Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Job 31:10
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Then let my wife grined unto another - Let her be subjected to the deepest humiliation and degradation. Probably Job could not have found language which would have more emphatically expressed his sense of the enormity of this crime, or his perfect consciousness of innocence. The last thing which a man would imprecate on himself, would be that which is specified in this verse. The word “grind” (טחן ṭâchan) means to crush, to beat small; then to grind, as in a handmill; Judges 16:21; Numbers 11:8. This was usually the work of females and slaves; see the notes at Isaiah 47:2. The meaning here is, “Let my wife be the mill-wench to another; be his abject slave, and be treated by him with the deepest indignity.” This passage has been understood by many in a different sense, which the parallelism might seem to demand, but which is not necessarily the true interpretation. The sense referred to is this: Cogatur uxor mea ad patiendum alius concubitum, ut verbum molendi hoc loco eodem sensu sumatur, quo non raro a Latinis usurpatur ut in illo Horatii (Satyr. L. i. Ecl. ii. verse 35), alienas permolere uxores. In this sense the rabbinic writers understand Judges 16:21 and Lamentations 5:13. So also the Chaldee renders the phrase before us (חורן תשמשעם אנתתי) coeat cure alio uxor mea; and so the Septuagint seems to have understood it - ἀρέσαι ἄρα κὰι ἡ γυνή μου ἑτέρῳ aresai ara kai hē gunē mou heterō. But probably Job meant merely that his wife should be reduced to the condition of servitude, and be compelled to labor in the employ of another. We may find here an answer to the opinion of Prof. Lee (in his notes at Job 31:1), that the wife of Job was at this time dead, and that he was meditating the question about marrying again. May we not here also find an instance of the fidelity and forgiving spirit of Job toward a wife who is represented in the early part of this book as manifesting few qualities which could win the heart of an husband? There is no expression of impatience at her temper and her words on the part of Job, and he here speaks of it as the most serious of all calamities that could happen; the most painful of all punishments, that that same wife should be reduced to a condition of servitude and degradation. return to 'Top of Page'
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