to give · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
knew
יָ֭דַעְתִּיYa.da'.ti
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
find
וְאֶמְצָאֵ֑הוּve.'em.tza.'E.hu
H4672
properly · conjunction + verb, qal, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
come
אָ֝ב֗וֹא'a.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
seat
תְּכוּנָתֽוֹte.khu.na.To
H8499
something arranged or fixed · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd 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
Job 16:21 O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
Job 13:3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.
Job 31:35-37 Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book.
Jeremiah 14:7 O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name’s sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee…
Hebrews 4:6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
Job 40:1-5 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
Isaiah 26:8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 23:1-7
Job is confident that he has wrong done him by his friends, and therefore, ill as he is, he will not give up the cause, nor let them have the last word. Here,
I. He justifies his own resentments of his trouble (Job 23:2): Even to day, I own, my complaint is bitter; for the affliction, the cause of the complaint, is so. There are wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery; my soul has them still in remembrance and is embittered by them, Lam 3:19, Lam 3:20. Even to day is my complaint counted rebellion (so some read it); his friends construed the innocent expressions of his grief into reflections upon God and his providence, and called them rebellion. "But," says he, "I do not complain mor…
The same wish as in Job 13:3 (compare Heb 10:19-22).
Seat--The idea in the Hebrew is a well-prepared throne (Psa 9:7).
John Gill on Job 23:3
O that I knew where I might find him,.... That is, God, who is understood, though not expressed, a relative without an antecedent, as in Psalm 87:1; Jarchi supplies, and interprets it, "my Judge", from Job 23:7; and certain it is Job did desire to find God as a judge sitting on his throne, doing right, that he might have justice done to him: indeed he might be under the hidings of God's face, which added to his affliction, and made it the heavier; in which case, the people of God are at a loss to know where he is, and "how" to find him, as Mr. Broughton renders the words here; they know that he is everywhere, and fills heaven and earth with his presence; that their God is in the heavens, his…
1 Then began Job, and said:
2 Even to-day my complaint still biddeth defiance,
My hand lieth heavy upon my groaning.
3 Oh that I knew where I might find Him,
That I might come even to His dwelling-place!
4 I would lay the cause before Him,
And fill my mouth with arguments:
5 I should like to know the words He would answer me,
And attend to what He would say to me.
Since מרי (for which the lxx reads ἐκ τοῦ χειρός μου, מידי; Ew. מידו, from his hand) usually elsewhere signifies obstinacy, it appears that Job 23:2 ought to be explained: My complaint is always accounted as rebellion (against God); but by this rendering Job 23:2 requires some sort of expletive, in order to furnish a connected t…
The Church Fathers
"And reach his throne. May I be holy enough to take his place among his thrones. Then I will be able to tell the truth and hear it. So the heavens are called saints.
O that one would grant me that I might know and find Him, that I might come even to His seat! An elect person if he did not know God, assuredly would not love Him. But it is one thing to 'know' by faith, and another to know by His own Form, one thing to find by trustfulness, another to find Him by contemplation. In consequence whereof it is brought to pass that Him Whom they know by faith, all of the Elect long to see by His own Form as well. With the love of Whom they burn and glow because the honey of His sweetness they already taste of in the mere certainty of their faith. Which that person in the country of the Gerasenes cured of the devils well represents, who wishes to depart with Jesus; but by the Master of health it is, told him, Return to thine own house, and shew what great things God hath done unto thee. For on him that loves delay is still imposed, that by the longing of love delayed the title to rewarding may be heightened. And so to us Almighty God is made sweet in miracles, and yet in His own loftiness remains hidden from our eyes, that both by shewing something of Himself, He may by secret inspiration set us on fire in the love of Him, and yet by hiding the gloriousness of His Majesty may increase the force of that love of Him by the heat of longing desire. For except the holy man sought to see This Being in His Majesty, surely he would not bring in the words, that I might come even to His seat? For what is the 'seat' of God but those angelical Spirits, who as Scripture testifies are called 'Thrones?' He then that desires to 'come to the seat of God,' what else does he long for but to be among the Angelic spirits, that no failing moments of the periods of time he henceforth be liable to, but rise up to abiding glory in the contemplation of eternity. LITERAL AND ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION Which words nevertheless are likewise appropriate to the righteous whilst placed in this life. For when they see any thing done against their wish and desire, they have recourse to the hidden judgments of God, that therein they may read that that is not irregularly ordered within, which seems to pass irregularly without. For when they behold with the eyes of faith the Creator of all things, ruling over the Angelical Spirits, then they 'come to His seat.' And whereas they observe that He, Who rules the Angels in a wonderful manner, does not dispose of man in…
