Job 6:30

Is there iniquity in my tongue?.... Meaning in his words; either those which he uttered when he cursed the day on which he was born, or in charging his friends with unkindness and falsehood;

Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things? Iniquity in my tongue. Will you say that my guilt lies in the organ of speech, and will you call it to account?

Consider again, and more thoroughly examine, if there be any untruth or iniquity in what I have already said, or shall further speak to you. My taste. i.e. my judgment, which discerns and judgeth of words and actions as the taste or palate doth of meats. Perverse things, i.e. false opinions or sinful expressions. I am not so bereft of common understanding, as not to be able to distinguish between good and evil; and therefore if I have uttered, or should utter, any perverse words, I should apprehend them to be so as well as you do.

Job 6:30 Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?Ver. 30. Is there iniquity in my tongue?] Yea, or else you shall pass for a perfect man, and well able to bridle the whole body, James 3:2. St Paul, Romans 3:13, anatomizing a natural man, standeth more upon the organs of speech, his tongue, lips, mouth, throat, &c., than upon all the other members. But Job was a perfect and an upright man, Job 1:1, he had said he would take heed to his ways, that he sinned not with his tongue, Psalms 39:1, he was also convinced of this, that if any man seem to be religious, and bridle not his tongue, that man’ s religion was in vain, James 1:26. He did not therefore prepensedly and willingly lash out in sinful or superfluous language. Cannot my taste discern perverse things?] Cannot I distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood? Job 12:11; Job 34:3. Is my mouth so far out of taste? &c. It is a heavy judgment to be given up to an injudicious mind, Romans 1:28, a reprobate sense.

(30) Is there iniquity?—Or, injustice in my tongue? Is my taste so perverted that it cannot perceive what is perverse? “Ye appear to think that I am wholly incapable of judging my own cause because it is my own; but if ye will only condescend to return in due course, ye shall find that I know what is right as well as you, and that there is no more vicious reasoning in me than there is with you, and probably less.” It is difficult to draw out the argument of Job in the logical form of our Western thought, and to trace the line of connection running through it. If we look at it in detail—as we must in order to explain it—then we are apt to look at it piecemeal, and miss the thread; but in point of fact it is just this very thread which it is so difficult to detect and retain from one chapter to another.

Verse 30. Is there iniquity in my tongue?] Am I not an honest man? and if in my haste my tongue had uttered falsity, would not my conscience discern it? and do you think that such a man as your friend is would defend what he knew to be wrong? I HAVE done what I could to make this chapter plain, to preserve the connection, and show the dependence of the several parts on each other; without which many of the sayings would have been very obscure. The whole chapter is an inimitable apology for what he had uttered, and a defence of his conduct. This might have ended the controversy, had not his friends been determined to bring him in guilty. They had prejudged his cause, and assumed a certain position, from which they were determined not to be driven.

30. In Job 6:28 Job asseverated that he spoke truth in affirming his innocence. In Job 6:29 he affirmed that he had right on his side in his plea against God, in other words that he was wrongly afflicted. This verse, therefore, can hardly be a new assertion that he speaks the truth when he affirms his innocence; it must refer to a point further back, and be, in the form of a question, an affirmation of his ability to say whether he is innocent or not, and to judge rightly regarding the nature of his afflictions. The question, Is there iniquity in my tongue? means Is my tongue perverted that it cannot distinguish? In the second clause “taste” or “palate” is not referred to as an organ of speech but of perception (ch. Job 12:11). The expression “perverse things” may mean wickednesses. This may be used generally and the question in the second clause have the same meaning as that in the first, viz. whether Job had lost moral sense and could not distinguish wrong from right? And the whole would be an affirmation of the soundness of his moral judgments, meant to support the asseveration of his innocence and the righteousness of his cause (Job 6:28-29). The phrase “perverse things” is that rendered “calamity” Job 6:2, and this might be the meaning here: “cannot my taste discern calamities?” i. e. the true nature of my afflictions, and perceive that they are undeserved and unjust? Either of the above meanings forms a fitting and pathetic transition to the renewed cry of despair in ch. 7. For that which makes Job’s condition so crushing to him is that though innocent he feels himself in the hands of a ruthless and arbitrary fate, which, regardless of his innocence, is bent on destroying him. For this fate he has no other name but God; cf. ch. Job 9:22 seq., Job 23:13 seq.

Is there iniquity in my tongue? - This is a solemn appeal to their consciences, and their own deep conviction that he was sincere.

30. Iniquity — Is there wrong in my tongue? Taste — Cannot my palate discern that which is perverse?