(9) Even that it would please God . . .--The sequence of thought in these verses is obscure and uncertain. The speaker may mean that, notwithstanding all that might befall him, his consolation would still be that he had never denied the words of the Holy One. The words "I would harden myself in sorrow" are the most doubtful, not occurring elsewhere in Scripture. Some render the two clauses, "I would exult, or rejoice, in pain that spareth not;" but "Let him not spare," or "Though he spare not," seems preferable. Others render, "Though I burn in sorrow."

Verse 9. - Even that it would please God to destroy me; or, to crush me (Revised Version) - "to break me in pieces" (Lee). That he would let loose his hand; or, put forth his hand - stretch it out against me threateningly." And cut me off. "Cut me off bit by bit" (Lee); comp. Isaiah 38:12, where the same word is used of a weaver, who cuts the threads of his loom one by one, until the whole is liberated and comes away.

6:8-13 Job had desired death as the happy end of his miseries. For this, Eliphaz had reproved him, but he asks for it again with more vehemence than before. It was very rash to speak thus of God destroying him. Who, for one hour, could endure the wrath of the Almighty, if he let loose his hand against him? Let us rather say with David, O spare me a little. Job grounds his comfort upon the testimony of his conscience, that he had been, in some degree, serviceable to the glory of God. Those who have grace in them, who have the evidence of it, and have it in exercise, have wisdom in them, which will be their help in the worst of times.Even that it would please God to destroy me,.... Not with an everlasting destruction of body and soul; for destruction from the Almighty was a terror to him, Job 31:23; but with the destruction of the body only; not with an annihilation of it, but with the dissolution of it, or of that union there was between his soul and body: the word (n) used signifies to bruise and beat to pieces; his meaning is, that his body, his house of clay in which he dwelt, might be crushed to pieces, and beat to powder, and crumbled into dust; and perhaps he may have regard to his original, the dust of the earth, and his return to it, according to the divine threatening, Genesis 3:19; a phrase expressive of death; and so Mr. Broughton renders it, "to bring me to the dust", to "the dust of death", Psalm 22:15,

that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! he had let loose his hand in some degree already; he had given his substance and his body into the hand of Satan; his own hand had touched him, but he had only gone skin deep, as it were; he had smote him in his estate, in his family, and in the outward parts of his body; but now he desires that he would stretch out his hand further, and lift it up, and give a heavier stroke, and pierce him more deeply; strike through his heart and liver, and "make an end" of him, as Mr. Broughton translates the word, and dispatch him at once; cut him off like the flower of the field by the scythe, or like a tree cut down to its root by the axe, or cut off the thread of his life, Isaiah 38:12.

(n) "me conterat", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Schmidt; so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Michaelis, Schultens.