Job 17:11

My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 17:11. My days are past — The days of my life. I am a dying man, and therefore the hopes you give me of the bettering of my condition are vain. My purposes are broken off — Or the designs and expectations which I had in my prosperous days concerning myself and children, and the continuance of my happiness. Even the thoughts of my heart — Hebrew, מורשׁי, morashei; the possessions of my heart; that is, those counsels and intentions which in a great measure possessed my heart, and were natural and familiar to me. All these are disappointed and come to nothing.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:10-16 Job's friends had pretended to comfort him with the hope of his return to a prosperous estate; he here shows that those do not go wisely about the work of comforting the afflicted, who fetch their comforts from the possibility of recovery in this world. It is our wisdom to comfort ourselves, and others, in distress, with that which will not fail; the promise of God, his love and grace, and a well-grounded hope of eternal life. See how Job reconciles himself to the grave. Let this make believers willing to die; it is but going to bed; they are weary, and it is time that they were in their beds. Why should not they go willingly when their Father calls them? Let us remember our bodies are allied to corruption, the worm and the dust; and let us seek for that lively hope which shall be fulfilled, when the hope of the wicked shall be put out in darkness; that when our bodies are in the grave, our souls may enjoy the rest reserved for the people of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My days are past - "I am about to die." Job relapses again into sadness - as he often does. A sense of his miserable condition comes over him like a cloud, and he feels that he must die.

My purposes are broken off - All my plans fail, and my schemes of life come to an end. No matter what they could say now, it was all over with him, and he must die; compare Isaiah 38:12 :

"My habitation is taken away, and is removed from me

Like a shepherd's tent;

My life is cut off as by a weaver

Who severeth the web from the loom;

Between the morning and the night thou wilt make an end of me."

Even the thoughts of my heart - Margin, possessions. Noyes, "treasures." Dr. Good, "resolves." Dr. Stock, "the tenants of my heart." Vulgate, "torquen'es cor meum." Septuagint, τὰ ἄρθρα τῆς καρδίας μου ta arthra tēs kardias mou - the strings of my heart. The Hebrew word (מורשׁ môrâsh) means properly possession (from ירשׁ yârash, to inherit); and the word here means the dear possessions of his heart; his cherished plans and schemes; the delights of his soul - the purposes which he had hoped to accomplish. All these were now to be broken on by death. This is to man one of the most trying things in death. All his plans must be arrested. His projects of ambition and gain, of pleasure and of fame, of professional eminence and of learning, all are arrested midway. The farmer is compelled to leave his plow in the furrow; the mechanic, his work unfinished; the lawyer, his brief half prepared; the student, his books lying open; the man who is building a palace, leaves it incomplete; and he who is seeking a crown, is taken away when it seemed just within his grasp. How many unfinished plans are caused by death every day! How many unfinished books, sermons, houses, does it make! How many schemes of wickedness and of benevolence, of fraud and of kindness, of gain and of mercy, are daily broken in upon by death! Soon, reader, all your plans and mine will be ended - mine, perhaps, before these lines meet your eye; yours soon afterward. God grant that our purposes of life may be such that we shall be willing to have them broken in upon - all so subordinate to the GREAT PLAN of being prepared for heaven, that we may cheerfully surrender them at any moment, at the call of the Master summoning us into his awful presence!

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. Only do not vainly speak of the restoration of health to me; for "my days are past."

broken off—as the threads of the web cut off from the loom (Isa 38:12).

thoughts—literally, "possessions," that is, all the feelings and fair hopes which my heart once nourished. These belong to the heart, as "purposes" to the understanding; the two together here describe the entire inner man.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

My days; the days of my life. I am a lost and dying man, and therefore the hopes you give me of the bettering of my condition are vain and groundless.

My purposes; or, my designs, or

thoughts, to wit, which I had in my prosperous days, concerning myself and children, and the continuance of my happiness.

The thoughts of my heart, Heb. the possessions of my heart, i.e. those thoughts which in a great measure possessed my heart, which were most natural, and familiar, and delightful to me. All my thoughts, and designs, and hopes are disappointed, and come to nothing.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My days are past,.... Or "passed away", or "passed over" (w); not that they passed over the time fixed and appointed by God, for there is no passing the bound settled by him, Job 14:5; but either the common term of man's life was passed with Job, or he speaks of things in his own apprehension; he imagined his death was so near, that he had not a day longer to live; his days, as he before says, were extinct, were at an end, he should never enjoy another day; and therefore it was folly to flatter him with a promise of long life, or encourage him to expect it; which he may mention as a proof of there being not a wise man among them, since they all suggested this in case of repentance; or his meaning is, that his good days, or days of goodness, as Jarchi interprets it, were past; his days of prosperity were at an end, and evil days were come upon him, in which he had no pleasure; nor had he any reason to believe it would be otherwise with him:

my purposes are broken off; Job doubtless had formed in his mind great designs of good things, natural, civil; and religious, concerning the enlargement of his temporal estate, the settlement of his children in the world, making provision for the poor, supporting and enlarging the interest of true religion, the reformation of his Heathenish neighbours, and the spread of divine truths among them; but now they were all frustrated, he was not in a capacity of carrying them into execution, and was obliged to drop them, and think no more of them, nor was there with him any prospect of ever renewing them; they were "rooted up" (x), or plucked up, as some render the word, so that there was no likelihood of their ever rising up again, and coming to any effect:

even the thoughts of my heart; or "the possessions" (y) of it, as the thoughts are; they are the things of a man, which especially belong to him; they are the inheritance of his mind, what none have a right unto, and a claim upon, but himself, nor can any know but himself, and to whom he discovers them: now the thread of these is broken off at death, they then cease; not that the mind or soul of man ceases to be, or ceases to be a thinking being, it still thinks; but only its thoughts are not employed about the same things in a future state, or in the state after death, as in this, see Psalm 146:4.

(w) "transierunt", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (x) "evulsae sunt", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator; "radicitus evulsae sunt", Michaelis. (y) "possessiones", Montanus, Vatablus, Piscator, Cocceius, Schmidt; "haereditariae possessiones", Schultens; so Drusius & Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. Very different from their delusive anticipations was the truth in regard to Job’s condition. His days were past, and his life with all its cherished purposes cut off. The thoughts of his heart is lit. as margin, the possessions, i. e. the enterprises and purposes which he cherished and clung to as that dearest to him.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - My days are past. My days are slipping away from me. Life is well-nigh over. What, then, does it matter what you say? My purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart; literally, the possessions of my heart all the store that it has accumulated - my desires, purposes, wishes. I no longer care to vindicate my innocence in the sight of men, or to clear my character from aspersions. Job 17:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

10 But only come again all of you!

I shall not find a wise man among you. -

11 My days are past, My purposes cut off,

The cherished thoughts of my heart, -

12 Ye explain night as day,

Light is near when darkness sets in.

The truly righteous man, even if in the midst of his affliction he should see destruction before him, does not however forsake God. But (nevertheless) ye - he exclaims to the friends, who promise him a long and prosperous life if he will only humble himself as a sinner who is receiving punishment - repeat again and again your hortatory words on penitence! a wise man who might be able to see into my real condition, I shall not find among you. He means that they deceive themselves concerning the actual state of the case before them; for in reality he is meeting death without being deceived, or allowing himself to be deceived, about the matter. His appeal is similar to Job 6:29. Carey translates correctly: Attack me again with another round of arguments, etc. Instead of ואוּלם, as it is written everywhere else (generally when the speech is drawing to a close), we find ואלּם (as the form of writing אלם, אלּם occurs also in the subst. אוּלם), perh. in order to harmonize with כּלּם, which is here according to rule instead of כּלּכם, which corresponds more to our form of a vocative clause, just as in 1 Kings 22:28; Micah 1:2 (Ewald, 327, a).

(Note: Comp. my Anekdota zur Gesch. der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen (1841), S. 380.)

In וּבאוּ תּשׁוּבוּ the jussive and imper. (for the Chethib יבאי, which occurs in some Codd. and editions, is meaningless) are united, the former being occasioned by the arrangement of the words, which is unfavourable to the imper. (comp. Ew. 229); moreover, the first verb gives the adverbial notion iterum, denuo to the second, according to Ges. 142, 3, a.

What follows, Job 17:11, is the confirmation of the fact that there is no wise man among them who might be able to give him efficient solace by a right estimate of the magnitude and undeservedness of his suffering. His life is indeed run out; and the most cherished plans and hopes which he had hedged in and fostered for the future in his heart, he has utterly and long since given up. The plur. (occurring only here) of זמּה, which occurs also sensu malo, signifies projects, as מזמות, Job 21:27; Job 42:2, from זמם, to tie; Aben-Ezra refers to the Arab. zamâm (a thread, band, esp. a rein). These plans which are now become useless, these cherished thoughts, he calls מורשׁי, peculia (from ירשׁ, to take possession of) of his heart. Thus, after Obad. Oba 1:17, Gecatilia (in Aben-Ezra) also explains, while, according to Ewald, Beitrge, S. 98, he understands the heart-strings, i.e., the trunks of the arteries (for thus is Arab. n't to be explained), and consequently, as Ewald himself, and even Farisol, most improbably combines מורשׁ with מותר (יתר). Similarly the lxx τὰ ἄρθρα τῆς καρδίας, as though the joints (instead of the valves) of the heart were intended; probably with Middeldorpf, after the Syriac Hexapla, ἄκρα is to be read instead of ἄρθρα; this, however, rests upon a mistaking of מורשׁי for ראשׁי. While he is now almost dead, and his life-plans of the future are torn away (נתּקוּ), the friends turn night into day (שׂים, as Isaiah 5:20); light is (i.e., according to their opinion) nearer than the face of darkness, i.e., than the darkness which is in reality turned to him, and which is as though it stared at him from the immediate future. Thus Nolde explains it as comparative, but connecting Job 17:12 with ישׂימו, and considering פני (which is impossible by this compar. rendering) as meaningless: lucem magis propinquam quam tenebras. It is however possible that מפני is used the same as in Job 23:17 : light is, as they think near before darkness, i.e., while darkness sets in (ingruentibus tenebris), according to which we have translated. If we understand Job 23:12 from Job's standpoint, and not from that of the friends, מן קרוב is to be explained according to the Arab. qrı̂b mn, prope abest ab, as the lxx even translatesφῶς ἐγγὺς ἀπὸ προσώπου σκότους, which Olympiodorus interprets by ου ̓ μακρὰν σκότους. But by this rendering פני makes the expression, which really needs investigation, only still lamer. Renderings, however, like Renan's Ah! votre lumire resemble aux tenbres, are removed from all criticism. The subjective rendering, by which Job 17:12 is under the government of ישׂימו, is after all the most natural. That he has darkness before him, while the friends present to him the approach of light on condition of penitence, is the thought that is developed in the next strophe.