La 3:12; the words I think may be rendered, "why hast thou appointed me to meet thee", or "for a meeting with thee?" as one man challenge, another to meet him in such a place and fight him: alas! I am not equal to thee, I am a mere worm, not able to contend with thee the mighty God, or to meet thee in the way of thy judgments, and to endure the heavy strokes of thy angry hand; and so Bar Tzemach paraphrases it,"thou hast hated me, and not loved me; that thou hast set, or appointed me to meet thee, as a man meets his enemy in the time of his wrath, and he stirs up against him all his fury:''and to the same sense, and much in the same words, Jarchi interprets it:so that I am a burden to myself?
weary of his life, through the many pressing and heavy afflictions upon him, as Rebekah was of hers, because of the daughters of Heth, Ge 27:46. The reading which we follow, and is followed by the Targum, and by most interpreters, Jewish and Christian, is a correction of the scribes, and one of the eighteen places corrected by them; which is no argument of the corruption of the Hebrew text, but of the contrary; since this was only placed in the margin of the Bible, as the Masorites afterwards did with their various readings, showing only what was their sense of this, and the like passages; and as an instruction how in their opinion to understand them, still retaining the other reading or writing; and which, according to Aben Ezra, may be rightly interpreted, and is, "so that I am a burden to thee" ; and which is followed by some, signifying, as Job thought at least, that he was so offensive to him that he could not bear him, but treated him as an enemy; was weary of him, as God is said to be of sinners and their sins, and of the services and duties of carnal professors, see Isa 1:14; so Abendana interprets it,"thou hast set me for a mark unto thee, as if I was a burden to thee.'
' Vatablus, Drusius, Schmidt; so Sept. Syr. & Ar. Kl lepa hm "quid faciam aut facere possum tibi", Michaelis; "debeam", Schmidt. Mdah run "custos hominum". V. L. Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus.
"Observator", Schultens. "Sospitatur", Codurcus; "servator", Drusius, Schmidt, Michaelis. Vid. Witsii Oeconom. Foeder. l. 4. c. 3. sect. 30. Kl enpml "in occursum tibi", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Drusius.
Kyle epi soi, Sept.