Behold, he findeth occasions against me,.... That is, sought in order to find them; so Job in some places suggests, that God inquired after his sins, and sought diligently after them, that he might have something to bring against him; and because he could not find great sins, gross enormities, he sought after lesser sins; so some render the word, "staggerings", "totterings" h; frailties, failings, and infirmities; and because he could find none of late of a very heinous nature, he went back as far as the sins of his youth; see
Job 10:6; and this in order to pick a quarrel with him; and so Mr. Broughton renders the words, "lo, he picketh quarrels against me"; or that he might have just reason to depart from him, or to break from him, or to break off friendship with him, or to break him to pieces in his estate, family, and health; all which senses some observe the words will bear: but it would be needless for God to seek in order to find occasions against men; there is enough ready at hand, the sins that are about them; and to represent the Lord as dealing thus with good men is to represent him as acting contrary to the declarations and methods of his grace; yea, as doing what wicked men do to good men, as the enemies of David, Daniel, and Jeremiah, did to them; nay, even as Satan himself does, who goes about and seeks for, and picks up accusations against the saints; this must be owned to be a very irreverent and unbecoming expression of Job's, and for which he deserved to be sharply rebuked, as well as for some following ones, and for which he afterwards was thoroughly humbled:
he counteth me for his enemy; this he had often said, but very wrongly; Job 13:24, and
Job 16:9, and
h תנואות "vacillationes", Cocceius; "aut mutationes", Michaelis.