--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 490 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/490/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 490. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/490/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 1 of 2. ## 490. Job · 17 of 73 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/490/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/490/#p-N [¶0] Thou huntest me as a fierce lion - As the hunters attack the king of beasts in the forest, so my friends attack me. They assail me on every side. [¶1] Thou showest thyself marvelous - Thy designs, thy ways, thy works, are all incomprehensible to me; thou dost both confound and overpower me. Mr. Good translates thus: - "For uprousing as a ravenous lion dost thou spring upon me. [¶2] And again thou showest over me thy vast power." ### Verse 17 [¶4] Thou renewest thy witnesses - In this speech of Job he is ever referring to trials in courts of judicature, and almost all his terms are forensic. Thou bringest witnesses in continual succession to confound and convict me. [¶5] Changes and war - I am as if attacked by successive troops; one company being wearied, another succeeds to the attack, so that I am harassed by continual warfare. ### Verse 18 [¶7] Wherefore then - Why didst thou give me a being, when thou didst foresee I should be exposed to such incredible hardships? See on [Job 3:10] (note), etc. ### Verse 19 [¶9] I should have been as though - Had I given up the ghost as soon as born, as I could not then have been conscious of existence, it would have been, as it respects myself, as though I had never been; being immediately transported from my mother's womb to the grave. ### Verse 20 [¶11] Are not my days few? - My life cannot be long; let me have a little respite before I die. ### Verse 21 [¶13] I shall not return - I shall not return again from the dust to have a dwelling among men. [¶14] To the land of darkness - See the notes on [Job 3:5]. There are here a crowd of obscure and dislocated terms, admirably expressive of the obscurity and uncertainty of the subject. What do we know of the state of separate spirits? What do we know of the spiritual world? How do souls exist separate from their respective bodies? Of what are they capable and what is their employment? Who can answer these questions? Perhaps nothing can be said much better of the state than is here said, a land of obscurity, like darkness. The shadow of death - A place where death rules, over which he projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life. Without any order, ולא סדרים velo sedarim, having no arrangements, no distinctions of inhabitants; the poor and the rich are there, the master and his slave, the king and the beggar, their bodies in equal corruption and disgrace, their souls distinguished only by their moral character. Stripped of their flesh, they stand in their naked simplicity before God in that place. ### Verse 22 [¶16] Where the light is as darkness - A palpable obscure: it is space and place, and has only such light or capability of distinction as renders "darkness visible." The following words of Sophocles convey the same idea: Ιω σκοτος εμοι φαος; "Thou darkness be my light." It is, as the Vulgate expresses it, Terra tenebrosa, et operta mortis caligine: Terra miseriae et tenebrarum, ubi umbra mortis, et nullus ordo, sed sempiternus horror inhabitat: "A murky land, covered with the thick darkness of death: a land of wretchedness and obscurities, where is the shadow of death, and no order, but sempiternal horror dwells everywhere." Or, as Coverdale expresses this last clause, Wheras is no ordre but terrible feare as in the darknesse. A duration not characterized or measured by any of the attributes of time; where there is no order of darkness and light, night and day, heat and cold, summer and winter. It is the state of the dead! The place of separate spirits! It is out of time, out of probation, beyond change or mutability. It is on the confines of eternity! But what is This? and where? Eternity! how can I form any conception of thee? In thee there is no order, no bounds, no substance, no progression, no change, no past, no present, no future! Thou art an indescribable something, to which there is no analogy in the compass of creation. Thou art infinity and incomprehensibility to all finite beings. Thou art what, living, I know not, and what I must die to know; and even then I shall apprehend no more of thee than merely that thou art E-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y! ### Introduction [¶18] Zophar answers Job, and reproves him severely for his attempts to justify himself; charges him with secret iniquity, and contends that God inflicts less punishment on him than his iniquities deserve, [Job 11:1-6]. Shows the knowledge and perfections of God to be unsearchable, and that none can resist his power, [Job 11:7-11]. Warns him against vanity of mind, and exhorts him to repentance on the ground that his acceptance with God is still a possible case, and that his latter days may yet become happy and prosperous, [Job 11:12-20]. ### Verse 1 [¶20] Zophar the Naamathite - Of this man and his friends, see [Job 2:11]. He is the most inveterate of Job's accusers, and generally speaks without feeling or pity. In sour godliness he excelled all the rest. This chapter and the twentieth comprehends all that he said. He was too crooked to speak much in measured verse. ### Verse 2 [¶22] Should not the multitude of words be answered? - Some translate, "To multiply words profiteth nothing." [¶23] And should a man full of talk be justified - איש שפתים ish sephathayim, "a man of lips," a proper appellation for a great talker: he is "a man of lips," i.e., his lips are the only active parts of his system. ### Verse 3 [¶25] Should thy lies make men hold their peace? - This is a very severe reproof, and not justified by the occasion. [¶26] And when thou mockest - As thou despisest others, shall no man put thee to scorn? Zophar could never think that the solemn and awful manner in which Job spoke could be called bubbling, as some would translate the term לעג laag. He might consider Job's speech as sarcastic and severe, but he could not consider it as nonsense. ### Verse 4 [¶28] My doctrine is pure - לקחי likchi, "my assumptions." What I assume or take as right, and just, and true, are so; the precepts which I have formed, and the practice which I have founded on them, are all correct and perfect. Job had not exactly said, My doctrine and way of life are pure, and I am clean in thine eyes; but he had vindicated himself from their charges of secret sins and hypocrisy, and appealed to God for his general uprightness and sincerity: but Zophar here begs the question, in order that he may have something to say, and room to give vent to his invective. ### Verse 5 [¶30] But O that God would speak - How little feeling, humanity, and charity is there in this prayer! ### Verse 6 [¶32] The secrets of wisdom - All the depths of his own counsels; the heights, lengths, and breadths, of holiness. That they are double to that which is, תושיה tushiyah, which we translate that which is, is a word frequent in Job and in the Book of Proverbs, and is one of the evidences brought in favor of Solomon as the author of this book. It signifies substance or essence, and is translated by a great variety of terms; enterprise, completeness, substance, the whole constitution, wisdom, law, sound wisdom, solid complete happiness, solidity of reason and truth, the complete total sum, etc., etc. See Taylor's Hebrew and English Concord., under ישה. In this place the versions are various. Coverdale, following the Vulgate, translates: That he might shewe the (out of his secrite wissdome) how manyfolde his lawe is. The Septuagint, ὁτι διπλους εσται των κατα σε, that it is double to what it is with thee. Mr. Good translates, "For they are intricacies to Iniquity." This is a meaning never before given to תושיה tushiyah, and a meaning which even his own learned note will not make generally prevalent. Perhaps Zophar is here, in mind, comparing the wisdom which has been revealed with the wisdom not revealed. The perfection and excellence of the Divine nature and the purity of his law, are, in substance and essence, double or manifold to the revelation already made. [¶33] Less than thine iniquity deserveth - Mr. Good translates, And the knowledge hath withdrawn from thee because of thy sins; and represents Zophar as praying that God would reveal to him the secrets of wisdom, and the knowledge which he had withdrawn from him because of his transgressions. That Zophar intends to insinuate that God afflicted Job because of his iniquities, is evident; and that he thought that God had inflicted less chastisement upon him than his sins deserved, is not less so; and that, therefore, Job's complaining of harsh treatment was not at all well founded. ### Verse 7 [¶35] Canst thou by searching find out God? - What is God? A Being self-existent, eternal, infinite, immense, without bounds, incomprehensible either by mind, or time, or space. Who then can find this Being out? Who can fathom his depths, ascend to his heights, extend to his breadths, and comprehend the infinitude of his perfections? ### Verse 8 [¶37] It is as high as heaven - High as the heavens, what canst thou work? Deep below sheol, (the invisible world), what canst thou know? Long beyond the earth, and broad beyond the sea, is its measure. These are instances in the immensity of created things, and all out of the reach of human power and knowledge; and if these things are so, how incomprehensible must he be, who designed, created, preserves, and governs the whole! [¶38] We find the same thought in Milton: - "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good! [¶39] Almighty! Thine this universal frame: [¶40] How wondrous fair! Thyself how wondrous then!" ### Verse 10 [¶42] If he cut off - As he is unlimited and almighty, he cannot be controlled. He will do whatsoever he pleases; and he is pleased with nothing but what is right. Who then will dare to find fault? Perhaps Zophar may refer to Job's former state, his losses and afflictions. If he cut off, as he has done, thy children; if he shut up, as he has done, thyself by this sore disease; or gather together hostile bands to invade thy territories and carry away thy property; who can hinder him? He is sovereign, and has a right to dispose of his own property as he pleases. ### Verse 11 [¶44] He knoweth vain men - מתי שוא methey shau, "men of falsehood."