*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Behold, I am vile: what shall I answer thee? - "Instead of being able to argue my cause, and to vindicate myself as I had expected, I now see that I am guilty, and I have nothing to say." He had argued boldly with his friends. He had, before them, maintained his innocence of the charges which they brought against him, and had supposed that he would be able to maintain the same argument before God. But when the opportunity was given, he felt that he was a poor, weak man; a guilty and miserable offender. It is a very different thing to maintain our cause before God, from what it is to maintain it before people; and though we may attempt to vindicate our own righteousness when we argue with our fellow-creatures, yet when we come to maintain it before God we shall be dumb. On earth, people vindicate themselves; what will they do when they come to stand before God in the judgment?
I will lay mine hand upon my mouth - An expression of silence. Catlin, in his account of the Mandan Indians, says that this is a common custom with them when anything wonderful occurs. Some of them laid their hands on their mouths and remained in this posture by the hour, as an expression of astonishment at the wonders produced by the brush in the art of painting; compare Job 21:5, note; Job 29:9, note.
Behold, I am vile - I acknowledge my inward defilement. I cannot answer thee.
I will lay mine hand upon my mouth - I cannot excuse myself, and I must be dumb before thee.
Behold, I am (r) vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
(r) By which he shows that he repented and desired pardon for his faults.
Behold, I am vile,.... Or "light" (a); which may have respect either to his words and arguments, which he thought had force in them, but now he saw they had none; or to his works and actions, the integrity of his life, and the uprightness of his ways, which he imagined were weighty and of great importance, but now being weighed in the balances of justice were found wanting; or it may refer to his original meanness and distance from God, being dust and ashes, and nothing in comparison of him; and so the Septuagint version is, "I am nothing"; see Isaiah 40:17; or rather to the original vileness and sinfulness of his nature he had now a sight of, and saw how he had been breaking forth in unbecoming expressions concerning God and his providence: the nature of man is exceeding vile and sinful; his heart desperately wicked; his thoughts, and the imaginations of them, evil, and that continually; his mind and conscience are defiled; his affections inordinate, and his understanding and will sadly depraved; he is vile in soul and body; of all which an enlightened man is convinced, and will acknowledge;
what shall I answer thee? I am not able to answer thee, who am but dust and ashes; what more can I say than to acknowledge my levity, vanity, and vileness? he that talked so big, and in such a blustering manner of answering God, as in Job 13:22; now has nothing to say for himself;
I will lay mine hand upon my mouth; impose silence upon himself, and as it were lay a restraint upon himself from speaking: it looks as if there were some workings in Job's heart; he thought he could say something, and make some reply, but durst not, for fear of offending yet more and more, and therefore curbed it in; see Psalm 39:1.
(a) "levis sum", Cocceius, Michaelis; "leviter locutus sum", V. L.
I am (too) vile (to reply). It is a very different thing to vindicate ourselves before God, from what it is before men. Job could do the latter, not the former.
lay . . . hand . . . upon . . . mouth--I have no plea to offer (Job 21:5; Judges 18:19).
4 Behold, I am too mean: what shall I answer Thee?
I lay my hand upon my mouth.
5 Once have I spoken, and will not begin again;
And twice - I will do it no more.
He is small, i.e., not equal to the task imposed, therefore he keeps his mouth firmly closed (comp. Job 21:5; Job 29:9), for whatever he might say would still not be to the point. Once he has dared to criticise God's doings; a second time (שׁתּים = שׁנית, Ges. 120, 5) he ventures it no more, for God's wondrous wisdom and all-careful love dazzle him, and he gladly bows.
But how? Is not the divine speech altogether different from what one ought to expect? One expects to hear from the mouth of Jehovah something unheard of in the previous course of the drama, and in this expectation we find ourselves disappointed at the outset. For one need only look back and read Job 9:4-10, where Job acknowledges and describes God as a wise and mighty Lord over the natural world, especially as an irresistible Ruler over everything great in it; Job 12:7-10, where he refers to the creatures of the sky and deep as proofs of God's creative power; Job 12:11-25, where he sketches the grandest picture of God's terrible doings in nature and among men; Job 26:5-14, where he praises God as the Creator and Lord of all things, and describes what he says concerning Him as only a faint echo of the thunder of His might; Job 28:23, where he ascribes absolute wisdom to Him as the Creator of and Ruler of the world. If one ponders these passages of Job's speeches, he will not be able to say that the speech of Jehovah, in the exhibition of the creative power and wisdom of God, which is its theme, would make Job conscious of anything which was previously unknown to him; and it is accordingly asked, What, then, is there that is new in the speech of Jehovah by which the great effect is brought about, that Job humbles himself in penitence, and becomes ready for the act of redemption which follows?
It has indeed never occurred to Job to desire to enter into a controversy with God concerning the works of creation; he is far from the delusion of being able to stand such a test; he knows in general, that if God were willing to contend with him, he would not be able to answer God one in a thousand, Job 9:3. And yet God closely questioned him, and thereby Job comes to the perception of his sin - how comes it to pass? Has the plot of the drama perhaps failed in this point? Has the poet made use of means unsuited to the connection of the whole, to bring about the needful effect, viz., the repentance of Job, - because, perhaps, the store of his thoughts was exhausted? But this poet is not so poor, and we shall therefore be obliged to try and understand the disposition of the speech of Jehovah before we censure it.
When one of Job's last words before the appearing of Jehovah was the word שׁדי יענני, Job thereby desired God's decision concerning the testimony of his innocence. This wish is in itself not sinful; yea, it is even a fruit of his hidden faith, when he casts the look of hope away from his affliction and the accusation of the friends, into the future to God as his Vindicator and Redeemer. But that wish becomes sinful when he looks upon his affliction as a de facto accusation on the part of God, because he cannot think of suffering and sin as separable, and because he is conscious of his innocence, looks upon it as a decree of God, his opponent and his enemy, which is irreconcilable with the divine justice. This Job's condition of conflict and temptation is the prevailing one; his faith is beclouded, and breaks through the night which hangs over him only in single rays. The result of this condition of conflict is the sinful character which that wish assumes: it becomes a challenge to God, since Job directs against God Himself the accusation which the friends have directed against him, and asserts his ability to carry through his good cause even if God would enter with him into a judicial contention; he becomes a יסור and מוכיח אלוה, and raises himself above God, because he thinks he has Him for an enemy who is his best friend. This defiance is, however, not common godlessness; on the contrary, Job is really the innocent servant of God, and his defiant tone is only the result of a false conception which the tempted one indulges respecting the Author of his affliction. So, then, this defiance has not taken full possession of Job's mind; on the contrary, the faith which lays firm hold on confidence in the God whom he does not comprehend, is in conflict against it; and this conflict tends in the course of the drama, the nearer it comes to the catastrophe, still nearer to the victory, which only awaits a decisive stroke in order to be complete. Therefore Jehovah yields to Job's longing שׁדי יענני, in as far as He really answers Job; and even that this takes place, and that, although out of the storm, it nevertheless takes place, not in a way to crush and destroy, but to instruct and convince, and displaying a loving condescension, is an indirect manifestation that Job is not regarded by God as an evil-doer mature for judgment. But that folly and temerity by which the servant of God is become unlike himself must notwithstanding be destroyed; and before Job can realize God as his Witness and Redeemer, in which character his faith in the brighter moments has foreseen Him, his sinful censuring and blaming of God must be blotted out by penitence; and with it at the same time his foolish imagination, by which his faith has been almost overwhelmed, must be destroyed, viz., the imagination that his affliction is a hostile dispensation of God.
And by what means is Job brought to the penitent recognition of his gloomy judgment concerning the divine decree, and of his contending with God? Is it, perhaps, by God's admitting to him what really is the case: that he does not suffer as a sinner the punishment of his sin, but showing at the same time that the decree of suffering is not an unjust one, because its design is not hostile? No, indeed, for Job is not worthy that his cause should be acknowledged on the part of God before he has come to a penitent recognition of the wrong by which he has sinned against God. God would be encouraging self-righteousness if He should give Job the testimony of his innocence, before the sin of vainglory, into which Job has fallen in the consciousness of his innocence, is changed to humility, by which all uprightness that is acceptable with God is tested. Therefore, contrary to expectation, God begins to speak with Job about totally different matters from His justice or injustice in reference to his affliction. Therein already lies a deep humiliation for Job. But a still deeper one in God's turning, as it were, to the abecedarium naturae, and putting the censurer of His doings to the blush. That God is the almighty and all-wise Creator and Ruler of the world, that the natural world is exalted above human knowledge and power, and is full of marvellous divine creations and arrangements, full of things mysterious and incomprehensible to ignorant and feeble man, Job knows even before God speaks, and yet he must now hear it, because he does not know it rightly; for the nature with which he is acquainted as the herald of the creative and governing power of God, is also the preacher of humility; and exalted as God the Creator and Ruler of the natural world is above Job's censure, so is He also as the Author of his affliction. That which is new, therefore, in the speech of Jehovah, is not the proof of God's exaltation in itself, but the relation to the mystery of his affliction, and to his conduct towards God in this his affliction, in which Job is necessitated to place perceptions not in themselves strange to him. He who cannot answer a single one of those questions taken from the natural kingdom, but, on the contrary, must everywhere admire and adore the power and wisdom of God-he must appear as an insignificant fool, if he applies them to his limited judgment concerning the Author of his affliction.
The fundamental tone of the divine speech is the thought, that the divine working in nature is infinitely exalted above human knowledge and power, and that consequently man must renounce all claim to better knowledge and right of contention in the presence of the divine dispensations. But at the same time, within the range of this general thought, it is also in particular shown how nature reflects the goodness of God as well as His wisdom (He has restrained the destructive power of the waters, He also sendeth rain upon the steppe, though untenanted by man); how that which accomplishes the purposes for which it was in itself designed, serves higher purposes in the moral order of the world (the dawn of day puts an end to the works of darkness, snow and hail serve as instruments of divine judgments); how divine providence extends to all creatures, and always according to their need (He provides the lion its prey, He satisfies the ravens that cry to Him); and how He has distributed His manifold gifts in a way often paradoxical to man, but in truth worthy of admiration (to the steinbock ease in bringing forth and growth without toil, to the wild ass freedom, to the antelope untameable fleetness, to the ostrich freedom from anxiety about its young and swiftness, to the horse heroic and proud lust for the battle, to the hawk the instinct of migration, to the eagle a lofty nest and a piercing sight). Everywhere the wonders of God's power and wisdom, and in fact of His goodness abounding in power, and His providence abounding in wisdom, infinitely transcend Job's knowledge and capacity. Job cannot answer one of all these questions, but yet he feels to what end they are put to him. The God who sets bounds to the sea, who refreshes the desert, who feeds the ravens, who cares for the gazelle in the wilderness and the eagle in its eyrie, is the same God who now causes him seemingly thus unjustly to suffer. But if the former is worthy of adoration, the latter will also be so. Therefore Job confesses that he will henceforth keep silence, and solemnly promises that he will now no longer contend with Him. From the marvellous in nature he divines that which is marvellous in his affliction. His humiliation under the mysteries of nature is at the same time humiliation under the mystery of his affliction; and only now, when he penitently reveres the mystery he has hitherto censured, is it time that its inner glory should be unveiled to him. The bud is mature, and can now burst forth, in order to disclose the blended colours of its matured beauty.
*More commentary available at chapter level.