--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 524 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/524/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 524. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/524/" --- # 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. ## 524. Job · 51 of 73 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/524/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/524/#p-N ### Verse 23 [¶1] Destruction from God was a terror - I have ever been preserved from outward sin, through the fear of God's judgments; I knew his eye was constantly upon me, and I could "Never in my Judge's eye my Judge's anger dare." ### Verse 24 [¶3] Gold my hope - For the meaning of זהב zahab, polished gold, and כתם kethem, stamped gold, see on [Job 28:15-17] (note). ### Verse 26 [¶5] If I beheld the sun when it shined - In this verse Job clears himself of that idolatrous worship which was the most ancient and most consistent with reason of any species of idolatry; viz., Sabaeism, the worship of the heavenly bodies; particularly the sun and moon, Jupiter and Venus, the two latter being the morning and evening stars, and the most resplendent of all the heavenly bodies, the sun and moon excepted. "Job," says Calmet, "points out three things here: [¶6] 1. The worship of the sun and moon; much used in his time, and very anciently used in every part of the East; and in all probability that from which idolatry took its rise. [¶7] 2. The custom of adoring the sun at its rising, and the moon at her change; a superstition which is mentioned in [Eze 8:16], and in every part of profane antiquity. [¶8] 3. The custom of kissing the hand; the form of adoration, and token of sovereign respect."Adoration, or the religious act of kissing the hand, comes to us from the Latin; ad, to, and os, oris, the mouth. The hand lifted to the mouth, and there saluted by the lips. ### Verse 28 [¶10] For I should have denied the God that is above - Had I paid Divine adoration to them, I should have thereby denied the God that made them. ### Verse 29 [¶12] If I rejoiced - I did not avenge myself on my enemy; and I neither bore malice nor hatred to him. ### Verse 30 [¶14] Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin - I have neither spoken evil of him, nor wished evil to him. How few of those called Christians can speak thus concerning their enemies; or those who have done them any mischief! ### Verse 31 [¶16] If the men of my tabernacle said - I believe the Targum gives the best sense here: - "If the men of my tabernacle have not said, Who hath commanded that we should not be satisfied with his flesh?" My domestics have had all kindness shown them; they have lived like my own children, and have been served with the same viands as my family. They have never seen flesh come to my table, when they have been obliged to live on pulse. Mr. Good's translation is nearly to the same sense: - "If the men of my tabernacle do not exclaim, [¶17] Who hath longed for his meat without fullness?" "Where is the man that has not been satisfied with his flesh?" i.e., fed to the full with the provisions from his table. See [Pro 23:20]; [Isa 23:13], and [Dan 10:3]. ### Verse 32 [¶19] The stranger did not lodge in the street - My kindness did not extend merely to my family, domestics, and friends; the stranger - he who was to me perfectly unknown, and the traveler - he who was on his journey to some other district, found my doors ever open to receive them, and were refreshed with my bed and my board. ### Verse 33 [¶21] If I covered my transgressions as Adam - Here is a most evident allusion to the fall. Adam transgressed the commandment of his Maker, and he endeavored to conceal it; first, by hiding himself among the trees of the garden: "I heard thy voice, and went and Hid myself;" secondly, by laying the blame on his wife: "The woman gave me, and I did eat;" and thirdly, by charging the whole directly on God himself: "The woman which Thou Gavest Me to be with me, She gave me of the tree, and I did eat." And it is very likely that Job refers immediately to the Mosaic account in the Book of Genesis. The spirit of this saying is this: When I have departed at any time from the path of rectitude, I have been ready to acknowledge my error, and have not sought excuses or palliatives for my sin. ### Verse 34 [¶23] Did I fear a great multitude - Was I ever prevented by the voice of the many from decreeing and executing what was right? When many families or tribes espoused a particular cause, which I found, on examination, to be wrong, did they put me in fear, so as to prevent me from doing justice to the weak and friendless? Or, in any of these cases, was I ever, through fear, self-seeking, or favor, prevented from declaring my mind, or constrained to keep my house, lest I should be obliged to give judgment against my conscience? Mr. Good thinks it an imprecation upon himself, if he had done any of the evils which he mentions in the preceding verse. He translates thus: - "Then let me be confounded before the assembled multitude, [¶24] And let the reproach of its families quash me! [¶25] Yea, let me be struck dumb! let me never appear abroad!" [¶26] I am satisfied that [Job 31:38-40], should come in either here, or immediately after [Job 31:25]; and that Job's words should end with [Job 31:37], which, if the others were inserted in their proper places, would be [Job 31:40]. See the reasons at the end of the chapter, [Job 31:40] (note). ### Verse 35 [¶28] O that one would hear me! - I wish to have a fair and full hearing: I am grievously accused; and have no proper opportunity of clearing myself, and establishing my own innocence. [¶29] Behold, my desire is - Or, הן תוי hen tavi, "There is my pledge." I bind myself, on a great penalty, to come into court, and abide the issue. [¶30] That the Almighty would answer me - That he would call this case immediately before himself; and oblige my adversary to come into court, to put his accusations into a legal form, that I might have the opportunity of vindicating myself in the presence of a judge who would hear dispassionately my pleadings, and bring the cause to a righteous issue. [¶31] And that mine adversary had written a book - That he would not indulge himself in vague accusations, but would draw up a proper bill of indictment, that I might know to what I had to plead, and find the accusation in a tangible form. ### Verse 36 [¶33] Surely I would take it upon my shoulder - I would be contented to stand before the bar as a criminal, bearing upon my shoulder the board to which the accusation is affixed. In a book of Chinese punishments now before me, containing drawings representing various criminals brought to trial, in trial, and after trial, charged with different offenses; in almost all of them a board appears, on which the accusation or crime of which they are accused, or for which they suffer, is fairly written. Where the punishment is capital, this board appears fastened to the instrument, or stuck near the place of punishment. In one case a large, heavy plank, through which there is a hole to pass the head, - or rather a hole fitting the neck, like that in the pillory, - with the crime written upon it, rests on the criminal's shoulders; and this he is obliged to carry about for the weeks or months during which the punishment lasts. It is probable that Job alludes to something of this kind, which he intimates he would bear about with him during the interim between accusation and the issue in judgment; and, far from considering this a disgrace, would clasp it as dearly as he would adjust a crown or diadem to his head; being fully assured, from his innocence, and the evidence of it, which would infallibly appear on the trial, that he would have the most honorable acquittal. There may also be an allusion to the manner of receiving a favor from a superior: it is immediately placed on the head, as a mark of respect; and if a piece of cloth be given at the temple, the receiver not only puts it on his head, but binds it there. ### Verse 37 [¶35] I would declare unto him the number of my steps - I would show this adversary the different stations I had been in, and the offices which I had filled in life, that he might trace me through the whole of my civil, military, and domestic life, in order to get evidence against me. [¶36] As a prince would I go near - Though carrying my own accusation, I would go into the presence of my judge as the נגיד nagid, chief, or sovereign commander and judge, of the people and country, and would not shrink from having my conduct investigated by even the meanest of my subjects. In these three verses we may observe the following particulars: - [¶37] 1. Job wishes to be brought to trial, that he might have the opportunity of vindicating himself: O that I might have a hearing! [¶38] 2. That his adversary, Eliphaz and his companions, whom he considers as one party, and joined together in one, would reduce their vague charges to writing, that they might come before the court in a legal form: O that my adversary would write down the charge! [¶39] 3. That the Almighty, שדי Shaddai, the all-sufficient God, and not man, should be the judge, who would not permit his adversaries to attempt, by false evidence, to establish what was false, nor suffer himself to cloak with a hypocritical covering what was iniquitous in his conduct: O that the Almighty might answer for me - take notice of or be judge in the cause! [¶40] 4. To him he purposes cheerfully to confess all his ways, who could at once judge if he prevaricated, or concealed the truth. [¶41] 5. This would give him the strongest encouragement: he would go boldly before him, with the highest persuasion of an honorable acquittal. ### Verse 38 [¶43] If my land cry - The most careless reader may see that the introduction of this and the two following verses here, disturbs the connection, and that they are most evidently out of their place. Job seems here to refer to that law, [Lev 25:1-7], by which the Israelites were obliged to give the land rest every seventh year, that the soil might not be too much exhausted by perpetual cultivation, especially in a country which afforded so few advantages to improve the arable ground by manure. He, conscious that he had acted according to this law, states that his land could not cry out against him, nor its furrows complain. He had not broken the law, nor exhausted the soil. ### Verse 39 [¶45] If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money - I have never been that narrow-minded man who, through a principle of covetousness, exhausts his land, putting himself to no charges, by labor and manure, to strengthen it; or defrauds those of their wages who were employed under him. If I have eaten the fruits of it, I have cultivated it well to produce those fruits; and this has not been without money, for I have gone to expenses on the soil, and remunerated the laborers.