Job 9:30-33 NIV

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:21-35

Job to Bildad: 4. The cries of a desparing soul. I. MAINTAINING HIS INNOCENCE . 1 . Attested by his conscience. "Though I were perfect;" or, better, "I am guiltless" (verse 21). Before God Job did not claim to be absolutely spotless, but merely to be free from such transgressions of the moral law as his friends insinuated he must have committed to render him obnoxious to those palpable tokens of Divine displeasure which had overtaken him. Against this, however, he protested as... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:25-35

Melancholy reflections. I. SELF - CONTEMPLATION IN REFERENCE TO THE PAST . His life has sped swiftly—like a courier, or the swift boat of the Euphrates or the Nile, or the swooping eagle ( Job 9:25 , Job 9:26 ), and without seeming prosperity. Here he perverts the history of the past; but memory as welt as reason is poisoned. II. IN REFERENCE TO THE FUTURE . ( Job 9:27 , Job 9:28 .) Hope has broken its wing. The effort to remove the gloom from his brow is... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:30

If I wash myself with snow-water (comp. Psalms 51:7 ). If I should succeed in purging myself of all guilt, and establishing, so far as words can do it, my spotless innocence even then what advantage should I gain? Snow-water does not really cleanse what is defiled better than any other water, but a lively fancy might suppose it to do so. Job indulges in this fancy, but then checks himself, and adds a prosaic alternative. And make my hands never so clean; rather, and make my hands clean... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:30-31

Despair of purification. Job is possessed by a terrible thought. He imagines that God is so determined to have him as an object of condemnation that nothing he can do can set him right; even if he makes himself ever so clean, God will plunge him back in the mire, God will overwhelm him with guilt. This is, of course, a wholly false view of God, though it is not altogether inexcusable with Job in his ignorance and awful distress. I. GOD ONLY DESIRES OUR PURIFICATION . We may not... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:31

Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch . Yet would God with ease undo his work, show his purity to be impure, his righteousness to be filthy rags, and thus, as it were, replunge him in the mire and clay from which he had sought to free himself, and hold him forth a more loathsome wretch than ever. And mine own clothes shall abhor me . So loathsome would he be that his very garments, stained and fouled by his disease, would shrink away from him and hate to touch him. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:32

For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him; and we should come together in judgment (comp. Job 9:2-14 ). On one of two conditions only, Job thinks, could the contest be even between himself and God. Neither condition, however, was (he thought) possible; and therefore no satisfactory judgment could take place. Recent commentators observe that the Christian scheme, which Job could not anticipate, provides almost a literal fulfilment of both conditions, since the God who is to... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:33

Neither is there any daysman betwixt us ; literally ' judge ' or arbitrator called a "daysman," since he appoints the day on which the arbitration is to come off. The LXX . renders by μεσίτης , "mediator." That might lay his hand upon us bosh. Moderate between us, that is; keep us both in cheek; assert an authority to which we must both submit. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:33

The Mediator. The object desired by Job—and here he speaks for all sinful ones—is to obtain reconciliation with Jehovah, against whom he acknowledges himself to have sinned. He cries for a mediator, an arbiter, an umpire; one able to "lay his hand upon us both"—to bring us together, mediating between us. I. THE NECESSITY FOR THIS ARISES : 1 . From Job's consciousness of sin. In his prayer (verse 28) he confesses to God, "I know thou wilt not hold me innocent." "I am not... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:33

The Daysman. Job regarded it as unfair that his Judge and his Accuser should be one and the same Person, and he craved an umpire to come between. As a matter of fact, he was mistaken. His accuser was not his Judge. Satan was his accuser, and God was the great and just Umpire of the contest. Still, men have ever felt the need of one who should come between them and God, and assist them in coming to a right understanding with God. The feeling has arisen in part from a similar mistake to Job's,... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Job 9:30

If I wash myself with snow water - If I should make myself as pure as possible, and should become, in my view, perfectly holy. Snow water, it seems, was regarded as especially pure. The whiteness of snow itself perhaps suggested the idea that the water of melted snow was better than other for purification. Washing the hands formerly was an emblem of cleansing from guilt. Hence Pilate, when he gave up the Savior to death, took water and washed his hands before the multitude, and said that he was... read more

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:21-35

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:25-35

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:30

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:30-31

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:31

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:32

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:33

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:33

The Pulpit Commentary - Job 9:33

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Job 9:30

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