Job 13:26 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Thou writest bitter things against me— The author of the Divine Legation, zealous to support his allegorical scheme, is always desirous, for that end, to point out inconsistencies in this book. "The great point Job insists upon (says he) throughout the whole book is, his innocence; and yet, to our surprize, we hear him thus expostulating with God: Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. This can be accounted for no otherwise than by understanding it of the Jewish people:"—but why so? May not the best man that ever lived find something to condemn in the levities and sins of his youth, or when he was a boy or child? for the Hebrew word נעורי neuraii, sometimes denotes a state of childhood. See Schultens and Grey. We may certainly allow him to have had respect to some actual sins of his youth, without any detriment to his argument, drawn from that present uprightness of heart and life which he now pleads; and had long practised; for, by the way, it is not his innocence, strictly speaking, which Job insists on, but his integrity. Peters.