If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,
Parallel Translations
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If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,
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If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
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If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Job 9:30 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 2:22 For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me,” says the Lord Yahweh.
- Psalms 26:6 I will wash my hands in innocence, so I will go about your altar, Yahweh,
- 1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- Job 31:7 if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands,
- Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
- Isaiah 1:16-18 Wash yourselves. Make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.” “Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
- Jeremiah 4:14 Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long will your evil thoughts lodge within you?
- Romans 10:3 For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Though I seem never so pure in mine own…
Though I seem never so pure in mine own eyes, yet all is but corruption before God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 9:30 If I wash myself with snow water,…
Job 9:30 If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
Ver. 30. If I wash myself with snow water] Some take the former words, I am wicked, to be Job’s confession of his own sinfulness in comparison of God’s surpassing holiness. And then this followeth very fitly, Though I wash myself with snow water, i.e. with water as clear as snow is white. Some read it aquis vivis for aquis nivis, spring water for snow water.
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And make my hands never so clean] Though I wash my hands with soap (so some read it), as Jer 2:22 Mal 3:2; or, though I wash mine hands in a well (where there is no want of water), both inside and outside, as Jas 4:8.
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 If I wash myself; either,
If I wash myself; either,
1. Really, by sanctification, cleansing my heart and life from all filthiness; or rather,
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2. Declaratively or judicially, i.e. if I clear myself from all imputations, and fully prove my innocency before men.
With snow water, i.e. as men cleanse their bodies, and as under the law they purified themselves, with water, which he here calls water of snow, either because by its purity and brightness it resembled snow; or because in those dry countries, where fresh and pure water was scarce, snow water was much in use; or because that water might be much used among them in some of their ritual purifications, as coming down from heaven.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch,.... In…
Yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch,.... In the filthy ditch of sin, the pit wherein is no water, the horrible pit, the mire and clay, in which all unregenerate men are, and to which hypocrites return, as the swine to its wallowing in the mire; and in which impurity self-righteous persons are, and are sooner or later made to appear, notwithstanding all their outward righteousness, holiness, purity, and perfection they boast of; and though Job was neither of these, not an unregenerate man, nor an hypocrite, nor a self-righteous person; yet he knew that, in comparison of the perfect purity and holiness of God, he should appear exceedingly impure; and that God would treat him as such, and hold him out to the view of others as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things, by continuing his afflictions, from whence it would be concluded that he was the most impure person; and indeed by the ditch may be meant the ditch of afflictions, as Sephorno, either his present ones continued, his filthy ulcers and scabs, with which his body was covered all over, or new afflictions he would bring him into, where he would sink in deep mire, there being no standing, Psa 69:2; some understand this of the grave, the ditch or pit of corruption, into which he should be cast, and there putrefy and rot: but the other senses seem best:
and mine own clothes shall abhor me; not his clothes in a literal sense; either while living, his filthy ulcers being such, that were his clothes sensible of them, they would loathe and abhor to touch him, and cover him; or when dead, his sepulchre garments, his shroud, or winding sheet, would disdain to cover such a filthy body, overspread with worms and dust; or as Vatablus paraphrases it, clothes do not become a dead body; or as Mr. Broughton,"when I go naked to the grave, as though my clothes loathed me:''but the words are rather to be understood figuratively, either of some of his friends that were as near and as close to him as his clothes, or had been, but now were estranged from him, and loathed and abhorred him, see Job 19:13; or better, of his best works of righteousness, which he put on as a robe, Job 29:14; and which are a covering to the saints before men, and are ornamental to them, though not justifying in the sight of God; and indeed in themselves, and compared with the holy law, and holy nature of God, are imperfect and impure; and if God was to enter into judgment with men, they would be so far from justifying them in his sight, or rendering them acceptable to him, that they would cause them to be abhorred by him, as all self-righteousness and self-righteous persons are, see Pro 21:27; yea, even the best works of men are but dung in the judgment of a good man himself, what then must they be in the account of God? Phi 3:8; Job here, and in Job 9:30, has most exalted ideas of the purity, holiness, and majesty of God, so that no creature, nor creature holiness, be they ever so perfect, can stand before him, or be pure in his sight.
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 If - If I clear myself from all imputations,…
If - If I clear myself from all imputations, and fully prove my innocency before men.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 30. If I wash myself with snow water]…
Verse 30. If I wash myself with snow water] Supposed to have a more detergent quality than common water; and it was certainly preferred to common water by the ancients. Of this we find an example in an elegant but licentious author: Tandem ergo discubuimus, pueris Alexandrinis AQUAM in manus NIVATAM infundentibus, aliisque insequentibus ad pedes. - PETR. Satyr., cap. xxxi. "At length we sat down, and had snow water poured on our hands by lads of Alexandria," c.
Mr. Good supposes that there is an allusion here to the ancient rite of washing the hands in token of innocence. See Ps 26:6: I will WASH my hands in INNOCENCY and Ps 73:13: Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and WASHED my HANDS IN INNOCENCY. And by this ceremony Pilate declared himself innocent of the blood of Christ, Mt 27:24.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Job 9:30-31. If I wash myself with snow-water, &c.…
Job 9:30-31. If I wash myself with snow-water, &c. — If I clear myself from all imputations, and fully prove my innocence before men; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch — That is, in miry and puddle water, whereby I shall become most filthy. As Job’s washing himself is to be understood only of his clearing himself judicially, and showing that he was innocent of the things laid to his charge, so God’s plunging him, &c., is not to be understood of his making him sinful and guilty, but of his proving him to be so, notwithstanding all the professions and evidences of his purity before men. And mine own clothes shall abhor me — I shall be so filthy, that my own clothes, if they had any sense in them, would abhor to touch me. Job saw that his afflictions, coming from the hand of God, were the things that blackened him in the eyes of his friends, and caused them to think him a wicked man; and therefore, on that account, as well as because of the pain and torment they gave him, he complained of them, and of the continuance of them. Observe, reader, if we be ever so industrious to justify ourselves before men, and to preserve our credit with them; if we keep our hands ever so clean from the pollutions of gross sin; yet God, who knows our hearts, can charge us with so much secret iniquity, and internal depravity, as must for ever cut us off from all hopes of ever being able to justify ourselves before him. Paul, while a Pharisee, had made his hands, as he thought, very clean, but when the commandment came, and discovered to him that his inward parts were very wickedness, he found himself plunged in the ditch.
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 If I wash myself with snow water - If…
If I wash myself with snow water - If I should make myself as pure as possible, and should become, in my view, perfectly holy. Snow water, it seems, was regarded as especially pure. The whiteness of snow itself perhaps suggested the idea that the water of melted snow was better than other for purification. Washing the hands formerly was an emblem of cleansing from guilt. Hence Pilate, when he gave up the Savior to death, took water and washed his hands before the multitude, and said that he was innocent of his blood; Mat 27:24. The expression used here by Job, also is imitated by the Psalmist, to denote his innocence:
I will wash mine hands in innocency:
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So will I compass thine altar, O Lord. Psa 26:6.
Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain,
And washed my hands in innocency.
Psa 73:13.
So in Shakespeare, Richard III:
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous, guilty murder done!
And make my hands never so clean - Or, rather, should I cleanse my hands with lye, or alkali. The word בור bôr, means properly purity, cleanliness, pureness; and then it is used to denote that which cleanses, alkali, lye, or vegetable salt. The ancients made use of this, mingled with oil, instead of soap, for the purpose of washing, and also in smelting metals, to make them melt more readily; see the note at Isa 1:25. The Chaldee renders it accurately, באהלא - in soap. I have no doubt that this is the sense, and that Job means to say, if he should make use of the purest water and of soap to cleanse himself, still he would be regarded as impure. God would throw him at once into the ditch, and he would be covered with moral filth and defilement again in his sight.
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 Snow. Nitre bring off the dirt better. Chaldean, "soap."…
Snow. Nitre bring off the dirt better. Chaldean, "soap." Hebrew bor, is supposed by many to be the Borith of Jeremias ii. 22. Snow-water was also used through delicacy in summer. (Petronius; Sat.)
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 snow water--thought to be more cleansing than common water,…
snow water--thought to be more cleansing than common water, owing to the whiteness of snow (Psa 51:7; Isa 1:18).
never so clean--Better, to answer to the parallelism of the first clause which expresses the cleansing material, "lye:" the Arabs used alkali mixed with oil, as soap (Psa 73:13; Jer 2:22).
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 30. A specimen of abortive labour. Snow water was…
30. A specimen of abortive labour. Snow water was regarded by the ancients as possessed of peculiarly cleansing power. Thus Petronius, (in Satyr:) “We reclined at table, the boys having poured snow water upon our hands.” In the fable of Lockman, the black man rubs his body with snow in order to make it white. Mohammed prays, “Lord, wash me from my sins, white with water, snow, and ice.”
Never so clean — Literally, Clean with lye. בור, bor, was a vegetable salt, obtained from the ashes of the kali, a plant still found in Arabia. Our word, alkali, (Arabic,) the kali, is derived from this plant. Comp. Jer_2:22. Among the earliest prayers of the Vedas we find the recognition of man’s moral defilement: “Purifying waters cleanse from me whatever is impure or criminal; every evil I have done by violence, by imprecations, by injustice.” — Rig Veda, 1:38. (See HARDWICK, Chrisi and Other Masters, 1:183.)
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 30. with snow water] This is according to one…
30. with snow water] This is according to one reading (bemê). According to another (bemô), with snow. The latter is better; snowwater is turbid and foul, ch. Job_6:16; snow is the symbol of the most perfect purity, Isa_1:18, Psa_51:7. Locman’s 23rd fable illustrates this Oriental idea very well: “A negro stripped himself of his clothes one day and began rubbing his body with snow. He was asked, Why do you rub yourself with snow? He answered, Perhaps I shall become white. A wise man passing by said to him, You fellow, don’t fatigue yourself, your body may well make the snow black, but it will never make you white. The moral is &c.”
make my hands never so clean] lit. cleanse my hands with lye, or, potash.
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.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain If I wash myself with snow-water. (comp. Psa_51:7) If…
If I wash myself with snow-water. (comp. Psa_51:7) If I should succeed in purging myself of all guilt, and establishing, so far as words can do it, my spotless innocence even then what advantage should I gain? Snow-water does not really cleanse what is defiled better than any other water, but a lively fancy might suppose it to do so. Job indulges in this fancy, but then checks himself, and adds a prosaic alternative. And make my hands never so clean; rather, and make my hands clean with lye. Lye, or potash, is the principal and most essential ingredient in soap. and the readiest and best detergent. If Job cleanses himself to the very utmost, "Cut bone?" he asks.
Vers. 30, 31. Despair of purification.
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Job is possessed by a terrible thought. He imagines that God is so determined to have him as an object of condemnation that nothing he can do can set him right; even if he makes himself ever so clean, God will plunge him back in the mire, God will overwhelm him with guilt. This is, of course, a wholly false view of God, though it is not altogether inexcusable with Job in his ignorance and awful distress.
I GOD ONLY DESIRES OUR PURIFICATION. We may not be tempted to fall into Job"s mistake, for we have more light, and our circumstances are far more hopeful than his were. Still, it is difficult for us to conceive how entirely averse to making the worst of us God is. He cannot ignore sin, for his searching glance always reveals it to him, and his just judgment always estimates it rightly. He must bring our sin home to us; for this is for our own good, as well as necessary in regard to the claims of righteous-neat. Thus he seems to be forcing out our guilt. But in doing so he is not plunging us into the mire, but only making apparent the hidden evil of our heart. The process is like that of a photographer developing a picture, like that of a physician bringing a disease to the surface. The result makes apparent what existed before, unseen but dangerously powerful.
II IT IS HOPELESS TO ATTEMPT OUR OWN PURIFICATION. Here Job was right. We may wash ourselves, but we shall not be clean. Sin is more than a defilement; it is a stain, a dye, an ingrained evil. It is like the Ethiopian"s skin and the leopard"s spots; sin has become a part of the sinner"s very constitution. Tears of repentance will not wash it out. Blood of sacrificed victims will not cleanse it away. Penance and good deeds will not remove it. We cannot undo the past, cannot do away with the fact that sin was committed. Therefore we cannot remove the guilt of our sin, nor its contaminating, corrupting influence from our consciences.
III GOD PROVIDES PURIFICATION FROM SIN. We need not despair. Job is not only mistaken; the truth is the very opposite to what he imagines it to be. God himself, instead of aggravating guilt, has provided the only efficacious means for its removal. This was promised in the Old Testament: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord," etc. (Isa_1:18) It is accomplished in the New Testament. Christ offered forgiveness of sin. (Mat_9:2) By his death on the cross he made that forgiveness sure to us. What no tears or works of ours can do is effected by the blood of Christ, which "cleanseth us from all sin". (1Jn_1:7) That is to say, Christ"s death is the great purifying sacrifice. When we trust in him the cleansing of guilt that is given, on condition of the perfect sacrifice, is ours. Our despair of purification outside Christ should only drive us to Christ that we may receive it. W.F.A.
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 If I wash myself with snow water.
Job_9:30-32
If I wash myself with snow water.
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An estimate of the morality that is without godliness
In the eyes of the pure God, the man who has made the most copious application in his power of snow water to the visible conduct, may still be an object of abhorrence; and that if God enter into judgment with him, He will make him appear as one plunged in the ditch, his righteousness as filthy rags, and himself as an unclean thing. There are a thousand things which, in popular and understood language, man can do. It is quite the general sentiment, that he can abstain from stealing, and lying, and calumny--that he can give of his substance to the poor, and attend church, and pray, and read his Bible, and keep up the worship of God in his family. But, as an instance of distinction between what he can do, and what he cannot do, let us make the undoubted assertion that he can eat wormwood, and just put the question, if he can also relish wormwood. That is a different affair. I may command the performance; but have no such command over my organs of sense, as to command a liking or a taste for the performance. The illustration is homely; but it is enough for our purpose if it be effective. I may accomplish the doing of what God bids; but have no pleasure in God himself. The forcible constraining of the hand may make out many a visible act of obedience; but the relish of the heart may refuse to go along with it. The outer man may be all in a bustle about the commandments of God; while to the inner man God is an offence and a weariness. His neighbours may look at him; and all that their eye can reach may be as clean as snow water can make it. But the eye of God reaches a great deal farther. He is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and he may see the foulness of spiritual idolatry in every one of its receptacles. The poor man has no more conquered his rebellious affections than he has conquered his distaste for wormwood. He may fear God; he may listen to God; and, in outward deed, may obey God. But he does not, and he will not, love God; and while he drags a heavy load of tasks, and duties, and observances after him, he lives in the hourly violation of the first and greatest of the commandments. Would any parent among you count it enough that you had obtained a service like this from one of your children? Would you be satisfied with the obedience of his hand, while you knew that the affections of his heart were totally away from you? The service may be done; but all that can minister satisfaction in the principle of the service, may be withheld from it; and though the very last item of the bidden performance is rendered, this will neither mend the deformity of the unnatural child, nor soothe the feelings of the afflicted and the mortified father. God is the Father of spirits; and the willing subjection of the spirit is that which He requires of us--My son, give Me thy heart; and if the heart be withheld, God says of all our visible performances, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? The heart is His requirement; and full indeed is the title which He prefers to it. He put life into us; and it is He who hath drawn a circle of enjoyments, and friendships, and interests, around us. Everything that we take delight in, is ministered to us out of His hand. He plies us every moment with His kindness; and when at length the gift stole the heart of man away from the Giver, so that he became a lover of his own pleasure rather than a lover of God, even then would He not leave us to perish in the guilt of our rebellion. Man made himself an alien, but God was not willing to abandon him; and, rather than lose him forever, did He devise a way of access by which to woo and to welcome him back again. The way of our recovery is indeed a way that His heart was set upon; and to prove it, He sent His own Eternal Son into the world, who unrobed Him of all His glories, and made Himself of no reputation. If, after all this, the antipathy of nature to God still cleave to us--if, under the power of this antipathy, the service we yield be the cold and unwilling service of constraint--if, with many of the visible outworks of obedience, there be also the strugglings of a reluctant heart to take away from this obedience all its cheerfulness, is not God defrauded of His offering? (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
Washed to greater foulness
The similitudes of grief are here piled up in heaps, with what an old author has spoken of as the rhetoric of sorrow. Physical sufferings had produced a stain on Jobs mind, and he sought relief by expressing his anguish. Like some solitary prisoner in the gloomy keep of an old castle, he graves on the walls pictures of the abject despondencies which haunt him.
I. At the outset we observe that quickened souls are conscious of guilt. They know it; they feel it; and they blush to find that they are without excuse for it. All men are sinners: to most men, however, sin appears to be a fashion of the times, a necessity of nature, a folly of youth, or an infirmity of age, which a slight apology will suffice to remove. Not till men are quickened by Divine grace do they truly know that they are sinners. How is this? Some diseases are so insidious that the sufferers fancy that they are getting better, while in very truth they are hastening to the grave. After such manner does sin deceive the sons of men: they think they are saved when they are still unrenewed. How is this, you ask again? Few give themselves the trouble to think about these matters at all. Ours is an age in which mens thoughts are keen upon politics and merchandise, practical science, and economic inventions. To natural ignorance we may attribute much of the ordinary indifference of men to their own sinfulness. They live in a benighted age. In vain you boast the enlightenment of this nineteenth century: the nineteenth century is not one whir more enlightened as to the depravity of human nature than the first century. Men are as ignorant of the plague of their own hearts today as they were when Paul addressed them. Hardly a glimmer of the humbling truth of our natural depravity dawns on the dull apprehension of the worldly wise, though souls taught from above know it and are appalled by it. In divers ways the discovery comes to those whom the Lord ordains to save. Sometimes a preacher sent of God lets in the dreadful light. Many men, like the false prophet Mokanna, hide their deformity. You may walk through a dark cellar without discerning by the eye that anything noisome is there concealed. Let the shutters be thrown open! Bid the light of day stream in! You soon perceive frogs upon the cold clammy pavement, filthy cobwebs hanging on the walls in long festoons, foul vermin creeping about everywhere. Startled, alarmed, horrified, who would not wish to flee away, and find a healthier atmosphere? The rays of the sun are, however, but a faint image of that light Divine shed by the Holy Spirit, which penetrates the thickest shades of human folly and infatuation, and exposes the treachery of the inmost heart.
II. We pass on to notice that it often happens that awakened souls use many ineffectual means to obtain cleansing. Job describes himself as washing in snow water, and making his hands never so clean. His expressions remind me of my own labour in vain. By how many experiments I tried to purify my own soul! See a squirrel in a cage; the poor thing is working away, trying to mount, yet he never rises one inch higher. In like case is the sinner who seeks to save himself by his own good works or by any other means: he toils without result. It is astonishing what pains men will take in this useless drudgery. In seeking to obtain absolution of their sins, to establish a righteousness of their own, and to secure peace of mind, men tax their ingenuity to the utmost. Job talks of washing himself with snow water. The imagery is, no doubt, meant to be instructive. Why is snow water selected?
1. The reason probably was, first, because it was hard to get. Far easier, generally, to procure water from the running brooks than from melted snow. Men set a high value on that which is difficult to procure. Forms of worship which are expensive and difficult are greatly affected by many, as snow water was thought in Jobs day to be a bath for kings; but, after all, it is an idle fashion, likely to mislead.
2. Besides, snow water enjoyed a reputation for purity. If you would have a natural filtered water gather the newly-fallen snow and melt it. Specimens yet remain among us of piety more than possible to men, religiousness above the range of mortals; which piety is, however, not of Gods grace, and consequently is a vain show. Though we should use the purest ceremonies, multiply the best of good works, and add thereto the costliest of gifts, yet we should be unable to make ourselves clean before God. You may wash yourself till you deny the existence of a spot, and yet you may be unclean.
3. Once again, this snow water is probably extolled because it descends from the clouds of heaven, instead of bubbling up from the clods of earth. Religiousness which can colour itself with an appearance of the supernatural is very taking with many. If I make my hands never so clean, is an expression peculiarly racy in the original. The Hebrew word has an allusion to soap or nitre. Such was the ordinary and obvious method anyone would take to whiten his hands when they were grimy. Tradition tells that certain stains of blood cleave to the floor. The idea is that human blood, shed in murder, can never be scrubbed or scraped off the boards. Thus is it most certainly with the dye of sin. The blood of souls is in thy skirts, is the terrible language of Jeremiah (Jer_2:34). These worthless experiments to cleanse yourselves would be ended once for all if you would have regard to the great truth of the Gospel: Without shedding of blood there is no remission The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
III. But as sure as ever quickened souls try to get purity in the wrong way, God will thrust them down into the ditch. This is a terrible predicament. I find, on looking at the passage closely, that it means head over ears in the ditch. Often it happens with those who try to get better by their own good works, that their conscience is awakened by the effort, and they are more conscious of sin than ever. The word here rendered ditch is elsewhere translated corruption. So in the sixteenth Psalm: Neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Language cannot paint abasement, reproach, or ignominy in stronger terms. Thou shalt plunge me in the ditch. Is it not as though God Himself would undertake the business of causing His people to know that by their vain ablutions they were making themselves yet more vile in His eyes? May we not regard this as the discipline of our Heavenly Fathers love, albeit when passing through the trial we do not perceive it to be so? As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Perhaps the experience I am trying to describe will come to you through the preaching of the Word. Frequently our great Lord leaves a poor wayward soul to eat the fruits of its own ways, and this is the severest form of plunging in the ditch. While striving after righteousness in a wrong way, the man stumbles into the very sin against which he struggled. His empty conceit might not have been dislodged from its secret lurking place in his depraved nature without some such perilous downfall. Thus do we, in our different spheres, fly from this to that, and from that to the other. Some hope to cleanse away sin by a supreme effort of self-denial, or of miraculous faith. Let us not play at purification, nor vainly hope to satisfy conscience with that which renders no satisfaction to God. Persons of sensitive disposition, and sedentary habits, are prone to seek a righteousness of inward feeling. Oh, that it could turn from feeling to faith; and look steadily out of inward sensation to the work finished once for all by the Lord Jesus!
IV. By such severe training the awakened one is led to look alone to God for salvation, and to find the salvation he looks for. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 If I washed myself with snow water
If I washed myself with snow water
"If I bathed my body in pure, clean water"
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snow water
the water that comes from melted snow
snow
white flakes of frozen water that fall from clouds in places where the air temperature is cold
made my hands ever so clean
"made my hands exceedingly clean." Some other versions of the Bible translate this with the meaning of "cleaned my hands with very strong soap."
plunge me in a ditch
"throw me into a pit"
my own clothes would be disgusted with me
Job's clothing is spoken of as if it would have a negative response to Job after God plunged him into a ditch. AT: "I would be too filthy for my own clothing" (See: Personification)
translationWords
clean
God
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 9:30 wash myself: Job spoke of cleansing himself with…
9:30 wash myself: Job spoke of cleansing himself with the strongest soap to represent ridding himself of all sin (1:5; cp. Ps 26:6; Matt 27:24).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.