to set in a row · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
cause
מִשְׁפָּ֑טmish.Pat
H4941
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
know
יָ֝דַ֗עְתִּיya.Da'.ti
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
justified
אֶצְדָּֽק'etz.Dak
H6663
to be (causatively · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
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
Job 23:4 I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
Job 9:2-3 I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?
Job 9:20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
Job 16:21 O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
Job 40:7-8 Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
Isaiah 43:26 Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.
Romans 8:33-34 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
2 Corinthians 1:12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grac…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 13:13-22
Job here takes fresh hold, fast hold, of his integrity, as one that was resolved not to let it go, nor suffer it to be wrested from him. His firmness in this matter is commendable and his warmth excusable.
I. He entreats his friends and all the company to let him alone, and not interrupt him in what he was about to say (Job 13:13), but diligently to hearken to it, Job 13:17. He would have his own protestation to be decisive, for none but God and himself knew his heart. "Be silent therefore, and let me hear no more of you, but hearken diligently to what I say, and let my own oath for confirmation be an end of the strife."
II. He resolves to adhere to the testimony his own conscience gave of h…
ordered--implying a constant preparation for defense in his confidence of innocence.
John Gill on Job 13:18
Behold now, I have ordered my cause,.... Or "judgment" (t); that is, he had looked over his cause afresh, had reviewed the state of his case, had considered it in every light, had drawn a plan of it, had digested it in a proper manner, and had arranged his reasons and arguments in vindication of himself in a regular form; and had them at hand, and could readily and easily come at them on occasion, to vindicate himself; and upon the whole could say, in the strongest, manner, and could draw this conclusion,
I know that I shall be justified; which, though it may primarily respect the case in dispute between him and his friends, and the charge of wickedness and hypocrisy brought against him by…
17 Hear, O hear my confession,
And let my declaration echo in your ears.
18 Behold now! I have arranged the cause,
I know that I shall maintain the right.
19 Who then can contend with me?
Then, indeed, I would be silent and expire.
Eager for the accomplishment of his wish that he might himself take his cause before God, and as though in imagination it were so, he invites the friends to be present to hear his defence of himself. מלּה (in Arabic directly used for confession = religion) is the confession which he will lay down, and אחוה the declaration that he will make in evidence, i.e., the proof of his innocence. The latter substantive, which signifies brotherly conduct in post-biblical Hebr…
The Church Fathers
"Here I am near my judgment: I must judge myself. It is an act of justice not to spare oneself by confessing one's faults.
If I shall be judged, I know that I shall be found just. Which too is not at variance with the person of the self-same blessed Job, since he is only telling that concerning himself without, which 'Truth' had inwardly declared to his enemy concerning him; Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth? And yet it is much less that the holy man records concerning himself, than what the Lord declared concerning him. For it is one thing to be 'just,' and another to have 'none like him.' Therefore he thought humbly of himself, who, whereas he was just beyond comparison with another, described himself not just above others, but simply able to be 'found just.' It seems however to furnish this ground for raising a question in his words, viz. that he who said above, I will rebuke mine own ways before Him; and again says further on, Thou wouldest consume me in the inquities of my youth; and seeing his sins with a distinct eye, says still further on, My transgression is sealed up in a bag, now saith, If I shall be judged, I know that I shall be found just. For it is impossible for sin and righteousness to meet together. But the holy man, attributing wickedness to himself, and the purifying of him to Almighty God, at once sees that he is a sinner in himself, and knows that he is made righteous by free gift. Who even in the midst of good practice earned in superabounding grace to have stripes put upon him. And he already rejoices to be 'found just' in Judgment, who beheld himself before Judgment smitten with the rod. Hence too when he says long afterwards, My transgression is sealed up in a bag, he adds directly; but Thou hast healed mine iniquity. He, then, that describes himself as 'found just' in Judgment, says not at all that he is not justly smitten, although the Lord did not intend to obliterate sins by the scourge, but to increase his merits.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Integrity · 16:19,20; — 16:19,20;
Reasoning · With God — With God
Self-Righteousness · 2:9; — 2:9;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).