If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: [if I say], I [am] perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
Ver. 20. If I justify myself] If, in default of other pleaders, I should undertake to manage my cause myself, I should be never the nearer.
Mine own mouth shall condemn me] i.e. God out of mine own mouth, as finding mine arguments weak and worthless; he knows us better than we know ourselves; and when he comes to turn the bottom of the bag upwards (as once Joseph's steward did theirs) all our secret thefts will be revealed, and those will appear to be faults that we little thought of. A Dutch divine, when dying, was full of fears and doubts; said some to him, You have been so employed, and so faithful, why should you fear? Oh, said he, the judgment of man and the judgment of God are different. Vae hominum vitae quantumvis laudabili, si remota misericordia iudicetur; Woe to the most praise worthy man alive, if he meet with judgment without mercy. The best lamb should abide the slaughter, except the ram were sacrificed, that Isaac might be saved.
lf I say I am perfect] What if God had said so, Job 1:1, yet Job might not, Proverbs 27:2 2 Corinthians 10:18. Or if he do at any time justify himself, as Job 29:1,25; Job 30:1-31 he doth, it is in his own necessary and just defence, against the charge of his friends. Real apologies we must ever make for ourselves when wronged; verbal, if any, must be managed with meekness of wisdom.