If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
The verse stands in Job's answering reply to his three friends within their long debate and exchange over his afflictions and suffering. In that reply he is meeting friends who charge him with sin and insist his sufferings have come upon him because of sin. Their accusations press upon him constantly, both openly stated and implied. In his answer he pleads for pity.
The exchange is a poetic discussion between Job and his friends over the cause and purpose of human suffering. That debate over his afflictions runs from chapters 4 to 31 and is ordered in three rounds of speeches. The interchange of accusations and responses runs through Job 8 to Job 27 toward Job's final reply when his friends stop troubling him, so the verse is to be taken together with the accusations that called it forth and the answers surrounding it.
The friends misjudge Job, for their statements were in general true yet misapplied to him, so their words are not necessarily true in his case. God is disciplining Job and leading him through the fire of affliction to face the great problems of overruling providence, sin, and suffering that have perplexed mankind through all ages. Their conduct shows how mankind remains prone in these days to misjudge fellow sufferers in the same way. The chapter holding the verse also holds prophecies of Christ.
The verse stands in Job's answering reply to his three friends within their long debate and exchange over his afflictions and suffering. In that reply he is meeting friends who charge him with sin and insist his sufferings have come upon him because of sin. Their accusations press upon him constantly, both openly stated and implied. In his answer he pleads for pity.
The exchange is a poetic discussion between Job and his friends over the cause and purpose of human suffering. That debate over his afflictions runs from chapters 4 to 31 and is ordered in three rounds of speeches. The interchange of accusations and responses runs through Job 8 to Job 27 toward Job's final reply when his friends stop troubling him, so the verse is to be taken together with the accusations that called it forth and the answers surrounding it.
The friends misjudge Job, for their statements were in general true yet misapplied to him, so their words are not necessarily true in his case. God is disciplining Job and leading him through the fire of affliction to face the great problems of overruling providence, sin, and suffering that have perplexed mankind through all ages. Their conduct shows how mankind remains prone in these days to misjudge fellow sufferers in the same way. The chapter holding the verse also holds prophecies of Christ.