Till I Die I Will Not Remove Mine Integrity

"Moreover Job continued his parable, and said, As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul; All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go."

"This is the portion of a wicked man with God… If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword… Though he heap up silver as the dust… the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver. He buildeth his house as a moth… The east wind carrieth him away… Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place."

An oath by God against God

"As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment" is a formal oath, the strongest form of speech in an ancient court. Job swears by the God he accuses. Oaths were taken at the gate before witnesses; Job's next great oath fills chapter 31.

"Integrity"

Job's word is tummah, the same word God used of him (2:3) and his wife threw at him (2:9). He will not let it go.

The house of a moth

27:18, "He buildeth his house as a moth, and as a booth that the keeper maketh," compares the wicked man's house to a moth's cocoon or a spider's web, and to a watchman's temporary shelter in a vineyard (Isaiah 1:8). Fragile, temporary, gone by morning.

Who says 27:13–23?

"This is the portion of a wicked man with God" repeats Zophar's closing line in 20:29 almost word for word, and the description matches the friends' view. Proposals: it is Zophar's missing third speech, displaced; Job is quoting the friends ironically; or Job agrees that the wicked will be judged while denying he is one of them. No manuscript evidence supports moving it. The site keeps it as Job's speech and shows the debate.

The versions

The library's Sahidic Coptic copy, which follows the shorter pre-Origen Greek, lacks 27:21–23. Whether each missing line was absent from the Old Greek itself, or is damage in the Coptic manuscripts or our digital copy, is to be checked against Ziegler's edition (JOB-C03).