to grave · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
things
מְרֹר֑וֹתme.ro.Rot
H4846
properly · adjective, feminine plural absolute
possess
וְ֝תוֹרִישֵׁ֗נִיve.to.ri.She.ni
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · conjunction + verb, hiphil, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
iniquities
עֲוֹנ֥וֹתa.vo.Not
H5771
perversity · noun, common feminine plural construct
youth
נְעוּרָֽיne.'u.Rai
H5271
(only in plural collectively or emphatic form) youth · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
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
Psalms 25:7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD.
John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
Ruth 1:20 And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.
Job 3:20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
Job 20:11 His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.
Psalms 88:3-18 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.
Proverbs 5:11-13 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
Jeremiah 31:19 Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, bec…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 13:23–end
Here, I. Job enquires after his sins, and begs to have them discovered to him. He looks up to God, and asks him what was the number of them (How many are my iniquities?) and what were the particulars of them: Make me to know my transgressions, Job 13:23. His friends were ready enough to tell him how numerous and how heinous they were, Job 22:5. "But, Lord," says he, "let me know them from thee; for thy judgment is according to truth, theirs is not." This may be taken either, 1. As a passionate complaint of hard usage, that he was punished for his faults and yet was not told what his faults were. Or, 2. As a prudent appeal to God from the censures of his friends. He desired that all his sins…
writest--a judicial phrase, to note down the determined punishment. The sentence of the condemned used to be written down (Isa 10:1; Jer 22:30; Psa 149:9) [UMBREIT].
bitter things--bitter punishments.
makest me to possess--or "inherit." In old age he receives possession of the inheritance of sin thoughtlessly acquired in youth. "To inherit sins" is to inherit the punishments inseparably connected with them in Hebrew ideas (Psa 25:7).
John Gill on Job 13:26
For thou writest bitter things against me,.... Meaning not sins and rebellions, taken notice of by him, when his good deeds were omitted, as Jarchi; sin is indeed an evil and a bitter thing in its own nature, being exceeding sinful and abominable, and its effects and consequences; being what provokes God to anger most bitterly, and makes bitter work for repentance; as it did in Peter, who, when made sensible of it, wept bitterly, Matthew 26:75; sooner or later, sin, though it is a sweet morsel rolled about in the mouth for a while, yet in the issue proves the gall of asps within, Job 20:14, bitter and distressing; and this God also puts down in the book of his remembrance, yea, writes it as…
"You have burdened me with the sins of my youth. If he has not known his sins, it is because he has listened to pride, the sin of his youth.
For Thou writest bitter things against me. For seeing that every thing we speak passes away, but what we write remains, God is said not to 'speak,' but to 'write bitter things,' in that His scourges upon us last for long. For it was said once to man, when he sinned, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return? And Angels many times appearing gave commandments to men. Moses, the lawgiver, restrained sins by severe means. The Only-Begotten Son of the Most High Father, Himself came to redeem us, He swallowed up death by dying, He announced that everlasting life to us, which He exhibited in Himself; yet that sentence which was given in Paradise concerning the death of our flesh remains unaltered from the very first beginning of the human race up to the end of the world. For what man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? which the Psalmist considering well saith again, Thou, even Thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in Thy sight when once Thou art angry? Who being 'once angry,' when man sinned in Paradise, fixed the sentence of the mortality of our flesh, which now even to the very last may never be changed a whit. Therefore let him say, Thou writest bitter things against me. Hence it is further added; And wouldest waste me with the iniquities of my youth. Observe, that whereas the holy man finds not that he has ever sinned in his manhood, he dreads the sins of his youth. Now it is necessary to know, that as in the body, so are there advances of age in the mind also. Thus the first age of man is infancy, when, though he lives in innocence, he cannot speak the innocence which is in him; and then follows boyhood, in which he has henceforth the power of speaking what he wishes; to which youth succeeds, which we know is the first age in active life, which is followed by manhood, i.e. that which is suited to hardihood; and afterwards old age, which from mere time even is now fellow to maturity of mind. Therefore, as we have called the first age fit for good actions 'youth,' and as the righteous when they are far advanced in perfect maturity of mind, sometimes recall to recollection the beginning of their deeds, and blame themselves for their first commencement in an equal degree as they have advanced deeper in gravity of mind, because they find that they were once void of discretion, in proportion as they afterwards more thoroughly attain possession of…
Dictionary and topics
Blasphemy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
26 For Thou decreest bitter things against me,
And causest me to possess the iniquities of my youth,
27 And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And observest all my ways.
Thou makest for thyself a circle round the soles of my feet,
28 Round one who moulders away as worm-eaten,
As a garment that the moth gnaweth.
He is conscious of having often prayed: "Remember not the sins of my youth, and my transgressions: according to Thy mercy remember Thou me," Psa 25:7; and still he can only regard his affliction as the inheritance (i.e., entailed upon him by sins not repented of) of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath, to reproach himself with. He does no…
In the Old Testament, dry straw is a common image for what can be blown away (“chaff,” Ps 83:13; Isa 40:24; Jer 13:24) or burned (Exod 15:7; Isa 47:14; Mal 4:1; see also “dry grass,” Isa 5:24; 33:11), or for what is weak (Job 41:20-21) and trifling (Isa 41:2).
Rashi on Job 13:26
disobediences Heb. מררות. The cases of obstinacy in which I obeyed Your orders, You write [down] but not the good deeds that I performed.
