Job 10:2

Job 10:2 I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.

Ver. 2. I will say unto God, do not condemn me] You may say so as a humble suppliant, but not as holding yourself innocent, and therefore harshly dealt with. The Hebrew is, Do not make me wicked; rather do good, O Lord, to those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts; but lead me not forth with the workers of iniquity, as a malefactor is led forth to execution, Psa 125:5.

Show me wherefore thou contendest with me] i.e. Quare sic me affigas, saith Vatablus, why thou thus afflictest me, whether for sin or for trial; and this Job desired to know, not to satisfy his curiosity, but his conscience, as one well observeth; and that the world might be satisfied, the rash judgment of his friends confuted, and answered by a determination from heaven.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job_10:2

Do not condemn me.

The cry of penitence

I. This is the language of a sincere penitent. It expresses a dread of condemnation, and a fear of future punishment. This impression is awakened by--

1. The recollection of past sins.

2. By a sense of present suffering.

II. It implies that there are some persons whom God will certainly condemn. The sentence to depart will be pronounced by the righteous Judge, and it will be addressed especially to three classes of individuals. To the prayerless, the self-righteous, and those who live in the habitual practice of sin.

III. It directs us to the means by which this final sentence may be averted.

1. You must justify the character and conduct of God.

2. Make humble and sincere acknowledgment of your sinfulness.

3. Cheerfully acquiesce in the method of Divine mercy.

IV. It suggests some important motives to produce in our minds true and evangelical repentance.

1. The first class of motives is addressed to our fears.

2. From the strivings of the Spirit.

3. From the glorious dispensation under which we live. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

Shew me wherefore Thou contendest with me.

The sweet uses of adversity

It needs but a short sight for us to discover that if God contendeth with man, it must be a contention of mercy. There must be a design of love in this. Address--

I. The child of God. Sometimes to question God is wicked. But this is a question that may be asked.

1. My first answer on Gods part is this: it may be that God is contending with thee, that He may show His own power in upholding thee. He loves to hear His saints tried, that the whole world may see that there is none like them on the face of the earth. What noble work is this, that while God is casting down His child with one hand, He should be holding him up with the other. This is why God contends with thee; to glorify Himself by showing to angels, to men, to devils, how He can put such strength into poor, puny man, that he can contend with his Maker, and become a prevailing prince like Israel, who as a prince had power with God and prevailed.

2. The Lord is doing this to develop thy graces. There are some of thy graces that would never be discovered if it were not for thy trials. Thy faith never looks so grand in summer weather as it does in winter. Love is too often like a glow worm, that showeth but little light, except it be in the midst of surrounding darkness. Hope itself is like a star, not to be Seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity. It is real growth that is the result of these trials. God may take away your comforts and your privileges, to make you the better Christians.

3. It may be that the Lord contends with thee because thou hast some secret sin which is doing thee sore damage. Trials often discover sins--sins which we should never have found out if it had not been for them. The houses in Russia are very greatly infested with rats and mice. Perhaps a stranger would scarcely notice them at first, but the time when you discover them is when the house is on fire--then they pour out in multitudes. And so doth God sometimes burn up our comforts to make our hidden sins run out; and then He enables us to knock them on the head, and get rid of them. That may be the reason of your trial, to put an end to some long-festered sin; or to prevent some future sin.

4. We must have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. Hast thou never thought that none can be like the Man of Sorrow, unless they have sorrows too? Think not that thou canst be like the thorn-crowned head, and yet never feel the thorn. God is chiselling you--you are but a rough block--He is making you into the image of Christ; and that sharp chisel is taking away much which prevents your being like Him. Sweet is the affliction which gives us fellowship with Christ.

5. It may be that the Lord contendeth with thee to humble thee. We are all too proud. We shall have many blows before we are brought down to the right mark; and it is because we are so continually getting up, that God is so continually putting us down again.

II. Address the seeking sinner. Who may be wondering that he has found no peace or comfort. Perhaps--

1. God is contending with you for awhile, because as yet you are not thoroughly awakened. Christ will not heal your wound until He has probed it to its very core.

2. God may be contending with you to try your earnestness.

3. Perhaps you are harbouring some sin.

4. Perhaps you do not thoroughly understand the plan of salvation. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The design of God in affliction

Good men who have excelled in a particular virtue have sometimes lamentably failed in its exercise--e.g., Moses, Peter, Job. The text refers to a season of heavy affliction. The spirit of Job was oppressed; his mind was harassed; it was full of confusion; and we wonder not that his language betrays the perplexity which he felt.

I. A good man has converse with God. In all circumstances, whether of ease or pain, of health or sickness, he thinks of his God, and highly estimates communion with Him. In affliction we speak to ourselves; we speak to our friends; but our best employment is converse with God. In our approaches to Him, He permits us to utter whatever interests our minds, to express the inmost feelings of our hearts.

II. A good man deprecates an evil. Do not condemn me. Job refers probably to the sentiment of his friends. They mistook his character. Job says to God, Do not Thou condemn me. No doubt Job had low views of himself in the sight of God. This applies to ourselves. Do we merit condemnation from God? What shall we plead in arrest of judgment? Nothing less than the mediation of Christ.

III. A good man solicits a favour. Shew me wherefore Thou contendest with me. Afflictest is a better word here than contendest. It is a warrantable request, a prayer full of propriety. Affliction is from God, and He has some design in it, which it is important for us to ascertain. Affliction is sent to convince of sin; to prevent sin; as a test of principles; to promote holiness; to advance our usefulness. What then do you know of converse with God, and how is the privilege improved? (T. Kidd.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job 10:2. I will say unto God, Do not condemn me — Hebrew, אל תרשׁיעני, al tarshigneeni, Do not pronounce me to be a wicked man; as my friends do; neither deal with me as such, as I confess thou mightest do, by thy sovereign power, and in rigorous justice: O discover my integrity by removing this stroke, for which my friends condemn me. Wherefore — For what ends and reasons, and for what sins; for I am not conscious to myself of any peculiar sins by which I have deserved to be made the most miserable of all men. When God afflicts, he contends with us: when he contends with us, there is always a reason for it. And it is desirable to know what that reason is, that we may forsake whatever he has a controversy with us for.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He would not that God should proceed against him by his secret justice, but by the ordinary means that he punisheth others.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

show me, &c.--Do not, by virtue of Thy mere sovereignty, treat me as guilty without showing me the reasons.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 2. Do not condemn me] Let me not be afflicted in thy wrath.

Show me wherefore thou contendest] If I am afflicted because of my sins, show me what that sin is. God never afflicts but for past sin, or to try his followers; or for the greater manifestation of his grace in their support and deliverance.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(2) I will say unto God . . .—This is a model of prayer for all, combining the prayer of the publican (Luk_18:13), and a prayer for that light for which we long so earnestly in times of affliction and darkness.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. Do not condemn me] Or, make me not guilty; that is, by mere arbitrary will. Job felt himself “made guilty” by his afflictions, which to all were proofs that God held him guilty.

thou contendest with me] Job’s afflictions were proof that God had a contention or plea against him, Job desires to know the ground of it. Perhaps the afflictions themselves may be called the contention.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will say unto God, do not condemn me,.... Not that he feared eternal condemnation; there is none to them that are in Christ, and believe in him as Job did; Christ's undertakings, sufferings, and death, secure his people from the condemnation of law and justice; nor, indeed, are the afflictions of God's people a condemnation of them, but a fatherly chastisement, and are in order to prevent their being condemned with the world; yet they may look as if they were, in the eyes of the men of the world, and they as very wicked persons; and so the word may be rendered, "do not account me wicked" (d), or treat me as a wicked man, by continuing thine afflicting hand upon the; which, as long as it was on him, his friends would not believe but that he was a wicked man; wherefore, as God knew he was not such an one as they took him to be, he begs that he would not use him as such, that so the censure he lay under might be removed; and though he was condemned by them, he entreats that God would make it appear he was not condemned by him: and whereas he was not conscious to himself of any notorious wickedness done by him, which deserved such usage, he further prays:

show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Afflictions are the Lord's controversy with his people, a striving, a contending with them; which are sometimes so sharp, that were they continued long, the spirits would fail before him, and the souls that he has made: now there is always a cause or reason for them, which God has in his own breast, though it is not always known to man, at least not at first, or as soon as the controversy or contention is begun; when God afflicts, it is either for sin, to prevent it, or purge from it, or to bring his people to a sense of it, to repent of it, and forsake it, or to try their graces, and make them more partakers of his holiness; and when good men, as Job, are at a loss about this, not being conscious of any gross iniquity committed, or a course of sin continued in, it is lawful, and right, and commendable, to inquire the reason of it, and learn, if possible, the end, design, and use of such dispensations.

(d) "neque judices me improbum", Vatablus; so Schultens.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

I will say unto God, Do not condemn me - Do not hold me to be wicked - תרשׁיעני אל 'al tarshı̂y‛ēnı̂y. The sense is, “Do not simply hold me to be wicked, and treat me as such, without showing me the reasons why I am so regarded.” This was the ground of Job’s complaint, that God by mere sovereignty and power held him to be a wicked man, and that he did not see the reasons why he was so considered and treated. He now desired to know in what he had offended, and to be made acquainted with the cause of his sufferings. The idea is, that it was unjust to treat one as guilty who had no opportunity of knowing the nature of the offence with which he was charged, or the reason why he was condemned.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Judgest. Hebrew, "contendest with me," as with an enemy? Is it to punish some fault, or only to make thy grace shine forth? (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Do not condemn me; or, Pronounce me not to be a wicked man, as my friends do; neither deal with me as such, as I confess thou mightest do by thy sovereign power and in rigorous justice. O discover my integrity by removing this stroke, for which my friends so highly censure and condemn me.

Wherefore, i.e. for what ends and reasons, and for what sins? for I am not conscious to myself of any peculiar and eminent sins by which I have deserved to be made the most miserable of all mortals.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. Do not condemn me — In the preceding chapter (Job_10:20) Job had charged Deity with a disposition to assume that he was guilty, and to condemn him unheard. He now prays God — fasten not guilt upon me.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; literally, do not pronounce me wicked My friends, as they call themselves, have, one and all, condemned me: do not thou also condemn me. A touching appeal! Show me wherefore thou contendest with me. One of Job"s principal trials is the perplexity into which his unexampled sufferings have thrown him. He cannot understand why he has been singled out for such tremendous punishment, when he is not conscious to himself of any impiety or other heinous sin against God. So now, when he has resolved to vent all the bitterness of his soul, he ventures to ask the question Why is he so tried? What has he done to make God his enemy? Wherefore does God fight against him continually?

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Condemn - Or, pronounce me not to be a wicked man, neither deal with me as such, as I confess thou mightest do in rigorous justice: O discover my integrity by removing this stroke, for which my friends condemn me. Wherefore - For what ends and reasons, and for what sins; for I am not conscious to myself of any peculiar sins by which I have deserved to be made the most miserable of all men. When God afflicts, he contends with us: when he contends with us, there is always a reason for it. And it is desirable to know, what that reason is, that we may forsake whatever he has a controversy with us for.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.