to mislay · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
misery
עָמָ֣ל'a.Mal
H5999
toil · noun, common both genders singular absolute
remember
תִזְכֹּֽרtiz.Kor
H2142
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
waters
כְּמַ֖יִםke.Ma.yim
H4325
water · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
away
עָבְר֣וּ'a.ve.Ru
H5674
to cross over · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 65:16 That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God…
Ecclesiastes 5:20 For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.
Isaiah 54:4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of…
Isaiah 54:9 For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn tha…
John 16:21 A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more…
Genesis 41:51 And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.
Isaiah 12:1-2 And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst…
Revelation 7:14-17 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 11:13–end
Zophar, as the other two, here encourages Job to hope for better times if he would but come to a better temper.
I. He gives him good counsel (Job 11:13, Job 11:14), as Eliphaz did (Job 5:8), and Bildad, Job 8:5. He would have him repent and return to God. Observe the steps of that return. 1. He must look within, and get his mind changed and the tree made good. He must prepare his heart; there the work of conversion and reformation must begin. The heart that wandered from God must be reduced - that was defiled with sin and put into disorder must be cleansed and put in order again - that was wavering and unfixed must be settled and established; so the word here signifies. The heart is then pre…
Just as when the stream runs dry (Job 6:17), the danger threatened by its wild waves is forgotten (Isa 65:16) [UMBREIT].
John Gill on Job 11:16
Because thou shall forget thy misery,.... Former afflictions and distresses; having an abundance of prosperity and happiness, and long continued; and so, in process of time, the miseries and distresses before endured are forgotten; thus it was with Joseph in his advanced state, and therefore he called one of his sons Manasseh, Genesis 41:51; and as it is with convinced and converted persons and believers in Christ, who, under first convictions and awakenings, are filled with sorrow and distress, on a view of their miserable estate by nature; but when Christ is revealed to them as their Saviour and Redeemer, and the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts, and they have faith and hope in J…
16 For thou shalt forget thy grief,
Shalt remember it as waters that flow by.
17 And thy path of life shall be brighter than mid-day;
If it be dark, it shall become as morning.
18 And thou shalt take courage, for now there is hope;
And thou shalt search, thou shalt lie down in safety.
19 And thou liest down without any one making thee afraid;
And many shall caress thy cheeks.
20 But the eyes of the wicked languish,
And refuge vanisheth from them,
And their hope is the breathing forth of the soul.
The grief that has been surmounted will then leave no trace in the memory, like water that flows by (not: water that flows away, as Olshausen explains it, which would be differently expressed; comp.…
The Church Fathers
"Like the stream that stops, and you will not be afraid anymore; Unless God strikes all the living.
The words "You will be led like passing waters" mean that your tribulations will leave you at once, like the waters of rain which, when it stops raining, disappear as well.
Thou shalt also forget thy misery, and no more remember it, as waters that pass away. The mind feels the ills of the present life the more severely, in proportion as it neglects to take account of the good that comes after; and as it will not consider the rewards that are in store, it reckons all to be grievous that it undergoes; and hence the blinded imagination murmurs against the stroke of the scourge, and that is taken for an immeasurable woe, which by the days flowing on in their course is daily being brought to an end. But if a man once raise himself to things eternal, and fix the eye of the soul upon those objects which remain without undergoing change, he sees that here below all whatsoever runs to an end is almost nothing at all. He is subject to the adversities of the present life, but he bethinks himself that all that passes away is as nought. For the more vigorously he makes his way into the interior joys, he is the less sensible of pains without. Whence Zophar, not being afraid with boldfaced hardihood to instruct one better than himself, exhorts to righteousness, and shews how little chastening appears in the eyes of the righteous man. As if it were in plain words; 'If thou hast a taste of the joy which remains within, all that gives pain without forthwith becomes light.' Now he does well in likening the miseries of the present life to 'waters that pass away,' for passing calamity never overwhelms the mind of the Elect with the force of a shock, yet it does tinge it with the touch of sorrow. For it drops indeed with the bleeding of the wound, though it is not dashed from the certainty of its salvation. But it often happens that not only stripes inflict bruises, but that in the mind of each one of the righteous the temptings of evil spirits come in force, so that he is grieved by the stroke without, and is in some sort chilled within by temptation. Yet grace never forsakes him, which same the more severely it smites us in the dealings of Providence, so much the more does it watch over us in pity; for when it has begun to grow dark through temptation, the inward light kindles itself again.
Zophar laid out three conditions for restoration (11:15): (1) prepare your heart, in an inward act that is not just a ritual; (2) lift up your hands, a symbolic gesture of prayer, appeal (Exod 9:29; Prov 1:24; Isa 1:15), or surrender; (3) leave all iniquity, not by sacrifice and remorse, but by quitting the sin (cp. Heb 11:6; Jas 4:8; 5:16).
Rashi on Job 11:16
and you shall forget all your trouble.
like water that has passed and gone by, so shall be the entire memory of your trouble.