Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Job 2:3 - 2:3
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Still, notwithstanding all his trials and tribulations, and thy malicious suggestion to the contrary, he holdeth fast his integrity, i.e. he continues to be the same perfect and upright man which he was before. All thy endeavours to pull away his integrity have made him only to hold it the faster.
Thou movedst me, i.e. didst persuade me, and prevailed with me to do it. But this, as the rest of this representation, is not to be understood properly, as if God could be moved by any of his creatures to alter his purposes, which are all eternal and unchangeable, and especially by Satan, as if God would gratify him by granting his desires; but the design of these words is to signify, both the devil’s restless malice in promoting man’s misery, and God’s permission of it for his own wise and holy ends.
Without cause, i.e. without any special provocation, whereby he, more than others, deserved such heavy punishments; which also Job himself oft allegeth for his justification, although he doth not deny himself to be a sinner, as is apparent from Job_7:20,21 9:2 13:23,26; nor that sin deserves judgments. Or, without any such cause as thou didst allege, which was his hypocrisy. Or, in vain, as this word is used, Pro_1:17 Eze_6:10, and elsewhere. So it is not referred to God’s destroying him, but to Satan’s moving God so to do. And so this place may be thus rendered exactly according to the Hebrew, and thou hast moved me to destroy him in vain, or without effect, or to no purpose, i.e. thou hast lost thy design and expectation therein, which was to take away his integrity, which in spite of all thy art and malice he still holdeth fast.