Albert Barnes Commentary


Albert Barnes Commentary
"My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: My heart shall not reproach [me] so long as I live." — Job 27:6 (ASV)
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 in all this, he had 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. Yet, he may still have in his heart one unfailing source of consolation: 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.