I have sinned; what shall I do unto you, O you preserver of men? why have you set me as a mark against you, so that I am a burden to myself?
Read Chapter 7
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Sinned. I acknowledge my frailty. (Menochius)
How may I obtain redress? (Calmet)
Job's friends maintained that he was guilty. But he does not acquiesce in their conclusion, that these sufferings were precisely in punishment of some crime, though he acknowledges that he is not without his faults. (Haydock)
Shall. Hebrew also, "what have I done to thee? "I have only hurt myself. But this reasoning is nugatory. Though God loses nothing by our sins, they are no less offensive to him, as the rebel does his utmost to disturb the order which he has established. The sinner indeed resembles those brutal people, who hurl darts against the sun, which fall upon their own heads, chap. iii. 8. (Calmet)
Opposite, as a butt to shoot at. (Haydock)
Myself. Hebrew was formerly "to thee "till the Jews changed it, as less respectful. (Cajetan)
Septuagint still read, "and why am I a burden to thee? "(Haydock) as I am under the necessity of complaining, in my own defence. (Calmet)
I throw my grief upo...
51. Observe how he confesses the ill that he has done, but the good that he should present to God in compensation, he no where can find, in that all virtue whatever of human practice is without power to wash out the guilt of sin, except His mercifulness in sparing foster it, and not His justice in judging press hard upon it. Whence it is well said by the Psalmist, Because Thy mercy is better than the life; [Ps. 63, 3] in that howsoever innocent it may seem to be, yet with the strict Judge our life doth not set us free, if the lovingkindness of His mercy loose not to it the debt of its guilt. Or indeed when it is said, What shall I do unto Thee? it is plainly, shewn us that those very good things, which we are commanded to practise, are not a gain to Him that imposes the command, but to ourselves. Whence it is said again by the Psalmist, My goodness extendeth not unto Thee. [Ps. 16, 2] Now the abjectness of our destitution is set forth, when God is called the ‘Preserver of men,’ i...
