1112 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
My kinsfolk have failed,.... Or "ceased" (a), not to be, or that they were dead, which is sometimes the sense of the word; but they ceased from visiting him, or doing any good office for him; those that were "near" (b) him, as the word used signifies; that were near him in relation, and were often near him in place, in his own house, in company...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They that dwell in mine house,.... Not his neighbours, as the Septuagint; for though they dwelt near his house, they did not dwell in it; nor inmates and sojourners, lodgers with him, to whom he let out apartments in his house; this cannot be supposed to have been his case, who was the greatest man in all the east; nor even tenants, that hired...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I called my servant,.... His manservant, whom he had hired into his house, and who waited upon his person, and had been his trusty and faithful servant, and was dear unto him, and he had shown him much respect and kindness in the time of his prosperity; him he called to him, to do this and that and the other thing for him as usual; and of whose...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
My breath is strange to my wife,.... Being corrupt and unsavoury, through some internal disorder; see Job 17:1; so that she could not bear to come nigh him, to do any kind deed for him; but if this was his case, and his natural breath was so foul, his friends would not have been able to have been so long in the same room with him, and carry on so...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Yea, young children despised me,.... Having related what he met with within doors from those in his own house, the strangers and proselytes in it, his maidens and menservants, and even from his own wife, he proceeds to give an account of what befell him without; young children, who had learned of their parents, having observed them to treat him...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
All my inward friends abhorred me,.... Or "the men of my secret" (m); who were so very familiar with him, that he imparted the secrets of his heart, and the most private affairs of life, unto them, placing so much confidence in them, and treating them as his bosom friends; for this is always reckoned a great instance of friendship, Job 15:15; and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh,.... Or, "as to my flesh" (o), as Mr. Broughton and others render the words; as his bones used to stick to his flesh, and were covered with it, now his flesh being consumed and wasted away with his disease, they stuck to his skin, and were seen through it; he was reduced to skin and bone, and was a mere...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me,.... Instead of calumny and censure, his case called for compassion; and the phrase is doubled, to denote the vehemence of his affliction, the ardency of his soul, the anguish of his spirits, the great distress he was in, and the earnest desire he had to have pity shown him; and in which he may be thought not...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Why do ye persecute me as God,.... As if they were in his stead, or had the same power and authority over him, who is a sovereign Being, and does what he pleases with his creatures, and is not accountable to any for what he does; but this is not the case of men, nor are they to imitate God in all things; what he does is not in all things a warrant...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
O that my words were now written!.... Not his things (q), as some render it, his affairs, the transactions of his life; that so it might appear with what uprightness and integrity he had lived, and was not the bad man he was thought to be; nor the words he had delivered already, the apologies and defences he had made for himself, the arguments he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!] Or "that they were written with an iron pen and lead, that they were cut or hewn out in a rock for ever"; not with both an iron and leaden pen, or pencil; for the marks of the latter are not durable, and much less could it be used on a rock according to our version; but the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For I know,.... The particle ו, which is sometimes rendered by the copulative "and", by an adversative "but", and sometimes as a causal particle "for", should not be rendered here by either; but as an explanative, "to wit", or "namely", as it is by Noldius (y); in connection with the preceding words; in which Job wishes some words of his were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And though after my skin [worms] destroy this [body],.... Meaning not, that after his skin was wholly consumed now, which was almost gone, there being scarce any left but the skin of his teeth, Job 19:20; the worms in his ulcers would consume what was left of his body, which scarce deserved the name of a body, and therefore he points to it, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Whom I shall see for myself,.... For his pleasure and profit, to his great advantage and happiness, and to his inexpressible joy and satisfaction, see Psalms 17:15; and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; or "a stranger" (h); these very selfsame eyes of mine I now see with will behold this glorious Person, God in my nature, and not the eyes...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But ye should say,.... Here Job directs his friends what use they should make of this confession of his faith; they should upon this say within themselves, and to one another, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? Why should we pursue him with hard words, and load him with censures and reproaches, as if he was an...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Be ye afraid of the sword,.... Not of the civil magistrate, nor of a foreign enemy, but of the avenging sword of divine justice; lest God should whet the glittering sword of his justice, and his hand should take hold of judgment, in order to avenge the wrongs of the innocent; unless the other should also be considered as his instruments: for wrath...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Job 20 Zophar and his friends, not satisfied with Job's confession of faith, he in his turn replies, and in his preface gives his reasons why he made any answer at all, and was so quick in it, Job 20:1; and appeals to Job for the truth of an old established maxim, that the prosperity of wicked men and hypocrites is very short...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then answered Zophar the Naamathite,.... Notwithstanding the sad distressed condition Job was in, an account of which is given in the preceding chapter, enough to pierce a heart of stone, notwithstanding his earnest request to his friends to have pity on him, and notwithstanding the noble confession of his faith he had made, which showed him to be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer,.... Or "to return" (a) and appear upon the stage again, and enter the lists once more with his antagonist; he suggests as if he had intended to have said no more in this controversy, but observing what Job had said last, could not forbear replying: "therefore" because he had represented him and his...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I have heard the check of my reproach,.... He took it that Job had reproached him and his friends, by representing them as hardhearted men, and persecuting him wrongly in a violent manner; and he had observed the "check" or reproof given for it, by bidding them beware of the sword, and lest the punishment of it should be inflicted on them; and if...