Job 13 Job’s friends not wiser than he: he would reason with God; but they were liars, and talked deceitfully for God, who would search and reprove them for accepting persons, Job 13:1–10. God’s excellency, and they as ashes and clay, Job 13:11–12.

All this which either you or I have discoursed concerning the infinite power and wisdom of God, I know, both by seeing it, i.e. by my own observation and experience, and by hearing it from my ancestors; so that I did not need your tedious and impertinent discourses concerning those matters.

According to thy wish, Job 11:5, I had rather debate the matter with God than with you. I am not afraid of presenting my person and cause before him, who is a witness of my integrity, and would not deal so unmercifully with me as you do.

Forgers of lies, i.e. authors of false doctrine, to wit, that great afflictions are peculiar to hypocrites and wicked men. Physicians of no value; unfaithful and unskilful; prescribing bad remedies, and misapplying good ones.

For then your ignorance and folly had been concealed, which is now manifest. Compare Prov. 17:28.

i.e. Attend to it, and consider it more seriously than you have done. The pleadings of my lips, i.e. the arguments which I shall produce.

Will you utter falsehoods upon pretence of pleasing God, or of maintaining God’s honour or justice? Doth he need such defences?

Will ye accept his person? not judging according to the right of the cause, but the quality of the person, as corrupt judges do. Will ye contend, i.e. wrangle and quarrel with me, and cavil at my speeches, and pervert my meaning? For God, i.e. that you may gratify him, or defend his rights.

Is it good? will it be to your credit and comfort? Search you out, i.e. narrowly examine your hearts and discourses, whether you have uttered truth or falsehood, and whether your speeches proceed from true zeal for God, or from your own prejudices and passions, and from a desire to curry favour…

i.e. Punish you; as this word is oft used, as hath been once and again observed. Secretly; though it be concealed in your own breasts, and no eye see it; yea, though it be so close that your own minds and consciences, through ignorance, or inadvertency, or slothfulness, do not perceive it; yet He,…

His excellency; his infinite wisdom, which sees your secret falsehoods; and his justice and power, which can and will punish you for it. Make you afraid of speaking rashly or falsely of his ways and counsels.

Your remembrances; either, 1. Actively, i.e. your memorials, or your discourses and arguments, by which you design to bring things to my remembrance. So he might possibly allude to that passage, Job 4:7. Remember, I pray thee, &c. That and all your other mementos are like unto ashes, i.e.

Do not now interrupt me in my discourse; which peradventure he observed by their gestures some of them were now attempting. That I may speak; that I may freely utter my whole mind.

According to this translation the sense seems to be this, If you speak truth, and God punisheth none but wicked men, why doth he bring me (whom he knows to be no hypocrite, as you slander me) to that extremity of pain and misery, that I am almost constrained to tear and eat my own flesh, (which is…

Though God should yet more and more increase my torments, so that I could bear them no longer, but should perceive myself to be at the point of death, and without all hopes of recovery in this world. Yet will I trust in him; or, shall I not trust in him? Should I despair? No, I will not.

I rest assured that he will save me out of these miseries sooner or later, one way or other, if not with a temporal, yet with an eternal salvation after death; of which he speaks Job 19:25;c.

This he desired before, Job 13:6, and now repeateth, either because they manifested some neglect or dislike of his speech, and some desire to interrupt him; or because he now comes more closely to his business, the foregoing verses being mostly in way of preface to it. My declaration, i.e.

I have ordered my cause, to wit, within myself. I have seriously and sincerely considered the state of my case, and what can be said either for me or against me, and am ready to plead my cause. Justified, i.e.

Who is he that will plead with me? where is the man that will do it? nay, oh that God would do it! which here he implies, and presently expresseth. I shall give up the ghost; my grief for God’s heavy hand and find your bitter reproaches would break my heart, if I should not give it vent.

Which two he expresseth Job 13:21. Then shall I boldly present myself and cause before thee.

i.e. Suspend my torments during the time of my pleading with thee, that my mind may be at liberty; and do not present thyself to me in terrible majesty, neither deal with me in rigorous justice; but hear me meekly, as one man heareth another, and plead with me upon those gracious terms wherewith…

Then choose thy own method. Either do thou charge me with hypocrisy, or more than common guilt, and I will defend myself; or I will argue with thee concerning thy extraordinary severity towards me; and do thou show me the reasons of it.

That I am a sinner I confess; but that I am guilty of so many or such heinous crimes as my friends suppose I utterly deny; and if it be so, do thou, O Lord, discover it to my shame.

Hidest thou thy face, i.e. withdrawest thy favour and help which thou didst use to afford me; as this phrase is commonly used, as Deut. 31:17, Ps. 13:1, Ps. 102:2;c. Holdest me for thine enemy, i.e. dealest as sharply with me as if I were thy professed enemy.

Doth it become thy infinite and excellent majesty to use all thy might to crush such a poor, impotent, frail creature as I am, that can no more resist thy power than a leaf, or a little loose and dry straw can resist the fury of the wind or fire.

Thou writest, i.e. thou appointest or inflictest. A metaphor from princes or judges, who anciently used to write their sentence or decrees concerning persons or causes brought before them. See Ps. 149:9, Jer. 22:30, John 19:22. Bitter things, i.e. a terrible sentence, or most grievous punishments.

Thou encompassest me with thy judgments, that I may have no way or possibility to escape. When thou hast me fast in prison, thou makest a strict and diligent search into all the actions of my life, that thou mayst find matter to condemn me.

He; either, 1. Man, or Job, supposed to be God’s adversary in this contest. So he speaks of himself in the third person, as is usual in this and other sacred books. So the sense is, he, i.e.