Job 21:2

Hear diligently my speech, and let this be your consolations.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) Hear diligently my speech.—“Listen to my words, and let that be the consolation you give me.”

Benson Commentary

Job 21:2-3. Hear diligently my speech — If you have no other comfort to administer, at least afford me this: be so kind, so just, as to give me a patient hearing: and let this be your consolations — I shall accept of it instead of those consolations which you owed to me in this my distressed condition, and which I expected from you. And it will be a consolation to yourselves in the reflection, to have dealt tenderly with your afflicted friend. Suffer me to speak — Without such interruption as you have given me. And after I have spoken, mock on — If I do not defend my cause with solid and convincing arguments, go on in your scoffs.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:1-6 Job comes closer to the question in dispute. This was, Whether outward prosperity is a mark of the true church, and the true members of it, so that ruin of a man's prosperity proves him a hypocrite? This they asserted, but Job denied. If they looked upon him, they might see misery enough to demand compassion, and their bold interpretations of this mysterious providence should be turned into silent wonder.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hear diligently - Hebrew "Hearing hear" - that is, hear attentively. What he was about to say was worthy of their solemn consideration.

And let this be your consolations - That is, "You came to me for the professed purpose of giving "me" consolation. In that you have wholly failed. You have done nothing to sustain or comfort me; but all that you have said has only tended to exasperate me, and to increase my sorrow. If you will now hear me attentively, I will take that as a consolation, and it shall be in the place of what I had a right to expect from you. It will be "some" comfort if I am permitted to express my sentiments without interruption, and I will accept it as a proof of kindness on your part."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. consolations—If you will listen calmly to me, this will be regarded as "consolations"; alluding to Eliphaz' boasted "consolations" (Job 15:11), which Job felt more as aggravations ("mockings," Job 21:3) than consolations (Job 16:2).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Or, this shall be your consolations, i.e. I shall accept of your patient and diligent attention to me, instead of all those consolations which you owed to me in this condition, and which I expected from you.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hear diligently my speech,.... The following oration or discourse he was about to deliver concerning the prosperity of wicked men; to which he desires their closest attention, that they might the better understand the force of his reasoning, the evidences and proof of fasts he should give; whereby, if their minds were open to conviction, they would clearly see their mistake, and that truth lay on his side:

and let this be your consolations; or "this shall be your consolations" (k); meaning, either that they would receive instruction and benefit by his discourse, which would yield them pleasure and comfort; and to an ingenuous mind, to be convinced of an error, to have mistakes rectified, and to get knowledge of the truth, it is a real satisfaction, and affords pleasure; or else, that whereas their end in paying him a visit was to comfort him, and they had taken methods, as they thought, in order to it, but in Job's opinion to very little purpose, yea, they were, as he says, miserable comforters; now he observes, that if they would but be silent, and attentively listen to what he had to say, that would be in the room of all comforts they could give unto him; it would be a consolation to him, and be reckoned by him, instead of all they could give, or could propose to him, if he might have but this favour, to be heard with candour, diligence, and attention.

(k) "et hoc erit consolationes vestrae", Beza, Mercerus; so Jarchi; "idque pro consolatione vobis", Tigurine version; "pro consolationibus vestris", Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

Hear diligently my speech, and let this {a} be your consolations.

(a) Your diligent marking of my words will be to me a great consolation.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. your consolations] They believed they were offering him the consolations of God (ch. Job 15:11); the consolation he seeks from them is that they listen to him.

Job 21:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 Then began Job, and said:

2 Hear, oh hear, my speech,

And let this be instead of your consolations.

3 Suffer me, and I will speak,

And after I have spoken thou mayest mock.

4 As for me, then, doth my complaint concern man,

Or wherefore should I not become impatient?

5 Turn ye to me and be astonished,

And lay your hand upon your mouth.

6 Even if I think of it I am bewildered,

And my flesh taketh hold on trembling - :

The friends, far from being able to solve the enigma of Job's affliction, do not once recognise the mystery as such. They cut the knot by wounding Job most deeply by ever more and more frivolous accusations. Therefore he entreats them to be at least willing to listen (שׁמעוּ with the gerund) to his utterance (מלּה) respecting the unsolved enigma; then (Waw apodosis imper.) shall this attention supply the place of their consolations, i.e., be comforting to him, which their previous supposed consolations could not be. They are to bear with him, i.e., without interruption allow him to answer for himself (שׂאוּני with Kametz before the tone, as Jonah 1:12, comp. קחהוּ, 1 Kings 20:33, not as Hirz. thinks under the influence of the distinctive accent, but according to the established rule, Ges. 60, rem. 1); then he will speak (אנכי contrast to the "ye" in שׂאוני without further force), and after he has expressed himself they may mock. It is, however, not תלעיגוּ (as Olshausen corrects), but תלעיג (in a voluntative signific. equals תלעג), since Job here addresses himself specially to Zophar, the whole of whose last speech must have left the impression on him of a bitter sarcasm (sarkasmo's from sarka'zein in the sense of Job 19:22), and has dealt him the freshest deep blow. In Job 21:4 שׂיחת is not to be understood otherwise than as in Job 7:13; Job 9:27; Job 10:1; Job 23:2, and is to be translated "my complaint." Then the prominently placed אנכי is to be taken, after Ezekiel 33:17, Ges. 121, 3, as an emphatic strengthening of the "my": he places his complaint in contrast with another. This emphasizing is not easily understood, if one, with Hupf., explains: nonne hominis est querela mea, so that ה is equivalent to הלא (which here in the double question is doubly doubtful), and ל is the sign of the cause. Schultens and Berg, who translate לאדם more humano, explain similarly, by again bringing their suspicious ל comparativum

(Note: In the passage from Ibn-Kissa quoted above, p. 421, Schultens, as Fleischer assures me, has erroneously read Arab. lmchâlı̂b instead of kmchâlı̂b, having been misled by the frequent failing of the upper stroke of the Arab. k, and in general Arab. l is never equals k, and also ל never equals כ, as has been imagined since Schultens.)

here to bear upon it. The ל by שׂיחי (if it may not also be compared with Job 12:8) may certainly be expected to denote those to whom the complaint is addressed. We translate: As for me, then, does my complaint concern men? The אנכי which is placed at the beginning of the sentence comes no less under the rule, Ges. 145, 2, than 121, 3. In general, sufferers seek to obtain alleviation of their sufferings by imploring by words and groans the pity of sympathizing men; the complaint, however, which the three hear from him is of a different kind, for he has long since given up the hope of human sympathy, - his complaint concerns not men, but God (comp. Job 16:20).

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