properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
tongue
אַחֲרִ֣ישׁ'a.cha.Rish
H2790
to scratch · verb, hiphil imperfect, 1st person common singular
ghost
וְאֶגְוָֽעve.'eg.Va'
H1478
to breathe out · conjunction + verb, qal, 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
Isaiah 50:7-8 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not b…
Job 7:11 Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Job 10:8 Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.
Job 13:13 Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.
Job 19:5 If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
Job 33:5-7 If thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me, stand up.
Job 33:32 If thou hast any thing to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify thee.
Jeremiah 20:9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my…
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…
if, &c.--Rather, "Then would I hold my tongue and give up the ghost"; that is, if any one can contend with me and prove me false, I have no more to say. "I will be silent and die." Like our "I would stake my life on it" [UMBREIT].
John Gill on Job 13:19
Who is he that will plead with me,.... Enter the lists with him; dispute the point, and try the strength of his arguments he had to plead for his own justification: thus Christ, the head of the church, and the surety of his people, is represented as speaking when he had by his obedience and sufferings made satisfaction for them, by bringing in an everlasting righteousness, and was, as their public and federal head, justified and acquitted, Isaiah 1:4; and much the same words are put into the mouth of a believer in him, and are expressed by him, Romans 8:33; who stands acquitted from all charges that men or devils, friends or foes, the law or justice of God, the devil and his own unbelieving…
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
Who is he that will plead with me? Let him come. Holy men so guard themselves in their good works, with God for their aid, that there can be no where found, without, grounds, whereon to accuse them; but within, in the secret thoughts of their own hearts, they watch over themselves with such good heed, that, if it might be, they may at all times stand blameless before the eyes of the interior Judge. But what they are able to effect, that they never should slip outwardly in act, they are unable to effect inwardly, that they never should make a false step in thought. For man's conscience, from the very fact that it withdraws from the things deepest within, is always on slippery ground. Whence it comes to pass, that even holy men often slip in them. So let holy Job, speaking as well in his own voice as in the voice of the Elect, say, Who is he that will plead with me? Let him come. For, seeing that in external actions there is no occasion for which to fasten a blame upon him, he freely looks about for an accuser. But because the consciences even of the righteous sometimes have to charge themselves with foolishness of thought, it is on this account perhaps that it is added; Why am I consumed in silence? For he is 'consumed in silence,' who, in blaming himself for foolishness of thought, is gnawed in his own heart by the tooth of conscience. As if he said in plain words, 'As I have so lived that I should never fear any accuser without, would that I had so lived that I should never have my conscience for mine accuser within me.' For he is 'consumed in silence,' who discovers in himself within cause whereby the fire should gnaw him.
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
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).
