Job 27:6

My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) My heart shall not reproach me.—Or, doth not reproach me for any of my days.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:1-6 Job's friends now suffered him to speak, and he proceeded in a grave and useful manner. Job had confidence in the goodness both of his cause and of his God; and cheerfully committed his cause to him. But Job had not due reverence when he spake of God as taking away his judgment, and vexing his soul. To resolve that our hearts shall not reproach us, while we hold fast our integrity, baffles the designs of the evil spirit.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My righteousness I hold fast - I hold on to the consciousness of integrity and uprightness. I cannot, will not, part with that. Job had lost his property, his health, and his domestic comforts, but he had in all this one consolation - he felt that he was sincere. He had been subjected to calamity by God as if he were a wicked man, but still he was resolved to adhere to the consciousness of his uprightness. Property may leave a man; friends may forsake him; children may die; disease may attack him; slander may assail him; and death may approach him; but still he may have in his bosom one unfailing source of consolation; he may have the consciousness that his aim has been right and pure. That nothing can shake; of that, no storms or tempests, no malignant foe, no losses or disappointment, no ridicule or calumny, can deprive him.

My heart shall not reproach me - That is, as being insincere, false, hollow.

So long as I live - Margin, "from my days." So the Hebrew - מימי mı̂yāmāy. Vulgate in omni vita mea. Septuagint, "I am not conscious to myself of having done anything amiss" - ἄτοπα τράξας atopa pracas; compare the notes at 1 Corinthians 4:4. The idea is, that he had a consciousness of integrity, and that he meant to maintain it as long as he lived.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. Rather, my "heart" (conscience) reproaches "not one of my days," that is, I do not repent of any of my days since I came into existence [Maurer].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I hold fast, Heb. I have held fast, i.e., I have not only begun well, but continued in well-doing; which is a plain evidence that I am no hypocrite. Or, the past tense is put for the future, as is usual, I will hold fast, declaratively, as before, I will maintain it, that howsoever you calumniate me, I am a righteous person.

My heart, i.e. my conscience, as the heart is oft used, as 1 Samuel 24:5 25:31 Ezekiel 14:5 1Jo 3:20,21.

Shall not reproach me; either,

1. With betraying my own cause and innocency, and speaking what I know to be false, to wit, that I am a hypocrite. Or,

2. For my former impiety or hypocrisy, wherewith you charge me.

So long as I live, Heb. from, or for, or concerning my days, i.e. the time of my life, whether past or to come. Or the course of my life; days or times being put here, as it is elsewhere, for actions done in them by a metonymy.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go,.... Meaning not his personal righteousness, or the righteousness of his works, as his justifying righteousness before God, and for acceptance with him; which no man that is convinced of the insufficiency of, as Job was, will hold fast, but renounce, and desire, with the Apostle Paul, not to be found in it, Philippians 3:9. Indeed the righteousness of his living Redeemer, which was his, and he might call so, this he knew, and knew he should be justified by it, and which he laid hold upon by faith in the strong exercise of it, and would not drop it, or become remiss in it, but retain it, and constantly make mention of it, and plead it as his justifying righteousness with God; but here he intends the righteousness of his cause, which he always maintained strongly, and was determined he ever would, and never give way, or let it drop, but continue to affirm, that he was a righteous man, and that it was not for any unrighteousness he had done to any man that God dealt thus with him; he had wronged no man, he had done justice to all men, as well as he was not devoid of the fear of God, and piety towards him; and this character of himself he would never give up, but defend to the uttermost:

my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live; not that he imagined he should or could live without sin, so that his conscience could never charge, accuse, or upbraid him with it; for there is no man, let him live a life ever so harmless and inoffensive to God and man, but his heart will smite him, and condemn him for his sins committed in thought, word, and deed: but Job's sense is, that he would never deny his integrity, or renounce the righteousness of his cause, and own himself to be an insincere and unrighteous man; should he do this, he should speak contrary to his own conscience, which would accuse and reproach him for so saying, and therefore he was determined it never should; for, as long as he lived, he neither could nor would say any such thing. Some render the last phrase, "for my days" (c), or "concerning" them; for my course of life, all my days, so Jarchi; for that my heart shall not reproach me, as being conscious to himself he had lived in all good conscience to that day, and trusted he ever should; but the sense before given is best.

(c) "propter dies meos", Munster; "vel propter dies vitae meae", Michaelis; "de diebus meis", Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I {e} live.

(e) Of my life past.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. The second clause of Job 27:6 reads,

My heart reproacheth not one of my days,

or, my heart reproaches (me) not since I was alive, i. e. during all my life. Of course the words have reference to the kind of charges laid against Job by his friends (e.g. ch. Job 22:6-9), and not to the sinfulness of nature common to all men, ch. Job 14:2. The “heart” in Heb. is the conscience or consciousness. Luther expresses the meaning vigorously when he translates: “My conscience bites me not in respect of my whole life.” Comp. the whole of ch. 31, which is but an expansion of these words.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - My righteousness I held fast, and will not let it go. Not only will Job never cease to maintain his integrity in the past, but he will hold fast to the same course of blameless life in the future. He will not "curse God, and die." Resolutely he will maintain his faith in God, and his dependence on him. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. This is probably the true meaning, though some suggest "My heart doth not reproach me for any of my days" Job determines to "have always a conscience void of offence, both toward God and toward man" (Acts 24:16; comp. Acts 23:1; 1 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Timothy 1:3; 1 John 3:21). Job 27:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said:

2 As God liveth, who hath deprived me of my right,

And the Almighty, who hath sorely saddened my soul -

3 For still all my breath is in me,

And the breath of Eloah in my nostrils -

4 My lips do not speak what is false,

And my tongue uttereth not deceit!

5 Far be it from me, to grant that you are in the right:

Till I die I will not remove my innocence from me.

6 My righteousness I hold fast, and let it not go:

My heart reproacheth not any of my days.

7 Mine enemy must appear as an evil-doer,

And he who riseth up against me as unrighteous.

The friends are silent, Job remains master of the discourse, and his continued speech is introduced as a continued שׂאת משׁלו (after the analogy of the phrase נשׂא קול), as in Numbers 23:7 and further on, the oracles of Balaam. משׁל is speech of a more elevated tone and more figurative character; here, as frequently, the unaffected outgrowth of an elevated solemn mood. The introduction of the ultimatum, as משׁל, reminds one of "the proverb (el-methel) seals it" in the mouth of the Arab, since in common life it is customary to use a pithy saying as the final proof at the conclusion of a speech.

continued...