Job 36:13

But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they cry not when he bindeth them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) The hypocrites in heart.—The words rather mean the godless or profane in heart.

They cry not.—That is, cry not for help.

When he bindeth them.—That is, as in Job 36:8, he has been speaking especially of one kind of affliction, like that, namely, of Joseph.

Benson Commentary

Job 36:13-14. But the hypocrites in heart — Such as are truly void of that piety which they profess; heap up wrath — By their impenitence and obstinacy in all conditions they treasure up God’s wrath against themselves; they cry not — Unto God for help. They live in the gross neglect of God and of prayer; when he bindeth them — Namely, with the cords of affliction expressed Job 36:8, which is mentioned as an aggravation of their wickedness; because even wicked men, if not hardened in their vices, will seek God in a time of affliction. They die in youth — They provoke God to cut them off before their time. The Hebrew is literally, Their soul dieth in youth. And their life is among the unclean — They die young because they lived among prostitutes, or sodomites, as the word,

קדשׁים, kedeshim, properly signifies: they die by some exemplary stroke of divine vengeance. Yea, and after death their life is among the unclean, the unclean spirits, the devil and his angels, for ever excluded from the New Jerusalem, into which no unclean thing shall enter.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

36:5-14 Elihu here shows that God acts as righteous Governor. He is always ready to defend those that are injured. If our eye is ever toward God in duty, his eye will be ever upon us in mercy, and, when we are at the lowest, will not overlook us. God intends, when he afflicts us, to discover past sins to us, and to bring them to our remembrance. Also, to dispose our hearts to be taught: affliction makes people willing to learn, through the grace of God working with and by it. And further, to deter us from sinning for the future. It is a command, to have no more to do with sin. If we faithfully serve God, we have the promise of the life that now is, and the comforts of it, as far as is for God's glory and our good: and who would desire them any further? We have the possession of inward pleasures, the great peace which those have that love God's law. If the affliction fail in its work, let men expect the furnace to be heated till they are consumed. Those that die without knowledge, die without grace, and are undone for ever. See the nature of hypocrisy; it lies in the heart: that is for the world and the flesh, while perhaps the outside seems to be for God and religion. Whether sinners die in youth, or live long to heap up wrath, their case is dreadful. The souls of the wicked live after death, but it is in everlasting misery.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath - By their continued impiety they lay the foundation for increasing and multiplied expressions of the divine displeasure. Instead of confessing their sins when they are afflicted, and seeking for pardon: instead of returning to God and becoming truly his friends, they remaian impenitent, unconverted, and are rebellious at heart. They complain of the divine government and plans, and their feelings and conduct make it necessary for God further to interpose, until they are finally cut off and consigned to ruin. Elihu had stated what was the effect in two classes of persons who were afflicted. There were those who were truly pious, and who would receive affliction as sent from God for purposes of discipline, and who would repent and seek his mercy; Job 36:11. There were those, as a second class, who were openly wicked, and who would not be benfited by afflictions, and who would thus be cut off, Job 36:12. He says, also, that there was a third class - the class of hypocrites, who also were not profited by afflictions, and who would only by their perverseness and rebellion heap up wrath. It is "possible" that he may have designed to include Job in this number, as his three friends had done, but it seems more probable that he meant merely to suggest to Job that there was such a class, and to turn his mind to the "possibility" that he might be of the number. In explaining the design and effect of afflictions, it was at least proper to refer to this class, since it could not be doubted that there were people of this description.

They cry not when he bindeth them - They do not cry to God with the language of penitence when he binds them down by calamities; see Job 36:8.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-15. Same sentiment as Job 36:11, 12, expanded.

hypocrites—or, the ungodly [Maurer]; but "hypocrites" is perhaps a distinct class from the openly wicked (Job 36:12).

heap up wrath—of God against themselves (Ro 2:5). Umbreit translates, "nourish their wrath against God," instead of "crying" unto Him. This suits well the parallelism and the Hebrew. But the English Version gives a good parallelism, "hypocrites" answering to "cry not" (Job 27:8, 10); "heap up wrath" against themselves, to "He bindeth them" with fetters of affliction (Job 36:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The hypocrites in heart; such as are truly void of that piety which they profess; whereby he either secretly insinuates that Job was such a one; or gives him this occasion to search himself whether he were not so; or rather, admonisheth him not to carry himself like such a one, as he had hitherto done, and for which he reproved him, Job 34:8.

Heap up wrath, i.e. by their impious and obstinate carriage in all conditions, they treasure up God’s wrath against themselves.

They cry not unto God for help. They live in the gross neglect of God and of prayer.

When he bindeth them, to wit, with the cords of affliction, expressed Job 34:8, which is mentioned as an aggravation of their wickedness; because even wicked men, if not profligately bad, will seek God in time of affliction, Hosea 5:15. Withal he secretly reflects upon Job as one that behaved himself like a wicked man, because though he cried out of God in way of complaint, yet he did not cry unto him by humble supplication.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath,.... Or "and the hypocrites" (s); for these are the same with the disobedient in Job 36:12; who seem to be righteous, but are not; pretend to what they have not; have a double heart, Psalm 12:2, or say one thing with their mouth, and mean another thing in their hearts; or with their mouths draw nigh to God, but their hearts are far from him, Matthew 15:8; and so hypocrites, at least outwardly righteous before men, but inwardly full of wickedness, as the Pharisees were, whom our Lord often calls hypocrites, Matthew 15:7, these "put" or add wrath, as Aben Ezra interprets it; they increase the wrath of God; or, as we express it, heap up wrath; or, to use the apostle's phrase, treasure up wrath against the day of wrath: though some understand it of the wrath of the hypocrites against God for afflicting them; so Jarchi. When afflictions come upon them, they reproach and blaspheme; they are angry with God and are wrathful, and quarrel at his dealings with them: "they put the nose" (t); so it may be literally rendered; they erect that against God, and point it at him in a proud, haughty, wrathful, and contumacious manner;

they cry not when he bindeth them; in fetters and cords of affliction, Job 36:8; or when he corrects them, as Mr. Broughton rightly as to the sense renders it: they pray not, as Ben Gersom interprets it; whereas sanctified afflictions bring good men to the throne of grace, who have been too long absent from it: but these men cry not unto God for grace and mercy, help, assistance, and deliverance; they cry out against God, but not unto him.

(s) "et hypocritae", Montanus; "et loripedes", Schultens. (t) "ponent nasum", Montanus; "ponunt nasum". Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

But the hypocrites {h} in heart heap up wrath: they {i} cry not when he bindeth them.

(h) Which are maliciously bent against God, and flatter themselves in their vices.

(i) When they are in affliction they do not seek God for help, as Asa in 2Ch 16:12.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. hypocrites in heart] Rather, godless in heart; comp. ch. Job 8:13.

heap up wrath] Rather, lay up anger, i. e. in their hearts, Psalm 13:2; Proverbs 26:24; they cherish anger at the Divine discipline (ch. Job 5:2). The “wrath” or anger referred to is their own, not that of God (Romans 2:5). The phrase does not occur elsewhere.

13, 14. Such afflictions indeed are sometimes the means of revealing what character men are of, ch. Job 5:2.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath. In his vindication of God's justice, Elihu here passes from the case of the righteous (ver. 7) to that of the "hypocrites," or rather the ungodly. They, he says, "heap up wrath," i.e. "treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath" (Romans 2:5), continually intensify God's anger against them, and, as it were, lay in a store of it, which will one day be outpoured upon them. They cry not when he bindeth them. They do not cry to him, they do not deprecate his anger, when they first find themselves bound with the "cords of affliction" (ver. 8), but allow his wrath to increase and accumulate. Job 36:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

13 Yet the hypocrites in heart cherish wrath,

They cry not when He hath chained them.

14 Thus their soul dieth in the vigour of youth,

And their life is like that of the unclean.

15 Yet He delivereth the sufferer by his affliction,

And openeth their ear by oppression.

He who is angry with God in his affliction, and does not humbly pray to Him, shows thereby that he is a חנף, one estranged from God (on the idea of the root, vid., i. 216), and not a צדיק. This connection renders it natural to understand not the divine wrath by אף: θησαυρίζουσιν ὀργήν (Rosenm. after Romans 2:5), or: they heap up wrath upon themselves (Wolfson, who supplies עליהם), but the impatience, discontent, and murmuring of man himself: they cherish or harbour wrath, viz., בּלבּם (comp. Job 22:22, where שׁים בלב signifies to take to heart, but at the same time to preserve in the heart). Used thus absolutely, שׂים signifies elsewhere in the book, to give attention to, Job 4:20; Job 24:12; Job 34:23, or (as Arab. wḍ‛) to lay down a pledge; here it signifies reponunt s. recondunt (with an implied in ipsis), as also Arab. šâm, fut. i, to conceal with the idea of sinking into (immittentem), e.g., the sword in the sheath. With תּמת, for ותּמת (Isaiah 50:2) or ותמת, the punishment which issues forth undistinguished from this frustration of the divine purpose of grace follows ἀσυνδέτως, as e.g., Hosea 7:16. חיּה interchanges with נפשׁ, as Job 33:22, Job 33:28; נער (likewise a favourite word with Elihu) is intended just as Job 33:25, and in the Psalm 88:16, which resembles both the Elihu section and the rest of the book. The Beth of בּקּדשׁים has the sense of aeque ac (Targ. היך), as Job 34:36, comp. תּחת, Job 34:26. Jer. translates inter effeminatos; for קדשׁים (heathenish, equivalent to קדושׁים, as כּמרים, heathenish, equivalent to כּהנים) are the consecrated men, who yielded themselves up, like the women in honour of the deity, to passive, prematurely-enervating incontinence (vid., Keil on Deuteronomy 23:18), a heathenish abomination prevailing now and again even in Israel (1 Kings 14:24; 1 Kings 15:12; 1 Kings 22:47), which was connected with the worship of Astarte and Baal that was transferred from Syria, and to which allusion is here made, in accordance with the scene of the book. For the sufferer, on the other hand, who suffers not merely of necessity, but willingly, this his suffering is a means of rescue and moral purification. Observe the play upon the words יחלּץ and בּלחץ. The Beth in both instances is, in accordance with Elihu's fundamental thought, the Beth instrum.