(13) Hold your peace.--He now prepares to make a declaration like the memorable one in Job 19. He resolves at all hazards to face God in judgment.

Verse 13. - Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak; literally, be silent from me that I may speak; but our version gives the true meaning. Job repeats the entreaty with which he had bemoan (vers. 5, 6). And let some on me what will. Job is prepared to face the worst. He feels, as he expresses it below (ver. 19), that, if he holds his tongue, he must die. He must speak, and speak he will. After that, let God do as he may please - he will accept his punishment, if God thinks fit to punish him.

13:13-22 Job resolved to cleave to the testimony his own conscience gave of his uprightness. He depended upon God for justification and salvation, the two great things we hope for through Christ. Temporal salvation he little expected, but of his eternal salvation he was very confident; that God would not only be his Saviour to make him happy, but his salvation, in the sight and enjoyment of whom he should be happy. He knew himself not to be a hypocrite, and concluded that he should not be rejected. We should be well pleased with God as a Friend, even when he seems against us as an enemy. We must believe that all shall work for good to us, even when all seems to make against us. We must cleave to God, yea, though we cannot for the present find comfort in him. In a dying hour, we must derive from him living comforts; and this is to trust in him, though he slay us.Hold your peace, let me alone,.... Or, cease "from me" (i): from speaking to me, or hindering me from speaking. Job might perceive, by some motions of his friends, that they were about to interrupt him; and therefore he desires they would be silent, and let him go on:

that I may speak; or, "and I will speak",

and let come on me what will; either from men, or from God himself; a good man, when he knows his cause is good, and he has truth on his side, is not careful or concerned what reproach may be cast upon him, or what censures from men he may undergo; or what persecutions from them he may endure; none of these things move him from his duty, or can stop his mouth from speaking the truth; let him be threatened with what he will, he cannot but speak the things which he has seen and heard, and knows to be true; as for what may come upon him from God, that he is not solicitous about; he knows he will lay nothing upon him but what is common to men, will support him under it, or deliver him from it in his own time and way, or however make all things work together for his good: some render it, "and let something pass by me", or "from me" (k); that is, somewhat of his grief and sorrow, while he was speaking and pouring out his complaints before God; but the former sense seems best.

(i) "desistite a me", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (k) "ut transeat praeter me aliquid, vel a me", Schmidt.