*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Even to-day - At the present time. I am not relieved. You afford me no consolation. All that you say only aggravates my woes.
My complaint - See the notes at Job 21:3.
Bitter - Sad, melancholy, distressing. The meaning is, not that he made bitter complaints in the sense which those words would naturally convey, or that he meant to find fault with God, but that his case was a hard one. His friends furnished him no relief, and he had in vain endeavored to bring his cause before God. This is now, as he proceeds to state, the principal cause of his difficulty. He knows not where to find God; he cannot get his cause before him.
My stroke - Margin, as in Hebrew "hand;" that is, the hand that is upon me, or the calamity that is inflicted upon me. The hand is represented as the instrument of inflicting punishment, or causing affliction; see the notes at Job 19:21.
Heavier than my groaning - My sighs bear no proportion to my sufferings. They are no adequate expression of my woes. If you think I complain; if I am heard to groan, yet the sufferings which I endure are far beyond what these would secm to indicate. Sighs and groans are not improper. They are prompted by nature, and they furnish "some" relief to a sufferer. But they should not be:
(1) with a spirit of murmuring or complaining;
(2) they should not be beyond what our sufferings demand, or the proper expression of our sufferings. They should not be such as to lead others to suppose we suffer more than we actually do.
(3) they should - when they are extorted from us by the severity of suffering - lead us go look to that world where no groan will ever be heard.
Even to-day is my complaint bitter - Job goes on to maintain his own innocence, and shows that he has derived neither conviction nor consolation from the discourses of his friends. He grants that his complaint is bitter; but states that, loud as it may be, the affliction which he endures is heavier than his complaints are loud. Mr. Good translates: "And still is my complaint rebellion?" Do ye construe my lamentations over my unparalleled sufferings as rebellion against God? This, in fact, they had done from the beginning: and the original will justify the version of Mr. Good; for מרי meri, which we translate bitter, may be derived from מרה marah, "he rebelled."
Even to day [is] my complaint (a) bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
(a) He shows the just cause of his complaining and concerning that Eliphaz had exhorted him to return to God, (Job 22:21) he declares that he desires nothing more, but it seems that God would not be found of him.
Even today is my complaint bitter,.... Job's afflictions were continued on him long; he was made to possess months of vanity; and, as he had been complaining ever since they were upon him, he still continued to complain to that day, "even" after all the comforts his friends pretended to administer to him, as Jarchi observes: his complaints were concerning his afflictions, and his friends' ill usage of him under them; not of injustice in God in afflicting him, though he thought he dealt severely with him; but of the greatness of his afflictions, they being intolerable, and his strength unequal to them, and therefore death was more eligible to him than life; and he complained of God's hiding his face from him, and not hearing him, nor showing him wherefore he contended with him, nor admitting an hearing of his cause before him: and this complaint of his was "bitter": the things he complained of were such, bitter afflictions, like the waters of Marah the Israelites could not drink of, Exodus 15:23; there was a great deal of wormwood and gall in his affliction and misery; and it was in a bitter way, in the bitterness of his soul, he made his complaint; and, what made his case still worse, he could not utter any complaint, so much as a sigh or a groan, but it was reckoned "provocation", or "stubbornness and rebellion", by his friends; so some render the word (x), as Mr. Broughton does, "this day my sighing is holden a rebellion": there is indeed a great deal of rebellion oftentimes in the hearts, words and actions, conduct and behaviour, even of good men under afflictions, as were in the Israelites in the wilderness; and a difficult thing it is to complain without being guilty of it; though complaints may be without it, yet repinings and murmurings are always attended with it:
and my stroke is heavier than my groaning; or "my hand" (y), meaning either his own hand, which was heavy, and hung down, his spirits failing, his strength being exhausted, and so his hands weak, feeble, and remiss, that he could not hold them up through his afflictions, and his groanings under them, see Psalm 102:5; or the hand of God upon him, his afflicting hand, which had touched him and pressed hard upon him, and lay heavy, and was heavier than his groanings showed; though he groaned much, he did not groan more, nor so much, as his afflictions called for; and therefore it was no wonder that his complaint was bitter, nor should it be reckoned rebellion and provocation; see Job 6:2.
(x) "exacerbatio", Montanus, Vatablus, Schmidt; "exasperatio", Mercerus, Drusius; "pertinacia", Bolducius; "contumacia habetur", Cocceius; "rebellionem haberi", Junius & Tremellius; "rebellio est", Piscator, Codurcus. (y) "manus mea", Montanus, Vatablus, Mercerus, Drusius, Michaelis.
JOB'S ANSWER. (Job 23:1-17)
to-day--implying, perhaps, that the debate was carried on through more days than one (see Introduction).
bitter-- (Job 7:11; Job 10:1).
my stroke--the hand of God on me (Margin, Job 19:21; Psalm 32:4).
heavier than--is so heavy that I cannot relieve myself adequately by groaning.
To - day - Even at this time, notwithstanding all your pretended consolations. Stroke - The hand or stroke of God upon me. Groaning - Doth exceed my complaints.
*More commentary available at chapter level.