If I be wicked, woe unto me; and [if] I be righteous, [yet] will I not lift up my head. [I am] full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;
Ver. 15. If I be wicked, woe unto me] Here he bringeth a dilemma, whereby he declareth himself every way miserable, saith Mercer; whether he be bad or good, suffer he must without remedy. "If I be wicked, woe unto me"; woe is the wicked man's portion; tell him so from me, saith God, Isaiah 3:10,11. Though he love not to hear on that ear, but can bless himself in his heart, when God curseth him with his mouth, Deuteronomy 29:19. And a godly man setteth the terror of sin's woes before his flesh, that slave, that must be frighted at least with the sight of the whip. Woe be to me, saith Paul, if I preach not the gospel, 1 Corinthians 9:16. Or if, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway, 1 Corinthians 9:27; which to prevent, he kept under his body (his corruption), and gave it a blue eye; for we are not debtors to the flesh, saith he, Romans 8:10. We owe nothing but stripes and menaces, cursing it in every respect, &c.
And if l be righteous, yet I will not llft up my head] indeed I cannot, because I am so bowed down with changes of sorrows, armies of afflictions: my pains are continued, and I shall surely sink under them; much ado I have now to keep head above water. Others make this a description of Job's humility: "I will not lift up my head," viz. in pride, but humble myself to walk with my God, as that poor publican did who stood afar off, and would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, Luke 18:13 .
I am full of confusion] Cast upon me by my friends, who reproach me for a hypocrite, and make my cheeks glow. The fulness of an aspersion may possibly put an innocent person to the blush; and it is the property of defamations to leave a kind of lower estimation many times, even where they are not believed. This was the confusion that Job complained of, the stomach of his mind was full of it, even to satiety and surfeit.
Therefore see thou mine affliction] My pressing and piercing affliction, see it and remedy it, as Psalms 119:153. Let not all my trouble seem little unto thee, as Nehemiah 9:32. See, Lord, see, behold, it is high time for thee to set in.