Job 23:5

I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
know	אֵ֭דְעָה 'E.de.'ah	H3045	to know (properly · verb, qal infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
words	מִלִּ֣ים mi.Lim	H4405	a word · noun, common masculine plural absolute
answer	יַעֲנֵ֑נִי ya.'a.Ne.ni	H6030	properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
understand	וְ֝אָבִ֗ינָה ve.'a.Vi.nah	H995	to separate mentally (or distinguish) · conjunction + verb, qal infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
say	יֹּ֥אמַר Yo.mar	H559	to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal imperfect, 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 10:2 I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.
Job 13:22-23 Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.
1 Corinthians 4:3-4 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
Job 42:2-6 I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.

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…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 23:5

he--emphatic: it little matters what man may say of me, if only I know what God judges of me.

John Gill on Job 23:5

I would know the words which he would answer me,.... Being a God hearing and answering prayer, who always hears, and sooner or later answers the petitions of his people in his own way; and which when he does, they know, take notice, and observe it: or then he should know the reason why the Lord contended with him, and what were his sins and transgressions, which were the cause of his afflictions; things he had desired to know, but as yet had no answer, see Job 10:2; and understand what he would say unto me; what judgment he would pass upon him, what sentence he would pronounce on him, whether guilty or not, and by which judgment he was content to stand or fall; as for men's judgment, the ju…

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Keil & Delitzsch on Job 23:1-5

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

"In order that I may know what he might answer me," that they prove he would give me equity in his judgments. "And let me understand all his words," being near him.
— Augustine of Hippo, ANNOTATIONS ON THE BOOK OF JOB (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

That I may know the words that he will answer me, and understand what he will say unto me. For we then bewail our sins, when we begin to weigh them; but we then weigh them the more exactly, when more anxiously we bewail them, and by our lamentations it rises up more perfectly in our hearts, what the severity of God threatens those with that commit sin, what will be those rebukings upon the children of perdition, what the terror, what the abhorrence of the unappeasable Majesty. For so great things shall the Lord then being angry 'say' to the lost, as great as He permits them of justice to undergo. Which same words of His visitation, the righteous, because now they anxiously fear them, escape free from. But who in that inquisition might be found righteous, if God according to the Majesty of His Might, so sifted the life of man?
— Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XVI

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Job 23:5

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 23:1-7

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 23:5

John Gill on Job 23:5

Keil & Delitzsch on Job 23:1-5

The Church Fathers

Job 23:5

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 23:1-7

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 23:5

John Gill on Job 23:5

Keil & Delitzsch on Job 23:1-5

The Church Fathers

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Job 23:4

Rashi on Job 23:5