Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
My sins In the Hebrew my wrath. He does not mean to compare his sufferings with his real sins; but with the imaginary crimes which his friends falsely imputed to him: and especially with his wrath or grief, expressed in the third chapter, which they so much accused. Though, as he tells them here, it bore no proportion with the greatness of his calamity. (Challoner)
Job does not deny but he may have transgressed. (Calmet) See chap. vii. 20.
But his is not conscious of any mortal offence; such as his friends insisted he must have committed, as he was so cruelly tormented. (Haydock)
Some deny canonical authority to the words of Job, because God reprehended him. But St. Gregory (Mor. vii.) says, Ab æterno judice casurus laudari non potuit. (Du Hamel)
"The man who was on the point of falling, could not be praised by the eternal Judge "(Haydock) and it seems to be a mistake that Job erred, (Houbigant) though asserted by many. See Calmet; Worthington
Wrath. Hebrew, "O that my grief (Hayd...
2. Who else is set forth by the title of ‘the balances,’ but the Mediator between God and man, Who came to weigh the merit of our life, and brought down with Him both justice and loving-kindness together? But putting the greater weight in the scale of mercy, He lightened our transgressions in pardoning them. For in the hand of the Father having been made like scales of a marvellous balancing, in the one scale He hung our woe in His own Person, and in the other our sins. Now by dying He proved the woe to be of heavy weight, and by releasing it shewed the sin to be light in mercy's scale [a], Who vouchsafed this instance of grace first, that He made our punishment to be known to us. For man, being created for the contemplation of his Maker, but banished from the interior joys in justice to his deserts, gone headlong into the wofulness of a corrupt condition, undergoing the darkness of his exile, was at once subject to the punishment of his sin, and knew it not; so that he imagined h...
This is what Job means, you show wisdom in the misfortunes of other people. Since you are far away from my misfortunes, you admonish me while you experience a peaceful life. This remark is an answer to the words that were said earlier, “You have instructed many.” “You have strengthened the feeble knees.” “But now misfortune has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.” Why does he say, “You are dismayed”? I wanted my affliction to become evident, so you would understand that nobody has ever suffered such tribulations. But I perceive my bad luck. He who should have provided me with forgiveness makes me absolutely unforgivable. My misfortune’s magnitude, he says, not only doesn’t intercede for me, not only makes me seem unworthy of mercy, but condemns me. What should have obtained mercy for me instead makes me hateful and condemnable, and I cannot gain any mercy, in spite of what I say. And the proof is that Eliphaz imputed Job’s misfortune to impiety. - ...
