Job - 11:14



14 If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away. Don't let unrighteousness dwell in your tents.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Job 11:14.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.
If thou wilt put away from thee the iniquity that is in thy hand, and lot not injustice remain in thy tabernacle:
If thou put far away the iniquity which is in thy hand, and let not wrong dwell in thy tents;
If iniquity is in thy hand, put it far off, And let not perverseness dwell in thy tents.
If you put far away the evil of your hands, and let no wrongdoing have a place in your tent;
If iniquity be in thy hand, put it far away, and let not unrighteousness dwell in thy tents-
If you would send away from you the iniquity that is in your hand, and not let injustice remain in your tabernacle,

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

If iniquity be in thine hand - If you have in your possession anything that has been unjustly obtained. If you have oppressed the poor and the fatherless, and have what properly belongs to them, let it be restored. This is the obvious duty of one who comes to God to implore his favor; compare Luke 19:8.

If iniquity [be] in thine (h) hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.
(h) Renounce your own evil works and see that they do not offend God, over whom you have charge.

If iniquity be in thine hand,.... For, as the heart must be prepared for the stretching out of the hand in prayer to God, so it is not any hand that is to be stretched out or lifted up unto God; not hands full of blood, or defiled with sin, but holy hands; see Isaiah 1:15, 1-Timothy 2:8; it is not said, if iniquity be in thine heart, or on thy conscience,
put it far away; for sin cannot be put away out of the heart, it will have a place there as long as we live; though it should not be regarded, cherished, and nourished there; if so, God will not hear prayer, Psalm 66:18; and nothing can put away or remove afar off guilt from the conscience but the blood of Jesus; which, being sprinkled, purifies the heart and purges the conscience from dead works; but it is said, if it is in thine hand, which is the instrument of action, and may signify the commission of sin, and a series and course of sinning, which Job's friends suspected he was privately guilty of; and therefore advise him to leave off such a sinful course, and abstain from all appearance of evil, and live a holy and godly conversation:
and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles; in any room or apartment of his house; some restrain this, and iniquity in the former clause, to ill gotten goods, obtained by rapine and oppression, which he is advised to restore to those that had been injured by him; but there is no need to limit it to any sin: besides, wickedness may be put for wicked men, and the sense be, that, as he should not indulge to any iniquity himself, so neither should he suffer wicked men to dwell in his house, but make a general reformation in himself and in his family.

Rather, "if thou wilt put far away the iniquity in thine hand" (as Zaccheus did, Luke 19:8). The apodosis or conclusion is at Job 11:15, "then shalt thou," &c.

*More commentary available at chapter level.


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