If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort [myself]:
Ver. 27. If I say, I will forget my complaint] And suffer in silence, as thou, Bildad, hast advised me, Job 8:2. Sorrows are not so easily forgotten; Lamentations 3:19, "Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall." The Stoics boasting of their indolence, or ability to bear afflictions without making moan or complaining, when it came to their own turn, found by experience that they had spoken more trimly than truly; and therefore one Dionysius, surnamed Mεταθεμενος, or the Flincher, left for this reason from the Stoics to the Peripatetics.
I will leave off my heaviness] Heb. My face, viz. the sourness that used to sit upon it, as 1 Samuel 1:18. The Pharisees were vultuosi tetrici inamaeni, Matthew 6:16, of a sad and sour countenance, grim and ghastly; they affected to look like Sycthians, as the word signifieth, that they might seem great tasters, when as inwardly they were merry and pleasant. Job's case was far different; his heart was heavy as lead; nevertheless, to give content to his friends, he would endeavour to look lightsomely, but found a very hard task of it.
And comfort myself] Heb. Strengthen, viz. so as not to make moan, but bite in my pain. Invalidum omne natura querulum, the weaker anything is the more apt it is to complain; and, on the contrary, some men's flesh will presently rankle and fester, if but razed with a pin only: so some men's spirits, they are ever whining.