Adam Clarke on Job 31:35

O that one would grant me a hearing!

Behold, my desire is that the Almighty would answer me;

And, as plaintiff against me, draw up the indictment.

With what earnestness would I take it on my shoulders!

I would bind it upon me as a diadem.

The number of my steps would I set forth unto Him;

Even as a prince would I approach before Him!"

I have already shown that Eliphaz and his companions, not God, are the adversary or plaintiff of whom Job speaks. This view makes the whole clear and consistent, and saves Job from the charge of presumptuous rashness. See also Kennicott's Remarks, p. 163. It would not be right to say that no other interpretation has been given of the first clause of Job 31:10 than that given above. The manner in which Coverdale has translated the Job 31:9 and Job 31:10 is the way in which they are generally understood: Yf my hert hath lusted after my neghbour's wife, or yf I have layed wayte at his dore; O then let my wife be another man's harlot, and let other lye with her.

In this sense the word grind is not unfrequently used by the ancients. Horace represents the divine Cato commending the young men whom he saw frequenting the stews, because they left other men's wives undefiled!

Virtute esto, inquit sententia dia Catonis,

Nam simul ac venas inflavit tetra libido,

Hue juvenes aequum est descendere, non alienas

Permolere uxores.

Sat. lib. i., s. 2, ver. 32. "When awful Cato saw a noted spark

From a night cellar stealing in the dark: 'Well done, my friend, if lust thy heart inflame,

Indulge it here, and spare the married dame.'"

Francis.

Such were the morals of the holiest state of heathen Rome; and even of Cato, the purest and severest censor of the public manners! O tempora! O mores! I may add from a scholiast: - Molere vetus verbum est pro adulterare, subagitare, quo verbo in deponenti significatione utitur alibi Ausonius, inquiens, Epigr. vii., ver. 6, de crispa impudica et detestabili: -

Deglubit, fellat, molitur, per utramque cavernam.

Qui enim coit, quasi molere et terere videtur.

Hinc etiam molitores dicti sunt, subactores, ut apud eundem, Epigr. xc., ver. 3.

Cum dabit uxori molitor tuus, et tibi adulter.

Thus the rabbins understand what is spoken of Samson grinding in the prison-house: quod ad ipsum Palaestini certatim suas uxores adduxerunt, suscipiendae ex eo prolis causa, ob ipsius robur. In this sense St. Jerome understands Lam 5:13 : They took the young men to Grind. Adolescentibus ad impudicitiam sunt abusi, ad concubitum scilicet nefandum. Concerning grinding of corn, by portable millstones, or querns, and that this was the work of females alone, and they the meanest slaves; see the note on Exo 11:5, and on Jdg 16:21. The Greeks use μυλλας to signify a harlot; and μυλλω, to grind, and also coeo, ineo, in the same sense in which Horace, as quoted above, alienas Permolere uxores. So Theocritus, Idyll. iv., ver. 58. Ειπ' αγε μοι Κορυδων, το γεροντιον η ῥ' ετι μυλλει Τηναν ταν κυανοφρυν ερωτιδα, τας ποτ' εκνισθη·

Dic age mihi, Corydon, senecio ille num adhuc molit,

Illud nigro supercilio scortillum, quod olim deperibat?

Hence the Greek paronomasia, μυλλαδα μυλλειν, scortam molere. I need make no apology for leaving the principal part of this note in a foreign tongue. To those for whom it is designed it will be sufficiently plain. If the above were Job's meaning, how dreadful is the wish or imprecation in verse the tenth!