“My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.”
I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days, affirming Job's moral integrity in comprehensive terms, claiming both objective righteousness and the subjective confirmation of a clear conscience. The holding fast of righteousness suggests active maintenance of moral position under pressure, gripping firmly to what Job knows to be true. The assertion that heart does not reproach—that conscience maintains clear testimony—provides the inward validation of the outward claim. The reference to any of my days suggests that Job surveys his entire life and finds no hidden sin that would explain his suffering.
Church Fathers on Job 27:6
My righteousness, which I began to hold fast, I will not abandon. For ‘his righteousness’ that he had ‘begun with,’ he would ‘abandon,’ if he went out of the way into the praising of persons committing sin. But because we then more truly keep away from the sins of others when we first keep ourselves safe from our own, why he is so afraid to be guilty touching those, he gives the grounds of the principle, when he adds; For neither doth mine heart reproach me in all my…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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