Who [is] he [that] will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.
Ver. 19. Who is he that will plead with me?] Of my justification in both respects I am so confident, that I dare encounter any that shall deny it. Who is he, and where is he, that shall lay anything to my charge, since it is God that justifieth? Romans 8:33. Having ordered my cause, and cleared my conscience by confession and judging myself, and now being justified by faith, I can cast down the gauntlet to all comers, and, Goliath like, call for an opposite to grapple with; in the name of the Lord of hosts I will undertake him, and am sure to come off more than a conqueror, even a triumph, 2 Corinthians 2:14, there being not any one "condemnation" (neither from God, nor the devil, from the law, sin, or death) "to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," as Job did, Romans 8:1; Romans 8:33. Here he challengeth all the world, saith Gregory, if they could, to accuse him for anything outwardly done amiss by him. And herein if none could tax him, there, was nothing but evil cogitations in his heart, of which he could be guilty; but for these, from which none can be free, he held not his peace, but spake and complained internally hereof to God by reproving his own ways; and if he should have been silent, and not speak hereof, and bewail them, he should die and perish; for so he readeth the following words, according to the Vulgate translation.
For now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost] Vulgate Wherefore being silent, I am consumed. Broughton, If now I speak not, I should starve. The Hebrew is, For now I shall be silent and die, q.d. My passion must have a vent, or else it will make an end of me, as Job 7:11; so tormented I am with these aspersions of my friends, that I know not how to live unless I may wipe them off; or, at least, unless I pour out my soul into God's blessed bosom.