And be it indeed [that] I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
Ver. 4. And be it indeed that I have erred] Of human frailty; for that there is any way of wickedness in me (as you would have it) I shall never yield. But nimis angusta res est, nuspiam errare. Involuntary failings I am not free from; who knoweth the errors of his life? Psalms 19:12. What man is he that liveth and sinneth not? It is the sad privilege of mortality, saith one, Licere aliquando peccare, to have licence sometimes to sin (Euphorm.).
Mine error remaineth with myself] q.d. It is little that you have done toward convincing me of any error in all this time, and talk, which until ye have done, I must still remain of the same mind. Or thus, You shall neither answer nor suffer for mine error; what need, then, all this heat and harshness? Not that every man must be left to himself, and let alone to live as he wishes. Admonition is a Christian duty, and the word of exhortation must be suffered, sharp though it be, and to the flesh irksome; better it is that the vine should bleed than die. Had Job been guilty, he would or should have been, as Vespasian is reported, patientissimus veri, patient of a reproof. But his friends falsely accused him for a hypocrite, and fell foul upon another man's servant, whom they had nothing to do to condemn, Romans 14:10. And hence this expression of his discontent.