Job 6:10

10. Then should I yet have comfort “A clear assertion of belief in a life to come.” Wordsworth. The difficulty of any other interpretation is felt by Zockler, who cannot see in this connexion how a speedy death could, in and of itself, bring any comfort. He is forced, with Delitzsch, Schlottmann, etc., to find the source of comfort in the statement of the last clause, that he had not denied the words of the Holy One! thus making the second member of the verse parenthetical. The structure of the clause, however, naturally points to the preceding verse for the ground of his comfort. His jubilant expression, that in the midst of unsparing anguish he “would exult,” is also retrospective. The last clause of the verse is rather a continued reason why God should give him the solace of death, as both Hirtzel and Dillmann admit: the latter urging that the cool reflection that he had not denied the words of the Holy One would be out of harmony with the triumphant exultation of the second member. That he had kept the faith, is a climactical reason why God should discharge him from his troubles, and give sweet rest in the grave. “A poor consolation,” (that of being cut off,) Peters well says, “perfectly romantic and delusive, could we suppose him to have no expectations after death.”

I would harden myself, etc. I would exult in the pain which He does not spare: ( Furst:) or the pain that does not spare. ( Dillmann.) The subject of the word “spare” is not given in the original.

Harden myself סלד . The Arabic saladha to leap, to exult determines the meaning of this word, which occurs only once in the Scriptures. The ηλλομην of the Septuagint corresponds: thus, “Let the grave be my city, upon the walls of which I have leaped.”

Concealed That is, denied in the sense of renouncing.