Job31chapter 31

Job 31:1-3

I made a covenant with mine eyes, so that he would not think upon a maid, opens the final defense panel with an oath sworn against the source of temptation rather than only its act; Henry reads the covenant as a discipline deliberately set over the sense most likely to lead the heart astray. Job next asks what portion of God there is from above, and what inheritance of the Almighty from on high, grounding the whole oath in accountability to a coming reckoning rather than mere self-control, Gill noting that Job argues from what God gives out as portion to what God will therefore require. He then asks whether destruction is not for the wicked, and a strange punishment for the workers of iniquity, stating the moral order he is about to swear he has kept, the very order the friends have accused him of violating.

Job 31:4-6

Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps? names the audience Job has sworn before even naming it, every clause of the chapter addressed to a God Job believes watches in full. If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit opens the first denial, and let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity asks for the very trial by scale the book's own conclusion grants in different terms, Delitzsch reading the balance as courtroom language, Job offering himself to be tried rather than merely asserting innocence.

Job 31:7-8

If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands extends the order named for the eyes at verse one to the whole body's conduct. Then let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out invokes the curse-form Job uses throughout the chapter, calling down on himself the very disaster he has already suffered if the charge is true, which Henry notes gives the oath its full weight since Job stakes what remains of his family on the claim.

Job 31:9-10

If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door names adultery specifically, and then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her calls the corresponding disgrace down upon his own household, grinding read by Gill as the labor of a captive or slave rather than a euphemism alone, the fullest domestic humiliation Job can name. Clarke notes the oath's severity matches the crime's own gravity under the law Job cites in the verses that follow.

Job 31:11-12

For this is an heinous crime; yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges names adultery under the standing law of the community Job addresses, a crime with a civil penalty rather than a private failing alone. For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase completes the figure begun in verse eight, fire read by Delitzsch as the same image Proverbs uses of adultery's ruin, a sin that burns through what a household has built rather than touching only the guilty party.

Job 31:13-15

the cause of my manservant: If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me turns the oath toward Job's own household staff, a class the ancient world rarely credited with standing to contend at all. Job asks what he would do when God riseth up, and what he would answer when God visiteth, grounding his fairness to servants in his own accountability before a higher court, the same logic he has used of himself throughout. He asks further whether the one who made him in the womb did not also make his servant, one Maker fashioning them both, which states the book's clearest line of anthropology and which Henry reads as the true ground of the servant's claim to a hearing.

Job 31:16-18

If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail extends the ethic of chapter 29 into oath form, Job swearing to the very rescues he there recalled. Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof pictures table-sharing as the test of genuine charity rather than occasional almsgiving. For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb claims a lifelong practice rather than a recent virtue, Gill reading the verse as evidence Job raised orphans within his own household from his earliest years.

Job 31:19-20

If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering names exposure to cold as a form of neglect Job denies ever having permitted. If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep pictures gratitude spoken by the very body that was clothed, Delitzsch reading the blessing as the poor man's own thanks rather than a figure of speech, warmth traced directly to Job's flock.

Job 31:21-23

lifted up my hand against the fatherless: If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate names the specific temptation of a powerful man in a legal setting, using influence at the very gate where chapter 29:7 once described Job holding honored office. Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone calls down a fitting curse, the arm that would have struck the fatherless disabled in exchange. For destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure names the fear that restrained Job, Henry reading the verse as the true root of Job's ethics throughout the chapter, reverence rather than reputation.

Job 31:24-25

If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence denies trust displaced from God onto wealth, and if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much denies pride of increase as well as trust in it. Gill reads the pairing as covering both the inward reliance on riches and the outward delight in having them, since a man might avoid the first sin and still fall into the second.

Job 31:26-28

If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness names the oldest form of idolatry the ancient world knew, worship of the visible heavenly lights rather than their Maker, a practice Deut 4:19 and 17:3 later condemn by name. And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand describes the private gesture of homage to sun or moon, Delitzsch reading the hand-kiss as the specific ritual the Hebrew names, small enough to commit unseen. This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above states Job's own theology of the sin, that reverencing any created light functionally denies the God who made it.

Job 31:29-30

If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him denies an enemy's downfall as any occasion for Job's own joy, a standard Henry notes exceeds even the law's own toleration of satisfaction at a wrongdoer's fall. Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul goes further still, denying even private, unspoken malice, the oath reaching past action into the wish itself.

Job 31:31-32

If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied appeals to his own household's testimony to his generosity at table, so lavish, Gill notes, that his own servants wished only for more of what was already freely given. The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller states the ancient law of hospitality kept without exception, Delitzsch reading the open door as a claim any traveler through Uz could have confirmed or denied.

Job 31:33-34

If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom names Adam explicitly as the pattern for concealed sin, one of Scripture's few direct references back to Genesis 3 by name, Henry reading the allusion as proof Job knew and used the Genesis account as shared history. Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, and went not out of the door denies that any social pressure ever drove Job into hiding rather than open dealing, the opposite of Adam's own hiding in the garden.

Job 31:35-37

Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book renews the wish for a legal hearing Job has voiced since chapter 9's daysman and chapter 16's witness in heaven, now asking for a written bill of charges he could examine directly. Surely I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me answers Eliphaz's invented indictment from chapter 22 with a challenge, that the true charge be written and Job will wear it openly rather than fear it. I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him closes the wish with Job approaching God not as a beggar but as one ready to give full account, Delitzsch reading the prince's approach as confident rather than defiant.

Job 31:38-40

If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain calls even the soil as a witness against Job if he has wronged it, Gill reading the personified land alongside Gen 4:10's blood crying from the ground as the same courtroom figure, all creation available to testify. If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life denies theft of land or violence against its rightful holders, the last specific charge Job denies before closing. Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley invokes the curse of Gen 3:18 by name as the fitting judgment if the oath is false, and the words of Job are ended states plainly, as Henry notes, that the defense is finished and the case now rests with whatever answer may come.