Job 10:6

That thou inquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 10:6-7. That thou inquirest, &c., and searchest after my sin — Keeping me so long upon the rack, to compel me to accuse myself. Thou knowest I am not wicked — That is a hypocrite, or an ungodly man, as my friends account me. There is none that can deliver, &c. — Thou art the supreme ruler of the world; therefore I must wait thy time, and throw myself on thy mercy, in submission to thy sovereign will. “It would be injurious to the character of Job,” says Mr. Peters, “should we interpret in a severe and rigorous sense, as it is certain his friends too often did, his frequent protestations of his innocence, and his bold appeals to the supreme Judge to prove and try him; for where he is thus strenuous in asserting his integrity, it is only in opposition to the notion which those mistaken friends had entertained of him, namely, that he had been guilty of some gross sins, which he had the art to hide from the world, but that he was in reality a wicked man, and a hypocrite in his behaviour. This is what Job utterly denies and disclaims, though he nowhere arrogates to himself perfect innocence or freedom from sin.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1-7 Job, being weary of his life, resolves to complain, but he will not charge God with unrighteousness. Here is a prayer that he might be delivered from the sting of his afflictions, which is sin. When God afflicts us, he contends with us; when he contends with us, there is always a reason; and it is desirable to know the reason, that we may repent of and forsake the sin for which God has a controversy with us. But when, like Job, we speak in the bitterness of our souls, we increase guilt and vexation. Let us harbour no hard thoughts of God; we shall hereafter see there was no cause for them. Job is sure that God does not discover things, nor judge of them, as men do; therefore he thinks it strange that God continues him under affliction, as if he must take time to inquire into his sin.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

That thou inquirest after mine iniquity - Art thou governed by hu man passions and prejudices, that thou dost thus seem to search out every little obliquity and error? Job here evidently refers to the conduct of man in strictly marking faults, and in being unwilling to forgive; and he asks whether it is possible that God could be governed by such feelings as these.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4-6. Dost Thou see as feebly as man? that is, with the same uncharitable eye, as, for instance, Job's friends? Is Thy time as short? Impossible! Yet one might think, from the rapid succession of Thy strokes, that Thou hadst no time to spare in overwhelming me.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Keeping me so long as it were upon the rack to compel me to accuse myself, as men sometimes do.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

That thou enquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin? Narrowly examined every action of his life, to find something amiss in them; and took notice of every weakness and infirmity, and aggravated it, to make it appear as sinful as it could be, and watched every halting and failing, that he might have something against him as a reason why he afflicted him; dealing with him as if there was no Messiah, no Mediator, Redeemer, and Saviour, provided, appointed, and promised; and as if there was no forgiveness of sin, through him, for him: sin pardoned for his sake is covered, that when it is sought for it shall not be found; so that when it is not pardoned, or not thought to be so, it lies open, and upon inquiry to be found, charged, and punished for; see Job 7:21; this search and inquiry seems to have been made by afflictions; at least Job imagined that the design of God in them was to put him upon the rack, and bring him to a confession of sin, find in this way find an occasion against him: now such a method as this, Job thought, was unbecoming the greatness, majesty, and perfections of God; and was quite needless, since his eyes were not human nor shortsighted, that obliged him to pore and pry into things, but were omniscient, and could see at once whether there was any evil way in him or not; nor was he as men, short lived, which obliged him to make use of his time while he had it, to get an advantage of another; and besides, such a method of acting seemed to him very extraordinary, when he full well knew he was an innocent person, as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

That thou enquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - That thou inquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin. It seems to Job that God must have been "extreme to mark what he has done amiss" (Psalm 130:3), must have searched into every corner of Ms life, and hunted out all his sins and shortcomings, to have been able to bring together against him a total commensurate or even approximately commensurate, with the punishment wherewith he has visited him. Job 10:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

3 Doth it please Thee when Thou oppressest,

That Thou rejectest the work of Thy hands,

While Thou shinest upon the counsel of the wicked?

4 Hast Thou eyes of flesh,

Or seest Thou as a mortal seeth?

5 Are Thy days as the days of a mortal,

Or Thy years as man's days,

6 That Thou seekest after my iniquity,

And searchest after my sin?

7 Although Thou knowest that I am not a wicked man,

And there is none that can deliver out of Thy hand.

There are three questions by which Job seeks to exhaust every possible way of accounting for his sufferings as coming from God. These attempts at explanation, however, are at once destroyed, because they proceed upon conceptions which are unworthy of God, and opposed to His nature. Firstly, Whether it gives Him pleasure (טּוב, agreeable, as Job 13:9) when He oppresses, when He despises, i.e., keeps down forcibly or casts from Him as hateful (מאס, as Psalm 89:39; Isaiah 54:6) the work of His hand; while, on the contrary, He permits light to shine from above upon the design of the wicked, i.e., favours it? Man is called the יגיע of the divine hands, as though he were elaborated by them, because at his origin (Genesis 2:7), the continuation of which is the development in the womb (Psalm 139:15), he came into existence in a remarkable manner by the directly personal, careful, and, so to speak, skilful working of God. That it is the morally innocent which is here described, may be seen not only from the contrast (Job 10:3), but also from the fact that he only can be spoken of as oppressed and rejected. Moreover, "the work of Thy hands" involves a negative reply to the question. Such an unloving mood of self-satisfaction is contrary to the bounty and beneficence of that love to which man owes his existence. Secondly, Whether God has eyes of flesh, i.e., of sense, which regard only the outward appearance, without an insight into the inner nature, or whether He sees as mortals see, i.e., judges, κατὰ τῆν σάρκα (John 8:15)? Mercier correctly: num ex facie judicas, ut affectibus ducaris more hominum. This question also supplies its own negative; it is based upon the thought that God lookest on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Thirdly, Whether His life is like to the brevity of man's life, so that He is not able to wait until a man's sin manifests itself, but must institute such a painful course of investigation with him, in order to extort from him as quickly as possible a confession of it? Suffering appears here to be a means of inquisition, which is followed by the final judgment when the guilt is proved. What is added in Job 10:7 puts this supposition aside also as inconceivable. Such a mode of proceeding may be conceived of in a mortal ruler, who, on account of his short-sightedness, seeks to bring about by severe measures that which was at first only conjecture, and who, from the apprehension that he may not witness that vengeance in which he delights, hastens forward the criminal process as much as possible, in order that his victim may not escape him. God, however, to whom belongs absolute knowledge and absolute power, would act thus, although, etc. על, although, notwithstanding (proceeding from the signification, besides, insuper), as Job 17:16 (Isaiah 53:9), Job 34:6. God knows even from the first that he (Job) will not appear as a guilty person (רשׁע, as in Job 9:29); and however that may be, He is at all events sure of him, for nothing escapes the hand of God.

That operation of the divine love which is first echoed in "the labour of Thy hands," is taken up in the following strophe, and, as Job contemplates it, his present lot seems to him quite incomprehensible.