---
title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah"
author: "Adam Clarke"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 497 of 914
url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/497/
cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 497. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/497/"
---

# 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.

## 497. Job · 24 of 73

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/497/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/497/#p-N

### Verse 4

[¶1] Thou castest off fear - Thou hast no reverence for God.

[¶2] And restrainest prayer - Instead of humbling thyself, and making supplication to thy Judge, thou spendest thy time in arraigning his providence and justifying thyself. When a man has any doubts whether he has grieved God's Spirit, and his mind feels troubled, it is much better for him to go immediately to God, and ask forgiveness, than spend any time in finding excuses for his conduct, or laboring to divest it of its seeming obliquity. Restraining or suppressing prayer, in order to find excuses or palliations for infirmities, indiscretions, or improprieties of any kind, which appear to trench on the sacred limits of morality and godliness, may be to a man the worst of evils: humiliation and prayer for mercy and pardon can never be out of their place to any soul of man who, surrounded with evils, is ever liable to offend.

### Verse 5

[¶4] For thy mouth uttereth - In attempting to justify thyself, thou hast added iniquity to sin, and hast endeavored to impute blame to thy Maker.

[¶5] The tongue of the crafty - Thou hast varnished thy own conduct, and used sophistical arguments to defend thyself. Thou resemblest those cunning persons, ערומים arumim, who derive their skill and dexterity from the old serpent, "the nachash, who was ערום arum, subtle, or crafty, beyond all the beasts of the field;" [Gen 3:1]. Thy wisdom is not from above, but from beneath.

### Verse 7

[¶7] Art thou the first man that was born? - Literally, "Wert thou born before Adam?" Art thou in the pristine state of purity and innocence? Or art thou like Adam in his first state? It does not become the fallen descendant of a fallen parent to talk as thou dost.

[¶8] Made before the hills? - Did God create thee the beginning of his ways? or wert thou the first intelligent creature which his hands have formed?

### Verse 8

[¶10] Hast thou heard the secret of God? - "Hast thou hearkened in God's council?" Wert thou one of the celestial cabinet, when God said, Let Us make man in Our image, and in Our likeness?

[¶11] Dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? - Dost thou wish us to understand that God's counsels were revealed to none but thyself? And dost thou desire that we should give implicit credence to whatsoever thou art pleased to speak? These are all strong sarcastic questions, and apparently uttered with great contempt.

### Verse 9

[¶13] What knowest thou - Is it likely that thy intellect is greater than ours; and that thou hast cultivated it better than we have done ours?

[¶14] What understandest thou - Or, Dost thou understand any thing, and it is not with us? Show us any point of knowledge possessed by thyself, of which we are ignorant.

### Verse 10

[¶16] With us are both the gray-headed - One copy of the Chaldee Targum paraphrases the verse thus: "Truly Eliphaz the hoary-headed, and Bildad the long-lived, are among us; and Zophar, who in age surpasseth thy father." It is very likely that Eliphaz refers to himself and his friends in this verse, and not either to the old men of their tribes, or to the masters by whom they themselves were instructed. Eliphaz seems to have been the eldest of these sages; and, therefore, he takes the lead in each part of this dramatic poem.

### Verse 11

[¶18] Are the consolations of God small with thee? - Various are the renderings of this verse. Mr. Good translates the verse thus: "Are then the mercies of God of no account with thee?" or, "the addresses of kindness before thee?"

[¶19] The Vulgate thus: - "Can it be a difficult thing for God to comfort thee? But thou hinderest this by thy intemperate speeches."

[¶20] The Syriac and Arabic thus: - "Remove from thee the threatenings (Arabic, reproaches) of God, and speak tranquilly with thy own spirit."

[¶21] The Septuagint thus: - "Thou hast been scourged lightly for the sins which thou hast committed; and thou hast spoken greatly beyond measure; or, with excessive insolence."

[¶22] Houbigant thus: - "Dost thou not regard the threatenings of God; or, has there been any thing darkly revealed to thee."

[¶23] Coverdale: - Dost thou no more regarde the comforte of God? But thy wicked wordes wil not suffre the.

[¶24] Scarcely any two translators or interpreters agree in the translation, or even meaning of this verse. The sense, as expressed in the Vulgate, or in our own version, or that of Coverdale, is plain enough: - "Hast thou been so unfaithful to God, that he has withdrawn his consolations from thy heart? And is there any secret thing, any bosom sin, which thou wilt not give up, that has thus provoked thy Maker?" This is the sense of our version: and I believe it to be as near the original as any yet offered. I may just add the Chaldee - "Are the consolations of God few to thee? And has a word in secret been spoken unto thee?" And I shall close all these with the Hebrew text, and the literal version of Arius Montanus: - המעט ממך ינחומות אל hameat mimmecha tanchumoth el. ודבר לאט עמך vedabar laat immak.

[¶25] Nonne parum a te consolationes Dei? Et verbum latet tecum? "Are not the consolations of God small to thee? And does a word (or thing) lie hidden with thee?"

[¶26] Now, let the reader choose for himself.

### Verse 12

[¶28] Why doth thine heart carry thee away? - Why is it that thou dost conceive and entertain such high sentiments of thyself?

[¶29] And what do thy eyes wink at - With what splendid opinion of thyself is thine eye dazzled? Perhaps there is an allusion here to that sparkling in the eye which is excited by sensations of joy and pleasing objects of sight, or to that furious rolling of the eyes observed in deranged persons. Rosenmuller translates thus: -

[¶30] Quo te tuus animus rapit?

[¶31] Quid occuli tui vibrantes? "Whither does thy soul hurry thee?

[¶32] What mean thy rolling eyes?"

[¶33] Thou seemest transported beyond thyself; thou art actuated by a furious spirit. Thou art beside thyself; thy words and thy eyes show it. None but a madman could speak and act as thou dost; for thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth, [Job 15:13]. This latter sense seems to agree best with the words of the text, and with the context.

### Verse 13

[¶35] That thou turnest thy spirit against God - The ideas here seem to be taken from an archer, who turns his eye and his spirit - his desire - against the object which he wishes to hit; and then lets loose his arrow that it may attain the mark.

### Verse 14

[¶37] What is man, that he should be clean? - מה אנוש mah enosh; what is weak, sickly, dying, miserable man, that he should be clean? This is the import of the original word enosh.

[¶38] And - born of a woman, that he should be righteous? - It appears, from many passages in the sacred writings, that natural birth was supposed to be a defilement; and that every man born into the world was in a state of moral pollution. Perhaps the word יצדק yitsdak should be translated, that he should justify himself, and not that he should be righteous.

### Verse 15

[¶40] Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight - The Vulgate has, "Behold, among his saints, none is immutable; and the heavens are not clean in his sight."

[¶41] Coverdale - Beholde, he hath found unfaithfulnesse amonge his owne sanctes, yea the very heavens are unclene in his sight.

[¶42] Eliphaz uses the same mode of speech, [Job 4:17-18] (note); where see the notes. Nothing is immutable but God: saints may fall; angels may fall; all their goodness is derived and dependent. The heavens themselves have no purity compared with his.

### Verse 16

[¶44] How much more abominable and filthy is man - As in the preceding verse it is said, he putteth no trust in his saints, it has appeared both to translators and commentators that the original words, אף כי aph ki, should be rendered how much Less, not how much More: How much less would he put confidence in man, who is filthy and abominable in his natures and profligate in his practice, as he drinks down iniquity like water? A man who is under the power of sinful propensities commits sin as greedily as the thirsty man or camel drinks down water. He thinks he can never have enough. This is a finished character of a Bad man; he hungers and thirsts after Sin: on the contrary, the Good man hungers and thirsts after Righteousness.