Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
Ver. 15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him] Though he should multiply my miseries, and lay stroke after stroke upon me, till he had dashed the very breath out of my body, yet he shall not be so rid of me, for I will hang on still; and if I must needs die, I will die at his feet, and in the midst of death expect a better life from him. Dam expiro spero, shall be my motto. "The righteous hath hope in his death," Proverbs 14:32; yea, his hope is most lively when himself lieth a dying, superest sperare salutem. "My flesh and my heart faileth," saith he; "but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever," Psalms 73:26. True faith in a danger (as the blood) gets to the heart, John 14:1, and if itself be in good heart it will believe in an angry God, as Isaiah 63:15,16 (the Church there thought she should know him amidst all his austerities); yea, in a killing God, as here; yea (as a man may say with reverence), whether God will or no, as that woman of Canaan, Matt. xv., who would not be damped or discouraged with Christ's either silence or sad answers; and therefore had what she came for, besides a high commendation of her heroic faith.
But (or nevertheless) I will maintain mine own ways before him] We have had the triumph of Job's trust, here we have the grounds for it, viz. his uprightness, the testimony of his conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity he had his conversation in the world, 2 Corinthians 2:12. This was his cordial, without which grief would have broken his heart, Psalms 69:20; this was his confidence, even the clearness of his conscience, 1 John 3:21. Uprightness hath boldness; and that man who walks uprightly before God may trust perfectly in God. Job was either innocent or penitent; he would therefore either maintain his ways before God, and come to the light, that his deeds might be manifest, that they were wrought in God, John 3:21, Quem poenitet peccasse pene est innocens (Sen. Again.), or else he would reprove and correct his ways (so the Hebrew word signifieth also), that is, he would confess and forsake his sins, and so be sure to have mercy, according to that soul satisfying promise, Proverbs 28:13 .