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Job 27:7

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Let mine enemy be as the wicked - Let my accuser be proved a lying and perjured man, because he has laid to my charge things which he cannot prove, and which are utterly false.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Let mine enemy be as the wicked - This is probably said that he might show that it was not his intention to justify the wicked, and that in all that he had said it was no part of his purpose to express approbation of their course. His friends had charged him with this; but he now solemnly disclaims it, and says that he had no such design. To show how little he meant to justify the wicked, he says that the utmost that he could desire for an enemy would be, that he would be treated as he believed the wicked would be. A similar expression occurs in Daniel 4:19, “My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies;” that is, calamities are coming upon thee indicated by the dream, such as you would desire on your foes; so in Judges 5:31. After the mother of Sisera had anxiously looked for the return of her son from the battle, though he was then slain, the sacred writer adds, “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.” Thus, when a traitor is executed it is common for the executioner to hold up his head and say, “So let all the enemies of the king die.” Job means to say that he had no sympathy with wicked people, and that he believed that they would be punished as certainly and as severely as one could desire his enemy to suffer. Schnurrer supposes that by the enemy here he refers to his friends with whom he had been disputing; but this is to give an unnecessarily harsh construction to the passage.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
Job looked upon the condition of a hypocrite and a wicked man, to be most miserable. If they gained through life by their profession, and kept up their presumptuous hope till death, what would that avail when God required their souls? The more comfort we find in our religion, the more closely we shall cleave to it. Those who have no delight in God, are easily drawn away by the pleasures, and easily overcome by the crosses of this life.
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