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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 23:10 - 23:10
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
10 For He knoweth the way that is with me:
If He should prove me, I should come forth as gold.
11 My foot held firm to His steps;
His way I kept, and turned not aside.
12 The command of His lips - I departed not from it;
More than my own determination I kept the words of His mouth.
13 Yet He remaineth by one thing, and who can turn Him?
And He accomplisheth what His soul desireth.
That which is not merely outwardly, but inwardly with (אִם) any one, is that which he thinks and knows (his consciousness), Job 9:35; Job 15:9, or his willing and acting, Job 10:13; Job 27:11 : he is conscious of it, he intends to do it; here, Job 23:10, עם is intended in the former sense, in Job 23:14 in the latter. The “way with me” is that which his conscience (συνείδησις) approves (συμμαρτυρεῖ); comp. Psychol. S. 134. This is known to God, so that he who is now set down as a criminal would come forth as tried gold, in the event of God allowing him to appear before Him, and subjecting him to judicial trial. בְּחָנַנִי is the praet. hypotheticum so often mentioned, which is based upon the paratactic character of the Hebrew style, as Gen 44:22; Rth 2:9; Zec 13:6; Ges. §155, 4, a. His foot has held firmly
(Note: On אָחַז, Carey correctly observes, and it explains the form of the expression: The oriental foot has a power of grasp and tenacity, because not shackled with shoes from early childhood, of which we can form but little idea.)
to the steps of God (אָשׁוּר, together with אַשּׁוּר, Job 31:7, from אשׁר Piel, to go on), so that he was always close behind Him as his predecessor (אָחַז( ro synon. תָּמַךְ, Psa 17:5; Pro 5:5). He guarded, i.e., observed His way, and turned not aside (אַט fut. apoc. Hiph. in the intransitive sense of deflectere, as e.g., Psa 125:5).
In Job 23:12, מִצְוַת שְׂפָתָיו precedes as cas. absolutus (as respects the command of His lips); and what is said in this respect follows with Waw apod. (= Arab. f) without the retrospective pronoun מִמֶּנָּה (which is omitted for poetic brevity). On this prominence of a separate notion after the manner of an antecedent. The Hiph. הֵמִישׁ, like הִטָּה, Job 23:11, and הִלִּיז, Pro 4:21, is not causative, but simply active in signification. In Job 23:12 the question arises, whether צָפַן מִן is one expression, as in Job 17:4, in the sense of “hiding from another,” or whether מִן is comparative. In the former sense Hirz. explains: I removed the divine will from the possible ascendancy of my own. But since צָפַן is familiar to the poet in the sense of preserving and laying by (צְפוּנִים( y, treasures, Job 20:26), it is more natural to explain, according to Psa 119:11 : I kept the words (commands) of Thy mouth, i.e., esteemed them high and precious, more than my statute, i.e., more than what my own will prescribed for me.
(Note: Wetzstein arranges the significations of צפן as follows: - 1. (Beduin) intr. fut. i, to contain one's self, to keep still (hence in Hebr. to lie in wait), to be rapt in thought; conjug. II. c. acc. pers. to make any one thoughtful, irresolute. 2. (Hebr.) trans. fut. o, to keep anything to one's self, to hold back, to keep to one's self; Niph. to be held back, i.e., either concealed or reserved for future use. Thus we see how, on the one hand, צפן is related to טָמַן, e.g., Job 20:26 (Arab. itmaanna, to be still); and, on the other, can interchange with צפה in the signification designare (comp. Job 15:22 with Job 15:20; Job 21:19), and to spy, lie in wait (comp. Psa 10:8; Psa 56:7; Pro 1:11, Pro 1:18, with Psa 37:32).)
The meaning is substantially the same; the lxx, which translates ἐν δὲ κόλπῳ μου (בְּחֵקִי), which Olsh. considers to be “perhaps correct,” destroys the significance of the confession. Hirz. rightly refers to the “law in the members,” Rom 7:23 : חֻקִּי is the expression Job uses for the law of the sinful nature which strives against the law of God, the wilful impulse of selfishness and evil passion, the law which the apostle describes as ἕτερος νόμος, in distinction from the νόμος τοῦ Θεοῦ (Psychol. S. 379). Job's conscience can give him this testimony, but He, the God who so studiously avoids him, remains in one mind, viz., to treat him as a criminal; and who can turn Him from His purpose? (the same question as Job 9:12; Job 11:10); His soul wills it (stat pro ratione voluntas), and He accomplishes it. Most expositors explain permanet in uno in this sense; the Beth is the usual בְ with verbs of entering upon and persisting in anything. Others, however, take the בְ as Beth essentiae: He remains one and the same, viz., in His conduct towards me (Umbr., Vaih.), or: He is one, is alone, viz., in absolute majesty (Targ. Jer.; Schult., Ew., Hlgst., Schlottm.), which is admissible, since this Beth occurs not only in the complements of a sentence (Psa 39:7, like a shadow; Isa 48:10, after the manner of silver; Psa 55:19, in great number; Psa 35:2, as my help), but also with the predicate of a simple sentence, be it verbal (Job 24:13; Pro 3:26) or substantival (Exo 18:4; Psa 118:7). The same construction is found also in Arabic, where, however, it is more frequent in simple negative clauses than in affirmative (vid., Psalter, i. 272). The assertion: He is one (as in the primary monotheistic confession, Deu 6:4), is, however, an expression for the absoluteness of God, which is not suited to this connection; and if הוא באחד is intended to be understood of the unchangeable uniformity of His purpose concerning Job, the explanation: versatur (perstat) in uno, Arab. hua fi wâhidin, is not only equally, but more natural, and we therefore prefer it.
Here again God appears to Job to be his enemy. His confidence towards God is again overrun by all kinds of evil, suspicious thoughts. He seems to him to be a God of absolute caprice, who punishes where there is no ground for punishment. There is indeed a phrase of the abiding fact which he considers superior to God and himself, both being conceived of as contending parties; and this phase God avoids, He will not hear it. Into this vortex of thoughts, as terrible as they are puerile, Job is hurried forward by the persuasion that his affliction is a decree of divine justice. The friends have greatly confirmed him in this persuasion; so that his consciousness of innocence, and the idea of God as inflicting punishment, are become widely opposite extremes, between which his faith is hardly able to maintain itself. It is not his affliction in itself, but this persuasion, which precipitates him into such a depth of conflict, as the following strophe shows.