--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 499 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/499/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 499. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/499/" --- # 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. ## 499. Job · 26 of 73 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/499/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/499/#p-N [¶0] 6. He shall pass away by the breath of his mouth; for by the breath of his mouth doth God slay the wicked. ### Verse 31 [¶2] Let not him that is deceived - [¶3] 7. He has many vain imaginations of obtaining wealth, power, pleasure, and happiness; but he is deceived; and he finds that he has trusted בשוא bashshav, in a lie; and this lie is his recompense. ### Verse 32 [¶5] It shall be accomplished before his time - I believe the Vulgate gives the true sense: Antequam dies ejus impleantur, peribit; "He shall perish before his time; before his days are completed." [¶6] 8. He shall be removed by a violent death, and not live out half his days. [¶7] 9. And his branch shall not be green - there shall be no scion from his roots; all his posterity shall fail. ### Verse 33 [¶9] He shall shake off his unripe grape - [¶10] 10. Whatever children he may have, they shall never survive him, nor come to mature age. They shall be like wind-fall grapes and blasted olive blossoms. As the vine and olive, which are among the most useful trees, affording wine and oil, so necessary for the worship of God and the comfort of man, are mentioned here, they may be intended to refer to the hopeful progeny of the oppressor; but who fell, like the untimely grape or the blasted olive flower, without having the opportunity of realizing the public expectation. ### Verse 34 [¶12] The congregation of hypocrites - [¶13] 11. Job is here classed with hypocrites, or rather the impious of all kinds. The congregation, or עדת adath, society, of such, shall be desolate, or a barren rock, גלמוד galmud. See this Arabic word explained in the note on [Job 3:7] (note). [¶14] Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery - [¶15] 12. Another insinuation against Job, that he had perverted justice and judgment, and had taken bribes. ### Verse 35 [¶17] They conceive mischief - The figure here is both elegant and impressive. The wicked conceive mischief, from the seed which Satan sows in their hearts; in producing which they travail with many pangs, (for sin is a sore labor), and at last their womb produces fraud or deception. This is an accursed birth, from an iniquitous conception. St. James gives the figure at full length, most beautifully touched in all its parts: When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death; [Jam 1:15] (note), where see the note. Poor Job! what a fight of affliction had he to contend with! His body wasted and tortured with sore disease; his mind harassed by Satan; and his heart wrung with the unkindness, and false accusations of his friends. No wonder he was greatly agitated, often distracted, and sometimes even thrown off his guard. However, all his enemies were chained; and beyond that chain they could not go. God was his unseen Protector, and did not suffer his faithful servant to be greatly moved. ### Introduction [¶19] Job replies to Eliphaz, and through him to all his friends, who, instead of comforting him, had added to his misfortunes; and shows that, had they been in his circumstances, he would have treated them in a different manner, [Job 16:1-5]. Enters into an affecting detail of his suffering, [Job 16:6-16]. Consoles himself with the consciousness of his own innocence, of which he takes God to witness, and patiently expects a termination of all his sufferings by death, [Job 16:17-22]. ### Verse 2 [¶21] I have heard many such things - These sayings of the ancients are not strange to me; but they do not apply to my case: ye see me in affliction; ye should endeavor to console me. This ye do not; and yet ye pretend to do it! Miserable comforters are ye all. ### Verse 3 [¶23] Vain words - Literally, words of air. [¶24] What emboldeneth thee - Thou art totally ignorant of the business; what then can induce thee to take part in this discussion? ### Verse 4 [¶26] I also could speak - It is probably better to render some of these permissives or potential verbs literally in the future tense, as in the Hebrew: I also Will speak. Mr. Good has adopted this mode. [¶27] If your soul were in my soul's stead - If you were in my place, I also could quote many wise sayings that might tend to show that you were hypocrites and wicked men; but would this be fair? Even when I might not choose to go farther in assertion, I might shake my head by way of insinuation that there was much more behind, of which I did not choose to speak; but would this be right? That such sayings are in memory, is no proof that they were either made for me, or apply to my case. ### Verse 5 [¶29] I would strengthen you with my mouth - Mr. Good translates thus: - "With my own mouth will I overpower you, [¶30] Till the quivering of my lips shall fail;" for which rendering he contends in his learned notes. This translation is countenanced by the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions. ### Verse 6 [¶32] Though I speak - But it will be of no avail thus to speak; for reprehensions of your conduct will not serve to mitigate my sufferings. ### Verse 7 [¶34] But now he hath made me weary - The Vulgate translates thus: - Nunc autem oppressit me dolor meus; et in nihilum redacti sunt omnes artus mei; "But now my grief oppresses me, and all my joints are reduced to nothing." Perhaps Job alluded here to his own afflictions, and the desolation of his family. Thou hast made me weary with continual affliction; my strength is quite exhausted; and thou hast made desolate all my company, not leaving me a single child to continue my name, or to comfort me in sickness or old age. Mr. Good translates: - "Here, indeed, hath he distracted me; [¶35] Thou hast struck apart all my witnesses." ### Verse 8 [¶37] Thou hast filled me with wrinkles - If Job's disease were the elephantiasis, in which the whole skin is wrinkled as the skin of the elephant, from which this species of leprosy has taken its name, these words would apply most forcibly to it; but the whole passage, through its obscurity, has been variously rendered. Calmet unites it with the preceding, and Houbigant is not very different. He translates thus: - "For my trouble hath now weakened all my frame, and brought wrinkles over me: he is present as a witness, and ariseth against me, who telleth lies concerning me; he openly contradicts me to my face." Mr. Good translates nearly in the same way; others still differently. ### Verse 9 [¶39] He teareth me in his wrath - Who the person is that is spoken of in this verse, and onward to the end of the fourteenth, has been a question on which commentators have greatly differed. Some think God, others Eliphaz, is intended: I think neither. Probably God permitted Satan to show himself to Job, and the horrible form which he and his demons assumed increased the misery under which Job had already suffered so much. All the expressions, from this to the end of the fourteenth verse, may be easily understood on this principle; e.g., [Job 16:9] : "He (Satan) gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me." [Job 16:10] : "They (demons) have gaped on me with their mouth; - they have gathered themselves together against me." [Job 16:11] : "God hath delivered me to the ungodly, (עויל avil, to the Evil One), and turned me over into the hands of the wicked." He hath abandoned me to be tortured by the tempter and his host. If we consider all these expressions as referring to Job's three friends, we must, in that case, acknowledge that the figures are all strained to an insufferable height, so as not to be justified by any figure of speech. ### Verse 13 [¶41] His archers compass me - רביו rabbaiv "his great ones." The Vulgate and Septuagint translate this his spears; the Syriac, Arabic, and Chaldee, his arrows. On this and the following verse Mr. Heath observes: "The metaphor is here taken from huntsmen: first, they surround the beast; then he is shot dead; his entrails are next taken out; and then his body is broken up limb by limb." ### Verse 15 [¶43] I have sewed sackcloth - שק sak, a word that has passed into almost all languages, as I have already had occasion to notice in other parts of this work. [¶44] Defiled my horn in the dust - The horn was an emblem of power; and the metaphor was originally taken from beasts, such as the urus, wild ox, buffalo, or perhaps the rhinoceros, who were perceived to have so much power in their horns. Hence a horn was frequently worn on crowns and helmets, as is evident on ancient coins; and to this day it is an appendage to the diadem of the kings and chiefs of Abyssinia. In the second edition of Mr. Bruce's Travels in Abyssinia, vol. viii., plates 2 and 3, we have engravings of two chiefs, Kefla Yasous, and Woodage Ashahel, who are represented with this emblem of power on their forehead. Mr. Bruce thus describes it: "One thing remarkable in this cavalcade, which I observed, was the head dress of the governors of provinces. A large broad fillet was bound upon their forehead, and tied behind their head. In the middle of this was a horn, or a conical piece of silver, gilt, about four inches in length, much in the shape of our common candle extinguishers. This is called kirn, or horn; and is only worn in reviews, or parades after victory. This, I apprehend, like all others of their usages is taken from the Hebrews; and the several allusions made in Scripture to it arise from this practice. 'I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly; and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn.' 'Lift not up your horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck; for promotion cometh not,' etc. 'But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn.' 'And the horn of the righteous shall be exalted with honor.' And so in many other places throughout the Psalms." In a note on the same page we have the following observation: "The crooked manner in which they hold their neck when this ornament is on their forehead, for fear it should fall forward, perfectly shows the meaning of 'Speak not with a stiff neck when you hold the horn on high (or erect) like the horn of the unicorn."' - Bruce's Travels, vol. iv., p. 407. Defiling or rolling the horn in the dust, signifies the disgrace or destruction of power, authority, and eminence. Mr. Good translates, I have rolled my turban in the dust, which he endeavors to justify in a long note. But in this, I think, this very learned man is mistaken. The Hebrew קרן keren is the same as the Ethiopic kirn, and both mean exactly, in such connection, what Mr. Bruce has noticed above. The horn on the diadem is the emblem of power, authority, and eminence.