tempest, &c. Some think that Job speaketh these words, as despairing of audience, or denying God’s particular providence; but neither of these is likely. Rather it seemeth, saith Pineda, to be the speech of a mind marvellously cast down, and meanly conceited of himself, and of his prayer; and trusting to the goodness of God alone; so Drusius. Job speaketh not this, saith he, out of diffidence, but out of fear of God’s judgments, and sense of his own imperfections.
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Yet I would not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice] Namely, for any worth that he findeth in it: what am I, poor creature, that I should think I had carried the matter with God?
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv16–35 If I had called, i.e. prayed, as this word…
If I had called, i.e. prayed, as this word is commonly used, to wit, unto my Judge, for a favourable sentence, as he now said, and therefore it was needless here to mention the object of his calling or prayer.
Yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice; I could not believe that God had indeed granted my desire, though he had done it; because I am so infinitely below him, and obnoxious to him, and still full of the tokens of his displeasure; and therefore should conclude that it was but a pleasant dream or fancy, and not a real thing: compare Psa 126:1.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv22, 25 Here Job touches briefly upon the main point now…
Here Job touches briefly upon the main point now in dispute between him and his friends. They maintained that those who are righteous and good always prosper in this world, and none but the wicked are in misery and distress; he asserted, on the contrary, that it is a common thing for the wicked to prosper and the righteous to be greatly afflicted. This is the one thing, the chief thing, wherein he and his friends differed; and they had not proved their assertion, therefore he abides by his: "I said it, and day it again, that all things come alike to all." Now, 1. It must be owned that there is very much truth in what Job here means, that temporal judgments, when they are sent abroad, fall both upon good and bad, and the destroying angel seldom distinguishes (though once he did) between the houses of Israelites and the houses of Egyptians. In the judgment of Sodom indeed, which is called the vengeance of eternal fire (Jde 1:7), far be it from God to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked (Gen 18:25); but, in judgments merely temporal, the righteous have their share, and sometimes the greatest share. The sword devours one as well as another, Josiah as well as Ahab. Thus God destroys the perfect and the wicked, involves them both in the same common ruin; good and bad were sent together into Babylon, Jer 24:5, Jer 24:9. If the scourge slay suddenly, and sweep down all before it, God will be well pleased to see how the same scourge which is the perdition of the wicked is the trial of the innocent and of their faith, which will be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, Pe1 1:7; Psa 66:10.
Against the just th' Almighty's arrows fly,
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For he delights the innocent to try,
To show their constant and their Godlike mind,
Not by afflictions broken, but refined.
- Sir R. Blackmore
Let this reconcile God's children to their troubles; they are but trials, designed for their honour and benefit, and, if God be pleased with them, let not them be displeased; if he laugh at the trial of the innocent, knowing how glorious the issue of it will be, at destruction and famine let them also laugh (Job 5:22), and triumph over them, saying, O death! where is thy sting? On the other hand, the wicked are so far from being made the marks of God's judgments that the earth is given into their hand, Job 9:24 (they enjoy large possessions and great power, have what they will and do what they will), into the hand of the wicked one (in the original, the word is singular); the devil, that wicked one, is called the god of this world, and boasts that into his hands it is delivered, Luk 4:6. Or into the hand of a wicked man, meaning (as bishop Patrick and the Assembly's Annotations conjecture) some noted tyrant then living in those parts, whose great wickedness and great prosperity were well known both to Job and his friends. The wicked have the earth given them, but the righteous have heaven given them, and which is better - heaven without earth or earth without heaven? God, in his providence, advances wicked men, while he covers the faces of those who are fit to be judges, who are wise and good, and qualified for government, and buries them alive in obscurity, perhaps suffers them to be run down and condemned, and to have their faces covered as criminals by those wicked ones into whose hand the earth is given. We daily see that this is done; if it be not God that does it, where and who is he that does it? To whom can it be ascribed but to him that rules in the kingdoms of men, and gives them to whom he will? Dan 4:32. Yet, 2. It must be owned that there is too much passion in what Job here says. The manner of expression is peevish. When he meant that God afflicts he ought not to have said, He destroys both the perfect and the wicked; when he meant that God pleases himself with the trial of the innocent he ought not to have said, He laughs at it, for he doth not afflict willingly. When the spirit is heated, either with dispute or with discontent, we have need to set a watch before the door of our lips, that we may observe a due decorum in speaking of divine things.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv16–34 For he breaketh me with a tempest,.... Which rises…
For he breaketh me with a tempest,.... Which rises suddenly, comes powerfully, and carries all before it irresistibly; hereby signifying the nature of his present sore afflictions, which came upon him at once, pressed him down, and utterly destroyed him, against which there was no standing: perhaps he may have some reference to the storm of wind that blew down the house, by which his children were destroyed. Schultens renders it, "a burning tempest" (s), such as is common in the eastern countries, which Thevenot (t) often makes mention of; which kills a man at once, and his flesh becomes as black as a coal, and comes off of his bones, and is plucked off by the hand that would lift him up; with which a man is broken to pieces indeed, to which Job may allude:
and multiplieth my wounds without cause; referring, it may be, to the many boils and ulcers upon his body; though it may also respect the multiplicity of ways in which he had wounded or afflicted him, in his person, in his family, and in his substance, and which he says was done "without cause"; not without a cause or reason in God, who does nothing without one, though it may not be known to men; particularly in afflicting men, it is not without cause or reason; it he punishes men, it is for sin; if he rebukes and chastises his people, it is for their transgressions; to bring them to a sense of them, to humble them for them, to bring them off from them, or to prevent them, or purge them away, and to try their graces, wean them from the world, and fit them for himself: but Job's afflictions were without any such cause intimated by his friends; it was not hypocrisy, nor any notorious sin or sins he had been guilty of, and secretly lived and indulged himself in, as they imagined. Job here suggests his innocence, which he always insisted upon, and refers his afflictions to the sovereign will of God, and to some hidden cause in his own breast, unknown to himself and others: however, so long as he dealt with him after this manner, he could not believe his prayers were heard by him.
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(s) "in turbine ardenti", Schultens. (t) Travels, par. 2. B. 1. c. 12. p. 54. B. 3. c. 5. p. 135.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 Yet - I could not believe that God had…
Yet - I could not believe that God had indeed granted my desire, because I am still full of the tokens of his displeasure; and therefore should conclude that it was but a pleasant dream, and not a real thing.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 Verse 16. If I had called, and he had…
Verse 16. If I had called, and he had answered] I could scarcely suppose, such is his majesty and such his holiness, that he could condescend to notice a being so mean, and in every respect so infinitely beneath his notice. These sentiments sufficiently confuted that slander of his friends, who said he was presumptuous, had not becoming notions of the majesty of God, and used blasphemous expressions against his sovereign authority.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 34 Job 9:16. If I had called — That is,…
Job 9:16. If I had called — That is, prayed, as the word קראתי, karati, commonly means, namely, unto my judge for a favourable sentence, as he had just said; and he had answered me — Had given me what I asked; yet would I not believe, &c. — So weak and imperfect are my best prayers; and, I am so infinitely below him, so obnoxious to him, and still so full of the tokens of his displeasure, that I would not believe he had done it because I had asked him; or, that it was owing to my prayers, but that he had bestowed the favour purely for his name’s sake. Bishop Patrick’s paraphrase is, “If I had made supplication, and he had granted my desire, I would not think my prayer had done the business.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv16–35 If I had called, and he had answered me…
If I had called, and he had answered me - It is remarked by Schultens, that the expressions in these verses are all taken from courts of justice. If so, the meaning is, that even if Job should call the Almighty to a judicial action, and he should respond to him, and consent to submit the great question about his innocence, and about the justice of the divine dealings with him, to trial, yet that such was the distance between God and him, that he could not hope successfully to contend with him in the argument. He would, therefore, prostrate himself in a suppliant manner, and implore his mercy and compassion - submitting to him as having all power, and as being a just and righteous Sovereign.
Would I not believe - I cannot believe that he would enter into my complaint. He deals with me in a manner so severe; he acts toward me so much as a sovereign, that I have no reason to suppose that he would not continue to act toward me in the same way still.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35 Voice. So much am I beneath his notice. How…
Voice. So much am I beneath his notice. How unjust were the aspersions of Job’s friends, who accused him of presumption and blasphemy! (Calmet) --- No one ever spoke with greater humility (Haydock) and respect of God’s absolute dominion. (Calmet) --- He will attribute nothing to his own prayers, as he is still in the dark. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35 would I not believe that he had hearkened unto…
would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice--who breaketh me (as a tree stripped of its leaves) with a tempest.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35 16. If I had called — From Job_9:12-15 he…
16. If I had called — From Job_9:12-15 he supposes the case that God would take the initiative in summoning to trial; now, that he himself would: Should I summon him, and he answer me, I would hardly believe my senses that there could be such condescension and sense of justice!
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv16–35 16. In Job_9:14-15 the plea against God is not…
16. In Job_9:14-15 the plea against God is not supposed actually entered upon; the idea of such a plea presents itself to Job’s mind and he pictures the results that would follow upon himself; in Job_9:16 he assumes the plea entered upon, that he had actually cited God, who had appeared, and he describes what would follow at this stage.
if I had called] i. e. cited God as a party in my plea against Him.
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that he had hearkened] Rather, that he would hearken. Had Job with a superhuman courage cited God, and had God appeared, Job would not believe that He would listen to him, cf. Job_9:35, ch. Job_13:21 seq., Job_23:6 seq.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 26, 32, 35 (17) He breaketh me . . .—This is one…
(17) He breaketh me . . .—This is one of the three passages in which this word is found, the other two being Gen_3:15, “It shall bruise,” &c., and Psa_139:11, “If I say the darkness shall cover me.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv16–35 If I had called, and he had answered me.…
If I had called, and he had answered me. "It," that is, "I had challenged God to a controversy, and he had granted it, and bidden me to plead my cause at his bar, yet could I not suppose that he had really hearkened to me, and would allow me boldly to stand up before him and freely to challenge his doings. Such condescension on his part, such an abnegation of his supremacy, is inconceivable, and! could not have acted on it." Yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice; rather, yet could I not believe. It was not that he would not have wished, but that he would not have been able, to believe.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv16, 20, 25, 27, 30, 33 Yet would I not believe that He had hearkened…
Job_9:16
Yet would I not believe that He had hearkened unto my voice.
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Prerequisites to belief
It is hard to believe in that, some faint earnest of which we do not find in our own souls. A man cannot believe facts which are in the very teeth of his instinctive affinities and dispositions. The head hunters of Borneo would necessarily treat as fables the thousand and one humane institutions which are the products of Christian civilisation. A race of colour-blind barbarians, if such a race existed, would ridicule the idea of finding out the elements of which distant stars are fashioned by observing the bands and lines of colours disclosed by the spectroscope. There must be the beginning of vision in us if we are to receive the fairy tales of the microscopist and the astronomer. God can be made known to us only in these aspects in which we desire, however faintly, to be like Him. (T. G. Selby.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v22 Job Insists that God Visits also the Righteous with…
Job Insists that God Visits also the Righteous with Affliction
v. 22. This is one thing, it is all one, or, it makes no difference whether a person is innocent or guilty; therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked; this statement Job feels constrained to make against God.
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v. 23. If the scourge slay suddenly, namely, by means of any calamity, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent, God will mock at the despair of the guiltless, not permitting Himself to be disturbed in the enjoyment of His heavenly bliss.
v. 24. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked, this God readily permits; He covereth the faces of the judges thereof, veiling their eyes and permitting them to render wicked decisions, to practise unrighteousness; if not, where and who is He? Who but God could it be that does this!
v. 25. Now, my days are swifter than a post, flying away more swiftly than the motion of a courier, or runner; they flee away, they see no good; Job despairs of ever being released of his affliction, he has entirely forgotten his former state of prosperity.
v. 26. They are passed away as the swift ships, sweeping past like vessels of bulrush, known for their lightness and swiftness; as the eagle that hasteth to the prey, swooping down upon it with almost incredible speed. Thus Job illustrates the hasty flight of his life.
v. 27. If I say, I will forget my complaint, making an attempt to rouse himself from his stupor, I will leave off my heaviness, literarily, "my countenance," that is, his gloomy and downcast look, and comfort myself, looking cheerful once more.
v. 28. I am afraid of all my sorrows, he is once more forced to shudder with pain; I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent, that God would not declare him guiltless.
v. 29. If I be wicked, rather, "I am to be guilty," declared to be wicked by the decree of God, why, then, labor I in vain? It was a useless endeavor on his part trying to appear innocent; he felt that he was tiring himself out without result.
v. 30. If I wash myself with snow-water, which was considered as containing greater cleansing power than ordinary water, and make my hands never so clean, literally, "cleansing my hands with lye," in an effort to purge away all impurities,
v. 31. yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, into a sink or sewer, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. This would happen while he was still naked after his washing and would cause him to become so filthy as to make his own clothes ashamed of him. That is: "Not even the best grounded self-justification can avail him; for God, would still bring it to pass that his clearly proved innocence should change to the most horrible impurity. " (Delitzsch. )
v. 32. For He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him, standing on the same level with Him before a court of justice, and we should come together in judgment.
v. 33. Neither is there any daysman, arbitrator or mediator, betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both, acting as umpire between God and Job to settle his case; for God was both accuser and judge.
v. 34. Let Him take His rod away from me, the scourge and calamity wherewith He was smiting Job, and let not His fear terrify me, stupefying him by His majestic presence;
v. 35. then would I speak and not fear Him, namely, with this handicap of overpowering majesty removed; but it is not so with me, in his own person he was not conscious of any reason why he should fear Him. Job’s defense of himself becomes so emphatic that it verges on self-righteous boasting, an act against which every believer must guard with the greatest care.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv16, 19, 21, 25, 27, 30, 32, 34 For he breaks me with a tempest
For he breaks me with a tempest
Job compares his troubles from God to the effects of a tempest. AT: "He injures me as if with a tempest" (See: Metaphor)
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tempest
a powerful or violent storm
multiplies my wounds
"gives me many wounds" or "wounds me again and again"
without cause
"even though I have not given him cause to do so" or "even though I am innocent"
to regain my breath
This is an idiom that means "to be able to breathe again" or (See: Idiom)
he fills me with bitterness
This verse pictures God as filling up Job's life with things that make him bitter. The abstract noun "bitterness" can be expressed as the adjective "bitter." AT: "he fills me up with bitter things" (See: Metaphor and Abstract Nouns)
translationWords
call
believe
voice
breath
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 21, 28, 30, 31, 32 9:17 with a storm: Perhaps the words translated “with…
9:17 with a storm: Perhaps the words translated “with a storm” (bis’arah) are a double entendre with besa‘arah (“for a hair”; i.e., “for the littlest thing”), which would parallel without cause.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.