Job 27:5-8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

God forbid that I should justify you— See the note on chap. Job 2:9. This and the three following verses afford us a proof of Job's faith, and contain the noble plea that he makes for himself against the reproachful insinuation of his mistaken friends; as if he must needs have been a wicked man and a hypocrite, under all the fair appearances of a strict piety and integrity. "Though I am quite cast down, (says he,) and as miserable almost as it is possible to be in this life, yet God forbid that I should justify your censures of me, by owning that I have played the hypocrite, or been secretly wicked! No; whatever shall befal me, I am resolved that I will still maintain and still hold fast my integrity: Let mine enemy be as wicked, let him flourish and prosper as much as his heart can wish here; (and he had before shewn that this is often the case with the wicked,) But, what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? i.e. What can he think will become of him after death? What comfort can such a one possibly entertain in the prospect of futurity?" I have put no force upon the words, but rather softened the last branch of the sentence; for there is plainly a meiosis, as the rhetoricians call it; and by the hypocrite's having no hope, may very reasonably be understood, he has the most dreadful expectations. This evidently appears to have been Job's meaning, from the following part of the chapter: Will God hear his cry, saith he, when trouble cometh upon him? Job 27:9. But particularly from the 20th and following verses, where he describes in a very lively manner the horror and distraction of a wicked man upon a death-bed. From this passage then it appears, that, in Job's opinion, the great difference between the righteous and the wicked, as to happiness and misery, consisted in their future expectations. Peters. Heath renders the 8th verse, For what can be the hope of the hypocrite, when he is cut off? when God depriveth him of his life?