to do or make · verb, qal jussive, 2nd person masculine singular
two
שְׁ֭תַּיִםShe.ta.yim
H8147
two · cardinal number, feminine dual absolute
hide
אֶסָּתֵֽר'e.sa.Ter
H5641
to hide (by covering) · verb, niphal imperfect, 1st person common singular
thee
מִ֝פָּנֶ֗יךָmi.pa.Nei.kha
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine 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
Genesis 3:8-10 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presenc…
Job 9:34-35 Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:
Psalms 139:12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Revelation 6:15-16 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every fr…
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…
Address to God.
not hide--stand forth boldly to maintain my cause.
John Gill on Job 13:20
Only do not two things unto me,.... This is an address not to Zophar as in the place of God, as to me, but to God himself; by this it appears, that though in modesty he does not mention him, yet he it is he has the chief, if not the sole regard unto in Job 13:19; for his desire was to speak to the Almighty, and reason with God, and have nothing more to do with his friends, Job 13:3; but before any pleadings begin on either side, he is desirous of settling and fixing the terms and conditions of the dispute; he requests that two things might be granted him, which are mentioned in Job 13:21,
then will I not hide myself from thee; through fear or shame, but boldly appear before God, and come up…
20 Only two things do not unto me,
Then will I not hide myself from Thy countenance:
21 Withdraw Thy hand from me,
And let Thy fear not terrify me -
22 Call then and I will answer,
Or I will speak and answer Thou me!
He makes only two conditions in his prayer, as he has already expressed it in Job 9:34 : (1) That God would grant him a cessation of his troubles; (2) That He would not overwhelm him with His majesty. The chastening hand of God is generally called יד elsewhere; but in spite of this prevalent usage of the language, כּף cannot be understood here (comp. on the contrary Job 33:7) otherwise than of the hand (Job 9:34 : the rod) of God, which lies heavily on Job. The painful pressure…
The Church Fathers
Only do not two things unto me: then will I not hide myself from Thy face. What are we to understand here by the 'face of God,' saving His visitation? In which, whilst He beholds, He also punishes our sins, from which no just man even is hidden, if the two things, which he entreats, be not removed.
The lack of clarity in the text could be explained in the following way. Job says, "If you want to treat me as the friends say, as if you wanted to show my wickedness, I will hide from your face." But if I am right, then "withdraw your hand far from me, and do not let your dread terrify me!" Every sinner hides from God's face, since he does unworthy things. Thus Adam was hiding from God's face. The opposite of this is to be hidden by God according to the word, "In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots." This brings salvation since God protects the righteous so that he is not stumbling due to human confusion. The "hiddenness of God's face" in contrast to the revealed might be the mystical thoughts. To gain insight from the works of Providence and God's creation does not happen in hiddenness but in the open. It is written, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made." To be hidden by God, as mentioned, is bringing salvation. But to hide oneself as Adam did is ruinous. Since this is not true for Job, because he had no sin, he says, "Withdraw your hand from me" so that the friends may experience that I am not suffering because of sin. For the friends did not believe anything else but that Job suffered for his sins.
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
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).
Job had contemplated finding an arbiter to remove God’s heavy hand (9:33-34). Eliphaz had urged Job to accept God’s chastening (5:17).
Rashi on Job 13:20
But do not do two things to me viz. Heavenly judgment and earthly judgment. If You come to judgment with one [of these], I will not hide from before You. If with Heavenly judgment, I will say, “I have sinned.” [because] (Prov. 28:13), “He who conceals his sins will not succeed.” If with earthly judgment, even I will not confess to concealing sin. I did not hear this (absent in some editions).
