Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Job 31:38
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
If my land cry against me - This is a new specification of an offence, and an imprecation of an appropriate punishment if he had been guilty of it. Many have supposed that these closing verses have been transferred from their appropriate place by an error of transcribers, and that they should have been inserted between Job 31:23-24 - or in some previous part of the chapter. It is certain that Job 31:35-37 would make an appropriate and impressive close of the chapter, being a solemn appeal to God in reference to all the specifications, or to the general tenor of his life; but there is no authority from the MSS. to make any change in the present arrangement. All the ancient versions insert the verses in the place which they now occupy, and in this all versions agree, except, according to Kennicott, the Teutonic version, where they are inserted after Job 31:25. All the MSS. also concur in the present arrangement. Schultens supposes that there is manifest pertinency and propriety in the present arrangement. The former specification, says he, related mainly to his private life, this to his more public conduct; and the design is to vindicate himself from the charge of injustice and crime in both respects, closing appropriately with the latter. Rosenmuller remarks that in a composition composed in an age and country so remote as this, we are not to look for or demand the observance of the same regularity which is required by the modern canons of criticism. At all events, there is no authority for changing the present arrangement of the text. The meaning of the phrase “if my land cry out against me” is, that in the cultivation of his land he had not been guilty of injustice. He had not employed those to till it who had been compelled to do it, nor had he imposed on them unreasonable burdens, nor had he defrauded them of their wages. The land had not had occasion to cry out against him to God, because fraud or injustice had been done to any in its cultivation; compare Genesis 4:10; Hab. ii. 11. Or that the furrows likewise thereof complain - Margin, weep. The Hebrew is, “If the furrows weep together,” or “in like manner weep.” This is a beautiful image. The very furrows in the field are personified as weeping on account of injustice which would be done them, and of the burdens which would be laid on them, if they were compelled to contribute to oppression and fraud. return to 'Top of Page'
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