to seize (often with the accessory idea of holding in p… · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine singular
way
דַּרְכּ֑וֹdar.Ko
H1870
a road (as trodden) · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
clean
טְהוֹרṭᵉhôwr
H2890
purity
hands
יָ֝דַ֗יִםya.Da.yim
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders dual absolute
be
יֹסִ֥יףyo.Sif
H3254
to add or augment (often adverbial · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
stronger
אֹֽמֶץ'O.metz
H555
strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
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
Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
Isaiah 1:15-16 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of…
Job 22:30 He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands.
Psalms 84:7 They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
Proverbs 14:16 A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory…
Genesis 20:5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my ha…
Isaiah 40:29-31 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 17:1-9
Job's discourse is here somewhat broken and interrupted, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble; but we may reduce what is here said to three heads: -
I. The deplorable condition which poor Job was now in, which he describes, to aggravate the great unkindness of his friends to him and to justify his own complaints. Let us see what his case was.
1. He was a dying man, Job 17:1. He had said (Job 16:22), "When a few years have come, I shall go that long journey." But here he corrects himself. "Why do I talk of years to come? Alas! I am just setting out on that journey, am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. My breath is a…
The strength of religious principle is heightened by misfortune. The pious shall take fresh courage to persevere from the example of suffering Job. The image is from a warrior acquiring new courage in action (Isa 40:30-31; Phi 1:14).
John Gill on Job 17:9
The righteous also shall hold on his way,.... He that is righteous, not in appearance but really, not in a legal but in an evangelic sense; who is justified by the righteousness of Job's living Redeemer, who lives by faith on his righteousness, and in consequence of that in holiness of life and conversation; such an one being in Christ the way of righteousness and salvation, and walking in the paths of faith, holiness, and truth, and in all the tracks of religious worship, private and public, he will persevere therein, and will not on any account depart out of the right way into which he has been led and directed. This is opposed to a going back, as some do, and to a turning to the right han…
6 And He hath made me a proverb to the world,
And I became as one in whose face they spit.
7 Then mine eye became dim with grief,
And all my members were like a shadow.
8 The upright were astonished at it,
And the innocent is stirred up over the godless;
9 Nevertheless the righteous holdeth fast on his way,
And he that hath clean hands waxeth stronger and stronger.
Without a question, the subj. of Job 17:6 is God. It is the same thing whether משׁל is taken as inf. followed by the subject in the nominative (Ges. 133, 2), or as a subst. (lxx θρύλλημα; Aq., Symm., Theod., παραβολήν), like שׂחוק, Job 12:4, followed by the gen. subjectivus. משׁל is the usual word for ridicule, expressed in para…
The Church Fathers
"And let the man whose hands are pure arm himself with boldness," and the man who gives hope to confess Jesus Christ, even in persecution.
Ver. 9. The righteous also shall hold on his way, and to clean hands he shall add strength. On considering the hypocrite, 'the righteous holds on his way,' in that whilst he sees that it is by a wicked will that he obtains the things that are of the world, he is himself tied and bound the stronger to the love of heavenly things, knowing that to good desires eternal rewards shall not be wanting, whereas both to bad and double hearts the good things of time are not denied; from which circumstance it comes that 'to clean hands he adds strength,' in that seeing bad men win temporal glory, he brings his good works to perfection, and looks down upon temporal things from the loftier height in proportion as he sees them to abound even to the wicked. For he sees how much those things deserve to be despised, which Almighty God vouchsafes even to bad men: for if they were primarily great, the Creator would never vouchsafe them to His adversaries; and hence he considers that it is to himself an unworthy thing, that he should go after that good, which he sees to abound even to the wicked; but he applies his mind to the winning of heavenly blessings, which can never be shared with him by the children of perdition. Thus after he had introduced the outward advancements of the wicked, and the interior advancements of the good, he brought forward words of exhortation.
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
Hand · Symboli — Symboli
Perseverance · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Righteousness · They who walk in, and follow: Shall hold on their way — They who walk in, and follow: Shall hold on their way
Steadfastness · A characteristic of saints — A characteristic of saints
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).
