Job 7:20
I have sinned: what shall I do to thee, O keeper of men? why hast thou set me opposite to thee, and I am become burdensome to myself?
Open Job 7:20 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Peccavi ; quid faciam tibi, o custos hominum ? quare posuisti me contrarium tibi, et factus sum mihimetipsi gravis ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- εἰ ἐγὼ ἥμαρτον, τί δυνήσομαι πρᾶξαι, ὁ ἐπιστάμενος τὸν νοῦν τῶν ἀνθρώπων; διὰ τί ἔθου με κατεντευκτήν σου, εἰμὶ δὲ ἐπὶ σοὶ φορτίον;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- חָטָ֡אתִי מָ֤ה אֶפְעַ֨ל לָךְ֮ נֹצֵ֪ר הָאָ֫דָ֥ם לָ֤מָה שַׂמְתַּ֣נִי לְמִפְגָּ֣ע לָ֑ךְ וָאֶהְיֶ֖ה עָלַ֣י לְמַשָּֽׂא
Haydock's commentary
Sinned. I acknowledge my frailty. (Menochius)
How may I obtain redress? (Calmet)
Job's friends maintained that he was guilty. But he does not acquiesce in their conclusion, that these sufferings were precisely in punishment of some crime, though he acknowledges that he is not without his faults. (Haydock)
Shall. Hebrew also, "what have I done to thee?" I have only hurt myself. But this reasoning is nugatory. Though God loses nothing by our sins, they are no less offensive to him, as the rebel does his utmost to disturb the order which he has established. The sinner indeed resembles those brutal people, who hurl darts against the sun, which fall upon their own heads, chap. iii. 8. (Calmet)
Opposite, as a butt to shoot at. (Haydock)
Myself. Hebrew was formerly "to thee," till the Jews changed it, as less respectful. (Cajetan)
Septuagint still read, "and why am I a burden to thee?" (Haydock) as I am under the necessity of complaining, in my own defence. (Calmet)
I throw my grief upon the Lord, that He may support me, Psalm liv. 23., and 1 Peter v. 7. (Pineda)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
20, 21 . If I have sinned, what can I do?