Job 6:24

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue,.... Job having made his defence, and which he thought a sufficient one to acquit him of the charge against him; yet to show that he was not stubborn and flexible,

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. Irony. If you can teach me the right view, I am willing to be set right and hold my tongue, and to be made to see my error.

Teach me; instead of censuring and reproaching, instruct and convince me by solid arguments. I will hold my tongue; I will patiently hear and gladly receive your counsels; or, I will be silent; I will neither contradict you, nor complain of my own griefs. Compare ,5 Proverbs 30:32. Wherein I have erred, i.e. my mistakes and miscarriages.

Job 6:24 Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.Ver. 24. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue] If I be in an error, I am willing to be rectified. Hitherto you have mistook my case; and so your speech hath been to small purpose. But if you will come home to my case indeed, and weigh things in an even balance, I shall gladly submit to your more mature judgment and direction. Teach me, and you shall find that I am not indocible, that I am not as "horse and mule that have no understanding," Psalms 32:9, nor will learn any; much less than the creature called rhinoceros, untameable and untractable. It shall appear to you that I am not utterly uncounselable, as those of whom Basil complaineth, qui quid verum sit neque sciunt, neque sustinent discere, that neither know what truth and right is, nor will endure to be taught it (Epist. ad Euagr. 10). Job was not to be told that it was easier to deal with 20 men’ s reasons than with one man’ s will; he promiseth therefore not to stand out against his friends, because he will stand out. It is not my will, saith he, that opposeth what you have spoken, but my understanding. I am a slave to right reason; and if convinced thereby, I shall soon lay down the bucklers. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue, and not strive for the last word to lengthen out the contention; I am willing to reason, but not to wrangle. See Proverbs 30:32. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred] A humble man will never be a heretic; err he may (that is common to mankind, triste mortalitatis privilegium); but convince him by solid reasons and good arguments, and he will not long stand out: a little child shall lead him, Isaiah 11:6. It is by pride that contention cometh, Proverbs 13:10, for it maketh a man drunk with his own conceit, Habakkuk 2:5; and who so wilful, so quarrelsome, as he that is drunk? A heretic may be condemned of himself, Titus 3:10, but he will not be convinced by another (such is his pertinacy, or rather obstinacy), no, though he be stoned with hardest arguments, holden out of that crystal book of the Holy Scriptures, he stands as a stake in the midst of a stream; and you may as soon move a rock as cause him to understand wherein he is out of his judgment of practice: Lapidandi sunt haeretici (Athan.).

Verse 24. Teach me] Show me where I am mistaken. Bring proper arguments to convince me of my errors; and you will soon find that I shall gladly receive your counsels, and abandon the errors of which I may be convicted.

14–30. Job’s sorrowful disappointment at the position taken up towards him by his three friends Job had freely expressed his misery in ch. 3, believing that the sympathies of his friends were entirely with him. He is a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms That he suspects none. Lear, i. 2. And more sorrowful to him than any cold, critical words which they have uttered is the feeling that his friends have taken up such a position against him. This was what he had not looked for. And his disappointment is like that of the thirsty caravan that finds the long-looked-for waters dried up in the heat. Every emotion seems now to find a place in Job’s mind in succession. First, his disappointment, expressed in this beautiful figure, is mixed with the feeling how unworthy his friends’ conduct was. They had not acted to him as men do to one who is, as he describes himself, “despairing” and “losing hold of the fear of the Almighty.” Kindness is due to such a one, but they had turned against him from sheer feebleness of spirit, because they saw that his calamity was from God, Job 6:14-21. Second, this mixed sadness and contempt passes into sarcasm when he tells them that he could have understood their fear if he had asked anything from them—even one’s friends must not be put under that strain—but he sought only sympathy, Job 6:22-23. Third, this sarcasm then gives place to a direct appeal of great severity, in which he demands that they should shew him the sins at which they had indirectly hinted, and wonders at their superficial captiousness in fastening on the mere excited words of a man in despair; adding in terms of bitter invective that their disposition was so hard that they would cast lots for the orphan and make market of their own friend, Job 6:24-27. Finally, he challenges them to seek the explanation of his afflictions on other principles than the supposition of his guiltiness, asking them whether, in asserting his innocence, he would lie in their faces, and if he was not able to say whether his calamities were deserved or not? Job 6:28-30.

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue - That is, give me any real instruction, or show me what is my duty, and I will be silent.

Second strophe — Their words, far from being forcible, have in them the elements of cruelty, Job 6:24-27.24.