Job 34:31
Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more:
Surely it is meet to be said unto God,.... By any afflicted person under his chastising hand, and particularly by Job, for whom the advice and instructions in this verse and Job 34:32 are designed:
I have borne chastisement; the word "chastisement" is not in the text, but is very properly supplied, as it is by Jarchi and others; the affliction of God's people is a fatherly chastisement, and should be considered and borne as such; and it becomes an afflicted good man to say,
"I have borne and still do bear, and I am content yet to bear, the chastisement of the Lord; I am desirous to bear it willingly, cheerfully, and patiently, until he is pleased to remove it from me.''
See Micah 7:9;
I will not offend any more; that is, sin any more; sin is an offence to God, being contrary to his nature, and a breach of his law; Job had sinned as every good man does, no man is without sin, in many things we all offend; and on account of sin God chastens his people, and the design of it is to bring them to a sense and acknowledgment of it; and it becomes them under chastening providences to confess it, and humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and in the strength of divine grace determine to be careful not to offend more. Some render the words "I will not corrupt" {g}; that is, myself or others, my ways and works, by sinning; and others, "I will not break", or "break through" {h}; the commands of God; and so the sense of this and the former version is much the same with ours; or I will not endeavour to break through the afflictive providence in which I am shut up, or break off the fetters and cords of affliction, but bear all patiently, until it is the Lord's time and will to set me at liberty. Some, as Ben Gersom, interpret this and the preceding clause, "I pardon, I will not destroy"; or "will not retain a pledge", as others {i}; and so take them to be the words of God himself; and thus Mr. Broughton renders the whole verse,
"now unto the Omnipotent, which saith, I pardon, I will not destroy, "this should" be said,''
namely, what follows in Job 34:32 {k}; it is the prerogative of God, and it is his grace to pardon, and such whom he pardons he never destroys, but accepts, discharges, and remits the surety's bond or pledge; and nothing more effectually engages to a careful abstinence from sin for the future, than a sense of pardoning grace; and it highly becomes such persons to say what they are next directed to.
{g} lbxa al "non corrumpam", Montanus, Mercerus, Piscator.
{h} "Non disrumpam", Beza.
{i} "Non pignerabo", Cocceius; "non pigneratus eram", Schultens. Vid. Gusset. Ebr. Comment. p. 238.
{k} Tigurine version, Vatablus, Junius and Tremellius.