Job 7:2  As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:

Job 7:2 “a servant…. an hireling” – Comments – A servant tries to get out of the sun into a shade to rest. A hireling looks for work to be over so he will be paid.

Job 7:14  Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

Job 7:14 Comments – Job 7:14 could be a reference to Job 4:12-21, when Eliphaz describes his night vision.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Job’s Dialogue with Three Friends – Job 3:1 to Job 31:40, which makes up the major portion of this book, consists of a dialogue between Job and his three friends. In this dialogue, Job’s friends engage in three rounds of accusations against Job, with him offering three defenses of his righteousness. Thus, Job and his friends are able to confirm each of their views with three speeches, since the Scriptures tell us that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The underlying theme of this lengthy dialogue is man’s attempt to explain how a person is justified before God. Job will express his intense grief (Job 3:1-26), in which his three friends will answer by finding fault with Job. He will eventually respond to this condemnation in a declaration of faith that God Himself will provide a redeemer, who shall stand on earth in the latter days (Job 19:25-27). This is generally understood as a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins.

Job’s declaration of his redeemer in Job 19:23-29, which would be recorded for ever, certainly moved the heart of God. This is perhaps the most popular passage in the book of Job, and reflects the depth of Job’s suffering and plea to God for redemption. God certainly answered his prayer by recording Job’s story in the eternal Word of God and by allowing Job to meet His Redeemer in Heaven. I can imagine God being moved by this prayer of Job and moving upon earth to provide someone to record Job’s testimony, and moving in the life of a man, such as Abraham, to prepare for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps it is this prayer that moved God to call Abraham out of the East and into the Promised Land.

The order in which these three friends deliver their speeches probably reflects their age of seniority, or their position in society.

Scene 1 First Round of Speeches Job 3:1 to Job 14:22

Scene 2 Second Round of Speeches Job 15:1 to Job 21:34

Scene 3 Third Round of Speeches Job 22:1 to Job 31:40

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The General Misery of Human Life

v. 1. Is there not an appointed time, warfare, a fixed and wearing service, to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling, one who works for wages? The figure is that of a man drafted for military service, and then of a man who has hired out to perform a certain task, the idea being that in either case man longs for the end of the labor appointed to him.

v. 2. As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, as the slave eagerly looks forward to the rest after the completion of his work, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work, for he also, after receiving his wages, may rest,

v. 3. so am I, instead of enjoying the expected rest, spoken in irony, made to possess months of vanity, this time of wretchedness was allotted to him, and wearisome nights are appointed to me, they have been dealt out to him without his desire, although he has not done anything to merit them to this degree.

v. 4. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise and the night be gone? The sleeplessness caused by his terrible illness made him wish that the night would soon flyaway. And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day, weary with his restless rolling about in the endeavor to find rest.

v. 5. My flesh is clothed with worms, maggots breeding in the ulcers, and clods of dust, the crust of dried filth covering his entire body; my skin is broken and become loathsome, whenever the skin made an attempt to heal, to come together, to become hard and stiff, the festering sores broke open again.

v. 6. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and are spent without hope, vanish without hope of deliverance, just as the web on the loom of the weaver is cut off.

v. 7. O remember that my life is wind, his days are like a breath of air, which is soon wafted away, Psa 78:39; mine eye shall no more see good, will not return to see good fortune or prosperity; an early death would put an end to his chances of happiness in this life.

v. 8. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more, he would soon pass from the circle of those whom he had formerly considered his friends; Thine eyes are upon me, namely, those of the Lord, and I am not; even if He should turn to Job in sympathy in order to help him, it would be too late, since he knew he would soon be removed from the land of the living. Such bitterness of soul as here shown by Job is not compatible with true trust in the Lord.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Job 7:1-21

In this chapter Job first bewails his miserable fate, of which he expects no alleviation (verses 1-10); then claims an unlimited right of complaint (verse 11); and finally enters into direct expostulation with Godan expostulation which continues from verse 12 to the end of the chapter. At the close, he admits his sinfulness (verse 20), but asks impatiently why God does not pardon it instead of visiting it with such extreme vengeance (verse 21).

Job 7:1

Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? rather, Is there not a warfare (or, a time of service) to man upon earth? Has not each man a certain work appointed for him to do, and a certain limited time assigned him within which to do it? And thus, Are not his days also like the days of an hireling? Since the hireling is engaged to do a certain work in a certain time.

Job 7:2

As a servant (or, a slave) panteth for the shadow; i.e. longs for the shades of evening to descend and bring the day to a close. The slavery of Job’s time was probably not unlike that of captive races in Egypt, so graphically portrayed in the early chapters of Exodus. The captive, working from morning to night at exhausting labour, would long intensely for the night to arrive, when his toil would come to an end. The inference is not drawn, but clearly isso Job may be excused if he longs for death, now that he has reached old age, and that the work of his life is manifestly ended. And as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work; rather, for his wages. The word used () has the two meanings of “work” and “the wages of work” (see Jer 22:13).

Job 7:3

So am I made to possess months of vanity. “Months of vanity” are “months of which he can make no use “”months which are no good to him.” It has been concluded from this theft some considerable time had elapsed since Job was stricken by his disease. But he is perhaps looking to the future as much as to the past, anticipating a long, lingering illness. Elephantiasis is a disease which often lasts for years. And wearisome nights are appointed to me. To one stretched on a bed of sickness, the night is always more wearisome than the day. It has no changes, nothing to mark its flight. It seems almost interminable. In elephantiasis, however, it is a special feature of the disease that the sufferings of the patient are greatest at night. “In elephantiasis ansesthetica“ says Dr. Erasmus Wilson, “a sense of dulness and heat pervades the surface, and there are sensations of tingling and prickling, and of burning heat. While the integument is insensible, there are deep-seated burning pains, sometimes of a bone or joint, sometimes of the vertebral column. These pains are greatest at night; they prevent sleep, and give rise to restlessness and frightful dreams“.

Job 7:4

When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? So Gesenius, Rosenmuller, and Delitzsch. Others translate, “the night is long” (Dillmann, Renan), or “the night seems endless” (Merx); comp. Deu 28:67, “At evening thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!” And I am full of tossings to and fro. Professor Lee understands “tossings of the mind,” or “distracting thoughts;” but it is more probable that tossings of the body are meant. These are familiar to every bad sleeper. Unto the dawning of the day. A little rest sometimes visits the tired eyelids after a long, sleepless night. Job may refer to this, or he may simply mean that he lay tossing on his bed all through the night, till morning came, when he arose.

Job 7:5

My flesh is clothed with worms. The fons et origo mali in elephantiasis is a worm called filaria sanguinis hominid. It is a long, fine, thread-like creature, of a white colour, smooth; and devoid of markings. And clods of dust. This is rather poetical than strictly medical. The special characteristic of elephantiasis, from which it derives its name, is that the integument, or outer skin, is “formed into large masses or folds, with a rugose condition of the surface, not unlike the appearance of an elephant’s leg”. But the swellings do not contain clods of dust. My skin is broken, and become loathsome. A common feature in elephantiasis is the development and gradual growth of solid papules or tubercles in the skin. These enlarge as the disease progresses, and after a time soften and break up; an nicer is then formed, and a discharge follows of a virulent and loathsome character. Presently the discharge steps; the ulcer heals; but only to break out again in another place. In the Revised Version the passage is rendered, My skin closeth up, and breaketh afresh.

Job 7:6

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. Though each day is a weariness, yet, on looking back upon my whole life, it seems to have come and gone in a moment (comp. Job 9:25). And are spent without hope. Job does not share in the hopes which Eliphaz has held out (see Job 5:17-27). He has no hope but in death.

Job 7:7

O remember that my life is wind! (comp. Psa 78:39). The wind is an image of all that is vain, shifting, unstable, ready to pass away (Job 6:1-30 :36; Pro 11:29; Ecc 5:16; Isa 26:18; Isa 41:9; Jer 5:13, etc.). Mine eye shall no more see good. Another protest against the hopes flint Eliphaz has held out (see the comment on Job 7:6; and setup, Job 9:25). Job is still speaking of this life only, and not touching the question of another.

Job 7:8

The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more; that is, I shall go down to the grave, and be no more seen upon earth. Neither friend nor enemy shall behold me after that. Thine eyes. God’s eyes. God still sees him and watches him; this is a certain consolation; but will it last? Are upon me, and I am not. I am on the point of disappearing. Even now I scarcely exist.

Job 7:9

As the aloud is consumed and vanisheth away. In mountainous countries one sees clouds clinging to a mountain-side, which do not float away, but gradually shrink, and at last wholly disappear. They are “consumed” in the strictest sense of the wordthe hot rays of the sun drink them up. So he that goeth down to the grave; rather, to Sheol; i.e. to the lower world, the abode of the departed. What exactly was Job’s idea of this world it is impossible to say, or whether it involved the continued separate identity of individual souls and their continued consciousness. In Isaiah’s conception both seem certainly to have been involved (Isa 14:9-18), and perhaps in Jacob’s (Gen 37:35); but Job s creed on the subject can only be conjectured. It is certain, however, that both the Egyptians and the early Babylonians held the continuance after death of individual souls, their separate existence, and their consciousness. Shall come up no more. The Egyptian belief was that the soul would ultimately return to the body from which death separated it, and rein-habit it. But this belief was certainly not general among the nations of antiquity.

Job 7:10

He shall return no more to his house. This is best taken literally. Men do not, after death, return to their houses and resume their old occupations. From the life in this world they disappear for ever. Neither shall his place know him any mere (comp. Psa 103:16).

Job 7:11

Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; rather, I moreover, will not refrain my lips; that is, “You may do as you like under affliction, I claim the right of complaining.” Job has already pointed out that nature teaches the animals to complain when they suffer (Job 6:5). Why, then, should not he? Complaint is not necessarily murmuring; it is sometimes merely expostulation, which God allows (comp. Psa 4:2; Psa 77:3; Psa 142:2, etc.). I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Extreme “anguish” and “bitter” suffering excuse complaints that would otherwise be, blare-able (comp. Job 6:2-4).

Job 7:12

Job now begins his complaint, which is wholly addressed to God. The heads of it are:

(1) that he is confined and restrained, allowed no liberty (verse 12);

(2) that he is terrified by visions in the night (verses 13, 14);

(3) that he is not “let alone” (verse 16);

(4) that so much attention is paid to him (verses 17-19);

(5) that he is made a butt for God’s arrows (verse 20); and

(6) that he is not pardoned, but relentlessly persecuted (verse 21).

Am I a sea, or a whale? rather, Am I a sea, or a sea-monster? Am I as wild and uncontrollable as the ocean, as fierce and savage as a crocodile or other monster of the deep? Do I not possess reason and conscience, by which I might be directed and guided? Why, then, am I treated as if I were without them? The sea must be watched, lest it break in upon the land; in Egypt there had been many such breaches, as the configuration of the coast, with its narrow belts of sand and its vast lagoons, shows; and crocodiles must be watched, lest they destroy human life; but is there any need that I should be watched, restrained, coerced, hedged in on every side (Job 3:23)? Am I so dangerous? Surely not. Some liberty therefore might have been safely given to me, instead of this irksome restraint. That thou settest a watch over me; or, a guard; i.e. a set of physical impediments, which leave me no freedom of action.

Job 7:13, Job 7:14

When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint. Sometimes, notwithstanding his many “wearisome nights” (Job 7:5), Job would entertain a hope of a few hours’ rest and tranquillity, as, wearied and exhausted, he sought his couch, and laid himself down upon it, but only to be disappointed. Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions. Unpleasant dreams are said to be a symptom, or at any rate a frequent concomitant, of elephantiasis; but Job seems to speak of something worse than these. Horrible visions came upon him, which he believed to be sent directly from the Almighty, and which effectually disturbed his rest, making night hideous. Probably this was one of the modes in which Satan was permitted to try and test him.

Job 7:15

So that my soul chooseth strangling; i.e. “so that I would prefer strangling to such horrid dreams,” which are worse than any physical sufferings. Some see here a reference to suicide: but this is s very forced explanation. Suicide, as already observed, seems never even to have occurred to the thoughts of Job (see the comment on Job 6:8). And death rather than my life; literally, rather than my bones. Death, that is, would be preferable to such a life as he leads, which is that of a living skeleton.

Job 7:16

I loathe it; rather, I am wasted away“ulceratus tabesco” (Schultens). I would not live alway; rather, I shall not live alway. Let me alone; for my days are vanity; literally, cease from me; i.e. “cease to trouble me”with, perhaps, the further meaning. “cease to trouble thyself about me;” for I am sufficiently reduced to nothingnessmy life is mere vanity.

Job 7:17

What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? or, make so much of himregard him as of such great importance (comp. Psa 8:4). It seems, at first sight, an exalted idea of God to regard him as too lofty, too great, to be really concerned about so mean a creature, so poor a being, as man. Hence, among the Greeks, the Epicureans maintained that God paid no attention at all to this world, or to anything that happened in it, but dwelt secure and tranquil in the empyrean, with nothing to disturb, displease, or vex him. And the holy men of old sometimes fell into this same phase of thought, and expressed surprise and wonder that God, who dwelt on high, should “humble himself to consider the things in heaven and earth.” “Lord,” says David, or whoever was the author of the hundred and forty-fourth psalm, “what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him? or the son of man, that thou makest account of him? Man k like to vanity; his days are as a shadow that passeth away” (Psa 144:3, Psa 144:4). But all, except Epicureans, agree that God does, in fact, so concern himself, and a little reflection is enough to show us that the opposite view, instead of exalting, really degrades God. To bring conscious, sentient beings into the worldbeings capable of the intensest happiness or misery, and then to leave them wholly to themselves, to have no further care or thought of them, would be the part, not of a grand, glorious, and adorable Being, but of one destitute of any claim to our admiration. And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? This strong expression is not used of God elsewhere. But it well expresses the extreme tenderness and consideration that God has for man, and the deep love from which that tenderness and consideration spring.

Job 7:18

And that thou shouldset visit him every morning, and try him every moment? Our whole life is a probation, not merely particular parts of it. God “tries us every moment‘” if not with afflictions, then with blessings; if not with pains, then with pleasures. He is with us all the day long, and all our life long, equally in his mercies and in his chastisements. But Job was probably thinking only of the latter.

Job 7:19

How long wilt thou not depart from me? rather, Wilt thou not look away from me? (see the Revised Version). Job does not go so far as to ask that God should “depart from” him. He knows, doubtless, that that would be the extreme of calamity. But he would have God sometimes turn away his eyes from him, and not always regard him so intently. There is something of the same tone of complaint in the psalmist’s utterance; “Thou art about my path, and about my bed, and spiest out all my ways” (Psa 139:3, Prayer-book Version). Nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle? Even, i.e; for the shortest space of time passible. A proverbial expression.

Job 7:20

I have sinned. This is not so much a confession as a concession, equivalent to “Granting that I have sinned,” or, “Suppose that I have sinned.” In that case, What shall I do unto thee? or, What can I do for thee? How is it in my power to do anything? Can I undo the past? Or can I make compensation in the future? Neither seems to Job to be possible. O thou Preserver of men; rather, thou Observer of men. A continuation of the complaint that God’s eye is always upon him. Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? “A mark” () is either “a butt,” “a target for arrows,” or else “an obstacle,” “a stumbling-block,” which God, by repeated blows, is removing out of his way. The latter meaning is preferred by Schultens and Professor Lee; the former by Rosenmuller and our Revisers. So that I am a burden to myself (comp. Psa 38:4).

Job 7:21

And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? Job feels that, if he has sinned, which he is ready to admit as possible, though he has certainly no deep conviction of sin (Job 6:24, Job 6:29, Job 6:30; Job 7:19), at any rate he has not sinned greatly, heinously; and therefore he cannot understand why he has not been forgiven. The idea that the Almighty cannot forgive sin except upon conditions, is unknown to him. Believing God to be a God of mercy, he regards him also, just as Nehemiah did, as a “God of pardons” (Neh 9:17)a belief which seems to have been instinctive with men of all nations. And it appears to him unaccountable that pardon has not been extended to himself. Like his “comforters.” he makes the mistake of supposing that all his afflictions have been penal, are signs of God’s displeasure, and intended to crush and destroy him. He has not woke up to the difference between God’s punishments and his chastisements. Apparently, he does not know that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,” or that men are “made perfect through sufferings” (Heb 2:10). For now shall I sleep in the dust. Now it is too late for pardon to avail anything. Death is nigh at hand. The final blow must soon be struck. And thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be. The idea seems to beGod will relent at last; he will seek to alleviate my sufferings; he will search for me diligentlybut I shall have ceased to be.

HOMILETICS

Job 7:1-10

Job to God: 1. The soliloquy of sorrow.

I. A PATHETIC REPRESENTATION OF HUMAN LIFE. In contrast to the fascinating picture sketched by Eliphaz (Job 5:17-27), Job depicts human life in general, and his own sorrowful existence in particular, as:

1. A term of hard service. “Is there not an appointed time [literally, ‘a warfare, a term of hard service’] on the earth?’ like that of a mercenary soldier hired out for military purposes to a foreign despot; and “are not his days like the days of an hireling?” i.e. a hired slave who has been let out to some pitiless taskmaster; both of whom, the soldier and the slave, “pant for the shadow” on the dial, and “long for their wages,” to give them a release from their heavy toils. The language suggests:

(1) That the period of human life is in every instance fixed, the Almighty having not only determined the bounds of our habitation (Act 17:26), but the number of our months (Job 14:5), retaining in his own hand our times (Psa 31:15), and measuring out our days (Psa 39:4).

(2) That the allotted space of human life is in every instance designed to be a season of service, not of ease, enjoyment, or indulgence, but of labour, endurance, and fatigue; not always hard in the sense alluded to by Job, viz. exacting, oppressive, exhausting, pitiless, but ever hard in the sense of being earnest, arduous, and continuous. Life was never meant for idleness. If God promises strength for the day, he first assigns work to the day (Deu 33:25). Christ recognized that the day of life was designed for toil (Joh 9:4).

(3) That faithful work performed in time will in every instance meet with a just reward. As the hired soldier received his pay, and the slave obtained his wages, so will every one on earth be recompensed at last according to his works (Pro 24:12; Mat 16:27; 2Ti 4:14). In particular every faithful labourer in Christ’s vineyard will receive his “penny” (Mat 20:9). The doctrine of heavenly rewards is not inconsistent with the idea of free grace (Heb 11:26; Heb 12:2).

(4) That good men may sometimes long to be released from their labours, not, however, like the bondman or the mercenary soldier, because they serve an exacting and alien taskmaster, who grinds them to the dust with oppression, but because, though not weary of their labours, they are weary in them, and would fain be at rest (cf. Paul, Php 1:2 : 3; 2Ti 4:6).

2. A heritage of incessant misery. As realized in the experience of Job, this misery was:

(1) Heaven-imposed in its origin; he having been made to possess (literally, “caused to inherit”) it by compulsion, through the stern will of an unseen but relentless taskmaster, without himself having done anything to either originate or merit it. (verse 3)a mode of representing human life which has a superficial truthfulness about it in so far as it asserts that affliction is the almost uniform experience of man on earth, that nothing enters into the composition of human history, either collectively or individually, without the expressly given sanction of God, and that no amount of wisdom or endeavour on the part of man will enable him to escape that particular earth-experience which by Divine wisdom and love has been assigned him as his inheritance, but is radically false in insinuating that God acts capriciously and tyrannically, and alleging that man neither shapes nor deserves his particular lot, since no fact is more apparent than that man, as a sinful being, deserves more affliction than he gets, and that, to a large extent at least, every individual is the master of his own destiny.

(2) Tedious in its continuance; Job characterizing his days of affliction as months of vanity; i.e. months which come without bringing relief to the sufferer, and go leaving nothing in their trail but disappointed hopes, each day seeming like a month in duration, and his sleepless nights as “nights of weariness,” measured out to him one by one in slow and solemn regularity, each one appearing to interminably lengthen itself out as if it would never come to an end. Behold the subtle alchemy of grief, which can change the pace of time, and make that go with leaden feet which mostly flies with lightning wing.

(3) Painful in its character; arising from a combination of troubles not often meeting in the same individual.

(a) Extinction of hope by day; the absolute expiry of everything like expectation of betterment, which must have been a greater burden to the heart of Job than ever the elephantiasis was to his body: “We are kept alive by hope” (Rom 8:24); but within the soul of Job the principle of life was gone.

(b) Want of sleep by night. As sleep is one of God’s best gifts to man (Psa 127:2), restoring nature’s exhausted powers, refreshing mind and body both (Ecc 5:12; Jer 31:26; cf. Shakespeare, ‘Henry IV.,’ Part II. act 3. so. 1), so is the want of it one of the heaviest afflictions that can befall a sufferer, arising sometimes from excessive labour, as with Jacob (Gen 31:40); sometimes from intense bodily pain, as in the case of Job (verse 5); sometimes from disturbed thoughts, as with Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 2:1), Ahasuerus (Est 6:1), and wicked men (Pro 4:16); the restless tossings to and fro of the body keeping time with the inward agitations of the mind.

(c) Bodily pain both day and night, springing from a loathsome malady, detailed (verse 5) as breeding worms in his flesh, covering his skin with earth-coloured scales, causing it to stiffen and emit a purulent discharge, and commonly believed to be elephantiasis (see homiletics on Job 2:7).

3. A period of exceeding”brevity.” “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and vanish without hope” (verse 8); i.e. they flee more rapidly than the shuttle passes backwards and forwards in the warp of the weaver’s web, and vanish without hope of any to succeed themi.e. of any days of happiness on earthman affecting emblem of the vanity and shortness of life.

II. A PITIFUL SUPPLICATION FROM HUMAN SORROW.

1. The Being addressed. “Oh, remember!” Though not named, God is meant. It is well, though not always necessary, to invoke God by name in our prayers; but certainly it is better to leave God’s name out altogether than to introduce it too frequently into our devotions. That Job called on God in his calamity was a sign that his faith was not yet extinguished, and that he still retained his hold upon the God whom he had formerly professed to serve. It was likewise a more hopeful way of obtaining relief from, or support under, his troubles, since it is always better in our distresses “to cry to God than to complain to creatures” (Caryl).

2. The prayer presented. “Oh, remember!” As applied to God, the word signifies

(1) to take notice, to observe, to bear in mind (Psa 78:39); hence

(2) to regard with pity (Psa 132:1); and

(3) to interpose with help (Gen 8:1).

God remembers when, so to speak, he allows an object to remain in the contemplation of his infinite mind so as to be suitably affected thereby.
Job desires that God would

(1) consider his case;

(2) commiserate his person; and

(3) commute his sorrow.

This, however, does not imply that God ever forgets his people (Isa 49:15), though he may sometimes appear to do so (Psa 13:1); or fails to sympathize with them in trouble (Psa 103:13; Isa 66:13), though afflicted saints may sometimes imagine so (Psa 44:24; Isa 49:14); or is indisposed to succour them (1Sa 2:9; Psa 31:23; Psa 91:1), though he frequently, for wise and good reasons, delays his intervention (Exo 14:13; Mat 14:25; Mat 15:23).

3. The plea offered. The irrevocableness of life which Job depicts by means of two impressive images, comparing his sorrowful existence to:

(1) A passing wind. “Oh, remember that my life is wind!” a breath, a puff of air (Psa 78:39; Psa 103:16)an emblem suggestive of the frailty, the rapidity, and (more especially here) the irrevocability of life. Job interprets the metaphor with regard to himself by saying that when once he had departed this life:

(a) His eye should never more see good (verse 7); i.e. it should never more return to enjoy the things that constitute (or are supposed to constitute) earthly felicity (cf. the language of Hezekiah, Isa 38:11). Life’s pleasures, opportunities, privileges, can only be enjoyed once. Yet good in the highest sense does not terminate with death. When a saint departs from this mortal scene he enters upon the chief good, the experience of nobler pleasures and loftier privileges than ever he possessed on earth (Job 19:27; Php 1:21).

(b) Men’s eyes should never see him (verse 8); i.e. he should never more mingle in the society of the living, never more participate in the friendships and associations of time, having bid farewell to all companions and loved ones (cf. Ecc 9:9, Ecc 9:10)an argument for living peacefully and lovingly amongst friends, companions, and neighbours, since we must soon be parted from them and they from us.

(c) Even God’s eye should fail to see him (verse 8); i.e. God would not be able to do him good after he was dead, the present life being the only season in which man has an opportunity of receiving “gracious” visitation from God. It is too late to give a man a cordial when he is in his grave; and much more is it post horam to look for salvation when life is ended (2Co 6:2).

(2) A vanishing cloud. “The cloud dissolves and disappears” (verse 9). The metaphor is appropriate, as setting forth the unsubstantial, transitory, and irrevocable character of human life (cf. Jas 4:14). Like the cloud which is quickly dispersed (often by a gentle puff of wind), vanishing into a realm where human vision cannot follow it, so man goeth down into Sheol, the unseen abode of departed spirits. And as the scattered cloud never again gathers itself upon the face of heaven, so never more does man revisit the upper air when once he has descended into “that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.” In particular, he never again returns to his house, neither shall his place in the family circle, at the social banquet, on change, and in the public assembly, know him any more (verse 10). Though the doctrine of immortality and the hope of a resurrection am not here insisted on, it does not follow that they were unknown to either Eliphaz or Job (Job 19:26).

Learn:

1. Since life, and especially the Christian life, is a war-service (1Ti 6:12), it becomes saints not unnecessarily to entangle themselves with the affairs of this world (2Ti 2:4), but to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ (2Ti 2:3).

2. Since God will faithfully recompense his servants (Pro 12:14; Rom 2:10; 1Co 3:8), they whom he has hired should be faithful in the rendering of service to him (Rom 12:11; Eph 6:6, Eph 6:7).

3. Since the natural life of man, even when taken at its best estate, is altogether vanity (Psa 39:5, Psa 39:11), it is the part of wisdom to aspire after that life which will never disappoint (Joh 4:14), never know affliction (Rev 7:16, Rev 7:17), and never pass away (1Jn 2:17).

4. Since it is certain that we must all go down into the grave (Job 30:23; Psa 89:48; Joh 9:4; Heb 9:27), it becomes us to prepare for that event (Psa 39:4; 2Ki 20:1; Php 1:21 : 1Pe 1:17).

5. Since it is equally certain that we shall all come up again out of our graves (Job 19:26; Dan 12:2; Joh 11:23, Joh 11:24; Act 24:15), it is folly not to seek before we die the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection (Php 3:11).

Job 7:11-16

Job to God: 2. The opening of the third controversy.

I. A DANGEROUS RESOLUTION.

1. The purport of it. To complain, not merely to repine against the misery of his lot, but to express his sense of Jehovah’s cruelty in first afflicting him and then vouchsafing him no response to his solemn and pathetic appeal. If murmurings against one’s outward estate are sometimes natural and even excusable, they are always perilous, even where not actually sinful. Those who begin by finding fault with their portion, generally end by reflecting on him by whom their portion has been bestowed. That Job did not curse God to his face, as the devil predicted, was a wonder, and was due more to grace than to himself. When the soul is in anguish it is better to be silent than to speak, to imitate David (Psa 39:9) than to copy Job.

2. The spirit of it. With vehemence: “I will speak;” the tense expressing energy of language with passion: “In the anguish of my spirit;” with bitterness: “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul;”all which were unwarrantable aggravations of his original offence, although Job, by commencing,” I also,” “I for my part,” appeared to think he was not transgressing the bounds of right. And certainly language as vehement, extraordinary, and audacious can be quoted from other lips than Job’s, language not usually blamed as sinful; e.g. Jeremiah’s (Jer 15:18). Still, men are prone to forget that, in contending with God, they have absolutely no “right,” so called, and certainly none to address him with irreverent presumption or insinuate aught against his loving-kindness or justice.

3. The reason of it. “Therefore;” i.e. partly because his sufferings were great, and partly because his life was vanity, but chiefly because God was silent and did not condescend to listen to his prayer; not one of which reasons, nor even all of them together, were sufficient to justify his violent proposal. Great sufferings are no excuse for great complainings, since they are in themselves no more than man deserves, are always sent in love, and are capable, if accepted with meek submission, of yielding the highest good. So far from the transient and irrevocable character of life inducing querulous behaviour, it should prompt man to turn its golden moments to the best account; while God’s silence cannot give man the right to murmur, since God ever knows the best time to speak, whether in vindication of himself or in answering his people (Psa 1:3).

II. AN IRONICAL INTERROGATION.

1. The comparison made. Almost impertinently, surely unbecomingly, Job asks whether God regarded him as a sea or a whale; i.e. as a mighty conflux of waters, a fierce, heaven-assaulting ocean, or as a huge aquatic monster, a great and terrible dragon of the prime, of which he was afraid and upon which accordingly he required to set a watch. Job’s intention was to say that surely God did entertain such a notion of the poor emaciated skeleton upon whom he was heaping such gigantic calamities. It was strangely irreverent, on Job’s part. so to speak, and wholly untrue besides. God esteemed neither him nor any of his intelligent creatures as a sea or a monster. God never speaks depreciatingly of man, and man never should of himself. Nor does God ever treat man like a sea or a whale, but always with a due regard to his intelligent and moral nature, in which respect man should copy God in dealing with himself. Least of all can it be raid that God is ever afraid of man; the only being that man can really injure by his insubordination and wickedness is himself. Yet, though incorrect in the sense intended by Job, it is sometimes sadly true that the heart of man is as restless (Isa 57:20), insatiable (Ecc 1:7), violent (Jud Job 1:13), destructive (Jos 24:7), noisy (Jer 6:23), as the sea, and as ferocious and ungovernable as the great monsters it contains.

2. The proof given. As the turbulent ocean requires to be bounded and restrained, and leviathan to he held in chains, so, says the patriarch, with grim irony, “thou settest a watch on me.” Job was right in still recognizing God’s hand in his afflictions. Whatever be the second causes, the First Cause in all calamity that befalls a saint, as indeed in everything that happens, is God (Job 2:10; Isa 45:7; Amo 3:6). Yet he erred in his interpretation of God’s purpose in these afflictions. God watches over seas and whales, and over suffering men and saints at the same time, i.e. always, and by the same rightthe right of his Divine sovereignty; and in the same way, by sending his omniscient glance into every corner of the universe; but not in the same spirit, watching ever against seas and whales, but always over men and saints; or for the same purpose, in the ease of seas and whales to restrain them from doing damage in his world, in the case of men and saints to rejoice over them to do them good.

III. AN UNJUST ACCUSATION.

1. The charge. “Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions” (verse 14). These dreams and visions, horrible shadows cast upon the background of his wakeful and excited imagination by the terrible disease from which he was suffering, were of a character entirely different from the dreams and visions depicted by Eliphaz (Job 4:13) as visiting the good man from God. In the distemper of his spirit, Job imputes them to God, whereas they ought to to have been properly ascribed to Satan. Had he simply desired, to recognize the Divine hand in his sufferings, his language would have been becoming and worthy of imitation; but if, as is more probable, he actually meant to charge God with being. the immediate Author of those pale phantoms and shadowy apparitions which banished sleep from his pillow and made him shiver with ghostly fear, he was surely verging on the borders of blasphemy. If not so heinous an offence as ascribing God’s work to the devil (Mat 12:24), imputing Satan’s work to God is wholly without excuse.

2. The time. “When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then thou searest me with dreams.” The best-founded expectations of man are not unfrequently disappointed. Even couches, formed for ease and comfort, often fail to impart them. They who most long for sleep’s refreshment have sometimes the greatest difficulty in obtaining it. It is vain to look for comfort in affliction, or ease in the midst of pain, to either beds or couches, or any instrument whatever apart from the Divine blessing. The true Source of consolation for diseased bodies, distressed minds, and disturbed spirits, is God (Psa 42:5; Psa 147:3; Isa 25:4; Isa 51:3; Isa 66:5; 2Co 1:3, 2Co 1:4; 2Co 7:6). And as God delights to visit his suffering people on their beds (Job 35:10; Psa 41:3; Psa 42:8; Psa 77:6), so the devil seldom fails to shoot his sharpest arrows and muster his fiercest terrors during the night.

3. The result.

(1) A desire for immediate death. “So that my soul chooseth strangling,” i.e. suffocation, a sensation of choking being frequently experienced in elephantiasis; “and death rather than my life,” literally, “than my bones,” i.e. than the emaciated skeleton I have become. Life in itself is not necessarily joyous and desirable. The amount of pleasure derivable from existence in large measure depends on its circumstances and conditions; and these may be so changed as to render existence a burden. Yet sufferers should rather bear their burdens than inordinately long for release (Job 14:14; Mat 26:39), since it is “better to bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of;” since whatever be the weight of our affliction, it is God’s will that we should bear it; and since God is able to bring even an emaciated skeleton back from the brink of the grave.

(2) A temptation to suicide, as some think. “So that my soul chooseth strangling” by external violence (cf. Nah 2:12), yea, by a suicidal act (cf. 2Sa 17:23); to which the next words, “and death by these bones,” are supposed to allude. Even if this were the correct interpretation (which is doubtful), it is satisfactory that those who adopt it understand the suicidal temptation to have been rejected by the patriarch, who exclaims, “I loathe it;” i.e. I detest and repudiate with horror the idea of taking my own life. Suicide is an act of supreme cowardice, springing, except where reason is overthrown, from inability to endure suffering or shame; an act of supreme folly, since it can only plunge its deluded perpetrator into deeper suffering and more public shame; an act of supreme impiety, inasmuch as it arrogates to man a power that belongs to God alone.

(3) A prayer for at least temporary respite. “Let me alone; for my days are vanity;” meaning, “My life must soon be ended; therefore cease to harass me with dreams and visions; but vouchsafe to me a period of ease and comfort before I depart” (cf. Job 10:20, and vide homiletics).

Learn:

1. The danger of too exclusive meditation on the vanity of life. It is apt, as in Job’s case, to foster sinful thoughts concerning God.

2. The propriety of always keeping a bridle on the lips (Psa 39:2). When Job removed restraint from his mouth he spoke in anguish, complained in bitterness, questioned with irreverence, accused with rashness, desired with vehemence, entreated with impatience.

3. The tendency of the human heart, especially when blinded by grief and agitated by passion, to misconstrue God’s providential dealings with itself.

4. The certainty that good men may have much of the old unrenewed nature in them, lying unsuspected till occasion calls it forth. One would hardly have anticipated the outburst of temper which Job here displays.

5. The duty of thanking God for such common mercies as beds to sleep on and ability to use them. Many have beds who cannot sleep, and some would sleep who cannot find the beds.

6. The wickedness of, in any circumstances, undervaluing God’s great gift of life. Life in the midst of suffering may often more glorify God than existence in the midst of ease.

7. The inexpediency of rashly concluding that one’s days are vanity, since a man may be most useful when he least suspects it. Probably Job never served his age and generation so well as when passing through this terrible baptism of pain, sorrow, and temptation.

Job 7:16

I would not live alway.

I. THE CRY OF BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. Exemplified in the case of Elijah (1Ki 19:4) and of Jonah (Jon 4:8).

II. THE WAIL OF GREAT SORROW. Illustrated by the experience of Job.

III. THE VOICE OF REMORSEFUL DESPAIR. As with Ahithophel (2Sa 17:23) and Judas (Mat 27:5).

IV. THE LANGUAGE OF AN AWAKENED CONSCIENCE. Witness the jailor of Philippi (Act 16:27).

V. THE UTTERANCE OF FAITH. As employed by St. Paul (Php 1:23).

Learn:

1. The necessity of departing from this life (Heb 9:27).

2. The importance of preparing for another (Itch. Job 11:10).

Job 7:17-21

Job to God: 1. A remonstrance with Heaven.

I. THE DIVINE CONDUCT DEPICTED. As that of:

1. A Man-watcher. (Verse 20; cf. verse 12.) Concerning this Divine espionage may be noted:

(1) The object of it. Man (verse 17). Not some formidable opponent or powerful adversary, of whose movements the Almighty might reasonably be apprehensive, not some all-devouring ocean, or fierce ungovernable sea-monster (verse 12), but a poor, feeble, insignificant creature (enosh), a dull and spiritless hireling (soldier or slave), dragging out a term of hard service on the earth (verse 1), burdened with intolerable miseries (verse 3), whose days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle (verse 6), are even vanity (verse 16), and whose whole term of existence in this sublunary sphere is like a passing wind or vanishing cloud (verses 7-9), that melts away and never more returns.

(2) The character of it. Job supposes that this great Man-watcher whom he describes first attributes an extravagant importance to the feeble and insignificant creature whose portrait has just been sketched: “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him?” (cf. David’s language to Saul, 1Sa 24:14); then constitutes him an object of special, close, earnest, vigilant observation: “And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” (cf. Psa 8:4; Psa 144:3; Heb 2:6); next treats him like a prisoner subjected to regular inspection, in case he should either escape from confinement or be guilty of hatching plots against his keeper: “And that thou shouldest visit him every morning;” and finally puts him severely to the proof, i.e. by the thumbscrews and stocks of affliction: “And try him every moment.”

(3) The constancy of it. This terrible inspection Job represents, not as occasional or exceptional, which might have been tolerable, but as perpetual, without interruption and without cessations” every morning” and “every moment,” the Divine eye never leaving him so long as to pin,nit him to swallow down his spittle.

(4) The purpose of it. Not to bless man, as David liked to think of the Divine guardianship (Psa 8:4), but to curse him, to find out his faults, to detect his failings, to discover his sins. This horrible picture of the all-seeing, silent, never-sleeping eye of the Eternal always fixed on man with its cold, clear, cruel, calculating, gaze, never seeming to move, but ever there, in the daytime and in the night season, dogging him at every turn, is happily not true of the saint (Psa 34:15; Psa 37:32 :33; Psa 121:1-8), though, alas it affords a fearfully vivid representation of the misery of the lost (Rev 6:16, Rev 6:17).

2. A Man-shooter. “Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee?” i.e. as a target to shoot at (cf. Job 6:4). Another outrageous impeachment of the Deity, implying that God, in afflicting Job, had been guilty of:

(1) Manifest favouritism, in passing by others and selecting him as the object of his attacks.

(2) Deliberate cruelty, in not merely sending a random or occasional shaft against Job, but in, so to speak, setting him up like a target, and taking calm and deliberate aim at his bosom.

(3) Deep malevolence, as if God took the same delight in directing his arrows against him, Job, that an archer might do in practising at a butt, or a soldier in sending a shaft against a foe.

(4) Unjustifiable hostility, since Job at least was quite unable to discern any cause for such extraordinary procedure.

3. A Man-oppressor. “Why hast thou made me an obstacle in thy way?” (according to another and perhaps a more exact translation); the idea being that Job was perpetually in God’s path, and that God, hating him and feeling him a burden (according to another reading of the next clause), rushed against him as if to destroy him, and so get rid of him. But God never so feels toward any man. He may hate man’s sin, but man himself he never hates. He may often find man, through sin, an obstacle in his path, but he never sets man up before him as an object of hostile assault.

II. THE DIVINE CONDUCT CHARACTERIZED. AS:

1. Unworthy. Job designs to hint that man’s insignificance makes it wholly unbecoming, if not mean, on God’s part to visit him with affliction; that such incessant vigilance as God exercises over man is altogether to attribute to him too much importance, that man, being so utterly frail and short-lived, it were nobler in God to permit him to enjoy his brief span of life in ease and comfort. A fallacious argument, since:

(1) No being that God has made is too insignificant for God to care for. He cares for sparrows (Mat 10:29), and for oxen (1Co 9:9), and why not for man (Mat 10:31)?

(2) If man is not too insignificant to sin, he cannot be too insignificant for God to keep his eye upon. The capacity of sinning gives man an importance in God’s universe that he would not otherwise have possessed.

(3) Though man’s life on earth be short, the consequences of his evil deeds may live behind him; hence the impossibility of God withdrawing his control of mundane things.

(4) The charge completely falls to the ground, since God watches over man, not in an evil sense, but in a good.

2. Unkind. Job’s language sets forth the Divine conduct in a most offensive light, as never for a solitary instant looking away from man, or allowing him a moment’s ease; but harassing him so incessantly that life becomes a burden, pursuing him so remorselessly that, do what he will, he can never get out of the Creator’s way. Thank God, such a picture is only true of the impenitent. “The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth” (Psa 34:16).

3. Ungracious. Granting that he had committed faults, and that the great Man-watcher had detected sin in his past life. “Why dost thou not pardon my transgression?” asks Job, “and take away mine iniquity?” An exceedingly natural question, not, however, because man is so insignificant a creature, and human life so evanescent, and sin so comparatively trifling, but because

(1) God is essentially merciful and gracious (Exo 34:6);

(2) in the exercise of mercy God specially delights (Jer 9:24; Isa 43:25; Eze 33:11; Mic 7:18);

(3) the exercise of mercy is perfectly consistent with the other attributes of his Divine nature (Rom 3:25, Rom 3:26);

(4) mercy more than justice redounds to the glory of God (Rom 9:23; 2Co 4:15; Eph 1:6; Jas 2:13);

(5) mercy is more calculated to soften and subdue man than punishment;

(6) no one but God can pardon transgression or take away sin (Psa 32:5; Psa 103:3; Isa 43:25; Luk 5:21); and

(7) God has distinctly promised to pardon them that cast themselves upon his mercy (Rom 10:12, Rom 10:13; 1Jn 1:9).

Yet in perfect harmony with all this, the awakened sinner may, like Job, be denied the sense or the outward sign of forgiveness (in Job’s case the removal of trouble), because

(1) he does not ask m the right spirit, with humility and self-abasement (Psa 32:5; Psa 51:4, Psa 51:11), asking that as a matter of right which can only be obtained as a gift of grace,men who think they have a claim on God cannot be forgiven (Luk 18:14);

(2) he does not ask with the right plea, viz. in the Name of God (Psa 106:8; Isa 43:25) or of Christ (Joh 14:13), but comes expecting to find favour on the ground of his own righteousness (Rom 9:32);

(3) he does not ask for the right purpose, his object being escape from sin’s punishment rather than from sin itself (Jas 4:3);

(4) he does not ask with sincere faith, but staggers at the promise through unbeliefever an insuperable barrier to forgiveness (Jas 1:6); and sometimes

(5) though he asks, God may have reasons for delay in granting the soul’s request, as e.g. to test the soul’s sincerity or earnestness, to complete the soul‘s penitential submission, to quicken and intensify the soul’s faith, to heighten the soul’s appreciation of Divine mercy when it comes.

4. Unwise. “For now shall I sleep in the dust,” etc. Job meant to say that, if God had any thoughts of mercy toward him at all, it was unwise to delay putting them into execution. Burdened with misery and unpardoned sin as he was, he would soon be gone. The pressure of such calamities as he endured must soon crush him into his grave; and then, should God, relenting, seek him to extend to him kindness, lo! he should not be. A beautiful picture, that of the Deity relenting towards man (cf. Isa 54:6-10; Jer 31:18-20); an impressive sermon, that sow is the day of grace for both God and manfor man to seek (2Co 6:2), and for God to grant salvation (Joh 9:4).

Learn:

1. That the most maligned Being in the universe is God, even his own people not always speaking him fair.

2. That, however mean and insignificant in himself, ms, has been more magnified by God than any other of his creatures.

3. That even afflictions are a token of God’s desire to exalt man, since only through them can he attain to purity.

4. That if man’s miseries are a heavy burden to himself, man’s sins are a heavier to God.

5. That if man’s iniquities are not removed, the reason lies with man, and not with God.

6. That God’s love to his people is unchanging; since, however he may seem to be angry with them, he is certain in the end to relent.

7. That God is grieved when men pass away from earth without experiencing his favour.

Job 7:17

Lord, what is man?

I. THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF MAN.

1. In origin, allied to the dust.

2. In character‘ defiled by sin.

3. In experience‘ weighted with misery.

4. In duration, short-lived and evanescent.

5. In destiny‘ doomed to dissolution.

II. THE GREATNESS OF MAN.

1. Created in the Divine image.

2. Preserved by Divine care.

3. Redeemed by Divine love.

4. Renewed by Divine grace.

5. Immortalized by Divine life.

6. Crowned with Divine glory, already in Christ Jesus, and afterwards in them that are his.

Lessons.

1. Since man is so insignificant, be humble.

2. Since man is so great be good.

Job 7:21

A sinner’s inquiry.

I. A CONFESSION. My transgression, mine iniquity.

II. A RECOGNITION. Of:

1. The possibility of pardon.

2. The meaning of pardonto take away sin.

III. AN INTERROGATION. “Why dost thou not take away mine iniquity?”

1. A question natural to ask.

2. A question easy to answer (see preceding homiletics).

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Job 7:1-10

The weakness of man’s appeal to the clemency of God.

I. GENERAL VIEW OF MAN‘S MISERY AND HIS OWN. (Job 7:1-5.) Man is compared to a hireling with an appointed time of service, the end of which is wearily and wistfully looked for. The ideas suggested are

(1) toilsomeness;

(2) fatigue and exhaustion;

(3) intense longing for rest.

As the slave longs for the lengthening shadows of evening, the hired labourer for pay-time, so the oppressed sufferer, toiling beneath a load of pain, longs for the welcome end of death. He “would ’twere bedtime, and all well.” Voluntary and moderate labour is one of the keenest delights of life; but forced and prolonged toll exhausts the very springs of enjoyment. Rest is the reward of moderate exertion, but to the excessive toiler or sufferer it is denied. We have a picture here of the extreme misery of sleeplessness, than which none can be more acute; the tossing through the wakeful hours of darkness, the mind travelling over and over again the same weary track of its melancholy contemplations. It may be appropriate here to think of the great blessing of sleep. Homer termed it “ambrosial.” It was one of the great boons of Heaven to suffering mortals. It is “the season of all natures,” as Shakespeare beautifully says. It is the preservation of sanity. Connected with this, the lesson of moderate exertion is one needed by many in these busy, striving days; and no less the fault of over-anxiety, and the duty of casting care upon God. on which the gospel insists so strongly. It is the life according to our true nature, and according to simple piety, which brings sound sleep by night, and healthy thought by day.

II. REFLECTION ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE, AND PRAYER. (Job 7:6-10.) The mood of self-pity continues. Then follows a lament on the shortness of life. It is compared to a weaver’s shuttle, to smoke, to the vanishing of a cloud, as it is elsewhere compared (Job 9:25) to the hasty passage of a courier, or, in the well-known old story of English history, to the flight of a bird through a hall and out into the darkness again. We may compare the following plaintive passage from the Greek poet AEschylus:

Ah! friend, behold and see
What’s all the beauty of humanity?
Can it be fair?
What’s all the strength? can it be strong
And what hope can they bear,
These dying liversliving one day long?
Ah! seest thou not, my friend,
How feeble and slow
And like a dream doth go
This poor blind manhood, drifted from its end?”

(Mrs. E. B. Browning’s translation.)

We may draw from this passage the following lessons:

1. There is a constant sense of infirmity in human nature, and of the inexorable law of death.

2. The mind cannot submit patiently to this doom. Dear earthly affections (Job 7:8) cry out against it, and unconsciously witness for the immortality of the soul.

3. The thought of utter extinction cannot be endured by an awakened and elevated spirit (Job 7:10). These impotences and reluctances in the presence of decay and death are really tokens of immortality. We see them to be so in this instance, in an age when life and immortality were not brought to light.

4. The natural relief from all such sorrows and perplexities is in prayer (Job 7:7). The cry, “Oh, remember!” is not unheard by him who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust. There may be the clear consciousness of God where there is not the definite assurance of immortality. But a firm faith in him, when cherished and educated, leads ultimately to the conviction that the soul cannot perish.J.

Job 7:11-16

Fresh recourse to the relief of words.

The prayer seems, in this dark state of despondency, in vain; and Job’s despair overflows all bounds and pours itself forth in a dark stream of thoughts and words.

I. SUFFERINGS MISUNDERSTOOD. One might suppose, he argues, from these intense oppressions, that he was some dangerous creature, who could not be chained down too closely nor be watched too narrowly (verse 12)one to whom not a moment’s rest must be given, that he may not in his freedom commit some terrible injury. But is he such a being? is he a sea, or a living monster of the deep, to be so sharply tormented and guarded by God? Just so, he says (Job 13:20, “Thou puttest my feet in the stocks, and watchest narrowly all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.” Not even in sleep can he find restweakest and least dangerous of creatures though he be (Job 13:13, Job 13:14).

II. RASH RESOLVES OF DESPAIR. (Job 13:15, Job 13:16.) He will rather be stifled, or in any way court death, than longer carry about this living skeleton, this wretched body which consists only of bones (comp. Job 19:20). He has a disgust for life, will not live for ever, for he has already lived too long.

III. APPEAL TO THE JUSTICE OF GOD (Job 13:17-21.) After a renewed and passionate demand (Job 13:16) that God may give him at least a moment’s rest, since his life is already as good as vanished, and cannot abide, his language becomes somewhat more tranquil and contemplative.

1. Questionings: the insignificance of man as an object of Divine regard. (Job 13:17-19.) We may compare the question of the psalmist (Isa 8:4). It is there suggested by the magnificence of the mighty heavens: what is man in comparison with that vast and brilliant aggregate of constellations? Here the question is suggested by the greatness of the sufferers misery. What worth can he possess either for good or for evil, that he should be made the object of this incessant Divine attention? The answer to these obstinate questionings is found in the gospel. There man learns that it is the greatness and the value of the soul which makes him the object of the Divine pursuit; and then he learns, above all, that that pursuit is not inspired by the vengeance of an irritated adversary, or the caprice of an unjust tormentor, but by the love of an eternal Father, who chastises men for their profit, that they may be partakers of his holiness.

2. Consciousness of guilt. (Job 13:20, Job 13:21.) For the first time there is a reference on the part of Job to the concealed cause of sufferingsin. But it is only a general consciousness of infirmity, and an admission that possibly there may have been unwitting error on his part. He cannot confess a special sin of which his friends suppose him guilty, but of which his conscience is free. The words are rendered by some, “If I failed in that which I do unto thee, Preserver of men, why,” etc.? Thus deeper than the sense of sin, deepest conviction of all in his heart, is:

3. Instinctive trust in the goodness of God. His reasoning is as follows: It may be necessary that God should punish man for guilt; but is this to hold so strictly that every slightest omission is severely scrutinized and sorely punished by God? Surely man is neither so strong for resistance to error, nor so dangerous, that he should be treated so harshly and jealously? Why, if there has been some fault in the conduct of Job, as seen by those all-penetrating eyes, does God loose all his arrows against him like a hunter aiming at a fixed mark (comp. Job 6:4; Job 16:12), shooting at him the poisonous darts of disease and suffering till he can no longer endure himself? Why does not God rather pardon him before it is too late, as, alas! according to all appearance, it now is, as Job sees nothing before him but the grave? This is no conflict of an infidel or rebellious spirit against its Maker. It is the pleading of a true child with its Father in heaven. It is the struggle of the soul against the iron pressure of that which we have learned to call natural law. The individual suffers, is sometimes crushed by natural law, while the mass are benefited. But above law is God. And out of this long picture of troubled thought the truth will presently flash into splendour, that in that loving and holy will of a Father the soul, emancipated from the troubles of time, shall find its eternal rest.J.

HOMILIES BY R. GREEN

Job 7:1-6

The days of the hireling.

Job speaks from the depth of suffering, and as yet he has no clear light upon the Divine purpose concerning him. God, who is his true Refuge, appears to be his Enemy; and he likens his miserable days to those of the oppressed slave. This he urges as a justification of the longing for rest which he has expressed. For him there is no prospect of that rest but in the grave. It is the cry of bitter subjection.

1. THE COMPARISON OF HUMAN LIFE TO THAT OF THE HIRELING. It is an appointed lot. It is a lot of subjection. It is a life of toil and weariness. In Job’s case the comparison is most apt. But his thought is especially upon the longing of the hireling for the close of the day. For this the toil, the heat, the weariness, prepare him. Job’s condition is one of hard toil. He is weary even of his life. And his longing for the rest which death alone can bring is the precise point of his comparison. How often does life present no brighter or more beauteous aspect! Its many cares, its disappointments, its multiplied sorrows and keen, penetrating pains make life to many to be as the hard drudgery of the hireling. How many long for death as the hireling for night I In a true sense life is the life of a hireling, and the good Master who has sent us into his vineyard to toil will reward the faithful labourer with his sufficient hire.

II. THE AGGRAVATIONS OF JOB‘S LOT. He is to his own view as one whose toil is a grievous one. He is more than weary; and his longing for the shadows of evening is justified by what seems to him to be the hardness of his taskmaster. Earnestly he “desireth the shadow;” for long “months of vanity” he is “made to possess,” and “wearisome nights are appointed’ to him. When the tired labourer lies down to rest in unconscious sleep, and to gain strength for the toil of the morrow, Job is “full of tossings to and fro.” The dawn brings him no refreshment. The fevered night leaves him to encounter unprepared the enemy of the day. His poor afflicted body presents the saddest picture; “worms and clods of dust” clothe it, His “skin is broken;” his sores make his flesh “loathsome” to him, and his “days are spent without hope.” From such a sufferer comes the word of complaining. It is little to be wondered at by one who remembers his own frailty. The picture of Job is a lesson for us, and, turning our thoughts from our own healthy life to the sufferings of the afflicted, let us learn our duty, and cherish:

1. The pitifulness of spirit which is due to all sufferers.

2. Their claim upon our help and sympathy.

3. The forbearance with which we should hear their complainings.

4. We also may, in our turn, become the sufferers, and need the comfort we now give to others.

Thus may each man see himself in every sufferer, and learn to give that consolation he himself so soon may need.R.G.

Job 7:1-6

The weariness of sorrow.

Expressing Itself

I. IN A DESIRE FOR THE CLOSE OF LIFE. (Job 7:2.)

II. As A CONTINUOUS DISAPPOINTMENT. (Job 7:3.)

III. As A CEASELESS RESTLESSNESS. (Job 7:4.)

IV. AS A REVOLT FROM THE PAINFULNESS OF ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. (Job 7:5.)

V. AS A CONDITION OF HOPELESSNESS. (Job 7:6.)R.G.

Job 7:6-9

The speedy flight of life.

In the multitude of his thoughts within him, Job glances at many of the painful aspects of life. His view is influenced by the condition of his spirit. With a longing for the grave, he nevertheless mourns over the rapid flight of his few days upon earth. Such a reflection every one may wisely make. Consider the expressive similes in which Job sees his hasty life represented.

1. His days are swifter than the weaver’s shuttle (verse 6).

2. They are as the wind (verse 7).

3. They are as the glance of the eye (verse 8).

4. They are as the cloud which is consumed, and which vanisheth away (verse 9).

To what course of conduct should such a reflection lead? If life be so swiftly passed, can anything be done to abate its apparent evil? What is becoming to him whose days thus flee away?

1. A diligent and careful use and husbanding of time.

2. A concentration of attention on life’s essential work, avoiding all frivolous occupations of time which rob the soul of its days and leave no residuum of blessing or benefit.

3. A careful guard against confining the pursuits of life to those things which can be attained only in this present world.

4. A just estimate of the value of immortality, and a due attention to the interests that relate to it.

5. A patient endurance of life’s sorrows, seeing they will soon close; and a moderate absorption in life’s pleasures, for they speedily pass away. Life is very brief, but it is long enough to enable every one to lay hold on eternal life, to prepare himself for that eternal life, and to do work that hereafter may be reflected upon with pleasure.R.G.

Job 7:11-16

The cry of despair.

Job is in the depth of his suffering. His heart is sore broken. He bursts forth with his loud complaint, which he can no longer restrain. His spirit seeks relief in its cry. Every cry is supposed to give relief. But the bitter cry of despair, coming up from the depths of excruciating sorrow, often marks the turning-point in the history of suffering. Its vanity and uselessness being made apparent, the soul returns to a calmer and more collected state.

I. THE CRY OF DESPAIR IS WRUNG FROM THE HEART ONLY IN ITS EXTREMEST SUFFERINGS. Brave and strong as the human spirit may be under suffering, there comes a moment when its strength fails. It reaches a climax of pain and anguish. It can hold out no more; and, in the passionate haste for relief, seeks it in its wild cry of despair. “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit.”

II. THE CRY OF DESPAIR IS VAIN. It fails to give ease to the suffering flesh; and, though an expression of the soul’s anguish, in itself it is powerless to relieve that anguish. It is liable to excite but to rebelliousness. It is as the struggle of one enclosed in a strong net; or as the folly of a child, in wild passion, kicking with bare foot against the stony rock.

III. THE CRY OF DESPAIR, BEING OFTEN, AS HERE, A CRY OF DEFIANT COMPLAINT, TENDS TO ROUSE THE SOUL TO WICKED REBELLIOUSNESS. There is no restraint put upon the agitated soul. It is let loose in unrestricted freedom to declare, not its calm judgment, but its uttermost complaint, goaded on by the severities of acute suffering. “I will not refrain my mouth.”

IV. THE CRY OF DESPAIR SPRINGS FROM, AND AT THE SAME TIME PROMOTES, ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF LIFE AND ITS ISSUES. Job is so far led astray that he chooses “strangling and death rather than life:” So completely is his judgment in abeyance that he knows no other alternative. Possibly it is the aim of the poet to show that Job’s knowledge of the future is insufficient to counteract the sorrows and evils of the present.

V. THE CRY OF DESPAIR IS DESERVING OF PITY. When the soul is driven by fierce affliction to such an extremity, it is a proper object for the most tender compassion and patient forbearance. As men are patient with the demented, so they have need to be with him who, by despair, is driven off from the balanced, calm judgment and just thought.

VI. IT IS NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN THAT THE CRY OF HUMAN DESPAIR PIERCES TO THE EAR OF THE ALMIGHTY, THE ALL–HELPFUL ONE. Even the sigh of a contrite heart is heard; so also the wail of despair. The human extremity is the Divine opportunity. Job will ultimately prove that God has not forgotten him.R.G.

Job 7:17

What is man?

The answer to this question must come from afar. No sudden or hasty conclusion must be made. The whole conditions under which life is held, the influence which life exerts, the final issue of life with all other considerations, must be regarded. Here frail, perishing man is seen to be magnified by God, who sets his heart upon him and visits him every moment. Why is so much made of life? “What must man be that thou takest such knowledge of him?” The answer is only to be found in a just view of the real greatness of human life. The human greatness is seen

I. IN THE CAPABILITIES OF THE HUMAN MIND. All truth may be stored in it. It is exalted by its great capacities for knowledge, memory, reason, judgment, etc.

II. IN THE CAPACITY OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Every holy emotion may find a home in the human soul. Every lofty sentiment sweep across it as any strain across a lyre. All holy affections may be cherished. Man may know and love the highest objects of knowledge and affection. He may illustrate nobleness, patience, charity, faith, hope, gentlenessevery grace.

III. HUMAN GREATNESS IS FURTHER SEEN IN THE WIDESPREAD INFLUENCE OF HUMAN ACTION. To-day the world is living in the light of the deeds of Job’s life. The impulses of the deeds of past millenniums are felt to-day. A wide illustration possible.

IV. IN THE SKILFULNESS OF THE HUMAN HAND.

V. IN THE SUPREMACY OF MAN IN THE EARTH.

VI. IN THE DESTINY OF MAN, AND ESPECIALLY IN HIS ENDOWMENT OF IMMORTALITY. Although of earth, he aspires to heaven; though a child of time, he rises to eternity; though sinful, he can illustrate all holiness.

VII. THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE OF THE GREATNESS OF THE HUMAN LIFE SEEN IN THE INCARNATION, wherein the Divine life could manifest itself through the medium of the human. When life is thus duly estimated, and when it is known that the sorrows of life are used for its chastening and perfecting, then the answer is found to the question Why dost thou “try him every moment”? It is because life is so precious and so capable of culture and deserving of it, that he thus seeks to discipline, refine, instruct, and perfect it.R.G.

HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY

Job 7:1-3

The days of a hireling.

Job compares himself to a mercenary in war and to a hired servant at work. As these men have little interest in what they are doing, partly because the masters who hire them take little interest in them, Job feels his life but a weariness, and longs for the term of his service to expire.

I. LIFE MAY APPEAR LIKE THE DAYS OF A HIRELING.

1. It involves hard toil. The lot of most men is not easy; but some find life a grinding servitude.

2. Its labour is often weary and unattractive. Many people have to work at uninteresting tasks, and only regard their labour as drudgery. There is neither pleasure in the work nor pride in the result of it. If men could all choose their lots, many of the most necessary industries would be entirely abandoned.

3. It is only undertaken for the sake of its rewards. Men work for wages, and, needing the wages, they endure the toil which they detest. This is not only true of what is called the wage-earning portion of the community. It applies also to many who seem to be their own masters, but whose work is undertaken solely for the remuneration which it brings in.

4. The supreme Muster is not seen to take interest in his servants. The laws of life are inexorable. There is no evading the rules of God’s great factory in which we are all set to work. Men fall and die at their tasks without visible signs of compassion from their Lord. Thus faith is severely tried, and some weakly ones sink to low views of life and of man’s relations to God.

II. IT IS NEITHER HELPFUL NOR RIGHT TO REGARD LIFE AS THE DAYS OF A HIRELING.

1. It is not helpful. Hireling service is never of any great value. The work that is only done for pay is apt to be done hastily if by the piece, and in a wastefully slow and slovenly fashion if by the hour. Until a man puts his heart into his task, he cannot put good work into it. No one can live a worthy life chiefly in the hope of its rewards. The service of God which is only undertaken that good things may be obtained from God is degrading and of little worth. The Christian who lives solely on the hope of heaven is spending a poor life on earth. We have to discover higher motives and to serve God joyfully and lovingly, because his service is delightful, and because we love him.

2. It is not right. The hireling idea of life is delusively suggested to us by a superficial view of facts and by a low tone in our own minds. But it is completely false, for God does not treat us as hirelings. He knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust. He is our Father, and he pities us as his children. And therefore we owe to him more than a hired servants drudgerywe owe filial obedience and the rich service of love. Now, when we have learnt to take right views of God and his service, the miserable, degrading idea of the hireling’s lot drops off, and a much nobler and happier conception of life dawns upon us. Then the most common task ceases to be a piece of drudgery and becomes a labour of love. By a gracious law of providence it seems to be ordered that any duty which is undertaken conscientiously and heartily becomes interesting and even a source of pleasure. So while the hireling longs for the shadow that tells of the declining day and of the end of his task, the faithful Christian makes the most of his day of service, knowing “that the night cometh, wherein no man can work.”W.F.A.

Job 7:6

The weaver’s shuttle.

This is one of the many emblems of the brevity of life which carry a certain subtle suggestiveness of deeper meanings in spite of the minimizing pessimism that seems to be their sole prompting cause. The shuttle flies swiftly across the web. What does this fact suggest?

I. THE MELANCHOLY BREVITY OF LIFE. “The velocity of time,” says Seneca, “is infinite, and is most apparent to those who look back.” This is one of the most trite topics of conventional moralists. Yet it is one which each individual man feels with a startled shock of surprise when it comes directly home to him in experience. We say that life is short, but we do not believe it till we are reminded of the fact by ugly surprises. Then we feel that the flying shuttle, the melting shadow, the tale hastening to a close, are not more transitory than life. We are but creatures of a day in the light of God’s eternity.

II. THE VANITY OF EARTHLY AMBITIONS. We lay our foundations, but we have not time to put the corner-stone on our cherished design before we are called hence. The tools drop from our hands ere we have accomplished our purposes. The mirage of life fades before its paradise has been attained. We start with great hopes, but our hairs are gray before we have begun to realize them, and we are in our graves before they are fulfilled.

III. THE FOLLY OF IMPATIENCE. Let us be fair. If the joys of life are fleeting, so also are its pains. Though our lot be hard, the hardship will not be long. Job seems to complain that, if life is so short, it is cruel to spoil it with trouble. It seems sad that so little a day should be robbed of its brief sunshine. But, on the other hand, if the day is one of pain and bitterness, may we not be thankful that the evening hasteneth on?

IV. THE DUTY OF UNSELFISHNESS. We make too much of our own individual lives, as though the world existed for ourselves. This is like the shuttle fancying that the loom belongs to it, and was made entirely to suit its convenience. Nay, it is worse: it is like the shuttle thinking the loom was made for one throw, one thread. We must learn to understand that we exist for a larger purpose. Slowly enough the great web of time is woven, though each throw of the shuttle is so swift. God is thinking of the whole.

V. THE MYSTERY OF A DIVINE PURPOSE. The shuttle knows not why it is flung across the threads. But it is working out an unseen design. The seemingly aimless and wasted throw is essential to the weaving of the pattern of the whole fabric. God has a purpose with each of our lives. Even the briefest life which is lived in obedience to God cannot be wasted. God’s great loom will work it into his eternal design.

VI. THE NECESSITY OF A FUTURE LIFE. The animals are satisfied with their ephemeral existence. They have no melancholy reflections on the brevity of life. It is only to man that this earthly existence seems to be contemptibly short. Why? Because in his breast there dwells the instinct of immortalityan instinct whose very existence is a mute prophecy of its future satisfaction, since he who planted it will not disappoint it. The shuttle is not destroyed after its swift flight. This brief life carries us on to the endless ages of the Divine future.W.F.A.

Job 7:9, Job 7:10

The vanishing cloud.

Job conceives of life as even more transient than the weaver’s shuttle. It does not only pass swiftly away; it melts into nothingness, and ceases to be like the cloud that evaporates in the heat of the rising sun. The journey to the grave knows no return. Here we have the limited, melancholy view of death which was prevalent in Old Testament times, but which should be dispelled by the glorious doctrine of the resurrection which Christ has brought to light.

I. LOST TIME IS IRRECOVERABLE. We can never overtake the days that we have let slip by us in heedless idleness. A wasted youth is an irretrievable disaster; manhood cannot possibly go back and make up for the deficiencies of youth. At best we can but do the duties of to-day; it will be foolish to neglect these in attempting to pick up those of yesterday. A misused opportunity will never return. The memories of a happy and long-lost past may dwell with us as sweetest dreams, but they can never bring back the days of old. Joy, sorrows, busy scenes, quiet scenes,all have melted away like the mountains and palaces of cloudland.

II. EARTHLY LIFE WILL NEVER RETURN. The pagan doctrine of metempsychosis finds no support in Scripture. We live but once on earth. Let us, then, make the best of this one earthly life; it is the only one we have. We might think we could afford to squander it a little recklessly if we had a dozen more lives to fall back upon. But we have no reserves. All our forces are in the field. We must win the battle at once or we shall be utterly undone. The duties, joys, sorrows, of life are with us this once. Let us use them in the highest possible service, that our one life may be a good life. Our dear ones are with us for one life only. Let us be patient with them and kind to them. When we have lost them we can never have them back to atone for our ungenerous treatment of them.

III. WE HAVE THIS ONE OPPORTUNITY OF PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE. We now know that death does not end all. But it ends the sowing-time, After death there is the harvest. What is sown in the present life must be reaped in the great coming age. If this life is misspent, it will go for ever, and we shall have no opportunity to come back to the world and make a better preparation for the great day of reckoning. We cannot buy oil for our vessels when the cry of the bridegroom’s coming awakes the night.

IV. WE CAN LOOK FORWARD TO RISING TO A BETTER LIFE. It is foolish to take Old Testament texts as giving us a finality of truth. In their limitation they sometimes show us only the imperfection of the earlier knowledge. Job did not know the Christian revelation of redemption, though sometimes he seems to have caught glimpses of it. But we, knowing more, should have brighter hopes. Our guide is not Job in his despair, but Christ in his victory. We shall not rise on earth. But we can look forward to a resurrection-life in heaven, when we shall meet those long-lost but never. forgotten friends who have gone on before us.W.F.A.

Job 7:14

Scared with dreams.

This seems to be one of the symptoms of Job’s terrible disease, elephantiasis. Sleep even does not give him rest from his sufferings. The bodily torments of the day only give place to horrible dreams and alarming visions at night.

I. DREAM–TERRORS ARE REAL IN EXPERIENCE. Look at the man in a nightmare, how he groans and shrieks! We smile at his fancied troubles. Yet to him, while he endures them, they are very real. We feel according to our subjective state, not according to our objective circumstances. Souls are tortured by day-dreams which have no better foundation than those of the night, yet are not their distresses the less acute. Superstition peoples the heavens with dream-fancies of horror. There are no corresponding realities. Yet the victims of superstition are in real agony. An enormous amount of terrible mental suffering seems to be experienced by the heathen in their superstitious terrors of malignant divinities. One happy result of Christian missionary work is to sweep away those gloomy dreams, and bring the peace and confidence of Christian daylight to the benighted regions of the world.

II. SOME OF OUR WORST DISTRESSES HAVE NO BETTER FOUNDATION THAN IDLE DREAMS. They are terrible so long as we are under their spell; but if we only knew they were but fancies of the diseased mind, we should be relieved of their incubus. Note some of these.

1. The idea that God is opposed to us. This was Job’s thought. He thought that even his ill dreams came from God, and that it was God who was scaring him. The too common notion in religion was and is that God is averse to us, and that we have to do something to win his favour, whereas the Scriptures tell us that he loves us and seeks us to be reconciled to him, and that, instead of our needing to do something to make him gracious, he has given his Son to redeem us to himself.

2. The notion that our sins are incurable. People will not believe that holiness is possible; therefore of course they do not have it, because they have not the heart of hope to seek it. We scare ourselves with ugly dreams of our own irretrievably ruined condition. Our sin is not a dream, but our despair is one.

3. The terror of death. To the Christian this is but an idle dream. Death is no hideous Miltonic monster, but the servant of Christ, Dying is the advent of Christ to the soul that lives in Christ’s service.

III. CHRIST HAS COME TO DISPEL IDLE DREAMS. We are troubled about God’s dealings with us because we do not know him. We have but to acquaint ourselves with him in order to be at peace (Job 22:21). Christ reveals God in his Fatherhood. There are reasonable fears that are no dreams, but which spring from our consciousness of guilt. Often the dream is found in the illusion that ignores or excuses sin. Christ dispels that dream by revealing a dread reality, but only that he may lead us through repentance to pardon. Then all terrors of the night flee away in the glad daylight of God’s love.W.F.A.

Job 7:17, Job 7:18

The littleness of man.

These verses have been characterized as a parody on Psa 8:5. While following the form of the psalmist’s language, and proceeding on the same general thesis, they suggest a very different inference. The psalmist was amazed at the condescension of God in noticing man, and filled with wonder at the honour that is put on so puny a creature. But Job is here represented as expressing his dismay that God should stoop to try and trouble so small a being. There is no equality in the contest, and it appears to Job as though God were taking advantage of the weakness of his victim. In spite of Job’s perplexity and shortsighted complaints, there are truths behind what he says. We must endeavour to disentangle these truths, and separate them from the illusions unworthy of the goodness of God with which they are confused.

I. GOD IS WRONGLY CHARGED WITH WHAT HE DOES NOT DO. We know from the prologue that it is not God, but Satan, who is the “watcher of men,” in the sense of the spy who delights to pounce on a fault and to worry the miserable in their helplessness. Most of the sufferings of life do not come directly from the Divine will, but proceed from the injustice of other men, from our own faults and mistakes, and from “spiritual wickedness in high places.” We must beware of the dualism which would give this evil an independent power over against God. Satan can only go as far as God permits him. Still, the evil is from Satan, not from God. It is sin, not providence, that brings the greatest trouble of life, and yet providence overrules that trouble for ultimate good.

II. THE SUFFERER IS TEMPTED TO MAGNIFY HIS OWN IMPORTANCE. Job’s troubles were unique. But every sufferer is tempted to think that no one was ever troubled as he is. Feeling his own pain most intensely, he is inclined to make this the central experience of the universe, and to fancy that he is singled out for peculiar attacks of adversity. Job, however, generalizes, and regards himself as a specimen of mankind. Man himself seems unduly marked out for affliction. But no one is justified in coming to this conclusion till he knows how other beings are treated. It may be that man’s hardships are but a part, and a fair part, of the hardships of the universe.

III. TO BE SPECIALLY TROUBLED IS TO BE MAGNIFIED IN IMPORTANCE. If it be so that man is specially singled out for affliction, no doubt a peculiar, though a most painful, importance is attached to him. Job becomes a great figure in Scripture through his troubles. Christ, crowned with thorns, is most significant on his cross. The sublimity of supreme sorrow is the inspiration of tragedy. Man is sometimes called out of his littleness by being made to suffer greatly. If God has a hand in all human sufferingsas God had in Job’s, behind Satanhe is honouring man by condescending to permit him to receive exceptional trials.

IV. GREAT SUFFERING IS PERMITTED FOR THE SAKE OF GREAT GOOD. This is seen in the final outcome of Job’s sufferings. They throw light on the higher life, and demonstrate the existence of disinterested devotion. The parody in Job is not so far from the original in the psalm. It is wonderful that God should permit human life to be honoured as the theatre in which the great tragedy of the conflict between evil and good is displayed. God is not stooping to torment menlike a giant torturing an insectas to Job he appears to be doing with surprising effort. He is condescending to lead man on to greatness through suffering.W.F.A.

Job 7:21

Limits to forgiveness.

If he has done wrong, and deserves to suffer, yet Job wonders why God does not pardon him. Is his Master altogether implacable? Will he exact the last farthing? Taking Job’s question in a wider sense, we may askWhy is not God’s forgiveness unlimited and immediate?

I. THE EXPECTATION OF UNLIMITED FORGIVENESS. This is based on the power and on the goodness of God.

1. His power. The leper prayed, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Mar 1:40). Does not the saying apply to the cleansing from sin? Is God not able to purge sin completely out of the universe? For if he cannot do so, must we not say that God is limited, and therefore not Almighty, i.e. not God?

2. His goodness. He cannot wish to see evil continuing. His name is Love, and therefore he must desire the salvation of all. He is our Father, and it must be a pain to him to be separated from his children. Surely his goodness must incline him to universal pardon. His power would seem to make that possible. Therefore does it not seem reasonable to expect it?

II. THE EXPERIENCE OF LIMITED FORGIVENESS. The expectation is not realized.

1. The forgiveness is limited in extent. God’s forgiveness is not freely bestowed on every sinner. There are multitudes who are still “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” Whilst the gospel is offered to all, very many people still perish in their sins. The universalism which would seem to spring from infinite power and love is not witnessed in actual life.

2. The forgiveness is limited intensively; i.e. those who are not forgiven are not freed from all trouble, neither do they find that sin no longer belongs to them. The first sense of Divine pardon is like a glimpse of heaven; but before long. the joy gives place to disappointment, as evil consequences of old sins are found to follow us still, and even those sins themselves do not appear to be utterly slain.

III. THE EXPLANATION OF THE LIMITS OF FORGIVENESS. God treats us as moral agents. Forgiveness is not simply the relaxation of penalties; it is personal reconciliation. Punishment is not vengeance, but chastisement required by love as much as by justice. Hence we may deduce the explanation:

1. Men have free-wills. God desires to save all, and can save all, yet some do not wish to be saved. Then God respects the liberty which he has conferred. It must be observed that, as pardon is personal reconciliation to God, many who would be glad of release from sufferings, hat who do not desire reconciliation, do not really wish for pardon.

2. Repentance is essential to forgiveness. It would be had in every wayhurtful to the sinner, as well as unjustto forgive a man who did not repent of his sin. Indeed, the pardon would be a moral contradiction.

3. Forgiveness does not involve a removal of all the consequences of sin. The man who has wrecked health and fortune in sin does not become strong and rich by pardon. Natural consequences continue. Healing chastisements continue. Perhaps the penitent suffers because he is forgiven. God has not deserted him. He has visited him in love. Therefore it is a mistake to suppose‘ with Job, that great trouble is a proof that God does not pardon transgression.

4. Sin needs an atonement. It cannot be forgiven without a sacrifice which we have in Christ (Heb 10:12).W.F.A.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

CHAP. VII.

Job goes on to pour out his lamentations in the most pathetic manner, and expostulates with God, praying to be speedily released from his miseries; or that God would grant him some little respite, till the time of their termination should come.

Before Christ 1645.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

B.Jobs Reply: Instead of Comfort, the Friends bring him only increased Sorrow

Job 6:1 to Job 7:21

1. Justification of his complaint by pointing out the greatness and incomprehensibleness of his suffering

Job 6:1-10

1But Job answered and said:

2Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed,

and my calamity laid in the balance together!

3For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;

therefore my words are swallowed up.

4For the arrows of the Almighty are within me,

the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit;
the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

5Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?

or loweth the ox over his fodder?

6Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt?

or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

7The things that my soul refuseth to touch

are as my sorrowful meat.

8Oh that I might have my request,

and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!

9Even that it would please God to destroy me;

that He would let loose His hand, and cut me off!

10Then should I yet have comfort:

yea, I would harden myself in sorrow; let Him not spare;
for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One.

2. Complaint over the bitter disappointment which he had experienced at the hands of his friends

Job 6:11-30

11What is my strength that I should hope?

and what is mine end that I should prolong my life?

12Is my strength the strength of stones?

or is my flesh of brass?

13Is not my help in me?

and is wisdom driven quite from me?

14To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend;

but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.

15My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook,

and as the stream of brooks they pass away;

16which are blackish by reason of the ice,

and wherein the snow is hid.

17What time they wax warm, they vanish;

when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

18The paths of their way are turned aside;

they go to nothing, and perish.

19The troops of Tema looked,

the companies of Sheba waited for them.

20They were confounded because they had hoped;

they came thither and were ashamed.

21For now ye are nothing;

ye see my casting down, and are afraid!

22Did I say, Bring unto me?

or, Give a reward for me of your substance?

23Or, Deliver me from the enemys hand?

or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty?

24Teach me, and I will hold my tongue;

and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.

25How forcible are right words!

but what doth your arguing reprove?

26Do ye imagine to reprove words,

and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?

27Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless,

and ye dig a pit for your friend.

28Now therefore be content, look upon me;

for it is evident unto you if I lie.

29Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity;

yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.

30Is there iniquity in my tongue?

cannot my taste discern perverse things?

3. Recurrence to his former complaint on account of his lot, and accusation of God

Job 7:1-21

1Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?

are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

2As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow,

and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work;

3So am I made to possess months of vanity,

and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

4When I lie down, I say,

When shall I arise and the night be gone?
and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

5My flesh is clothed with worms, and clods of dust;

my skin is broken, and become loathsome.

6My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle,

and are spent without hope.

7O remember that my life is wind!

mine eye shall no more see good.

8The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more;

Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.

9As the cloud is consumed, and vanisheth away,

so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

10He shall return no more to his house,

neither shall his place know him any more.

11Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

12Am I a sea, or a whale,

that Thou settest a watch over me?

13When I say, My bed shall comfort me,

my couch shall ease my complaint;

14then Thou scarest me with dreams,

and terrifiest me through visions;

15So that my soul chooseth strangling,

and death rather than my life.

16I loathe it, I would not live alway;

let me alone; for my days are vanity.

17What is man, that Thou shouldest magnify him?

and that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him?

18And that Thou shouldest visit him every morning?

and try him every moment?

19How long wilt Thou not depart from me,

nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

20I have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee, O Thou preserver of men?

why hast Thou set me as a mark against Thee,
so that I am a burden to myself?

21And why dost Thou not pardon my transgression,

and take away mine iniquity?
for now shall I sleep in the dust;
and Thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. This discourse of Job, the first formal reply which proceeded from him, attaches itself immediately to that which was one-sided, erroneous, and unjust in the discourse of Eliphaz (comp. above, page 327. It rebukes these defects, and justifies the complaints which Job had previously uttered in regard to his miserable condition, in part repeating with increased emphasis the reproaches which in his despair he had brought against God. The tone of his discourse however is so far changed that instead of the wild and doubting agony of his former utterance he exhibits rather a spirit which may be characterized as mild, plaintive, and in some measure composed.

The discourse falls into three divisions: (1) A justification of the previous lamentation, as entirely corresponding to the fearful greatness of Jobs suffering, Job 6:2-10. (2) A sharp criticism of the friends conduct as unreasonably hard, as demonstrating indeed the deceptiveness of their friendship, Job 6:11-30. (3) Renewed lamentation over his inconsolable and helpless condition, together with an arraignment of God, Job 7:1-21. These three principal divisions have the same relative proportions, both as to the length and sub-divisions of each, as the three divisions of the discourse of Eliphaz; the first consisting of one, the two following consisting each of two long strophes. It is only in the last two, however, of these five long strophes (to wit, Job 7:1-21) that we find double-strophes composed of the longer strophes extending over 57 verses. The first three double-strophes on the contrary are composed of shorter strophes, including now three, and now four masoretic verses.

2. First Division (and Long Strophe). Justification of his former lamentation by a reference to the greatness and incomprehensibility of his suffering, Job 6:2-10.

First Strophe. Job 6:2-4. [His grief was not excessive when compared with his suffering].

Job 6:2. Oh that my grief might be but weighed, and my calamity be laid up over against it in the balances[The use of the Inf. Absol. with the Fut. (used optatively after ) shows the emphasis which Jobs mind laid on the complete exact balancing of his vexation against his suffering.E.] , grief, discontent, despondency, is that with which Eliphaz had reproached him [see Job 5:2. Vexation, impatience, either the inner irritation, or outward exhibition of it, or both. Dav.] (for which the Kri has , as also in Job 30:13 for ) my calamity, my ruin; comp. the plur. used elsewhere in the same sense, Job 6:30; Psa 57:2 [1]; Psa 91:3; Psa 94:20; Pro 19:13. The two expressions are not synonymous (Kamph.), but are related to each other as subjective and objective, or as an effect produced in Jobs emotional experience, and the cause of the same. Accordingly can not signify: that it might be laid up (weighed) all at once, altogether, i.e., my entire woe, in which case indeed we should also expect the plur. (). But denotes a simultaneous weighing of the despondency and the calamity, a balancing of either over against the other (comp. Job 17:16; Psa 141:10; Isa 45:8). The whole is a wish or a yearning prayer to God, to show clearly to his friends that his violent grief was most assuredly proportioned to the severity of his sufferings. [Conant objects to the view here given: that it is not an appropriate answer to Eliphaz, whose admonitions were not based on the disproportion of the sufferers grief to its cause. To which Davidson replies: Job is not here replying to Eliphazs whole charge, but only to the beginning of it (as was fit in the beginning of his reply), the charge of unmanliness, to which the words are an appropriate answer].

Job 6:3. For now is it heavier than the sand of the seas, i.e., heavy beyond measure. For the use of the expression sand of the sea, as a figure to set forth a weight or burden of extreme heaviness (as elsewhere it is used to set forth an innumerable multitude), comp. Pro 27:3; Sir 22:15., seas, poetic plural, used like the sing. in Gen 49:13. is rendered by Delitzsch, for then (as in Job 3:13), and the whole sentence he takes to be an inference from Job 6:2 : then would it be found heavier than the sand, etc. But this it would be found is simply interpolated into the text. Most modern expositors rightly render it: For now, as the case now stands, especially in consequence of your unfriendly conduct, etc.Therefore do my words rave., with the tone on the penult, cannot be derived from [Ges.], but either from , or , but not in the sense of sucking down, or swallowing, but in the sense, for which we have the warrant of the Arabic, of stammering, raving, [Frst]. Job therefore admits that he has heretofore spoken foolishly (comp. 2Co 11:17; 2Co 11:21; 2Co 11:23), but he justifies himself by appealing to his insupportable sorrow. [The translation of the Eng. Ver. my words are swallowed up, implying that he had been unable to speak from grief, is less significant, and less suitable to the connection than the confession that he had spoken madly: neither is it consistent with the usage of the verb elsewhere in an active sense; Oba 1:16.E.]

Job 6:4. For the arrows of the Almighty are in me, whose poison my spirit drinks up.More specifically giving the reason for 3a. By the arrows of the Almighty are meant the sickness, pains, and plagues which God inflicts on men: [the emphasis lies on Almighty, the arrows of the Almighty; there was enough in that fact, in the awful nature of his adversary, to account and more than apologize for all his madness. Dav.] comp. Psa 38:3 [2]; Deu 32:23; Eze 5:16; also below in our book, Job 16:12 seq.i.e., lit. with me, not in my body ( , LXX. Pesh.). The form of expression is chosen to represent the arrows of God as something which has hurt and wounded not only his body, but also his soul, and which accordingly is ever with him, continually present to him (comp. Job 9:35; Job 10:13). , not the subj. of the relative clause (LXX., Pesh., Vulg., Rosenm. [E. V., Noy., Lee, Con., Carey], but its object, the subj. of which is rather my spirit. heat, here equivalent to poison; comp. Job 21:20; Psa 7:14 [Psa 7:13]; Psa 58:5; Deu 32:24; Deu 32:33. [Some prefer: the poison of which drinketh up my spirit, a meaning that would account for Jobs prostration, the poison of Gods arrows was like a burning heat that dried up and drank in his spirit. It was rather, however, his violence and vehement recrimination against God which he has to excuse; impetuosity, not impotence, has to be accounted for. It is thus better to make spirit nom., the spirit drinks in the Divine virus, which works potently, as Divine poison will, excites, inflames, maddens the spirit. Dav.].The terrors of Eloah storm me. , an elliptical expression for , they set themselves in battle array against me, they assail me like an army: comp. Jdg 20:30; Jdg 20:33; 1Sa 4:2. Bttcher singularly attempts to render it (Neue Exeget. hrenlese, No. 1397): the terrors of God cause me to arm myselfcompel me to put myself in the right. Against this it may be urged that the terrors of God signify not Jobs sufferings and distresses in themselves, and objectively considered, but his subjective experiences of the same, his consciousness of the fact that his suffering proceeds from the attacks and persecutions which God in His wrath directs against his life and his happiness in life (comp. Job 23:16 seq.). [They are the conscious voluntary terrors which He actively originates, which He gathers from the ends of His dominion and the outlying posts of His power, and marshals like a sable infinite host against Job. Dav.].

Second Strophe: Job 6:5-7. [The demand that he should submit without a murmur unnatural].

Job 6:5. Does the wild ass bray by the fresh grass, or doth an ox low at his fodder?i.e., I would certainly not lament without sufficient cause; far less would I be disposed to complain than an irrational beast, which is contentedly provided with fodder. The form of the comparison vividly reminds us of Amo 3:4-6.For , to moan, to groan, to utter doleful cries, comp. Job 30:7. Concerning the wild ass see the fuller description in Job 39:5-8., maslin, farrago, a compound of various kinds of grain.

Job 6:6. Is that which is tasteless eaten without salt, or is there flavor in the white of an egg?i.e., can it be expected of me that I should freely and joyously relish the unsavory food of suffering, and especially of that loathsome disease, which has seized upon me? That Job uses tasteless, loathsome food as a figure for the sufferings which afflict him, appears both from Job 6:2-4, and from Job 6:8-10, where the burden of these self-same sufferings prompts him to desire death. The interpretation which refers the figure to the discourses of the friends (LXX. and other ancient expositors, also Retschi, Stud, und Krit., 1867) is at variance with the connection. It suits indeed the expression in the first member of the verse ( tasteless; comp. rem. on Job 1:22), but not the expression slime of the yolk of an egg, which is altogether too strong for unsuitable and harsh discourses, and which is most naturally referred to the nauseous filth, dust, and ulcerous matter of the leprosy (comp. Job 7:5). [Observe that the point of the illustration lies in the tendency of an agreeable quality, or the opposite, to produce content or discontent. Now as that which occasioned Jobs discontent was his suffering, it is doubtless this suffering which in this verse he describes negatively as tasteless, and therefore to be complained of in the next verse as positively loathsome, and therefore to be refused.Moreover, it is not until later (Job 6:25 sq.) that Job comes to speak of the nature of his friends remarks. He is here justifying his complaint which had been uttered before his friends had spoken at all, and which had been prompted by their silence, of which silence, as indicating a failure of sympathy, he again complains (Job 6:15-21).E.]. , the slime of the yolk, i.e., the liquid saliva which encloses the solid part, the yellow yolk of an egg, hence the white of an egg, which was esteemed by the Hebrews to be particularly nauseating, or at least as altogether insipid. So, following the Targ. and some of the Rabbis, Rosenm., Umbreit, Ewald, Stickel, Del., Dillmann, [E. V., Hengst., Dav., Frst, Schlottmann, Good], etc., and in general most modern writers, while the Pesh., Arab., Gesen., Heiligst., Bttcher, [Renan, Merx], translate portulacca-broth, purslainslime, a rendering, however, which assigns to the sense, elsewhere unknown, of slime, broth, or soup.

Job 6:7. My soul refuses to touch, such things are to me as putrid food.Rosenm., Welte, Delitzsch, (as before them the Vulg., Luther) [so also E. V., Noy., Ren., Elz.], take the first member as an antecedent relative clause without , that which my soul refuses to touch, etc. But such an antecedent position for the relative clause when is wanting, is a rare construction, and in order to obtain for the consequent clause a tolerable sense we should be obliged to amend to (as Rosenm. and Welte do in opposition to all the MSS. and Vsns.). Such a construction, moreover, destroys the progression of thought from a to b. The object of is supplied of itself in that which from Job 6:2 on stands forth as the prominent conception, to wit, the suffering or calamity of Job, to which also the , which stands at the head of the second member, points back, they, i.e., things of that sort, such things. , lit as the disease of my bread; i.e., as though my food were diseased, putrid, loathsome: constr. state of , sickness, disease, comp Psa 41:4 [3] (so rightly Gesenius, [Frst], Ewald, Olsh., Hahn, Schlottmann, Dillmann, etc.). Others (Cocceius, Schultens, Heiligstedt, Delitzsch) take as constr. st. plur. of , sick, unclean (comp. Isa 30:22), according to which derivation, however, we should expect to read . Umbreit and Hirzel (2d Ed.) explain the disease of my bread as meaning, the disease which is my daily bread [so also Wordsworth and Renan]; Bttcher would read : they are according to the disease of my food; Hitzig, after the Arabic, explains: the crumbs of my foodpurely arbitrary evasions, and less natural than the construction followed by us.

Third Strophe: Job 6:8-10. [He longs for death, and even in death would rejoice in his integrity.]

Job 6:8. Oh that my request might be fulfilled [lit. might come], and that Eloah would grant my longing! This prayer and longing are for death, as that which would bring release from his misery, which is all that he desires: see the verse which follows. he well-known optative formula, governing also the verbs of the following verse. [It occurs quite frequently in the Book of Job, almost altogether, however, in. Jobs discourses, in the friends discourses only in Job 11:5, not once in those of Elihu and God. This indicates purpose in the linguistic structure of the argument. Jobs destiny gives him much to wish for. Hengst.] Hupfelds emendation, for , is uncalled for.

Job 6:9. That it might please Eloah to destroy me, that He would let down His hand to cut me off: lit. that He would let loose His hand, and cut me off; for , Hiph. of , to spring, signifies to cause to spring, to unbind, set loose (comp. Isa 58:6; Psa 105:20; Psa 146:7); the hand of God is thus conceived of as having been hitherto boundbound, that is, by His own will., and cut me off, (not: and crush me, Luther, comp. the LXX.: ). Jobs soul, his Ego or his life, is, after the analogy of Job 4:21, regarded as an internal cord, a string, or thread, the cutting off of which is synonymous with death: comp. also Job 27:8; Ps. 76:13, also the well-known Greek representation of the Parc.

Job 6:10. So would it ever be my comfort. Delitzsch rightly: With begins the conclusion, exactly as in Job 13:5. Most expositors extend the influence of the , Job 6:8, over this sentence, and construe the verbs here also as optatives: and that so my comfort may still be to me, etc. The comfort, according to this latter construction, would be Jobs speedy death. But how a speedy death could in and of itself bring any comfort is not made to appear in this connection. It is more natural with Hupf., Schlottmann, Delitzsch [Bernard, Conant, Rodwell, Hengst., Renan], especially on comparing this with the analogous passage in Psa 119:50, to find the statement of that which would bring comfort in the words of the last member: that I have not denied the words of the Holy One, thus treating the second member, , as a parenthesis.I would leap in unsparing pain. For the use of the cohortative () in a subjunctive sense in a parenthesis, comp. e.g.Psa 40:6; Psa 51:18. is to be explained after the Arab. zalada (to stamp the ground, tripudiare) [to beat hard; hence the E. V.: I would harden myself in sorrow, and so Lee, who explains: Because there still is, or remains consolation, I will not give way, whatever may be laid on me: or even though He cut me entirely off], as also after the of the LXX. and the (I will exult) of the Targum. It is accordingly to be taken in the sense of a jubilant expression of joy, not in the sense of being tormented (Rosenm, after some of the Rabbis [who explain the verb to mean burning; and so Bernard]), nor: to spring up through pain (Schlottmann, who accordingly takes the parenthesis in a concessive sense: although I leap up for pain). (comp. Isa 30:14 seq.), a relative clause, with the omission of the adverbial : wherewith he spares me not, namely, God, who is to be understood as the subject here (Rosenm., Ewald [who makes the omitted relative the direct object of the verbpain which he spares not; a construction, however, which does not harmonize so well with the usage of , which generally has a personal object. E.], Hirzel, Heiligstedt, Hahn, Schlottmann, Dillmann) [Renan, Hengst.]. Possibly might be taken as the subject (so Umbreit, Vaih., Stickel) [Gesen., Rodwell, Conant]: in pain which spares not, against which, however, it may be urged that, while is most simply treated as fem., the verbal form used, , is masc. In any case, the translation; in unsparing pain, corresponds to the sense of the poet.That I have not denied the words of the Holy One. This factthat he had been guilty of no denial (comp. Job 1:22; Job 2:10)constitutes the firm confidence which Job possessed in the midst of all his distress and misery, and which he felt assured would show itself, even in death. The meaning is not essentially different which results from the other and more common construction of our verse, according to which the second member is not treated as a parenthesis, and is regarded as introducing a reason for that which precedes: for I have not denied, etc.

3. Second Division: A lament over the bitter disappointment which he had experienced from his friends: Job 6:11-30.

First Long Strophe: Job 6:11-20 (consisting of three short strophes, of 3, 4, and three verses respectively). [In view of his broken strength and hopeless condition, he must reject their advice to trust in the future, and openly declare to them that he is completely disappointed in his expectations as to their friendship. Dillmann.]

a. Job 6:11-13. [His helplessness, and consequent hopelessness. Ewald and Hengstenberg put this strophe in the First Division, to which, however, as Schlottmann has shown, there are two objections. First, it mars the completeness which the preceding long strophe possesses, when regarded as closing the triumphant declaration by Job of his integrity and confidence in God contained in Job 6:10.Secondly, the picture which this short strophe gives of his helplessness and hopelessness is preparatory to the picture which immediately follows of the deceptiveness of his friends, and in that position adds greatly to the pathos and effectiveness of his complaint. E.]

Job 6:11. What is my strength that I should persevere [wait], and what mine end that I should be patient? The answer to this question which Jobs meaning would require is of course a pure negative: my strength is completely gone, and death is the only end which I look for, in all its nearness, nay more, with impatience. [Two things are necessary that one may bear misfortune patiently; first, that the strength of the sufferer is in some proportion to the power of the suffering; and, secondly, that he sees before him an end, which, when reached, will reward the present struggle. Job denies both these things of himself, the first in Job 6:12, the second in Job 6:13. Schlottmann.] For , to prolong the soul, to lengthen it, i.e. to be patient, comp. Pro 19:11; Isa 48:9. [The rendering of E. V., prolong my life, would rather require ].

Job 6:12. Or is the strength of stones my strength, or is my flesh of brass?[The first or tends rather to mar the connection. E.] A poetic illustrative expansion of the thought in Job 6:11 a. [According to Hengstenberg, stones and brass are mentioned here because of their invulnerability. Rather, according to the connection, because of their power of endurance. Schlottmann says: is properly always copper, which the ancients, however, as is known, had learned to harden, so that in firmness it resembled iron. E.]

Job 6:13. Verily, is not my help in me brought to nought? lit.: Is not the nothingness of my help with me? , which occurs elsewhere only in Num. 17:28 [Num 17:13], is neither a strengthened interrogative (Schlottmann), nor an inversion for (Delitzsch), nor a collocation of the interrogative particle with the conditional particle (whether, if my help is destroyed, etc., Kster), but simply equivalent to , in the sense of vivid interrogation or asseveration: verily not (Ewald, Dillmann). And well-being driven away from me? essentially the same as in Job 5:12, well-being, enduring prosperity. The sense of the verse as a whole is: My condition is hopeless, and all promises for the future are therefore useless and null. [It is doubtless best to give to here the sense which, as Zckler has elsewhere shown, belongs to it in the Chokma-Literature. Other interpretations are partial, and so far enfeebling: e.g. wisdom, E. V., or insight (Hengst.), deliverance (Noyes), solace (Rosenm.), restoration (Conant). What Job says is that every element of real and substantial good had been driven away from him. Davidson is more nearly right when he says, that not only was recovery driven away from him, but that the possibility of it, anything which could spring, and be matured into health again, all inner strength and resourcethe very base of recoverywas driven away or out of him. The word, however, is broader even than this, including all external as well as internal resources, a mans entire establishment of good.E.]

b. Job 6:14-17 : [He has been disappointed in the friendly sympathy which is accorded to every one in misery, but which, in his case, has proved as deceptive as a summer brook.]

Job 6:14. To the despairing gentleness (is due) from his friends (or, is shown by his friends), and [or, even] should he have forsaken the fear of the Almighty.[The prep. in does not express so much what is due as what is actually given in affliction. Jobs friends failed, not in giving what was due, the world and even friendship often does, but in giving what was actually and always given. Dav.] from , liquefieri, denotes literally one who is inwardly melted, disheartened (Delitzsch)a term strikingly descriptive of Jobs condition as one of complete depression, helpless prostration to the very ground., gentleness, friendliness, kindness (comp. the of Gal 6:1), not reproach, as Seb. Schmidt, Hitzig, and others would explain it, after Pro 14:34; for in Job 10:12 our poet again uses in its ordinary sense, and the translation: If reproach from his friends falls on one who is despairing, he will then give up the fear of God, gives a thought which is foreign to the context, and withal incorrect in itself. Equally untenable on grammatical grounds is the translation of Luther [and Wemyss; also of Merx, who however alters the text from to ]: He who withholds mercy from his neighbor, he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.This rendering, however, although resting on the authority of the Targ., Vulg., and Pesh., is to be rejected on account of the singularly harsh construction of the as a designation of the absol. case, as well as on account of its giving to the Partic. the unheard-of signification: he who withholds, or refuses. The second member cannot be regarded as the conclusion of the first,not even by taking in the sense of alioqui, and so translating with Schnurrer, Delitzsch [Noy., Words., Rod., Hengst.], otherwise he might forsake the fear of the Almighty (alioqui hic reverentiam Dei exuit). Rather, if no corruption of the text be assumed, it will be found most simple and natural to regard the first member as an ardently expressed formula of desire, with an omitted jussive from the verb , or to supply is due to, belongs to, [or is given to], and to find in the second member simply the continuation of the principal notion , introduced by a concessive : and even if he should have forsaken [Schlott., Dill., Ren., Lee, Dav.] (comp. Ges., 134 [Con.-Roed., 131] Rem. 2; Ewald, 350, b).Ewald, without necessity, would supply between a and b lines which, he assumes, had fallen out.1The whole verse is evidently an expression of resentment at the fact that Eliphaz had exhibited no trace of gentle forbearance or sympathy for Job; he claims this sympathy for himself, even in case he had in his suffering departed from the fear of God, which case, however, he presents only as possible, not as actual. [Conant translates: ready to forsake the fear of the Almighty; Davidson: to one losing hold of the fear of the Almighty. Job, says the latter, would not admit that he had forsaken, rather that he was forsaking, in danger of forsaking the fear of the Almighty. And again: in his terrible collision in darkness and doubt with the unspeaking nameless (Gen 32:25) Being he was aloneabsolutelyfor the Father was against him, and when one is losing hold () of God, he sorely enough needs a human hand to grasp, and the sufferers pathos is overwhelming, when he sees God and man alike estranged.The continuation of the participial construction by the Imperfect, with omitted relative (see Ewald, 338, b), fully justifies this construction, which is at once most simple and expressive. To one whose inner man is dissolving, whose faith and life are giving way, and who in that fearful dissolution is in danger of losing hold on God, to him surely sympathy from friends is meet.E.]

Job 6:15-17. The conduct of Jobs three friends in disappointing his hopes, illustrated by the comparison of a torrent, which in spring rushes along full and strong, but in summer is entirely dried up, an , or lying stream, as the same is described in Jer 15:18 (comp. the paronomasia in Mic 1:14, , the houses of Achzih are become a lying stream to the kings of Israel).

Job 6:15. My brethren have been false as a torrent, i.e., my friends, whom I have loved as brothers [, placed first with special emphasis],he mentions them all, because Eliphaz had spoken in the name of all (Job 5:27)have borne themselves treacherously towards me, have ministered to me an empty semblance of comfort, like the dried-up water of a wadi.As the bed of torrents which overflow. not, which vanish away (Hirzel, Delitzsch [Hengst., E. V., Con., Dav., Noy., Carey, Ren.]), for while passing away, or vanishing, may indeed be predicated of the water of a brook, it cannot be used of the brook itself. Moreover, the continuation of the description given in the following verse, assumes the torrents to be full, not as yet in course of disappearing [and so Ewald, Dillmann, Schlott. Wemyss].

Job 6:16. Turbid are they from ice: black, foul, dark; here in the literal or physical sense, different from Job 5:11.The snow hides itself in them; or: down upon which () the snow hides itself; a constr. prgnans, comp. Gesen., 141[ 138].

Job 6:17. At the time when heat comes to them they are cut off [lit., made silent]. at the time when, or so soon as they are warmed. [ in the constr. state, at the beginning of a temporal clause, with omission of the relative: see Ewald, 286, i; 332 d]. , Pual of , a poetic variant of (Eze 21:3; Pro 16:27), to burn, to parch, to glow; [and so E. V., Ew., Schlott., Del., Dillm., Dav., Carey, Hengst.According to Ges., Frst. Con., the meaning is: at the time they are poured off, or flow off; i.e., when the heat begins to melt the snow on the mountains. But as the first result of that is filling up the channels, the sense would be somewhat strained.E.]. When it is hot, they are dried up [lit., extinguished] from their place:, in its becoming hot; i.e., when it is hot. The suffix is to be taken as neuter, not (with Hirzel) to be referred to an that is understood; (when it, the time of the year, becomes hot); comp. Ewald. 295, a.

c. Job 6:18-20. A further description of the disappointment he had met with from his friends by a continuation of the simile of the treacherous torrents.

Job 6:18. The paths of their course wind about, they go up into the waste and vanish.If, with the Masor. text, we read , the rendering here given is the only one that is admissible; the ways or paths of their course are in that case the beds of the torrents, which go winding about, and thus favor the rapid extinction of the torrent; their going up into the waste ( ) is their gradual evaporation into the air, their ascent in vapors and clouds; comp. Isa 40:23; so correctly Mercerus: in auras abeunt, in nihilum rediguntur; so also Arnh., Delitzsch [Good, Barnes, Bernard, Words., Elzas]. Most modern expositors, however, correct the text here, and in the following verse to , plur. of (or also , plur. of , way, caravan), and translate either: the caravans of their way turn aside [a rendering, however, which is founded on the Masoretic text, regarding as constr., and the meaning being the caravans along their way; so Conant, Davidson, Hengstenberg,E.], or: caravans turn aside their course, they go up into the wastes, and perish, [so Ewald, Schlottmann, Dillmann, Wemyss, Noyes, Carey, Rodwell, Renan, Merx]. The phrase seems indeed to harmonize well with this explanation. But in that case Job 6:18 would anticipate Job 6:19-20 in an unprecedented manner; after the statement of this verse, which by the expression has already carried us forward to the complete destruction of the deceived caravans, what is said in those verses would drag along as a flat tautology. According to our interpretation Job 6:18 completes the description of the treacherous torrents begun in Job 6:15, while the two verses following dwell, with that epic repose and breadth which characterize the whole description, on the impression which such dried up torrents make on the thirsty caravans of the desert. [These reasons are certainly not wanting in force, still they are not conclusive. For (1) It is agreed by all that in the next verse means caravans, and it is in the highest degree improbable that in two verses, so closely connected, describing the same general idea, and belonging to the same figure, the same word should be used in two different senses. (2). The language used, while most graphically appropriate according to one interpretation, can be adapted to the other only by strained constructions. This is especially true of the secnd member. Going up into the waste, and perishing, are surely farfetched expressions for the evaporation and disappearance of water. On the other hand they are, as Zockler admits, in admirable harmony with the other interpretation. Nothing indeed can be more exquisite in its pathos than the picture which they bring before the mind of a caravan, weary with travel and thirst, and still more weary with disappointment, winding along the channel of the torrent, wistfully exploring its dry bed for water, following its course upward, hoping that in the uplands, nearer the rivers sources, some little pool may be found; hoping thus from day to day, but in vain, and so wasting away into a caravan of skeletons, until at last in the far off wastes it perishes. (3). The objection that this interpretation anticipates what follows, and thus produces a tame and dragging tautology, is answered by observing that the chief motive of the description just given is not to excite pity for the fate of such a caravan, but to justify Jobs resentment at the treachery of which the dry wady is the type. Hence in the verses following Job emphasizes the disappointment which the caravan of Tema and Sheba (named by way of vivid individualization) would feel in such a plight. This is the burden of his accusation of his friends, they had disappointed, deceived him. This was to him, at this time, a more bitter fate than his destruction would have been; so that from his point of view, Job 6:19-20, so far from being an anti-climax, contain the very climax of his sorrow.The suggestions to change either to Kal, (Frst), or to Piel, (Ewald) are unfortunate. No species could express more happily than the Niphal the helpless, semi-passive condition of an exhausted caravan, such as is here described, winding around, hither and thither, led by the channel in the search for water.E.]

Job 6:19. The caravans of Tema looked: to wit, caravans of the Ishmaelitish Arabian tribe of (Gen 25:15), in northern Arabia (Isa 21:14; Jer 25:23), which is mentioned here by way of example; so likewise in the next clause , as to which see Job 1:15.[The companies of Sheba hoped for them. is by most referred to the torrents; by Schlottmann, however, it is regarded as Dat. commodi, and so suggesting the eagerness of their search. E ] The Perfects in this and the following verse give to the whole description the appearance of a concrete historical occurrence.

Job 6:20. They were put to shame by their trust: lit. because one trusted; comp. Ewald, 294, b. The phrase describes by individualization, wherefore it is unnecessary, with Olsh., to amend to the plur. , or with Bttcher to read (a form which nowhere occurs). They came thither (the fem. suffix in in the neuter sense; comp. Job 6:29), and became red with shame; as the result, namely, of their having been disappointed.Observe the wonderful beauty of this whole illustration, which terminates with this verse. It is no less striking than clear and intelligible. The friendship of the three visitors was once great, like that rushing torrent of melting snow; now, however, in the heat of temptation, it has utterly vanished, so that the sufferer, thirsting for comfort, but meeting instead, first with silence, and afterwards with sharp and heartless censure, finds himself ignominiously deceived, like a company of travellers betrayed by a lying brook.

4. Second Division.Second Long Strophe (subdivided like the first into shorter strophes of 3, 4, and 3 verses respectively); Job 6:21-30. The complaint concerning the faithlessness of the friends is continued [in simple, non-figurative language], passing over, however, near the close (in strophe c: Job 6:28 seq.) into an appeal for the renewal of their former friendliness.

a. Job 6:21-23. [The illustration applied, and the unfaithfulness of the friends shown from the unselfishness of the demands which Job had made on their friendship].

Job 6:21. Verily, so are ye now become nothing. introduces the ground of the preceding comparison of the friends to the treacherous torrents: for now (for as you now conduct yourselves towards me) you are become a nothing, a nullity, to wit, for me; I have nothing at all in you, neither comfort nor support. Such is the explanation according to the Masoretic reading: ; here not means nothing, as in one instance the Chald. (=): Dan 4:32. [Comp. , Job 5:24; also the similar use of , Job 24:25]. According to the regular Hebrew usage, we should certainly expect: or ; still the Targ. justifies our construction (adopted among modern expositors by Umbreit, Vaih., Schlottm., Hahn, Delitzsch [E. V., Frst, Davidson, Noyes, Wordsworth, Rodwell, Renan], etc.). According to the Kri , which in many MSS. is the reading even of the text, instead of , the explanation would be: ye are become that [the same]; i.e. ye are become a deceitful , Job 6:15, which, however, hardly gives a tolerable sense. Still more unsatisfactory is the rendering favored by the LXX., Vulg, Pesh., Luth., etc., according to which the reading should be , instead of , Ye are become to me. J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Olshausen, Dillmann, also read for (), and in addition amend to at the beginning of the verse: so are ye become to me. This conjecture certainly yields a complete satisfactory sense; but the sentence as it stands with commends itself by its bolder and more comprehensive form of expression.You see a terror, and are dismayed.The words and form a paronomasia which cannot well be reproduced in a translation: the same paronomasia between and occurs also in Job 37:24; Psa 40:4 [Psa 40:3]; Psa 52:8 [Psa 52:6]; Zec 9:5. By [E. V. casting down, but rather from to be broken, crushed, metaphorically with fear: hence that which causes terror.E.] Job means the fearful calamity which has come upon him, in the presence of which his friends stand astonished and dismayed, thinking they had to do with one who was, in some extraordinary sense, an enemy of God.

Job 6:22-23. [Their cowardice in now renouncing their friendship is all the more striking, forasmuch as he has required of them no sacrifice, or heroic achievement in his behalf, a test before which a false friendship commonly fails, butfor such is his thoughtonly the comfort of words, and the aid of sympathy.Dillmann.]

Job 6:22. Did I ever say then, Give to me, and bring presents to me from your wealth?[, is it that?was your failure because I ever said? , Ewald 226, d. Green. 119:4]. The question is in a vein of derision: Did I ever require any special sacrifice of you? [and in Job 6:23] did I ever demand of you anything else, any other effort or achievement, than the exhibition of genuine compassion, of true brotherly sympathy? here means wealth (opes), as in Pro 5:10; Lev 26:10. Elsewhere we find used in this sense.

Job 6:23. [And deliver me out of the enemys hand, and redeem me from the hand of the oppressor (Renan: brigands)?] We are not specially to think here of a deliverance, or a redemption by means of a ransomnot, therefore, of a pecuniary ransom, although this thought is not to be excluded altogether.

b. Job 6:24-27. [A challenge to be convicted of wrong-doing, and a bitter upbraiding of the cruelty which had fastened on words spoken in agony.]

Job 6:24. Teach me, then will I be silent (i.e. I will cease my complaint); and wherein I have erred show me. From this urgent request, that he be openly instructed and admonished in regard to that of which he is assumed to be guilty, it is abundantly evident, that the conduct of his friends, when for seven days they sat with him in silence, had been felt by him as a mute accusation on their part, and a sore mortification to himself.

Job 6:25. How sweet are words of rectitude [i.e. right words]! it is best to take as synonymous with (comp. Psa 119:103), how sweet, how pleasant are, etc. According to this rendering, which is favored by the Targ. (also by Raschi, Schultens, Rosenm., Ewald, Schlottmann, Dillmann [Frst, Renan, Wordsworth], etc.), the question in the second member of the verse, being introduced with an adversative , expresses a contrast with the first member: but what does reproof from you reprove? i.e. what does it avail or accomplish? , a substantive Inf. Absol. [used as subj., a very rare construction; comp. Pro 25:27]. The construction adopted by the LXX., Aq., apparently also by the Pesh. and Vulg., is etymologically admissible. According to this, means: to be sick, weak, in a bad condition, the sense of the passage being: Why are the words of rectitude [i.e. my words] poorly esteemed by you? why do they seem to you worthy of blame? This explanation, however, which is that essentially followed by Luther, Hahn, Ebrard [Umbreit, Hengst., Merx, who, instead of , reads , the righteous man], etc., is made less probable in that it renders by wherefore. Others (Kimchi, Delitzsch, v. Gerl.), [so also E. V., Ges., Good, Noyes, Barnes, Conant, Davidson, Carey, Rodwell, Elzas], render: How forcible, how penetrative, are words of rectitude! Whereas , however, can scarcely be the same with , this rendering lacks the necessary etymological justification. The same is true of Hupfelds combination of the verb with ,, acerbum acrem esse: how bitter words of uprightness can be! Here, moreover, the rendering of by quantumvis is doubtful. [The word is used elsewhere twice in Niphal, as here: 1Ki 2:8, of a grievous curse, or a curse inevitably carried out (Del.); Mic 2:10, of sore, unsparing destruction; and once in Hiphil: Job 16:3, in the sense of goading, provoking, and so stirring up to speak. The analogy of these passages favors the rendering: How forcible! To this add: (1) It agrees better with the subject, upright, honest, sincere words. Words which keep the straight way of truth, go to the heart.Del. Comp. what is said of the word of God in Heb 4:12. (2) The parallelism favors it, as thus: Words which proceed from sincerity are effective: they have force and pungency; but the words which have proceeded from you ()what force, what pungency, what reproving power, have they?E.]

Job 6:26. Do you think to reprove (mere) words?i.e. will you, to justify your censorious treatment of me, fasten on my wordson words spoken by me without reflection in the excitement of passion (Job 3), instead of on the fact of my blameless conduct? The whole question attaches itself closely to Job 6:25 b, and defines more closely the sense of that interrogative sentence: Do you think to make your reproof efficacious and profitable [exactly so: a good definition of : see above.E.] in this way, by directing attention only to those words of mine? [, Inf. constr. Hiph. with Pattach: Grn. 126, 1]. Notwithstanding the words of a despairing man go to the wind, i.e., notwithstanding you should know that the words of one in despair () are necessarily inconsiderate and spoken at random, are therefore to be judged leniently, and not pressed to the quick. The same sense is also obtained if (with Delitzsch, etc.) be treated as a circumstantial clause, and translated: while nevertheless the words, etc. Our adversative rendering of the however makes the expression stronger. [The preposition in is rendered with slight variations. Ewald, Dillmann, Hengstenberg, Merx, like Zckler, render it, speaking to the wind. E. V., Con., Dav., Elz., Rod.: as the wind. And so Carey: for wind. Schlott., Noyes, Wem.: but wind. Delitzsch and Renan: belong to the wind (that they may be carried away by it, not to the judgment, which retains and analyzes them. Del.).]

Job 6:27. Ye would even cast lots for the orphan, and ye would traffic for your friend.The severest reproach which Job pronounces on his opponents in this discourse. [Renan introduces the verse with the objurgation, Traitors!] The two Imperfects express what they would do in a given case, and are thus conditional or subjunctive, as in Job 3:13; Job 3:16. With is to be supplied , after 1Sa 14:42. [Some suppose the figure in both clauses to be taken from hunting, and supply accordingly , net, in the first: You spread a net, and dig a pitfall for your friend. Hengstenberg would supply stones: you would stone your friend. E. V., Good, Elz.: cause to fall, i.e., overwhelm, fall upon. But as Zckler proceeds to say]: A casting of lots for an orphan might take place when unrelenting creditors appropriated the children of their deceased debtors as slaves by way of payment. Comp. 2Ki 4:1. With in the second member, Rosenm., Gesenius, Heiligstedt, supply , a grave [so also E. V., Good, Noyes, Wem., Carey, Rod., Elz., Hengst.]. But partly the context, partly the similar expression in Job 40:30, as also passages like Hos 3:2, Deu 2:6, assure the signification of to be: to conclude a bargain for any one, to sell, to traffic in any one, viz., as slaves. Comp. Gen 37:27 sq. [So Ewald, Dillmann, Delitzsch, Wordsworth, and Schlottmann, who argues that the ellipsis of in the first member is without any analogy: that for the ellipsis of in the second the use of in Psa 35:7 cannot be cited, seeing that there occurs in the first member, and that the construction with , to dig a pit against one, would be harsh and unprecedented.]

Job 6:28-30. [An urgent appeal to consider the righteousness of his cause. Observe the sudden and touching transition from the bitter outbreak of Job 6:27, as though himself alarmed at the violent expression of his feelings, the reaction bringing back with it something of the old trust in his friends.E.]

Job 6:28. And now be pleased to look on me.Immediately following upon the severest reproof the discourse changes its tone to that of mild entreaty and adjuration. , to turn the face to one, to consider attentively. Comp. Ecc 2:11. And of a truth I will not lie to your face:i.e., in maintaining unrighteously and untruthfully my innocence. is the particle used in a negative oath, or a solemn asseveration that this or that is not the case (Gesen. 155 [ 152], 2 f.). [The rendering of E. V.: for it is evident unto you, if I lie, is unfortunate in its use of the present, is; for as Conant says: though it was so clear to Job himself, he could not assert that it was so evident to them. This objection, however, is obviated, if, with Gesenius, we supply the future: it will be before your face (i.e., evident.) if I lie; or if, with Hengstenberg, we supply the optative: let it lie before your face (i.e., let it be determined by you, be ye judges) whether I lie. In favor of the one or the other of these constructions, which are substantially the same, it may be said: (1) It establishes a better connection of the first and second members of this verse. Having entreated them to give earnest attention to his case, he assures them that they will be satisfied with his truth. (2) It is in better harmony with the suddenly subdued and almost plaintive tone which characterizes this strophe than the strenuous asseveration that he would not lie to their faces. (3) It brings the structure of the verse into conformity with that of the verse following, where we have the same earnest entreaty, followed by the same assurance of a satisfactory conclusion. (4) Job 6:30 seems to be the expansion of the same thought. (5) The construction is much simpler and less harsh.E.]

Job 6:29. Return, I prayi.e., not: come hither in order to hear my complaint (Schlott., Kamph.), which would be trivial and inexpressive; nor: begin again (i.e., try it again, v. Gerl., Del.),a sense which cannot be referred to the simple objectless . But the meaning is rather: Return from the path of hostility and unfriendly suspicion towards me, on which you have entered. For the absolute use of , to be converted, to return (to Jehovah), comp. Jer 3:12; Jer 3:14; Jer 3:22; 2Ch 6:24, etc. Let there be no wrongviz: on your side, through your continuing to torture me, etc. Yea, return, I am still right therein.With the Kri we are to read , a reiterated urgent request that they should hear him without prejudice. The Kthibh, , admits of no satisfactory explanation. [One commentator, e.g., supposes that Job is here addressing his wife! Some (e.g., Hengstenberg) that he is addressing his cause (personified), which his friends had dismissed as adjudicated. Others, as Schultens, regard the word as Inf. with suffix; my return, i.e., I will return, or again go over my case, and establish its righteousness. But, as Schlottmann remarks, this is undoubtedly one of the few cases where the Kri is to be preferred. Renan, following, perhaps, a hint already furnished by the LXX.: (probably reading ), supposes that, stung by Jobs reproaches, especially in Job 5:27, the friends had made a movement to depart. An ingenious but a needless conjecture, which weakens the importunity of Jobs appeal for an impartial trial of his cause.E.] I am still right therein, [or lit.] my righteousness is still in it, i.e., in the mutter which we are considering [in my cause]; I still stand innocent and unconvicted in this business.

Job 6:30. Is there wrong on my tongue?i.e., have I really thus far (in that complaint, Job 3) spoken wrong? He does not therefore admit that in his vehement murmuring and cursing and lamenting he has erred; he will only acknowledge that his words have been spoken to the wind, i.e., thoughtlessly (Job 5:26), not that they are blameworthy or godless. Or does not my palate ( here, as in Job 12:11, as the organ of taste) [here of course in the figurative sense of moral discrimination] discern calamities?i.e., do I not possess so much of a right judgment and understanding that I can discern the true import of my misfortune, that I can know whether my suffering is or is not deserved? To assign to another sense than that which belongs to the sing. in Job 5:2, is not suitable. Schlottmann, Dillmann, etc., interpret it rightly in the sense of calamities, misfortunes, while most expositors adopt the signification, wickedness, iniquity (the wickedness which completely contaminates feeling and utterance. Del.), a signification which is scarcely supported by its use in other passages. [Besides its correspondence with the sing. in Job 5:2, the sense here given for is favored by the comparison of suffering with food in Job 6:6-7, and also by the circumstantial and painful description of his sufferings, into which he plunges in the following chapter. This view, moreover, results in less tautology than the other.E.] For the sense of the passage, as a whole, it matters not whether we translate as above, or: does not my palate discern iniquity? In any case, Job by this question gives evidence of his entanglement in Pelagian notions, under the influence of which he will plead guilty neither to error nor to wrong.

5. Third Division: A return to the previous lamentation because of his fate, and an accusation of God: Job 7:1-21.

First Long Strophe: Job 7:1-11, (subdivided into two strophes of 6 and 5 verses): A lamentation over the wearisomeness of life on earth in general, and over his own hopeless condition in particular.

a. Job 7:1-6. [Jobs weariness of life on account of its misery and brevity. In antagonism to Eliphazs fascinating picture of the Supreme, the Father directing all the currents of creations influence for mercy and good, Jobs inflamed eye throws up against the sky in gigantic outline an omnipotent slave driver, and fills the earth with miserable wretches overworked by day, and shaken by feverish weariness and dreams of torture by night.Davidson].

Job 7:1. Has not man a warfare on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hireling?[The fact that Job in ver 1 brings his suffering into connection with the misery of the whole human race, indicates progress in relation to Job 3, where, predominantly at least, he limited himself to the representation of his individual condition. By this advance the question concerning Gods righteousness and love receives a much more forcible significance. The question is no longer about a solitary exception, which may have a secret personal reason for its existence. Job now stands forth as representative of the whole of suffering, oppressed humanity, arraigning God because of His injustice. Hengstenberg. , used continually in Job, as in the Psalms, of man in his weakness and mortality; comp. Job 5:17; Job 7:17; Job 13:9; Job 14:19; Job 15:14; Job 25:6; or of man in his insignificance and impurity as contrasted with God: comp. Job 4:17; Job 9:2; Job 10:4-5; Job 25:4.E.]. By many the verse is translated: Has not man a service [the service, viz., of a vassal] on earth, and are not his days as the days of a hireling? (so e.g. Hahn, Vaih., etc.). But in the original text the figure first presented is rather the military one (, military service, soldiering, as in Job 14:14; Isa 40:2; Dan 10:1) [in silent antithesis to Eliphazs fascinating picture, Job 5, Dav.], while the figure taken from the peaceful life of a tiller of the soil (, hireling, one who works for wages, comp. Job 14:6) follows in the second member. This latter comparison, belonging to the sphere of agricultural life, is continued in the more detailed description of the following verse.

Job 7:2. Like a slave, who pants after the shadow [soil. of evening; see Gesenius], and like a hireling who waits for his wages. The used in each member is not the continuation of the in , Job 7:1, but stands in cor-relation to the which begins Job 7:3, that verse being the apodosis to this. [For the reason just given the translation should not be: as a slave he pants, etc. Neither: as a slave pants, which would be ]. that which is earned by working, wages: comp. Pro 21:6; Jer 22:13; also the synonymous , Lev 19:13; Isa 40:10, etc. [The reward of the days labor is to be understood as being looked forward to by the laborer here not so much for its own sake, as because it marks the close of the days work, because having received his wages he rests.E.]

Job 7:3. So months of wretchedness are allotted to me, and nights of distress are appointed for me. is translated by Delitzsch [Schlott., Hengst., Davidson, E. V.]: months of disappointment, which certainly corresponds more nearly to the literal signification of (vanity, nothingness, falsehood, the opposite of ), but furnishes no point of comparison that is altogether suitable in connection with what precedes. Moreover the signification: wretchedness, misfortune is sufficiently assured for by Job 15:31; Isa 30:28 [and so Umbr., Ew., Dil., Noy., Con.]. , lit., I am made to inherit, are appointed to me as my lot (), with accus. of the object. The Passive expresses the compulsoriness of the lot (Hirzel). [A pathetic word, made to inherit, through no cause or fault of mine, it is the mere arbitrary effect of the will of him whose slave I am. adds force to the passive, both show the non-participation of Job in causing his troubles, and his helplessness to dispose of them. Davidson]. From the months of wretchedness to the nights of distress, there is a progression in the thought; the latter are related to the former as the sharp and sudden destruction effected by a bombardment to the preceding and accompanying sufferings which a protracted siege produces among those who are beleaguered. [Dillmann states the progression thus: in contrast with the days of the hireling are the months and even the nights of the misery. It seems scarcely necessary, however, to assume a progression here. The term months indicates the long duration of the suffering, the term nights indicates its incessant recurrence, and is chosen, moreover, because it is in the night that the pressure of pain is most keenly felt.E.]. Our verse is, however, one of the most decisive evidences that our poet imagined a wide interval to have elapsed between the outbreak of Jobs disease and the beginning of the controversy; comp. above, or Job 2:11.[On , 3d plur., used indefinitely without any thought of the real agency concerned in the action spoken of, and where the English would require a passive construction, see Green, 243, 2, b].

Job 7:4. When I lie down, then I think, [lit., say]: When shall I arise, and the night be gone? is commonly translated: and the night lengthens itself, the night stretches itself out long (, Piel of , written with Pattach: comp. Gesenius, 52 [51], Rem. 1). The accents, however, favor rather the rendering adopted by Raschi, Mercerus, Rosenm., Delitzsch, [and so E. V., Noyes, Con., Dav., Carey], according to which is the const. st. of a verbal noun from , the meaning of the noun being flight, departure, and the sense of the entire clause being: when will the flight of the evening be? when will the evening come to an end? That is by this interpretation regarded as synonymous with furnishes no valid reasoning against this rendering; for the word has this meaning no less according to the other rendering, and in general means this quite often in Hebrew; comp. Gen 1:5 seq. [The night is described by its commencement, the late evening, to make the long interval of the sleepiness and restlessness of the invalid prominent. Delitzsch].And I became weary with restlessness until the dawn., here as in Job 3:9, the morning dawn. , lit., the rolling around, tossing to and fro on the bed. The word forms a paronomasia with , as Ebr. and Delitzsch rightly remark. [Thus in English: When will the night toss itself away? And I am weary with tossings until the dawn. And this paronomasia is not without weight as an argument in favor of the interpretation given above to in Job 7:4.E.].

Job 7:5. My flesh is clothed with worms and crusts of earth. , decay, rottenness, which passes over into worms, vermin; comp. Job 17:14; Job 21:26., for which the Kri substitutes the common reading of the Talmud, , is elsewhere clods of earth; here crusts, scabs, such as cover indurated ulcers [used here, says Delitzsch, because of the cracked, scaly, earth-colored skin of one suffering with elephantiasis].My skin heals (, shrinks together, contracts, becomes hard and stiff) and breaks out again, lit., is again melted, [festers again], , a variant. of (comp. Ewald, 114 b) [Green, 139, 3], Psa 58:8.

Job 7:6. My days pass away more swiftly than a weavers shuttle. not the web itself, as the Pesh. and Vulg. render it, but the shuttle, , radius; comp. Job 9:25, where precisely, as here, swift motion forms the point of comparison.And vanish without hope, i.e. without hope of deliverance (comp. Job 9:25-26), not: without hope of a better lot after death, as Hirzel, Hahn, Delitzsch, etc., explain, with a reference to Job 14:12; Job 14:19. The reference to the life beyond is as yet altogether foreign to the connection. [The rendering of Good, Wemyss, Elzas assumes to mean yarn for the web, the verb to be slight, and thread; and so they translate:

My days are slighter than yarn,
They are finished by the breaking of the thread.
What is thus gained, however, in the symmetrical completeness of the figure, is lost in depth of feeling. There is inexpressible pathos in the sentiment that his days are wasting away () without hope; the use of the preposition , lit. in the extreme end, at the vanishing point, being also exquisitely appropriate.E.]

b. Job 7:7-11 : A plaintive plea for Gods compassion, out of which, however, the suppliant sinks back into hopeless lamentation.

Job 7:7. Remember that my days are a breath (, wind, breath of air, the same as , Job 7:17), that mine eye shall never behold prosperity. Lit. will not return to see; or mine eye will nevermore see good,when it is broken off, that is, in death, when, therefore, this earthly life of mine shall reach its end. It is not the absolute cessation of all sight, observation, consciousness, life in general, that Job here affirms of the Hereafter, but only that he will cease to behold happiness and well-being (, as in Job 2:10; Job 21:13; Job 36:11; Psa 4:7 (6); Psa 25:13; Psa 34:13 (12), etc.), that days of prosperity will never return: and so in the three verses following.

Job 7:8-9. The eye of him who looketh after me shall see me no more. , the eye of my beholder, my visitor, and so of my friend, who comes to see me and to comfort me. So according to the reading , with the tone on the last syllable, while the accentuation for , preferred by Arnheim, Stickel, Vaihinger, etc., pausal form, would give the sense, which here is less suitable [and which Schlottmann justly characterizes as insipid]: an eye of seeing=a seeing eye. [Comp. in 2Sa 13:5; 2Ki 8:29].Thine eyes (supply: look, are turned) towards me: I am no more. The address, as in the preceding verse, is directed to God: If Thou seekest me there, I shall be no more; Thou wilt therefore be able to show me no manner of kindness. [The anthropomorphism of a heart stung by pangs of the bitterest disappointment: I have been deceived in my fondest hopes, when I looked for sympathy and help, they were not to be found. So be it! The day will come when perhaps Thou wilt feel moved to show me some kindness, buttoo late. Thou wilt look for me among the livingbut I shall not be.E.] That (the being no more is to be understood, not absolutely, but only relatively, is evident from the following verse, which, through the simile of the cloud which vanishes without leaving a trace of it behind, illustrates the hopelessness of the return of the departed from Sheol, not, however, their complete annihilation. Concerning , Hell, i.e. the underworld, the realm of the dead (to be derived, indeed, from , to demand, rather than from , to be hollow); comp. notes on Pro 1:12; Pro 2:18; Pro 7:27; Son 8:6. [ is now almost universally derived from =, to be hollow, to be deepened; and aptly so, for they imagined the Shel as under ground, as Num 16:30; Num 16:33, alone shows, on which account even here; as from Gen 37:35 onwards is everywhere used. It is, however, open to question, whether this derivation is correct: at least passages like Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5; Pro 30:15 seq. show that in the later usage of the language, , to demand, was thought of in connection with it: derived from which Shel signifies (1) the inevitable and inexorable demand made on everything earthly (an infinitive noun like ,; (2) conceived of as space, the place of shadowy duration, whither everything on earth is demanded (3) conceived of according to its nature, the divinely appointed fury which gathers in and engulfs everything on the earth.Del.]

[Job 7:9. The cloud is vanished [or consumes away), and is gone (a figure particularly expressive in the East); so he that goes down to the underworld cometh not up. See on Job 7:8.]

Job 7:10. He returns no more to his house, his place knows him not again;i.e. his home (, as in Job 8:18; Job 20:9; Psa 103:16 [with which the second member corresponds literatim]), which formerly on his return from a journey rejoiced and greeted him as it were, will not recognize him again (), even because he will not return. Of any hope of a resurrection to new life and prosperity in life Job manifestly exhibits here no trace: no more is it the case in Job 10:21; Job 14:10 seq.; Job 16:22.It is otherwise on the contrary in Job 19:25 seq.

Job 7:11. [This verse Schlottmann, Conant, Wemyss, Davidson, Carey, Renan, connect with the next strophe: while Noyes, Dillmann, Del., agree with Zckler in placing it at the end of the present strophe. Ewald and Hengstenberg treat it as an independent verse, a passionate convulsive outcry of rebellious discontent in the midst of the plaintive moaning of a crushed and helpless heart, which pervades the rest of the chapter.E.]Therefore will I also not restrain my mouth, I will speak in the anguish of my spirit:i.e. since God hears me so little, since He abandons me so pitilessly to the lot of those who dwell in the realm of the dead, therefore neither will I on my part ( for this so-called talionis, compare Eze 16:43; Psa 52:7 (5); Hab 2:9, etc.) give any heed to Him, rather will I let my grief and anguish have free course. I will complain in the anguish of my soul: lit. in the bitterness of my soul; comp. Job 10:1, as also the adjective phrase , disturbed, troubled in soul: 1Sa 1:10; 1Sa 22:2, etc.

6. Third Division. Second Long Strophe: Job 7:12-21 (consisting of two strophes of five verses each): A vehemently passionate arraignment of God on account of the unrelenting severity with which He persecutes and oppresses him.

a. Job 7:12-16. [The first conceivable cause of Jobs troubleshe might be a menace to heaven. Dav.]

Job 7:12. Am I a sea, or a monster [of the deep], that Thou ( as in Job 3:12; Job 6:11) settest a watch upon me?, guard, watch-post, an expression which strictly belongs only to the second element in the comparison, the (sea-monster, dragon, whale), being less suited to the first. A watch is set, however, on the raging and tossing sea by means of dams and dikes (comp. Job 38:8 seq.; Jer 5:22; Jer 31:35). [Schultens quotes from an Arabic poet, who calls Tamerlane a vast sea, swallowing up everything.] According to Hirzel, Delitzsch, etc., we are to understand by the Nile, and by the crocodile. This interpretation, however, rests on grounds equally insufficient with the specifically Egyptian reference which is fancied to lie in various other figures and descriptions of our book; comp. Introduction, 7. [The image must be left in all its magnitude and generality; if there is any particular reference, it is in to the tumultuous primitive abyss which God watched and confined, and still watches and enchains (Psa 104:9) lest it overwhelm the world; and in to those vast creatures with which the early waters of creation teemed, Gen 1:21.Dav. and so Schlottmann.]

Job 7:13. When I think, my bed shall comfort me., when, so often as; as in Job 5:21 b. [There is no good reason for rendering I think, rather than I say. As Hengstenberg says: In violent grief thought passes easily into words.] The whole verse is he protasis, to which Job 7:14-15 form the apodosis. My couch shall help to bear my complaint.[, the general word, place of lying; , canopied couch]. , to help to bear anything [ partitive] sublevare, as in Num 2:17; comp. Neh 4:4; Neh 4:11. [The vast images called up by the terms sea and sea-monster are very significantly followed by those of the bed and couch, as comforters and helpers sought in vain, bringing before our minds the littleness of mans lot. Schlott.] For , complaint, comp. Job 9:27; Job 10:1; Job 21:4.

Job 7:14-15. Then Thou scarest me [, liter. Thou shakest me] with dreams, and makest me to tremble through visions of the night., out of visions, and so through them, in consequence of them.So that my soul chooseth strangling. in introduces a consequent to that which precedes, and so then, in consequence of those terrifying dreams and visions, my soul chooseth strangling. Death rather than these my bones:i.e. rather than this body reduced to a skeleton; comp. Job 19:20. The in is comparative, not causaldeath which is produced from these bones (Stickel, Retschi), or againdeath from my own bones, i.e. by my own hand, suicide (Merx, Umbreit, Schlottmann, [Carey]). The last interpretation is by no means supported by , which signifies only strangling, not self-strangulation (comp. words of analogous structure like ,, and Ewald, 106, c). [Although the sing is used of self, it would be forced and against all usage to take the plur. in that sense, or in the sense of members, hands. Moreover, the usual force of after is comparative. To this add what is said in the following extract from Avicenna of the sensation of suffocation in elephantiasis. This description of himself as bones is most strikingly suggestive when compared with the conception of himself as a sea or a leviathan in Job 7:12, capable of vexing and obstructing the Almighty. There is fearful irony in the comparison of this skeleton, impotent and helpless, his very weakness a terror to himself and his onlookers, to the great heaven-assaulting ocean, lifting itself up in the consciousness of infinite power, or to some dragon of the prime in which the whole energy of creation in its youth lay compressed (Davidson).E.] With the description here given of the symptoms of elephantiasis in its advanced stages, comp. what Avicenna says in his description of the same: During sleep there come frequent atrabilious dreams. The breathing becomes excessively hard and labored. There is severe constriction of the chest, and extreme hoarseness. The lips become thick and black, and the body is covered with lumps, and becomes entirely black. It often becomes necessary to open the jugular vein to relieve the hoarseness and the tendency to suffocation, etc.

Job 7:16. I loathe itnot: I pass [waste] away (Rosenm., Stick.) [Conant, Renan], but I despise, viz., lifeI am disgusted with life. That this is to be supplied as the object of the verb, which is used absolutely, is made apparent by the clause immediately following: I would not live always. [Those who render disappear, take the remainder of the line as in like manner affirming Jobs mortality. Thus Conant: I waste away, I shall not live always.] Let me alonei.e., desist from continually assailing and besieging me, from the of Job 7:12. The request is addressed to God (not to Jobs own life, as Hahn thinks), and expresses not a humble modest desire, but a stormy demand on the part of Job, sorely distressed as he was, and so weary of life. [Hence Davidson renders it: Away from me!] On the reason given for this request: for my days are a breath, comp. Job 5:7 a (=).

b. Job 7:17-21. [The other conceivable cause of Jobs sufferings, sin. Dav. The discourse in these verses assuming a calmer tone, as if to justify the vehemence of his doubt. Ew.]

Job 7:17. What is man that Thou magnifiest him, and that Thou settest thy mind on him?These questions (in this and the following verse) parody in deliberate form and with bitter irony the words of Psa 8:5 sq. (comp. Psa 144:3; Lam 3:23). There it is said that God exalts puny man to a kingly and divine position among His creatures, and distinguishes him continually with new tokens of His favor; here, that instead of ignoring him, He makes too much of him, by selecting him, insignificant as he is, as the object of ever new and ceaseless sufferings. Del. [Davids What is man that thou shouldst think of him to bless him? is turned into What is man that thou shouldst think of him to curse him? Dav. Herein lies the wonderful irony of the passage. Wordsworth: Why shouldst thou break a fly upon a wheel?]

Job 7:18. And that thou visitest him every morning?On , to visit, inspect, comp. above on Job 5:24, also Psa 8:5. And every moment triest him?, i.e., puttest his patience and power to the test continually, and by sufferings which are ever renewed.

Job 7:19. How long dost Thou not look away from me?, lit.: how much? how often? here in the sense of quamdiu, construed with the Imperf. in the sense of a Future, as in Psa 35:17 with , to look away from, as in Isa 22:4; here in the special sense of turning away from any one a look expressive of displeasure and punishment, exactly as in Job 14:6, where moreover is connected with . Nor lettest me alone till I swallow my spittlei.e., for one little instanta proverbial expression for a minimum of time, in use also among the Arabians and Persians; comp. Schultens and Umbreit on the passage.

Job 7:20. If I have sinned (, an elliptical conditional clause, comp. Ewald, 357 b), what could I do (thereby) to Thee?[the fut, in the potential sense]: i.e., what harm would I thereby occasion to thee? what detriment would I cause to Thy self-sufficient greatness and glory? (comp. Job 35:3-8, especially Job 7:6). Ewald and Olshausen construe as a relative clause of more precise specification, dependent on , and so equivalent to an accus. of this verb: If I have sinned in what I do to thee. Grammatically possible, but much tamer and less emphatic than our rendering. [If I have sinned in what I do unto thee, why hast thou made me thy mark? would be, says Conant, a challenge without any pretence of justification. It would certainly involve a meaningless non sequitur. If Job had sinned, that certainly was a reason why God should set Himself against him. The clause is thus needed to mediate between and .E.] Thou watcher of men!This appellation, which of itself is one that conveys praise of God and comfort to men (comp. Psa 121:3; Isa 27:3), is used here not sensu bono, but with bitter irony, in the sense of an austere pitiless scrutinizer of men, without giving it, however, the shamefully frivolous sense given in Renans rendering: O espion de lhomme. [This sense of being continually tracked, of having the Divine shadow ever at his heels, following him about with evil eye, speechless but malevolent, puts the sufferer out of himself. How long wilt thou not look away from me? What is the meaning of this horrible espionage? Davidson.] Wherefore dost Thou make me thy point of attack?, the object against which one rushes, or impinges ( ), an expression of not exactly the same, but yet of similar signification with , target, in Job 16:12; Lam 3:12. [Such an obstacle the Deity had made to Himself of Job. Job was in His way. He was perpetually striving against Hima tremendous figure. Dav. This is vividly put: the conception of a perpetual stumbling-block in Gods way, however, is scarcely the one conveyed by the term. The idea here and in Job 16:12 is that Job was a mark, against which God deliberately directed His power. There the figure is drawn from archery; here from war.E.] So that I am become a burden to myself: ( consec. as in Job 7:15 a; the whole expression as in 2Sa 15:33). The LXX. read here ( ), and moreover the Masoretic tradition affirms that one of the eighteen corrections of the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible ( ) obtains here, the original having been set aside on account of its objectionable meaning [being too bold or blasphemous]wherefore became I a burden to Thee?and exchanged for the less objectionable . In any case, this latter reading gives a striking sense.

Job 7:21. And why dost Thou not pardon my transgression? (with the vowel e, according to Ewald, 152 b) [Green, 75, 1], here=. The question expresses what was to be expected, instead of the incessant hostile assaults of God on him, the presumed sinner, if he had really transgressed,namely, the pardon of his guilt, since verily his end was now nigh. [And put away my iniquity.According to Hengstenberg, there lies a certain irony in the use by Job of the strong expressions and to designate the sins which to his consciousness proceeded only from infirmity.] For (to pass over, to overlook, ) as a synonym of , to bear, to forgive, comp. 2Sa 12:13; 2Sa 24:10. For now shall I lie in the dust, and if Thou seekest after me, I am no morei.e., death will soon hurry me away, and Thou wilt then have no further opportunity to show me favor; unless therefore Thou doest this immediately, Thy character will be seen to be that of a cruel being, who unnecessarily torments men. This reason for the question: why will not God forgive without further question or delay? is akin to the thought in Job 7:7 a, 8b, and 16b.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. In poetic elevation of thought, nervous strength of expression, and in wealth of figurative ornamentation, this first discourse of Job is not inferior to that of Eliphaz. It resembles the same also in that it conducts the argument more upon the basis of that Divine wisdom which belongs to mankind universally than of that which is specifically theocratic, and serves to express a religious consciousness which is firmly rooted in faith in a personal God (Eloah, Shaddai). That, however, which it sets forth as the contents and voice of this consciousness, with its faith in Jehovah, is no less obnoxious to the charge of one-sidedness, of beclouding the truth by many wrong representations and religiously impure sentiments, and indeed of partially eclipsing the same by grave errors, than the contents and tendency of that discourse of Eliphaz. There are one-sided representations, partly related and partly opposed to those of Eliphaz, to which we see Job here giving his adherence. Like him he is inclined to regard being a man and committing sin, or sensuousness and sinfulness, as inseparably connected together, and accordingly to look on the forgiveness of sin by God as a matter of courseas something which is to be expected on the part of man without giving himself any further concern on the subject (Job 7:21; comp. Job 6:14; Job 7:7-8; Job 7:16). But in the disposition which he shows to make his sin as small as possible, to represent himself as in the main guiltless, and his friends as unjustly suspecting his innocence (Job 6:10; Job 6:24; Job 6:26; Job 6:29 sq.; Job 7:20), he in turn comes in conflict with Eliphaz, the zealous champion of the universal sinfulness of all men. In consequence of the unqualified way in which he rejects the conjectures of the latter respecting his moral guiltiness in the matter of his suffering, he exhibits a stronger pelagian bias, greater self-righteousness, and more of the conceited arrogance of virtue, than his opponent. And when he upbraids him, and the two other friends who are like-minded with him, with a want of love, with a lack of gentleness, and even with a faithless neglect of their duty to comfort him (Job 6:11-20; especially Job 6:14 sq.), this reproach seemseven quite apart from the bitter satirical tone in which it is clothedin so far intemperate and exaggerated, in that he most decidedly declines to allow himself to be charged by them with any crime whatsoever, and so finds in their conduct only unfriendliness, hostility, and bitterness, and on the other hand wholly misapprehends the partial truth of that which is said by Eliphaz in their name. So far is he from submitting to being exhorted by them to penitence, that he seems rather to think he must preach repentance and conversion to them (Job 6:29)like so many church-goers of our day, who, under the influence of pelagian prejudice and rationalistic blindness, complain of their preacher that, instead of ministering to them the consolation of the Gospel, he does nothing but exhort them to repent, thereby showing his own need of repentance (on account of fanaticism, intolerance, hypocrisy, muckerism, obscurantism [puritanical bigotry], etc.). Comp. Hengstenberg, p. Job 202: It should not be overlooked that suffering would not have inflicted its crushing power on Job to such a degree if he had possessed the foundation of a theodicy in a deeper knowledge of human, and especially of his own, sinfulness. It is the lack of this that first gives to his suffering its real sting. For the sufferings of this life sometimes wax so great that a moderate knowledge of what sinfulness is will be found altogether inadequate. Jobs description in this section shows that very clearly. Its lesson is that even the mildest and most moderate pelagianism, or semi-pelagianism, must inevitably lead in its consequences to blasphemy.

The most doubtful point of antagonism to Eliphaz into which Job is led is when, instead of complying with his repeated exhortations to humble himself beneath the mighty hand of God, he falls rather into the tone of bitter, angry contention and litigation with God, and goes so far as to accuse Him of injustice and want of compassion, speaking of the poisoned arrows of the Almighty which are in him (Job 6:4), attributing to God the purpose, or at least the disposition, to crush and destroy him, even though he had in no wise sinned against Him (Job 6:9-10), charging Him with making ceaseless hostile assaults upon him, and decreeing wanton tortures for him (Job 7:12 sq.), and with reference to this giving Him in bitter sarcasm the name of a watcher of men (in the unfavorable sense of the expression), a hostile sentinel or jailer of men (Job 7:20). And these harsh and presumptuous speeches against God are accompanied by no qualifications, or partial retractions, such as we find in nearly all the lamentations of the Psalmists, or of the Prophet Jeremiah, where they make use of similar expressions, and represent God now by this, and now by that figurative expression, as their unsparing persecutor, and their stern unpitying judge. Job persists in all that he says in this direction of a doubtful character; he takes nothing of it back; he concludes his discourse immediately after the most passionate and presumptuous of these sayings has passed from his lips. Comp. Delitzsch (1:131 seq.): We should be mistaken if there were sin in the expressions in themselves considered by which Job describes Gods hostility against himself. We may compare, e.g. Lam 3:9-10 : He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone; He hath made my paths crooked; He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in the thicket. It is, moreover, not Jobs peculiar sin that he thinks God has changed to an enemy against him; that is the view which comes from his vision being beclouded by the conflict through which he is passing, as is frequently the case in the Psalms. His sin does not even consist in the inquiries, How long? and Wherefore? The Psalms, in that case, would abound in sin. But the sin is that he hangs on to these doubting questions, and thus attributes apparent mercilessness and injustice to God. And the friends constantly urge him on still deeper in this sin, the more persistently they attribute his suffering to his own unrighteousness. Jeremiah (in Job 3 of the Lamentations), after similar complaints, adds: Then I repeated this to my heart, and took courage from it: the mercies of Jehovah, they have no end; His compassions do not cease, etc. Many of the Psalms that begin sorrowfully end in the same way; faith at length breaks through the clouds of doubt. But it should be remembered that the change of spiritual condition which, e.g. in Psalms 6, is condensed to the narrow limits of a lyric composition of eleven verses, is here in Job worked out with dramatic detail as a passage of his lifes history: his faith, once so heroic, only smoulders under ashes; the friends, instead of fanning it to a flame, bury it still deeper, until at last it is set free from its bondage by Jehovah Himself, Who appears in the whirlwind.

2. Notwithstanding these manifold tokens of a profound and grievous darkening of soul from which Job suffered during this discourse, it presents scattered through it much that is true, much that is directly conducive to the knowledge and appropriation of revealed truth. To these points of light, in which is comprised whatever in the two chapters is really significant in a doctrinal and ethical respect, belong:

(a) The beautiful sentiment: To one that is despairing gentleness is due from his friends, even though he should have forsaken the fear of the Almighty (Job 6:14); a genuine pearl of ethical theological wisdom, an unconscious prophetic saying, anticipating from afar such New Testament utterances as: They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick (Mat 9:12); or: Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness (Gal 6:1); or: Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins (Jam 5:19-20; comp. 1Pe 4:8).

b. The sorrowful lamentation over the misery of human life at the beginning of Job 7 (Job 7:1-6), which, even in those parts of it that have special reference to Jobs fearful sufferings as a leper, admits of a measure of generalization, and analogical extension to the condition of all men as sinners, and as suffering in consequence of their sins. For not only that which in this earthly life, with its thousand troubles and hardships, resembles the service of the soldier and of the hireling, but also the months of evil which are to be lived through, and the nights of misery which are to be watched through, likewise the many harbingers of death and of decay, swallowing up the bodily life corroded and disintegrated by diseases of all kinds (comp. Job 7:3-5)all this even suits more or less the experience which all men have of life, inasmuch as there is no one, under the present order of existence, who is absolutely free from the law of sin and death, which through our first parents has descended upon all the race; comp. Rom 7:24-25; Rom 8:10; 2Co 4:16, etc.

c. Connected with this lamentation is the reflection upon the evanescence and vanity of the days of man on earth, as well as upon the injustice and cruelty which would be exercised, if God should treat a being so weak and frail, so much like a breath in his nothingness, only according to the severity of His justice, and not rather according to the gracious fulness of His love and mercy (Job 7:7 seq.especially Job 7:21). In Jobs sense, indeed, who does not adequately appreciate the bitter malignity and ill-desert of sin, and who is inclined, in view of the helpless moral misery of mankind, to rest his appeal for the forgiveness of his sins by God, not on the ground of its being fitting, but on a ground of formal right, this reflection is inadmissible before God, proceeding equally from the pride of the natural man, and from moral levity. It sounds almost like the frivolous remark of a Voltaire, or a Heine, like the notorious saying: Dieu me pardonnera, c est son metier! At least it enables us to forebode how frivolous men might gradually reach such an abyss of wicked principles and of outrageous continued sinning against Gods grace!But even this reflection exhibits a certain relationship to those deep and undeniable truths in respect to the weakness of the natural man, and the necessity of pointing him to the power of divine grace which alone can deliver him, and which the Old Testament embodies in such expressions as those of Psa 89:48; Psa 90:5 seq.; Psa 102:12 (11); Psa 103:14, but the New Testament in its testimonies, infinitely more consoling, to the salvation which is found only in Christ, such as Act 4:12; Rom 3:23 seq.; Rom 8:34 seq.; Rom 11:30 seq.; Gal 3:22; Eph 2:8 seq., as well as in the not less comforting assurances of the gracious hearing which our Heavenly Father will grant to all prayers addressed to Him in the name of Jesus, and in trust exercised only in His grace (Luk 11:5-13; Luk 18:1-8; Joh 14:13 seq.; Joh 16:23 seq.). Comp. Hengstenberg, p. Job 215: Job cannot once give up the thought that God is a God of love, and so it seems to him to contradict His nature if, through the immediate prospect of death, the opportunity is taken away from Him of making amends for His severity by love.

d. Finally, the way in which Job, in Job 7:7-10, expresses himself concerning his destiny after death, though not properly belonging to the luminous side of his discourse, should still be reckoned among those expressions in it which contain positive instruction, and which are important in the development of the Old Testament Revelation. In this gloomy description of the dismal prospect beyond the grave, Job is as far as possible from exhibiting any hope of a resurrection, especially such as is so distinctly and gloriously revealed in Christianity. He knows nothing of such a hope. Just as little, however, does he know anything of any annihilation of his existence, of its total extinction after death. His disconsolateness in view of certain and near death is not that of the materialistic atheist, or of the heathen sage, who, with the hope of a resurrection, abandons also all hope of immortality. When in Job 7:8, and in like manner, in Job 7:21, he speaks of soon being no more, this strong expression explains itself by means of the parallel passages which surround it, as meaning that he shall be no more on this earth, that this earthly life and earthly happiness will never again return (see Job 7:7 b; Job 7:8 b; Job 7:21 c), but that, on the contrary, he anticipates a cheerless and prospectless confinement in Hades. He recognizes an existence after death, but one that is necessarily devoid of happiness, unilluminated by a single ray of the Messianic grace of salvation glimmering from afar. His outlook into the Hereafter is essentially one with his dread of Hades, the king of terrors, the realm of a never-ending death-gloom, a desolate and horrible darkness relieved by no light (comp. Job 10:20 sq.; Job 20:9 sq.; also the similar gloomy descriptions of the condition of being in Hades in the Psalms: Psa 6:6 [Psa 6:5]; Psa 30:10 [Psa 30:9]; Psa 88:11 [Psa 88:10] sq.; Psa 115:17; in the Proverbs, in Ecclesiastes, etc.). He evidently belongs as yet to those who are groaning under the yoke of bondage to death, which preceded the coming of Christ, those whom the Epistle to the Hebrews designates as , (Heb 2:15). He stands, at least in the preceding discourse (it is otherwise later in Job 19:25 sq.), decidedly on the stand-point of those who, being as yet subject to the conomia Legis, had not learned to view the destiny of the dead in the mild light of the grace of Jesus Christ. Comp. Brentius: The condition of death or of Hades is such that by its own nature it holds all whom it embraces, and releases them not until Christ, the Son of God, shall by death descend into Hades, i.e. until He shall have died; for through Him, death and Hades being conquered, as many as have been renewed by faith are set free. Also Delitzsch (1:130 sq.): From this chaotic conception of the other side of the grave, against which even the psalmists still struggle, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead had not been set forth at the time of Job, and of the author of the book of Job. The restoration of Israel buried in exile (Ezekiel 37) first gave the impulse to it; and the resurrection of the Prince of Life, who was laid in the grave, set the seal upon it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was first of all the actual overthrow of Hades. We shall see by and by how the more his friends torment him, the more he is urged on to the longing for a future life (i.e. a bright Hereafter, full of life and being, a Hereafter worthy of the name); but the word of revelation, which could alone change desire into hope, is wanting. The more tragic and heart-rending Jobs desire to be freed by death from his unbearable suffering is, the more touching and importunate is his prayer that God may consider that now soon he can no longer be an object of His mercy.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

A sermon on the whole of the preceding discourse of Job must have two chief divisions: I. Jobs complaint concerning his friends as poor comforters, Job 6:2. Jobs arraignment of God as his cruel, merciless persecutor. In both divisions it would be necessary to set forth so much of Jobs utterances as is blameworthy, perverted, and one-sided, along with that which is of a higher character (such as, in the First Division, that passage particularly, which, from Jobs stand-point, is comparatively justifiable, in which he claims gentle treatment, Job 6:14; and in the Second Division, more particularly the opening and closing verses of chap. 7).In view of the length of the whole discourse, it will be better, for the most part, to divide it into two texts, corresponding to the usual division by chapters, having in view a final consideration of both chapters. The following thoughts from ancient and modern practical commentators may serve as hints for the homiletic treatment of particular passages.

Job 6:2 sq. Starke: The cross must be weighed not according to reason, but in comparison with the future glory, 2Co 4:17.Zeyss: That which the much afflicted Job said of the greatness, heaviness, and severity of his suffering, might with much more justice and in the truest sense be said of the suffering of our Redeemer.

Job 6:11 sq. Brentius: Most truly, and at the same time most impatiently, Job confesses that he cannot endure patiently such torments of hell. Verily, although it is impossible for the flesh to stand in judgment, in Christ all things are possible, and by His virtue even hell is conquered. When, therefore, you hear it said that no amount of fortitude will suffice to bear the wrath of God, you may learn to fear the Lord and to commit yourself to His hands, so that you may be delivered; for He says: Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

Job 6:14 sq. Idem: Ungodly hypocritesif at any time they see one in affliction, they presently revile him with much chiding and upbraiding, and seeking out every thing about him from infancy up that is most disgraceful, if they do not report it, they at least suspect it. On the contrary, it is the nature of piety to plead, to reprove, to be urgent, , so long as the Lord spares, and grants time for repentance. For He Himself also bears the wicked with the utmost long-suffering, to the end that He might in the meanwhile by doctrine, exhortation and reproof persuade them to repentance.

Job 6:22 sq.: Osiander: Our flesh is altogether restive under the cross, and is wont to show particular resentment toward friends if they do not immediately come to our relief.Starke (on Job 6:24): A wise man is glad to be admonished when he has erred; Jam 3:17.

Job 7:1 sq. Seb. Schmidt: Each of these (the servant and the hireling) continues in perpetual toils and miseries. Every man may rightly be compared with either, seeing that throughout his life he is overwhelmed with toils and miseries, looks in vain for rest before death.Starke: Our present life is nothing else than a service. Well for us if therein we serve God; but woe be to us if we yield ourselves to the service of sin; Rom 6:13.Wohlfarth: Human life is a continuous strife and conflict; a conflict with the infirmities of the body, with the sufferings of this life, with sin! But why does thine eye look sad? Where there is strife, there is victory; and more than all, a noble prize is put before the Christian to strive for, both in this life and in the life beyond.

Job 7:5-6. Weim. Bib.: Our life is empty and fleeting, and all human beauty is perishable; Psa 102:4; Psa 144:4; Psa 103:15.Wohlfarth: How swift the ceaseless flight of time! How rapidly the moments resolve themselves into hours, the hours into days, the days into months, the months into years! How much even the longest human life resembles a short dream of the morning! Yes, our life hastes away like a weavers shuttle, like a breath, like a cloud!

Job 7:8-10. Brentius (on Job 7:9): A beautiful comparison. As a cloud passes away, vanishes, and returns not, so he who goes down into the under-world, and never returns from thence. In Hades there is no redemption through the feeling of despair, or by ones own strength or virtues, but there is abundant redemption even in hades through the Lords compassion and restoring grace. (Comp. also the words of this expositor quoted above near the end of the Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks.)

Job 7:12-16 : To those who are tried it seems as though God had shut them up in a dark prison, or had even thrust them from Him, while they are still in His hand!It is not an uncommon thing for those who are tried to be haunted by the purpose of taking their own life; these persons must not be allowed to go unwatched.Wohlfarth: How shall we overcome the temptation to suicide?

Job 7:19-21 (on Job 7:19): Cocceius: One of two things is to be desired by the godly: either that they may live without fear, that they may enjoy some good in this life, by which they may understand that God is at peace with them, and does not wish to show forth His wrath and justice towards them; or that they may die speedily. Now the godly live in perpetual afflictions and trials, or at least they are always troubled with anxiety and fear concerning them. Hence nothing is more natural than that they should desire to die at once. For truly to live without comfort is harder than to die. And so human nature is not able to bear even the least pressure of Gods wrath. Hence it is plain to see what every discourse of Jobs aims at, to wit, to possess the comfort of the Gospel.Joach. Lange: We must truly humble ourselves under the mighty and heavy hand of God (1Pe 5:6). Only then do we come to know ourselves, and become poor in spirit, when we become a real burden to ourselves (Job 7:20 c). And that is then the right way of becoming rich towards God (Mat 11:28; Luk 12:21).Starke: All saints should with Job pray God for the forgiveness of their sins (Psa 32:6). He who is assured of the forgiveness of his sins can die peacefully and joyfully, Luk 2:29.See Remarks by Hengstenberg and Delitzsch above, under Doctrinal and Ethical.

Footnotes:

[1]To him who despairs there is love from a friend [from a brother sympathy for him who is bowed down by God, in order that he may not succumb to the grief of his heart], and forsake the fear of the Almighty.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 456
MANS TIME ON EARTH FIXED

Job 7:1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

THE precise connexion of these words is not very clear: nor, as far as the sense of them is concerned, is it of any great importance to inquire respecting it. It should seem that Job, having been reproved by his friend Eliphaz for expressing too strongly and too impatiently his wish for death to terminate his troubles, here vindicates himself by an appeal to him, that, if an hireling looks forward with comfort to the rest that awaits him after his labours, much more may he desire rest under his great and accumulated afflictions.
But, waving any further consideration of this, I will endeavour to shew,

I.

What these interrogations import

Wherever appeals are made to man in the inspired volume, we may be sure that the things asserted are true, and that they are deserving of particular attention. Those which present themselves to our notice in the text plainly imply,

1.

That mans time on earth is fixed by God himself

[The time of our birth is fixed by Him who formed us in the womb, and breathed into our nostrils the breath of life. Our continuance, also, in life is fixed. No man can deprive us of life till our time is come; nor can any man protract his existence upon earth one moment, when the appointed period of his dissolution has arrived. No man, says Solomon, hath power over the spirit, to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war [Note: Ecc 8:8.]. No: his days are determined, the number of his months are with God, who hath appointed his bounds, which he cannot pass [Note: Job 14:5.]. Our times are altogether in Gods hands [Note: Psa 31:15.]; and all the days of our appointed time must we wait, until our change come [Note: Job 14:14.].]

2.

That during that time we have a work to do, and a warfare to maintain

[The word, our appointed time, is, in the margin, translated our warfare. The same word occurs in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, and is there translated, warfare: Her warfare is accomplished: and there the marginal reading is, appointed time [Note: Isa 40:2.]. Without determining which is preferable here, we will include both. We have a work to do, even as an hireling, who labours in the field. To serve our God, and to seek the salvation of our souls, are the great ends of life. In this work we must engage, not as labourers only, but as soldiers also: for we have corrupt propensities, which must be mortified, and powerful adversaries that must be withstood. Our conflicts with these may well be called a warfare; for, indeed, we can never hope to overcome them, if we go not forth to the combat in the strength of Christ, and put not on the whole armour of God [Note: Eph 6:10-18.]. The world with its temptations, the flesh with all its lusts, and the devil with all his wiles, are ever seeking to destroy us: and, unless we fight manfully the good fight of faith [Note: 1Co 16:13. 1Ti 6:12.], it cannot fail but that we must perish. During the whole period of our abode on earth this warfare must be maintained; nor must we ever put off our armour till our victory be complete. It cannot be supposed that God has sent us into the world merely to please and gratify ourselves, like the rich fool, who said, Let us eat, drink, and be merry. There is not an hireling who feels not that he has some work assigned him, nor a soldier who does not expect that he will have some conflicts to sustain: and every Christian must regard himself as invested with these characters, and, as of necessity, called to the performance of these duties.]

3.

That, at the expiration of that time, God will give us a recompence according to our works

[The hireling expects his pay, and the soldier his discharge, when they have completed the term for which they were engaged, and fulfilled the offices to which they were appointed. And we, also, may look forward, even as Moses did, to a recompence of reward [Note: Heb 11:26.], which our Divine Master will surely give to all his faithful servants. Doubtless, whatever be our labours or our conflicts, it is not a reward of debt, but a reward of grace [Note: Rom 4:4.], that we are to hope for: but still God has graciously pledged himself that our labour shall not be in vain [Note: 1Co 15:58.]; and he would even esteem himself unrighteous, if he were to forget the works and labours of love which we have performed for his names sake [Note: Heb 6:10.].]

The import of the interrogations being sufficiently clear, let me point out,

II.

What they suggest to every reflecting mind

Whole volumes would not suffice for a full statement of this part of our subject. To mention only what is most obvious, they suggest,

1.

That we should perform with diligence our appointed work

[We expect a hireling or a soldier to do this. If they were unmindful of their calling, or loitered in it, we should account them worthy of reproof. But their offices, however important, are not to be compared with those which we have to discharge: theirs relate to time and to mortals like ourselves; but ours relate to God and to eternity. Let us, then, at the commencement of every day, ask ourselves, What have I to do for God and for my own soul this day? And whatsoever our hand findeth to do, let us do it with all our might [Note: Ecc 9:10.].]

2.

That we should sustain with patience the trials that are allotted us

[Trials there are in every situation of life, and especially in those which expose us to great fatigue and danger. No hireling or soldier expects to escape them. They are regarded as necessarily attached to the offices which such persons have to perform. And can we hope to escape them; we, whose work is so arduous, and whose warfare is so continued? We should be prepared for them, and have our minds fore-armed against them: and, bearing in mind who it is that has appointed them, and what he deserves at our hands, we should welcome every trial as a means of displaying our attachment to him, and of honouring that God whose servants we are.]

3.

That we may look forward to our dismission from the body as a season much to be desired

[This, perhaps, is the primary idea intended in the text. At all events, the hireling welcomes the rest and recompence which await him after the labours of the day, as the soldier does his discharge after a long and dangerous campaign. What then should we do, whose rest will be so glorious, and whose recompence so great? Can we think of the approbation of our God, and not pant for the time when we shall hear him say. Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord? Can we survey all the glory and felicity of heaven, and the crowns and kingdoms that await us there, and not long for the period when we shall be invested with them? St. Paul desired to depart, and to be with Christ [Note: Php 1:23.], yea, and groaned in spirit for the time, when, the earthly house of this tabernacle being dissolved, he should possess a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens [Note: 2Co 5:1-3.]. We, then, may exercise the same holy disposition; not, indeed, through weariness of life, but through desire of beholding our God face to face: our wish must be, not merely to be unclothed (and freed from the storms and tempests of this present world), but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life [Note: 2Co 5:4.].]

In a review of this subject, what matter do we find,
1.

For humiliation!

[What if a hireling employed by us had performed his work, from day to day, as we have ours; of what reward should we account him worthy? Or, if a soldier in our army had discharged his duties as we have ours; what recompence would he receive at the hands of his commander? Yet, our zeal and diligence ought to have far exceeded those of the most industrious labourer and the most devoted soldier upon earth. Ah, Brethren, the very best amongst us has need to weep in the review of all his past life, and even of the very best day that he ever spent, and the best services that he ever rendered. But rise, I pray you, to your duty; and redeem, as much as possible, the time you have lost. What advice would you give to a man that was under sentence of condemnation, even though two or three months were yet to intervene before the execution of his sentence? Take that advice to yourselves, and follow it: and pray mightily to God, that your appointed time, whether it be short or long, may be so improved, as you will wish you had improved it, when you shall come to die.]

2.

For encouragement!

[Had we to perform our work in our own strength, or to carry on our warfare at our own cost, we might well despair. But it is not so. The Spirit of the living God is promised to us, to help our infirmities; and he who has begun the good work in us has engaged to perfect it until the day of Christ [Note: Php 1:6.]. Count not, then, your difficulties or your dangers, as though they were too great for you to encounter. Only go forth in the strength of Christ, and you may say to all of them, Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain [Note: Zec 4:7.]. Your weakness, if only you feel it as you ought, should rather be an occasion of satisfaction than of despondency; since, when you are weak, then shall you be strong; and Christs strength shall be perfected in your weakness [Note: 2Co 12:9-10.]. After all, who can tell how few your conflicts may be? Perhaps your appointed time is already so near a close, that you have but a few days or hours to live. Be this as it may, let your loins be girt, and your lamps trimmed, as those that wait for the coming of their Lord; that, at whatever hour he shall come, he may find you watching. What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

CONTENTS

Job prosecutes the same subject in this Chapter as in the former. He is looking forward to death and the grave, as the period of repose from his troubles. He is partly speaking to his friends; and part of it is a prayer to GOD.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

(1) Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling? (2) As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: (3) So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. (4) When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. (5) My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. (6) My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

This seems to be an address from Job to his friends. He compares human life under several very striking similitudes, and therefrom wishes to point out, that as a poor labouring man in any station, looks forward to the evening of the day with a kind of joy, that he shall then have rest; so he might be excused wishing for the grave, to put an end, not only to his labours, but his sorrows, and peculiar sufferings, by reason of his loathsome disease. Reader! it will abundantly more tend to our relief, under sorrow of any kind, to bring our case before the throne, and wait the LORD’S time for deliverance, than presumptuously to prescribe when the hour shall be. A child of GOD is more afraid, that he should come out of the furnace unpurged, and the LORD’S end in putting him there not answered, than that he should be there too long. And hence, you may put this down as a sure maxim; until we see GOD’S wisdom, and GOD’S love in our afflictions, we never shall be reconciled to them as we ought. But when a believer in the furnace can and doth say, My GOD my Saviour is exercising me, I know all is right; I know all shall be well; oh! how sanctified then is that sorrow!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job 7:6 ; Job 7:9

Having gazed, in their brief fate, on a life that is no life at all, they disappear like a vapour, convinced alone of what each hath met in his whirling to and fro in all directions.

Empedocles.

Job 7:7

Although we have some experience of living, there is not a man on earth who has flown so high into abstraction as to have any practical guess at the meaning of the word life. All literature, from Job and Omar Khayyam to Thomas Carlyle or Walt Whitman, is but an attempt to look upon the human state with such largeness of view as shall enable us to rise from the consideration of living to the Definition of life. And our sages give us about the best satisfaction in their power when they say that it is a vapour, or a show, or made out of the same stuff with dreams.

R. L. Stevenson in s Triplex.

Job 7:10

Compare the touching lines of Lucretius (iii. 894 f.): ‘Soon, soon thy happy home shall no more welcome thee, nor thy true wife; nor shall thy children run to catch the first kiss from thy lips, touching thy heart with a silent joy’.

Speaking in the Wrong Temper

Job 7:11

Then he is sure to get wrong. He has already made the vital mistake of his whole harangue. He has given himself away; he is in the wrong mood; he is in the mood in which a man should shut his mouth. But that is the last miracle of grace. He will be eloquent enough, alas! too eloquent. Grief has a rhetoric of its own, but it should be spoken to one hearer who can understand it and pity it and forgive it. Have no fear of the eloquence; yet there is an eloquence to be feared. This Job will get wrong today; he has opened his speech in the wrong key; ‘anguish’ and ‘bitterness,’ what can these tell of the mystery of God and the tragedy of life? There are times when we should run away from ourselves.

I. You do not know what you have done for your house by much speaking to God in it. You may not have seen the answered prayer; your household is the larger and the lightsomer and the more homelike because of the prayers which you have prayed when you have shut the door and spoken to your Father in secret. The prayer has killed the bacilli. If a word from a human throat can change the colour of a natural or material substance, who can say out of the range of his boundless ignorance what may be done by a sigh, a cry to the living heart of the Infinite pity? Go on with your praying; pray without ceasing; you are changing the very form and fashion of the earth by it, you are enlarging the place of summer, you are enabling men to pull down their barns and build greater; for it was your prayer that made more golden the gold of the harvest-field, that made ruddier the redness of the rose, that made brighter the light of the garden.

II. Many persons have spoken not out of anguish and out of bitterness but out of prejudice, bigotry, ignorance. They have spoken when they ought to have been silent; they have mistaken a form for a power, an environment for a genius or a soul. They nave never been in the holy of holies, they talk about bark and shell and crust and phenomena a word that has nearly been the death of them! They have not talked about soul, inmost meaning, ineffable intent, the yearning of the mother-pity of God.

III. Will God allow us to recall some of our words, to amend them, to expand them, to modify them? I take encouragement from the example of my Saviour: ‘And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly’. We should not have thought that possible, but it was not only possible, but actual. There is a pressure heavier than the other pressure; there is a pressure that gouges, forces the life-blood out of you, the last drop, and turns it into a red word, a crimson syllable, a mighty speech with which to assail the heavens. There are second prayers that swallow up first prayers. We grow by praying. First give God an outline of our desire and our wish, and then we, gathering wisdom from experience, go back and amend by expansion our own prayer. ‘He prayed again a second time.’ Job may have done this. He spoke in anguish and spoke in bitterness, and complained because his grief was intolerable; perhaps by and by he calmed down, and saw the Divine movement from another standpoint, and beheld it with another mystery and interpretation of light upon it; and who knows what he said when that aurora glory beamed upon his trouble?

Let us learn, therefore, a lesson from Job not to speak in the anguish of our spirit or in the bitterness of our soul; and let us learn a lesson from the Psalmist, who says he has made God’s Word the man of his counsel and turned the statutes of God into songs in the house of his pilgrimage. In the old, old time when the days were sunnier, they that loved the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written. Read the history of the whole Church of Christ, and you will find that it was nourished upon the Bible, fed upon the Divine Word, and that it nestled itself in the bosom of God.

Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. I. p. 277.

References. VII. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, No. 2206. VII. 16. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (10th Series) p. 168.

Job 7:17

It is good to get back and lie on the bosom of the eternal mother, the folds of whose garments are the high mountains, whose feet are set in the laughing ocean, and whose life is the life of the world; to lie there, while the soul slips away from the sense of its own paltry joys and sorrows, from the narrow hopes and fears of the individual lot; to be made one with the glorious order of created things, the flesh and spirit no longer conscious of weary fightings and divisions; to dream of the everlasting mysteries of birth and growth, and of the fullness of strength and of the failing of strength, and of decay, and of the mystery of transmuted force, of life again returning out of death, to begin once more the ceaseless round of existence anew; to dream of the mystery of night and morning, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, rain and shine, while through all the countless ages the Eternal Wisdom and Goodness broods for ever over the broad bright land and sea. ‘What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?’ Get back, get back to the mother of all.

Lucas Malet. The names of great men hover before my eyes like a secret reproach, and this grand impassive Nature tells me that tomorrow I shall have disappeared, butterfly that I am, without having lived. Or perhaps it is the breath of eternal things which stirs in me the shudder of Job? What is man this weed which a sunbeam withers? What is our life in the infinite abyss?

Amiel.

References. VII. 17. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 20. VII. 17, 18. J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas to Epiphany, p. 170.

Job 7:20

He can hinder any of the greatest comforts in life from refreshing us, and give an edge to every one of its greatest calamities. Who then can bear the thought of being an outcast from His presence, that is, from the comforts of it, or of feeling it only in its terrors? How pathetic is the expostulation of Job, when, for the tryal of his patience, he was made to look upon himself in this deplorable condition! Why hast Thou set me as a mark against Thee, so that I am become a burthen to myself?

Addison in The Spectator (No. 571).

References. VII. 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 113. VII. 21. Ibid. vol. xlvi. No. 2705. VIII. 7. Ibid. vol. vi. No. 311.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Job’s Answer to Eliphaz

Job 6-7

The speech of Eliphaz, which we have already considered, was not the kind of speech to be answered off-handedly. We have been struck by its nobleness and sublimity, its fulness of wisdom; and, indeed, we have not seen any reason, such as Job seems to have seen, for denying to that great speech the merit of sympathy. Why, then, does Job break out into these lamentations? The reason appears to be obvious. We must come upon grief in one of two ways, and Job seems to have come upon grief in a way that is to be deprecated. He came upon it late in life. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Observe how Job comes before us a master, a chief, a very prince, a great flockmaster, and in possession of all comforts, privileges, and enjoyments usually accounted essential to solid prosperity and positive and genuine comfort Grief must tell heavily whenever it comes upon a man in such a condition. This accounts for his lamentation, and whine, and long-drawn threnody. He was not accustomed to it. Some men have been born into trouble, and they have become acclimatised; it has become to them a kind of native condition, and its utterances have been familiar as the tongue of nativity. Blessed are they who come upon grief in that method. Such a method appears to be the method of real mercy. Sad is it, or must it be, to begin life with both hands full, with estate upon estate, with luxury upon luxury, so that the poor little world can give nothing more! When grief strikes a child born under the disadvantage of riches, it must make him quail it must be hard upon him. Grief must come. The question would seem to be, When? or, How? Come it will. The devil allows no solitary life to pass upward into heaven without fighting its way at some point or other. It would seem to me as if the suggestion that Job came upon grief late in life was a kind of key to many utter ances of suffering, and many questions as to the reality and beneficence of God’s government. Yet, what is to be done? No doubt there is a practical difficulty. Who can help being born into riches? Not the child. The responsibility, then, is with the father. What do you want with everything? When are you going to stop the self-disappointing process of acquisition? You think it kind to lay up whole thousands for the boy. In your cruel kindness you start him with velvet. Secretly or openly, you are proud of him as you see him clothed from head to foot, quite daintily, almost in an aesthetic style, without a sign on his little hands of ever having earned one solitary morsel of bread. You call him beautiful; you draw attention to his form and air and whole mien, and inwardly chuckle over the lad’s prospects. Better he had been born in the workhouse! And you are to blame! You are the fool! But grief must come. You cannot roof it out with slates and tiles, nor keep it at bay with stone walls. Let us say, again and again, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth”; and you know it, because you bore the yoke in your youth. Your father, or grandfather, was quite in a small way of business: but oh, how you enjoyed the bread! You had to run an errand before breakfast, and came back with an appetite, your boy comes down late, without any soul for his food; and you think him not well, and call in aid, and elicit neighbourly sympathy! Oh, how unwise! How untrue to the system of things which God has established in his universe! Make your acquaintance with a man who has seven sons, three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she asses, and a very great household; and you might well say, What a field there is for the devil to try temptation in! Yet how to obviate the difficulty is certainly a question not easily answered. We can but approach the possible solution of the problem little by little, ordering everything in a spirit of discipline, without ever touching the meanness of oppression. It is one thing to be Job, and another to read his book. We do not read it well. We read it as if it had all been done with in an hour or two; whereas the book ought to be spaced out almost like the first chapter of Genesis. We have had occasion to say that the first chapter of Genesis would create less confusion if we inserted a millennium now and then if we punctuated it with a myriad ages here and there. But we rush through it. Quite in a hot gallop we finish the Book of Job. Who can understand such a dramatic history so reading it? Why not remember that seven days and seven nights elapsed before a word was spoken by Eliphaz, after he had seen that the grief of Job was very great? Observe where the period of silence comes in; and consider the thought that it is possible that days and nights may have elapsed as between the various speeches, setting them back in time, giving them an opportunity for taking upon themselves the right atmosphere and colour, and affording the speakers also an opportunity of uttering their grief with appropriate gesture and accent. The speeches were punctuated with sobs. The sentences were never uttered flippantly, but were drawn out as is the manner of sorrow, or were ejected, thrown out, with a jerk and hurry characteristic of some moods of grief. Let us allow, then, that the speech of Eliphaz had been uttered, and had lain as it were some time in the mind of Job. Grief delights in monologue. Job seems scarcely to lay himself down mentally upon the line adopted by Eliphaz. It is most difficult to find the central line of Job’s speech, and yet that very difficulty would seem to show the reality of his grief, the tumult of his ungovernable emotion. Too much logic would have spoiled the grief. Reasoning there is, but it comes and goes; it changes its tone now hardly like reason in its logical form; now a wave, an outburst of heart-sorrow; and then coming firmly down upon realities it strikes the facts of life as the trained fingers of the player might strike a chord of music.

Note how interrogative is the tone of Job’s speech, and found an argument upon its interrogativeness. More than twenty questions occur in Job’s reply. He was great, as grief often is, in interrogation. What do these marks of interrogation mean? They almost illustrate the speech; for he who asks questions after this fashion is as a man groping his way in darkness. A blind man’s staff is always asking questions. You never saw a blind man put out his hand but that hand was really in the form of an interrogation, saying, in its wavering and quest, Where am I? What is this? What is my position now? Am I far from home? Do I come near a friend? The great speeches of Demosthenes have been noted for their interrogation; the marks of interrogation stand among the sentences like so many spears, swords, or implements of war; for there was battle in every question. It would appear as if grief, too, also took kindly to the interrogative form of eloquence. Job is asking, Are the old foundations still here? things have surely been changed in the night-time, for I am unaccustomed to what is now round about me: is the sky torn down? does the sun still rise? does the sun still set? is old sweet mother nature still busy getting the table ready for her hungry children? or has everything changed since I have passed into this trance of sorrow? All this is natural. It is not mere eloquence. It is eloquence coloured with grief; eloquence ennobled by pain. The great words might be read as a mere school exercise; whereas they ought to be read by shattered men, who can annotate every sentence by a corresponding record in their own experience. Is it not what men do just now in times of change and great stress and fear? They ask one another questions; they elevate commonplaces into highly-accentuated inquiries; things that have been perfectly familiar to them now startle them into questioning and wonder, because surely since they themselves have been so unbalanced, caught in so tremendous an uproar and tumult, things must have been decentrailsed, or somehow thrown out of equipoise and shape.

Notice how many misunderstandings there are in this speech of the suffering man:

“Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea” ( Job 6:2-3 ).

Who ever thought that his grief was exactly comprehended by his friends? Job makes much of the grief with which a thousand other men had been familiar all their lives. When the rich man loses any money, what an outcry there is in his house! When the poor man loses something, he says As usual! well, we must hope that tomorrow will be brighter than today! But let a great, prosperous, space-filling rich man lose any money, and he loses a whole night’s sleep immediately after it; he says, “Oh that my grief were throughly weighed!” He likes “thorough” work when the work is applied to sympathising with him. So we misunderstand our friends; then we misunderstand our pain:

“Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand and cut me off! Then should I yet have comfort” ( Job 6:8-10 ).

We do not know that our pain is really working out for us, if we truly accept it, the highest estate and effect of spiritual education. No man can enjoy life who has not had at least one glimpse of death. What can enjoy food so keenly as hunger? Who knows the value of money so well as he who has none, or has to work hardly for every piece of money that he gains? Such is the mystery of pain in human education Have not men sometimes said: It was worth while to be sick, so truly have we enjoyed health after the period of disablement and suffering? Pain cannot be judged during its own process. From some pictures we must stand at a certain distance in order to see them in proper focus, and get upon them interpreting and illuminating lights. It is sympathetically so with pain. The pain that tears us now like a sharp instrument, working agony in the flesh, will show its whole meaning tomorrow, or on the third day God’s resurrection day, and day of culmination and perfecting. “Let patience have her perfect work.”

Job not only misunderstood his friends and misunderstood his pain, he misunderstood all men, and the whole system and scheme of things. He said::

“My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: what time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish. The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them” ( Job 6:15-19 ).

How suffering not rightly accepted, or not rightly understood, colours and perverts the whole thought and service of life! Job said:

“Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling? As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: so am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me” ( Job 7:1-3 ).

So we return to our starting-point, that sorrow must come. It is difficult for the young to believe this. The young have had but a transient ache or pain, which could be laughed off, so superficial was it. So when preachers talk of days that are nights, and summers that are made cold by unforgotten or fast-approaching winters, the young suppose the preachers are always moaning, and the church is but a painted grave, and it is better to be in the lighted theatre and in the place of entertainment, where men laugh wildly by the hour and take hold of life with a light and easy touch. The preachers must bear that criticism, committing themselves to time for the confirmation of their words, which indicate the burden, stress, and the weariness of life. Life has been one continual grief. Death soon came into the house, and made havoc at the fireside. Poverty was a frequent visitor at the old homestead lean, wrinkled, husky-voiced poverty, without a gleam of sunlight on its weird face, without a tone of music in its exhausted voice; want painted upon every feature, necessity embodied in every action and attitude: then every enterprise failed; the letter that was to have brought back the golden answer was either never received or never answered. Now the natural issue of sorrow is gloom, dejection, despair of life. To this end will sorrow bring every man who yields himself to it. Suffering will pluck every flower, destroy every sign of beauty, put back the dawn, and lengthen the black night. This is what sorrow, unblessed, must always do. It will blind the eye with tears; it will suffocate the throat with sobs; it will enfeeble the very hand when it is put out to make another effort at self-restoration. But has it come to this, that sorrow must be so received and yielded to? Is there any way-by which even sorrow can be turned into joy? The Bible discloses such a way. The Bible never shrinks from telling us that there is grief in the world, and that that grief can be accounted for on moral principles. The Bible measures the grief: never lessens it, never makes light of it, never tells men to shake themselves from the touch and tyranny of grief by some merely human effort; the Bible says, The grief must be recognised: it is the black child of black sin; it is God’s way of showing his displeasure; but even sorrow, whether it come in the form of penalty or come simply as a test, with a view to the chastening of the man’s heart and life, can be sanctified and turned into a blessing. Any book which so speaks deserves the confidence of men who know the weight and bitterness of suffering. Look at the old family Bible, and observe where it is thumbed most. Have we not said before that we can almost tell the character of the household from the finger-marks upon the old family Bible? Did we not once say, Turn to the twenty-third Psalm, and see how that has been treated? Ah! there how well thumbed it is! There has been sorrow in this house. Turn to the fourteenth chapter of John, and see whether that chapter is written upon a page unstained by human touch; and behold how all the margin seems to be impressed as by fingers that were in quest of heaven’s best consolations! Do not come to the Bible only for condolence and sympathy; come to it for instruction, inspiration, and then you may come to it for consolation, sympathy, tenderest comfort for the very dew of the morning, for the very balm of heaven, for the very touch of Christ. We must not make a convenience of the Bible, coming to it only when we are in sore straits; we must make a friend of it a great teacher. God’s statutes should be our songs in the house of our pilgrimage, and if we are faithful at Sinai we shall be welcomed at the Mount of Beatitudes. If we have struggled well as faithful servants there will not be wanting at last the welcome which begins and means all the reward of heaven.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).

V

THE FIRST ROUND OF SPEECHES

Job 4-14.

This debate extends from Job 4-31 inclusive. There are three rounds of speeches by all the four except that Zophar drops out in the last round. Each round constitutes a scene in Act II of the drama.

In this chapter we will discuss Scene I and commence with the first speech of Eliphaz (Job 4-5) the points of which are as follows:

Introduction (Job 4:1-2 ). In his introduction he deprecates grieving one so afflicted but must reprove Job,

1. For weakness and inconsistency. The one who had instructed, comforted, and strengthened others in their troubles, faints when trouble comes to him (Job 4:3-5 ).

2. Because Job had neither the fear of God nor personal integrity, for the fear of God gives confidence, and integrity gives hope, but Job’s complaint implies that he had neither confidence nor hope, therefore he must be devoid of the fear of God and of integrity (Job 4:6 ).

3. Because the observation of the general trend of current events argued Job’s guilt. The innocent do not perish; those who reap trouble are those who have sowed trouble and plowed iniquity. Ravening lions, though strong and terrible, meet the hunter at last (Job 4:7-11 ).

4. Because revelation also convicts him. Eliphaz relates one of his own visions (Job 4:12-17 ), very impressively, which scouted the idea that mortal man could be more just than God, or purer than his maker. But Job’s complaint seemed to embody the idea. Eliphaz argues from his vision that a pure and just God crushes impure and unjust men and suggests the application that Job’s being crushed reproves his impurity and injustice (Job 4:18-21 ).

5. Because Job’s outcry against God was foolish and silly, and since no angels would hear such complaint, or dare to avert its punishment (Job 5:1-2 ) there can be no appeal from the supreme to the creature.

6. Because observation of a particular case illustrates Job’s guilt (Job 5:3-5 ). The circumstances of this case seen by Eliphaz, make it parallel with Job’s case; a certain foolish man took root and prospered for a while, but the curse smote him suddenly and utterly; his children perished, his harvest was eaten by the hungry, and all his substance was snatched away.

7. Because these results are not accidental, nor of earthly origin, but must be attributed to God who punishes sin. Because man is a sinner he is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward (Job 5:6-7 ).

The remedy suggested to Job by Eliphaz is as follows:

1. Take your case to God confession of sin and repentance are suggested (Job 5:8 ) who will exalt the penitent (Job 5:11 ) as certainly as he has frustrated their craftiness (Job 5:12-14 ) and so the poor may have hope after the mouth of their iniquity is stopped (Job 5:15-16 ).

2. Instead of murmuring, count yourself happy in receiving this punishment, and after penitence expect restoration of prosperity (Job 5:17-27 ).

On comparing this analysis with that given by Dr. Tanner (see his Syllabus on the speech of Eliphaz) it will be noted that the author here differs widely with Tanner in his analysis and interpretation of this speech. Tanner presents Eliphaz as assuming the position that Job was a righteous man and that God would deliver him. The author presents Eliphaz as taking the position that Job had sinned, which was the cause of his suffering and that he should confess and repent; that he should count himself happy in receiving this punishment, and thus after penitence expect the restoration of prosperity. It will be recalled here that the author, in commending the Syllabus of Dr. Tanner noted the weakness of his analysis at this point.

There are several things notable in this first speech of Eliphaz, viz:

1. The recurrence in all his speeches of “I have seen,” “I have seen,” “I saw,” showing that the experience and observation of a long life constituted the basis of his argument.

2. The good elements of his arguments are as follows: (1) He refers to the natural law of sowing and reaping (Cf. Gal 6:7 ); (2) the sinner’s way to happiness is through confession and repentance; (3) chastisement of an erring man should be recognized as a blessing, since it looks to his profit (Cf. Pro 3:11 and the use made of it as quoted in Heb 12:5 ).

3. The bad elements in his speech are as follows: (1) His induction of facts ignores many other facts, particularly that all suffering is not penal; (2) He fails in the application of his facts, since the case before him does not come in their classification; in other words, through ignorance he fails in his diagnosis of the case, and hence his otherwise good remedies fall short of a cure.

4. The exquisite simplicity and literary power of his description of his vision, makes it a classic gem of Hebrew poetry.

The following points are noted in Job’s reply (Job 6-7) :

1. The rash words of my complaint are not evidence of previous sins, but the result of immeasurable calamities from the hand of God. They cannot be weighed; they are heavier than the sandy shores which confine the ocean; they are poisoned arrows from the quiver of the Almighty which pierce my very soul and rankle there; they are terrors marshalled in armies by the Almighty (Job 6:1-4 ).

2. The braying of an ass and the lowing of an ox are to be attributed to lack of food, not meanness. Let the favorable construction put upon the discordant noise of hungry animals be applied to my braying and lowing (Job 6:5 ), for in my case also there is the hunger of starvation since the food set before me is loathsome and without savor (Job 6:6-7 ).

3. I repeat my prayer to God for instant death, because I have not the strength to endure longer, nor the wisdom to understand (Job 6:8-9 ; Job 6:11-13 ) but while exulting in the pain that slays me, my consolation still is, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One (Job 6:10 ).

4. Instead of moralizing on the causes and rebuking suspected sins, friends should extend kindness to one ready to faint, even though he forsake the fear of God (or lest he forsake, Job 6:14 ). This is like the story of the drowning boy who asked the moralizing man on the bank to help him out first and then inquire into the causes of his mishap.

5. In your treatment of me, ye are like a deceitful brook, roaring with water only while the snow on the mountains is melting, but being without springs, directly you run dry. The caravans from the desert that come to it hoping, turn aside from its dusty channels and perish. So you that seemed like a river when I was not thirsty, put me to shame by your nothingness now that I thirst. Compare “Wells without water . . . clouds without rain” in Jud 1:12-13 .

6. Is it possible that you condemn me because you apprehend that otherwise I might ask you for help? In your moralizing are you merely hedging against the expectation of being called on to help a bankrupt sufferer, by furnishing a reward or ransom for the return of my stolen flocks and herds? Do you try to make me guilty that you may evade the cost of true friendship (Job 6:21-23 )? I have asked for no financial help, but for instruction. How forcible are right words !

7. But you, instead of explaining my calamities have been content to reprove the words of my complaint, extorted by the anguish of my calamities, words that under the circumstances should have been counted as wind, being only the speeches of one that is desperate.

8. The meanness of such treatment in your case would prompt in other cases to cast lots for the orphans of the dead and make merchandise out of a stranded friend by selling him as a slave (Job 6:27 ). This is a terrible invective, but more logical than their argument, since history abundantly shows that some believers in their creed have done these very things, the argument being that thereby they are helping God to punish the wicked.

9. He begs them to turn from such injustice, look on his face and behold his sincerity, concede his ability to discern a thing which is wicked, and accept his deliberate statement that he is innocent of the things which they suspect (Job 6:28-30 ).

10. He laments his case as hopeless (Job 7:1-10 ). Here Job asks if there is not a warfare to man and his days like the days of a hireling. His waiting for relief was like a hireling waiting for his wages, during which time he is made to pass months (moons) of misery. In this hopeless condition he longs for relief and would gladly welcome death from which there is no return to the walks of this life.

11. Job now lifts his voice in complaint to God (Job 7:11-21 ). In the anguish of his spirit he could not refrain from complaining that God had set a watch over him and terrified him with dreams and visions. He was made to loathe his life and again to wish for death. Then he closes this speech by raising the question with the Almighty as to why he would not pardon him if he had sinned (as his accusers had insinuated) and take away his iniquity. Here he addresses God as a “watcher of men”; as one who had made him a target for his arrows. Now we take up the first speech of Bildad, the Shuhite (Job 8 ).

The substance of this speech is as follows:

1. He charges that Job seeks to make himself better than God, then he hints at the sins of his children and insinuates that Job does not pray, for prayer of the right sort brings relief (Job 8:1-7 ).

2. He exhorts Job to learn the lesson from the past. The wisdom of the fathers must be good. Therefore, learn the lesson of the ancients (Job 8:8-10 ).

3. He contrasts the fate of the wicked and that of the righteous, reasoning from cause to effect, thus insinuating that Job’s condition was the result of a cause, and since (to him) all suffering was the result of sin, the cause must be in Job (Job 8:11-22 ).

The substance of Job’s reply is,

1. True enough a man cannot be righteous with God, since he is unable to contend with him. He is too wise and powerful; he is invincible. Who can match him (Job 9:1-12 )?

2. Praying does not touch the case. He is unjust and proves me perverse. Individual righteousness does not avail to exempt in case of a scourge. He mocks at the trial of the innocent and the wicked prosper. Then Job says, “If it be not he, who then is it?” This is the climax of the moral tragedy (Job 9:13-24 ).

3. There is no daysman betwixt us, and I am not able to meet him in myself for Judgment (Job 9:25-35 ).

4. I will say unto God, “Why? Thou knowest I am not wicked.” Here it will be noted that a revelation is needed in view of this affliction (Job 10:1-7 ).

5. God is responsible for my condition; he framed and fashioned me as clay, yet he deals with me as milk or cheese; it is just the same whether I am wicked or righteous; changes and warfare are with me (Job 10:8-17 ).

6. Why was I born? or why did I not die at birth? Then would I have escaped this great suffering, but now I must abide the time until I go into the land of midnight darkness (Job 10:18-22 ).

The substance of Zophar’s first speech is this:

1. What you have received is not as much as you deserve; you are full of talk and boastful; you are self-righteous and need this rebuke from God (Job 11:1-6 ).

2. You cannot find out God; he is far beyond man; he is all-powerful and omniscient; man is as void of understanding as a wild ass’s colt (Job 11:7-12 ).

3. Put away your wickedness; you need to get right and then you will be blessed; you should set your heart and house in order, then all will clear up; then you will be protected from the wicked (Job 11:13-20 ).

Job’s reply to the first speech of Zophar embraces three chapters, as follows:

1. No doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you; I am not inferior to you; you mock and do not help; I, though upright, am a laughingstock and you, who are at ease, have contempt for misfortune; God brought this about (Job 12:1-6 ).

2. Learn the lessons from nature; the beasts, the birds, the earth, and the fishes can teach thee; everybody knows these things; the ear tries words and the palate tastes food, and wisdom is learned by age (Job 12:7-12 ).

3. God is the source of wisdom and power; he deals wisely with all men; he debases and he exalts (Job 12:13-25 ).

4. I understand it all as well as you; ye are forgers of lies; ye are physicians of no value; your silence would be wisdom; you speak wickedly for God, therefore your sayings are proverbs of ashes and your defenses are defenses of clay (Job 13:1-12 )

5. Why should I take my life in my hand thus? I want to be vindicated before I die; “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”; I know that I am righteous; therefore I have hope (Job 13:13-19 ).

6. He pleads his cause with God; he asks two things of God, viz: (1) that he would put an end to his bodily suffering and (2) that he would abstain from terrifying him; then he challenges God to call him; then he interrogates God relative to his sins, God’s attitude toward him and his dealings with him; and finally charges God with unjust dealings with him (Job 13:20-28 ).

7. Man that is born of woman is frail and sinful; man’s weakness should excite pity with the Almighty; that which is born of an unclean thing is unclean and since a man’s days and months are numbered, why not turn from him as an hireling and let him rest (Job 14:1-6 ).

8. The hope of a tree, though it be cut down, is that it will sprout again but man’s destiny to lie down in death and rise no more till the heavens pass away should be a cause for mercy from God (Job 14:7-12 ).

9. In despair of recovery in this life Job again prays for death; that God would hide him in the grave till his wrath be past; that he would appoint him a day, in the hope that if he should die he would live again; his destiny is in God’s hands and therefore he is hopeless for this life (Job 14:13-17 ).

10. Like the mountain falling, the rock being removed out of its place and waters wearing away the stones, the hope of man for this life is destroyed by the providences of God; man is driven by them into oblivion; his sufferings become so great that only for himself his flesh has pain and only for himself his soul mourns (Job 14:18-22 ).

In this round of speeches the three friends have followed their philosophy of cause and effect and thus reasoning that all suffering is the effect of sin, they have, by insinuations, charged Job of sin, but they do not specify what it is. Job denies the general charge and in a rather bad spirit refutes their arguments and hits back at them some terriffic blows. He is driven to the depths of despair at the climax of the moral tragedy where he attributes all the malice, cunning, and injustice he had felt in the whole transaction to God as his adversary. They exhort him to repent and seek God, but he denies that he has sinned; he says that he cannot contend with the Almighty because he is too high above him, too powerful, and that there is no umpire, or daysman, between them. Here Job is made to feel the need of a revelation from God explaining all the mysteries of his providence. In this trial of Job we have ‘Satan’s partial victory over him -where he led Job to attribute the evils that had come upon him to God. This is the downfall in Job’s wrestle with Satan. He did not get on top of Job but gave him a great deal of worry. We will see Job triumphing more and more as he goes on in the contest.

QUESTIONS 1. What the points of Eliphaz’s first speech?

2. What things are notable in this first speech of Eliphaz?

3. What the points of Job’s reply (Job 6-7)?

4. What the substance of Bildad’s first speech?

5. What the substance of Job’s reply?

6. What the substance of Zophar’s first speech?

7. What Job’s reply?

8. Give a summary of the proceedings and results of the first round.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Job 7:1 [Is there] not an appointed time to man upon earth? [are not] his days also like the days of an hireling?

Ver. 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon the earth? ] There is, certainly. Our bounds are prescribed us, and a pillar set by him who bears up the heavens, which we are not to transpass. Stat sua cuique dies, said the heathen poet (Virg. Aeneid 10), our last day stands, the rest run. It is said of the Turks, that they shun not the company of those that have the plague, but pointing upon their foreheads, say, it was written there at their birth when they should die. Now if there be an appointed time, &c., what mean the Lutherans to teach that God hath not determined the period of men’s days, but it is in man’s power to lengthen or shorten them, Humanae vitae terminus non est decreto simplici et absoluto constitutus (Homing). In this one verse we have two metaphors, both which do evince the contrary. The first is from soldiers, implied in the word translated an appointed time, or a warfare, because there was a set time for soldiers to fight, and a set time also for them to serve. The second is from a hireling.

Are not his days also like the days of an hireling? ] Describit humanae vitro brevitatem, saith Vatablus. Here he describeth the shortness of man’s life, and with it that his days are determined; for with a hireling we agree to work with us for a certain time, and usually for a day, or by the day; and hence we call them day labourers. It importeth then that the time of man’s life is short and set; for hirelings are appointed to an hour. See Job 14:14; Ecc 2:3 ; Joh 7:30; Isa 38:5 . Fifteen years just were added to Hezekiah’s life. Our hairs are numbered, much more our days. This Job allegeth to set forth his own extreme misery, as one condemned to perpetual torments without any respite or refreshing; and therefore in a worse case than any soldier or servant.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job Chapter 7

“Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?” (Job 7 ). There he has another ground; his trial was so prolonged. It was not merely a tremendous trial, which is usually very brief in this world. If people have great agony, say in the foot or the head – well, very often they become insensible if it is the head; and if it is the foot no doubt it is very trying, but it passes; the paroxysm passes. ‘But how is it that I from head to foot am nothing but a mass of sores, and inwardly suffering the deepest agony? Oh that God had taken it away; that God had terminated this terrible suffering.’ “As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow” – of the evening, when he has done his work – “and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work; so am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.” They had each day their relaxation from labour; it may be hard labour, but still they had their night of ease and rest. ‘But I have nothing day or night, it is all the same terrible unremitting suffering.’ “When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day.”

Sometimes we have a little of that experience; but how little it is compared with Job’s; and how very quickly it gives place. But God was putting him into the furnace in order that he might come out purer than ever. “My flesh is clothed with worms.” Think of that; not merely with woollen or linen – “My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.” That is, it was always something coming just like the rapid process with which a weaver passes his shuttle every moment. “Oh, remember that my life is wind; mine eye shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more; thine eyes are upon me and I am not. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away” – that is what he compared himself to – “so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more” – that is what he wanted, that it should terminate. “He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a whale” – a sea monster – “that thou settest a watch over me? When I say, my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions; so that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.” It is not that he would have done it, but that is what would have terminated his suffering. That is what the merely natural spirit would have done – terminated it violently. Oh, no; he had no thought of such a thing. He was under the hand of God, but he begs God’s hand to close it. “I would not live alway; let me alone; for my days are vanity.”

And he uses that very remarkable expression which we find in two other parts of the Old Testament: “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” It is very different here from what it is in the 8th Psalm, and it is sensibly different from what it is in Psa 144 . “What is man?” If you look at man without Christ there is nothing very wonderful to talk about; but when you look at Christ there is the most wonderful thing of all, both in the depth of His humiliation and the height of His exalted glory. Well, that is Psa 8 . But here it is man under the discipline of God; under the moral government of God. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘what is man, to be under such a tremendous government as this? If I were a sea I should not feel it; and if I were a big whale, well, I might perhaps endure more than I can now; but what is man?’ – poor, sensitive man; poor man full of his nerves, and full of his feeling, of mind, too, embittered by his outward trial? ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘terminate it I terminate it!”

Well, in the 144th Psalm there is another thing. Looking for the kingdom to be brought in by divine power, the Psalmist says, “What is man?” Man stands in the way. There the nations are, but what are they? Execute judgment upon them, put them down with a high hand. That is the way in which it is looked at. So that you see this – “man” in all the blessedness of Christ, then, “man” in all the sufferings of Job, and again, “man” in all the worthlessness of the nation; thus are three different comparisons given us in these three places. “How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?” – i.e., to get a moment to breath. “I have sinned” – or, “If I have sinned” I should think to be the real sense of the passage – “What shall I do unto thee,” “O thou” – not exactly “Preserver” but “Observer?” It is well to take notice of these errors where they are more particularly flagrant – “O thou Observer!” For he was perfectly conscious that God had His eye upon him all the time – perfectly conscious of that. Still he was not in the presence of God in the way that he afterwards entered it, when he knew himself, and when he knew God better, as he learnt through this.

This is what we have the privilege of learning in a very much more simple and blessed manner. “If I have sinned, what shall I do unto thee, O thou Observer of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? And why dost thou not pardon my transgression?” – he had confidence in God, but he could not understand what God somehow or another had against him, what he was not conscious of himself. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘why not pardon it, if there be that of which I am not conscious’ – “and take away mine iniquity? for now I shall sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.”

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

Is there not. ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.

an appointed time = a warfare. Compare Job 14:14.

man = mortal man.

are not. ? Figure of speech Erotesis.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 7

Is there not an appointed time to man upon the earth? are not his days also like the days of a hireling? As a servant earnestly desires the shadow ( Job 7:1-2 ),

That is, the shadow of the clock going down so that the shadow disappears. The servant waits for that because he has rest in the evening.

and as the hireling looks for the reward of his work: So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, When will I arise, and when will the night be gone? I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and it’s become loathsome ( Job 7:2-5 ).

Now Job is telling about his horrible condition. Clods of dirt are clinging to the sores where they would begin to dry up and then the clods of dirt just clinging there and his flesh all over is just loathsome.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not. As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away; so is he that goeth down to the grave, he shall come up no more ( Job 7:6-9 ).

Job, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a whale, that you set a watch over me? When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; Then you come along and try to scare me with your dreams, and you terrify me through your visions: So that my soul chooses strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live always: let me alone; for my days are empty. What is man, that you should magnify him? ( Job 7:10-17 )

Let me say at this point Job is turning from Eliphaz. He said it. He said, “Just leave me alone. I will choose to strangle on my own spittle than to hear any more of your words. Death is better than life.” Now he turns to God in verse Job 7:17 . And addressing himself to God he says, “What is man that You should magnify him?”

and that you should set your heart upon him? ( Job 7:17 )

Interesting question. What is man that God should exalt man? And that God should set His heart upon man? I liked what Dave said this morning as he was leading us in singing. “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? Died He for me who caused His pain.” He said he likes to sing that looking in the mirror. “Amazing love, how can it be? That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me.” You ought to sing that looking in the mirror. Job is sort of looking in the mirror saying, “God, what is man that You should magnify him or that You should set Your heart upon him?” What am I that God should set His heart upon me? That God should desire my love. That God should desire my fellowship. That God should desire my responses to Him. It’s the amazing mysteries of God and I cannot understand it.

And that you should visit him every morning, and try him every moment? How long wilt you not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle? I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee ( Job 7:18-20 ),

And, of course, Job’s talking about, it’s quite a picturesque phrase for death, “I began to just swallow my own spit. That’s it. I can’t cough it up any more. I’m gone. I have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee.”

O thou preserver of men? why have you set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? Why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be ( Job 7:20-21 ).

So his complaint to God. “Why don’t You forgive me, God? Why don’t You relieve me of this? What’s going on?” And Job is crying out of the misery. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Job was sorely troubled by the cruel speeches of his friends, and he answered them out of the bitterness of his soul. What we are first about to read is a part of his language under those circumstances.

Job 7:1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

Is there not a certain time for each one of us to live? Is there not an end to all the trouble and sorrow of this mortal state? Woe is me, says Job, will this sad condition of things never come to a close? Must it always be thus with me?

Job 7:2. As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow,

When the day shall close, and he can go to his home,

Job 7:2-3. And as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

If that is the case with any of you, dear friends, you ought to be comforted by the thought that a better man than you are underwent just what you are enduring, and underwent it so as to glorify God by it. Remember what the apostle James wrote, Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. But if our case is not so bad as Jobs was, if we are in good health, and surrounded by Gods mercy, let us be very grateful. Every morning that you wake after a refreshing nights rest, praise God for it, for it might have been far otherwise, for you might have had wearisome nights through pain and suffering,

Job 7:4-5. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.

Such was the dreadful disease under which this man of God laboured, for the worst of pain may happen to the best of men. Sometimes, God ploughs his best fields most; and why should he not do so? Do not men try to do most with that which will yield most? And so God may most chasten those who will best repay the strokes of his hand. It is no token of displeasure when God smites us with disease; it may be an evidence that we are branches of the vine that bring forth fruit, or else he would not have taken the trouble to prune us.

Job 7:6. My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle, and are spent without hope.

His spirits are sunk so low that he had not any hope at all left; at least, there was none apparent just then. O you poor tried children of God, I beseech you once again to see that you are only walking where others have gone before you! Mark their footprints, and take heart again.

Job 7:7-8. O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.

As if God only looked at him, and the very look withered him; or as if there was only time for God just to look at him, and then he disappeared as though, he had been but a dream, an unsubstantial thing. It is good, my brethren, sometimes to know what vanities we are; and if we complain that things around us are vanity, what are we ourselves but the shadows of a shade?

Job 7:9-12. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?

Am I such a big thing, such a dangerous thing, that I ought to be watched like this, and perpetually hampered, and tethered, and kept within bounds? Ah, no! Job, you are neither a sea nor a whale, but something worse than either of them. So are we all, more false than the treacherous sea, harder to be tamed than the wildest of Gods creatures. God does set a watch over us, and well he may. But hear Jobs complaint:

Job 7:13-15. When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

Were you ever in this terrible place, dear friend? Some of us have been there, and we have used the very language of Job; and yet, for all that, we have been brought up again out of the utmost depths of despondency into the topmost heights of joy. Therefore, be comforted, ye poor prisoners. Through the bars and grating of your soul-dungeon, we would sing unto you this song, the Lord, that has brought us forth, can bring you forth also, for the Lord looseth the prisoners. The God of Job is yet alive, strong as ever for the deliverance of such as put their trust in him.

Job 7:16-17. I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity. What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?

Job seems to say, I am too little for God to notice me; why does he make so much of me as to chasten me so sorely?

Job 7:18-19. And their thou shouldest visit him every ,morning, and try him every moment? How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

Blow followed blow in quick succession. Pain came fast upon the heels of pain till Job seems to have had no rest from his anguish. This is the mournful moaning of a man on a sick-bed, worn out with long-continued grief. Do not judge it harshly. You may have to use such words yourself, one day; and if you ever do, then judge not yourself hardly, but say, I am only now where that eminent servant of God, the patriarch Job, once was, and the Lord who delivered him will also deliver me.

Job 7:20. I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men?

We did not expect him to call God by that name; yet sorrow hath a quick memory to recall anything by which it may be cheered. Thou Preserver of men, says Job, I have sinned: what shall I do?

Job 7:20. Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee,

Drawing thy bow, and directing all thine arrows against my poor heart. Hast thou no butts that thou must needs make me thy target, and test thy holy archery upon me?

Job 7:20. So that I am a burden to myself?

Oh, what heavy words, a burden to myself!

Job 7:21. And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust;and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

Speaking after the manner of man, he seems to think that, if God does not pardon him soon, the pardon will come too late; for if God comes in mercy by-and-by, he will be dead and gone, and God may seek him, but he shall not be found. This is how men talk when they get a little off their head through the very extremity of grief. We, too, may perhaps talk in the same fashion, one day, so let us not condemn poor Job. Now let us read a few Verses in the 3rd chapter of the Gospel according to John, that we may be comforted. If any of you are labouring under a sense of sin, I would take you straight away to sins only cure.

This exposition consisted of readings from Job 7, and Joh 3:14-17.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Job 7:1-10

Introduction

Job 7

THE CONCLUSION OF JOB’S SECOND SPEECH

Job, in his agony and suffering, is not altogether coherent in this speech. Having affirmed his righteousness (Job 6:29), yet he wonders why God has not forgiven his transgression, some iniquity, perhaps, of which he has no knowledge (Job 7:20).

He stated here that those who go down into Sheol shall come up no more (Job 7:9); but afterward he would declare that after death, “in my flesh, I shall see God” (Job 19:26 KJV).

His reference to his flesh being clothed with worms (Job 7:5), “Could be either a figure of speech or literally true. We do not know; but, in any case, Job’s body had become loathsome, and he suffered intense pain.” “In the first part of this chapter, Job justifies himself in his desire for death, and, in the latter part of it, he turns to God in prayer.”

Job 7:1-10

“Is there not a warfare for man upon earth?

And are not his days like the days of an hireling?

As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow,

And as a hireling that looketh for his wages:

So am I made to possess months of misery,

And wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say,

When shall I arise, and the night be gone?

And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;

My skin closeth up and breaketh out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

And are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath:

Mine eye shall no more see good.

The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me no more;

Thine eyes shall be upon me, but I shall not be.

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away,

So he that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more.

He shall return no more to his house,

Neither shall his place know him anymore.”

“Is there not a warfare for man upon the earth” (Job 7:1)? We like Adam Clarke’s explanation of this. “Human life is a state of probation, a time of exercise to train us for eternal life. It is a warfare; we are enlisted in the Church Militant and must accomplish our time of service.” “And there is no discharge in that war” (Ecc 8:8).

“As the servant … desireth the shadow, and … an hireling looketh for his wages” (Job 7:2). Jamieson has the best comment on this we have seen. “If the servant longs for the evening when his wages are paid, why may not Job long for the close of his life of hard service, when he shall enter on his reward”? This proves that Job did not, as many maintain, regard the grave as the end of everything, in spite of what he said later in Job 7:9.

“When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise” (Job 7:4). Paul Sherer explained Job’s words in these verses thus: “What on earth was there to live for? With his days as long as empty months, and no shadow of the evening to bring him a little respite, there’s nothing but tossings to and fro from dusk till dawn. Would God it were day! And every night, would God it were dawn”!

“He that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more” (Job 7:9). Job does not, in these words, abandon all hope after death, but merely states a well-known truth that the dead do not return to their houses, nor are they seen any more by their contemporaries.

E.M. Zerr:

Job 7:1. There is one very pitiable feature of this case that I have not mentioned and it will be done now. In all of Job’s afflictions he had not been told why it had come about. He did not believe the position of the friends, but he did not profess to understand the background. Because of not knowing why the afflictions were allowed to come he likewise did not know that they were supposed ever to end as long as he remained in the land of the living. Had he known that it was for the special purpose of a test and that as soon as the test had been carried through he would be restored, it then would have been easier for him to endure it. But the only consideration there was to keep him true through all the afflictions was his faith in God. He just supposed that “his fate was the common fate of all; that into each life some rain must fall,” and that he would just have to bide his time.

Job 7:2-3. The shadow is the closing of the day when the slave would get to cease working; he would naturally wish for that time to come, and the hireling would look forward to the moment when he would receive his wages. The strain of mind in these servants is used to illustrate the state of Job’s mind as he looked to the time when his day of sorrow would be over.

Job 7:4. A state of continual unrest was what Job was describing in this verse. He would wish for the night because it was supposed to bring him rest. Then when it came and he lay down, his spirit of unrest made him wish it would be day.

Job 7:5. The running ulcers that covered Job’s body would naturally cause an open condition all over the surface. That exposed him to all kinds of filth that would be connected with the situation. Sitting among the ashes he would be helpless against the accumulation of the dust that would be caught by the sores that were open. This matter then formed clods which Strong defines in the original as “a mass of earth.” Such a condition would attract the blowflies and they deposited their germs. That brought the worms as the text says and which Strong defines as maggots. Thus we see Job with our mind’s eye, sitting there in the ashes, and the filthy pus oozing out and over his body. The flying dust has been caught by the open sores and it has formed into clods inside the sores. To add to all this, the maggots have hatched out of the germs deposited by the flies, and their creepy, wriggly, constant motion helps to keep Job’s sickening agitation constantly with him.

Job 7:6. Ordinarily we think that “time goes so slowly” when conditions are such as those being suffered by Job; the illustration is used in a different sense. A weaver’s shuttle darts back and forth in the work as if it were nervously looking for a place to stop and rest. Yet it does not get to rest but must go on and on endlessly from one stroke to another. Likewise the days of Job were being constantly passed away from one alternation to another with no prospect of relief.

Job 7:7. Job compared his life to wind in about the same sense that James called it a vapor (Jas 4:14).

Job 7:8. This verse has been a favorite saying for many years when people were referring to the fleeting existence of human life. The force of the statement, however, has been overlooked. A man might refer to some date years ahead and say that when that time came no eye would see him. But that would still leave it possible for the speaker to live a long time. But this verse says that the eye that bath seen him would see him no more, which indicated that the end was near.

Job 7:9-10. The unbeliever in a future life would use the first of these verses to prove his theory. It is not fair to do that, but all of the connection should be observed. I will suggest that the reader underscore the last 5 words of verse 9, then underscore words 6, 7, 8 in the next verse. He will then have the expression shall come up no more to his house. That will be the truth, for we all know that the dead are never to come back to the earth to live.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Without waiting for their reply, Job broke out into a new lamentation, more bitter than the first, for it came out of a heart whose sorrow was aggravated by the misunderstanding of friends. Indeed, its very strength was a new protest against the only open charge Eliphaz had made, namely, of sin and foolishness in complaining at all.

In this lamentation there are two movements: first, a great complaint concerning the stress and misery of life (1- l0), and, second, a complaint directed against God (11-21). The toil of life is strenuous indeed. It is a warfare. Man is a hireling, a servant, whose labor issues in nothing, and whose rest is disturbed with tossing. Nothing is satisfying, for nothing is lasting, and figure is piled on figure to emphasize this: a weaver’s shuttle, wind, the look of the eye, the vanishing cloud. There was absolutely no ray of hope in this outlook on life. Because of it Job complained not only of life, but directly against God. It was determined. “I will not refrain . . . I will speak .. . I will complain.”

How terribly the vision of God was blurred in these days of suffering is illustrated as the man cried out that God would not let him alone, and asked why he must be tried every moment. It is such a cry and complaint that none can understand who has not passed into some sorrow equally severe. In saying this we simply state the fact, and those tempted to criticism of the attitude should remember that God patiently bore and waited, knowing that at the back of the complaint was an unshaken confidence, even though for a moment the surfaces were swept with the hurricanes of doubt blowing up out of the darkness.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Longing for the Evening

Job 7:1-21

The servant eagerly longs for the lengthening shadow, which tells him that his day of labor is at an end, and we may allow ourselves to anticipate the hour of our reward and deliverance.

In plaintive words, which have so often been on the lips of heavy sufferers, Job tells the story of his sorrow and bitterness. The sufferer addresses God directly-almost suggesting at first that God was persecuting him without cause. Let those who have been disposed to think God unmindful and hard in His dealings, ponder these words. Even this saint of patience has trodden that path before them, and he came out right at last. But a softer tone follows; Job realizes that he has sinned, pleads to be forgiven, and asks that the word of forgiving love may not tarry, lest it be too late. The psalmist uses expressions similar to Job 7:17-18, but with a more wholesome application, Psa 8:4; Psa 144:3.

Notice that wonderful name for God-the watcher of men, Job 7:20, r.v. Not to discover their sins, but to learn their sorrows and needs with the intent of helping them with His saving strength.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Job 7:16

The peculiar circumstances of Job had, no doubt, something to do with eliciting from him this aspiration, otherwise its spirit would scarcely accord with the general tone of the patriarchs and of the saints of the Old Testament dispensation. For they evidently, as in the case of Hezekiah, had a great desire for long life. And it was no wonder, for it was held out as a special token of God’s favour and a reward for upright conduct, and was therefore highly estimated and greatly coveted among the ancient pious Jews.

I. Life should be considered by the Christian as a possession greatly to be cherished. To esteem lightly and wish to abridge life is wrong. The desire to be with Christ-the attractive end of the magnet-cannot be too strong; but the weariness of this world, the longing to escape from it-the repulsive end-may easily run into excess. The present state of existence is the only one in which we shall ever glorify God by patience and the resistance of evil, or, as far as we know, by extending His kingdom upon earth. And therefore let us not be in haste to quit the field; for it may be the only field we shall ever have where we can glorify God for these high ends.

II. To the majority of people, however, the danger lies on the other side. They are unwilling to die. Notwithstanding all warnings and preparations which God is sending every day, the real spirit of their mind is, “I would live alway.” It is because they are so encased and absorbed with the present life that they have no room for another.

III. When our sins are once cancelled, our nature spiritualised, ourselves “meetened for the inheritance of the saints in light,” who would not say, with the patriarch, “I would not live alway”? We know and are sure that another life is awaiting us, to which this life is but as death” and our arms stretch out to that life. “We would not live alway.”

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 168.

References: Job 7:17.-J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 397; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 20. Job 7:17, Job 7:18.-J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Christmas and Epiphany, p. 170.

Job 7:20

The great design of the book of Job, leaving out all detail and the undercurrents of the story, appears to be twofold: (1) to show that a good man, and because he is good, may yet receive at the hand of the God he loves and serves the severest discipline of pain and sorrow; (2) to illustrate that, however high the moral level of a man may be, he needs further sanctification, and specially that nothing avails before God, nothing has reached its necessary standard, without great humiliation and a very deep sense of sin.

I. There is no doubt that Job was a good man. He was a man of prayer. He had attained a spiritual knowledge far beyond his age, and he had many direct revelations from heaven. His want was a clearer insight into his own heart; juster views of the holiness of God; a truer estimate of sin, its nature and its vileness; a more personal conviction of the wickedness which, nothwithstanding all his virtues, still lived and reigned in him.

II. We see in the history of Job God’s method by which He gives penitence to a good, but not yet humbled, man: the school of suffering, the greatnesses of His own majesty and power, the inworking of the convicting Spirit, revelations of Jesus, and the ministrations of His messenger.

III. Why is it needful for a good man to say, “I have sinned”? (1) Because it is true; (2) because it places him in a right relation to God; (3) because it puts Jesus in His proper place. The Cross is the centre of God’s universe. Everything revolves around the Cross. Everything must minister to the Cross.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 7th series, p. 104.

References: Job 7:20.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 113; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 284; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 121. Job 8:4.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 129.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

Is there: Job 14:5, Job 14:13, Job 14:14, Psa 39:4, Isa 38:5, Joh 11:9, Joh 11:10

an appointed time: or, a warfare, Ecc 8:8

like the days: Job 14:6, Lev 25:50, Deu 15:18, Isa 21:16, Mat 20:1-15

Reciprocal: Gen 47:29 – must die Deu 12:1 – all the days 1Sa 26:10 – his day Ecc 3:2 – and a time

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job 7:1. Is there not, &c. Job is here excusing what he cannot justify, his passionate longing for death. An appointed time for man upon earth Hebrews , tzaba, a warfare; or, time of warfare. The Targum is, Chela, militia. The Vulgate, militia est vita hominis, The life of man is a warfare. The heathen had the same thoughts of life: , M. Anton. 50. 2. sec. 17. Comp. Job 14:14. All the days, tzebai, of my appointed time; militi me, of my warfare. But our own translation appears to be as agreeable to the Hebrew, and to contain as good sense, as any other. Job seems to mean, Is there not a short time, limited by God, wherein man shall live in this sinful and miserable world; that afterward he may live in a more holy and happy place and state? And is it a crime in me to desire that God would bring me to that joyful period? Our time on earth is limited and short, according to the narrow bounds of this earth. But heaven cannot be measured, nor the days of heaven numbered. Reader, consider this! Are not his days also like the days of a hireling? Whose time is short, being but a few years or days, and whose condition is full of toil and hardship.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 7:1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? hela zaba, Nonne militia est homini super terra, et sicut dies mercenarii dies ejus? Is not the life of man a warfare upon the earth; and his days as a mercenary; hired for the campaign? N y a-t-il pas un train de guerre ordonne aux mortels sur la terre? Is there not a train of warfare ordained to mortals on the earth? Then Job wisely contends, that as afflictions are the common lot of man, his friends ought not tacitly to impute his unprecedented calamities to secret crimes.

Job 7:6. A weavers shuttle which flies swiftly, and the shoots are not counted. In like manner, our fugitive moments pass away, and little noticed, till the webb of life is cut out of the loom. Weaving is an invention of the greatest antiquity, and silks must have been wove with a shuttle; in this art the Hindoos still surpass the Europeans.

Job 7:12. Am I a sea, or a whale. tannin, a dragon, a sea-serpent, as Amo 9:3, or a whale. The sense seems to be, Am I tumultuous like the swelling waves of the sea, or destructive like a monster that ranges in the sea, that thou settest a watch over me, and bindest me down with the chains of affliction; or sendest a harpooner against me? So in Job 7:19, he asks a little repose that he might swallow his spittle.

REFLECTIONS.

Job here describes his conflicts, and the nature of his afflictions. His body was covered with ulcers, and so extremely offensive to his attendants that no one would wash them; the flies deposited their eggs in his sores, and filled them with maggots. Hence, life being a time of trial, of warfare or affliction, we must expect visitations from the Lord, and assaults from our foes. Though Job allowed that life was short, as the wasting day of a labourer; that it hasted to go down as the shadow of the sun, and vanished as a cloud; yet he thought it too slow, because his months of affliction were vanity. His life was of no use, and therefore he vehemently desired death. He would not take the culprits guilt, but he would gladly interpose to receive the punishment. His soul preferred strangling to life. A farther reason for his request to die was, the affliction of his mind. When he was wearied and worn out with the pains of the day, and hoped for a little repose at night, then God scared him with dreams, and terrified him with visions. The fever of his body, and above all, the injections of Satan, contributed to the terrors and inquietude of his sleep. Invisible phantoms stood before him; futurity, full of confusion, opened to his view. Hence he longed for God to receive his spirit, for he had no farther hopes in life. Therefore he adds, I loathe it: I would not live always.

The pleas he addresses to God for release by death are very affecting. My life is but wind. What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him in so great a contest; that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him, to wrestle with or try him every moment. If I have sinned, what can I do, oh thou that knowest the heart of man! I am a burden to myself.Hence he besought the Lord, not to pardon the iniquity he had in common with men, but to let him escape in the night, that his body only might be found in the morning. In this extraordinary case, we see how much a confidence in God, on the one hand, and extreme afflictions on the other, contribute to make men weary of the world, and desirous of heaven.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 7:1-10. Job complains of the misery of his life and destiny. How is it that Job does not go on to maintain his innocence? Instead of this he proceeds to show how dreadfully he suffers, and to accuse God of cruelty (Job 7:11 f.). The point is that he cannot think of his suffering without viewing it as a ground against God. The ideas of Eliphaz about suffering being due to sin make no impression on him: moreover he feels that, if he had sinned, that would give God no reason to treat him as He does. Again Job can hardly believe as yet that Eliphaz really meant to accuse him of sin. He indulges himself, therefore, freely again in the complaint of his misery. As before, however, in Job 3:20, he is led to think of his own case as one among many (Job 7:1 f.). Life is a soldiers campaign, hard drudgery, wounds, and exposure, till the campaign is over. It is a hirelings day. Working through the sultry midday he thirsts for the coolness of evening and his wages (Job 7:2). Such is mans life in general. But with 3 Job comes back to his own case. His troubles too are laid on him, like the soldiers or the labourers, by the will of another. Like them he longs for the end of his misery. In Job 7:4 f. he paints a graphic picture of this. He especially dwells on the long interminable nights of pain. His sores breed worms. They form a hard crust (clods of dust) and then break out afresh and run. In spite of his long nights of pain, yet his time goes by more swiftly than a weavers shuttle (cf. Job 9:25 f.), and he is utterly hopeless (Job 7:6). With Job 7:7 he turns to God and pitifully appeals to Him. For a moment he thinks of God as the God who has loved and cared for him, and is carried on to the further thought (Job 7:8) that when he is gone God will look for him and not find him. It is the first indication of the path upon which ultimately he is to find the personal solution of his trouble. By slow degrees he comes to believe that God who had once cared for him must need him, and therefore ultimately must deliver him. But at present all he says is that God will one day look for him and fail to find him. There is just the faintest suggestion that God will miss him. It is the first gleam of light in the midst of Jobs darkness. But it vanishes, and in Job 7:9 f. he dwells on the impossibility of a return from Sheol. The Babylonians called the underworld the land of no return (Peake). According to the ancient Hebrew view, the dead in Sheol were cut off from all communion with God (Psa 6:5; Psa 88:10-12, Isa 38:18). Here, says Duhm, Job completely rejects the idea of immortality. Of course this is not to say, that it cannot reoccur. On the contrary, just because Job again and again comes back to the comfortless idea, that all is over with death, the observant reader is led to form the suspicion that he is suppressing a hope, which continually reawakens in secret within him, that after all things may be otherwise.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

DOES GOD NOT RECOMPENSE GOOD DEEDS?

(vv.1-16)

Job’s questions in verse 1 indicate why he was so distressed at God’s dealings. No doubt too his friends would agree to his questions. “Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired man?” How many people are like Job in this matter. They consider their relationship to God as being like that of a hired man working for a righteous employer. If they do right, their recompense should be good: if they do wrong, they expect a painful recompense. But Job was suffering agonising pain. Was this the recompense for the good he had done? He had looked eagerly for his wages for doing good (v.2), and found himself enduring months of futility and wearisome nights, tossing to and fro in his bed, his flesh caked with worms and dust (vv.3-5).

Thus, Job was inferring that God was unfair in recompensing evil for good. Of course God is not unfair, and his friends, in trying to defend God’s righteousness, were guilty of deciding that God was recompensing Job for his secretly doing evil. How sadly wrong in their thoughts were both Job and his friends! God was seeking to teach Job that his relationship to Him must not be that of one working for wages, but that of one whom God loved and who loved God, therefore doing good simply out of a heart of love, expecting no payment for it. Job did not at this time understand this, and neither did his friends.

In verse 6 to 10 then Job continues his description of the anguish that he endured, his days spent without hope, expecting to never see good again (vv.6-7). Thus to him his future appeared bleak and hopeless. How wrong he was! – for God had designed greater blessing for him in the future than he had ever known before; and in fact eternity has infinitely greater blessing yet. But in the meanwhile Job’s feelings were those of defeat and misery, considering his life as a cloud that appears and vanishes away. Death would overtake him and he would never return to his house (vv.9-10). Actually, he desired to die: why then did he think so hopelessly as to the results of death? But our feelings often cause us to be inconsistent. Of course at that time he could not know the marvel of the death of Christ completely answering the many distressing questions that death poses. We who know Christ today have reason for deepest thanksgiving for the value of His sacrifice on Calvary and His resurrection from among the dead.

However, Job, basing his words on the feeling he has expressed, says he will not restrain his mouth, but will speak in the anguish of his spirit and complain in the bitterness of his soul (v.11). If we give way to our feelings, the effects will always be this way: we shall not be able to restrain our mouths. Sober wisdom and concern for the truth will teach us to restrain our words, but our feelings will lead us to express ourselves unadvisedly. “Am I a sea,” Job asks, that is, a huge, uncontrolled creature, or simply a sea serpent, so bent on its own will that Job’s friends think it necessary to impose their authority upon him (v.12).

When he looked for comfort in lying down in his bed, then he says they “scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions” (vv.23-24). He refers to the vision Eliphaz claimed to have had, and which Job considered to be, not for his comfort, but to frighten him, and this moved him all the more to choose to die, so that he declares bitterly, “I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are but a breath” (v.16). We can understand that Job would prefer to be left alone rather than to have the cold criticism of his friends.

JOB SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO GOD

(vv.17-21)

Though answering Eliphaz, Job now addresses God directly, and in the same complaining way. “What is man?” he asks, that God should exalt him to a place where he is subjected to many direct inflictions that he considers sent by God Himself. Was Job so important that God should spend such time in dealing so hardly with him, testing him every moment? (vv.17-18). The actual answer to this is, “Yes.” God considers every believer important enough for God to spend time in putting him through serious trials of faith. “How long?” (v.19). It seemed too long to Job, but God knows just the length of time that is necessary to accomplish His own ends in every case.

“Will you not look away from me and let me alone till I swallow down my saliva?” He realised that God was actually putting the pressure on him, and pleaded for relief from this. Supposing it true that he had sinned, yet what harm had this done to God whom he calls the Observer of men?” (v.20). Was God observing merely with a cold vindictive attitude, making Job a target for His temper – so that Job became a burden to himself? If Job had sinned in whatever minor measure, why would God not pardon this and take away his iniquity? (v.21). He knew he had not willingly rebelled against God in any way, and could not understand why God would not pardon any minor infractions. Now all he could do was lie down in the dust, so humiliated that God would not even be able to find him! – he would “no longer be.” Of course Job’s words are ill-considered, the expressions of a tortured mind. Yet it is as well that what is in the heart comes out.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

7:1 [Is there] not an appointed time to man upon earth? [are not] his days also like the days of an {a} hireling?

(a) Has not a hired servant some rest and ease? Then in this my continual torment I am worse than a hireling.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Job’s miserable suffering 7:1-6

"The rest of Job’s speech is more like a soliloquy which turns into a remonstration against God Himself. His theme is once more the hard service that men have upon earth." [Note: Andersen, p. 134.]

"That Job speaks realistically about his pains here, in contrast to the unrealistic wish never to have been born that he uttered in his curse-lament (ch. 3), means that he is beginning to cope with his real situation." [Note: Hartley, p. 142.]

In this complaint (cf. ch. 3; Job 6:8-13), Job compared himself to a slave or hired servant, and concluded that he was in a worse condition. In Job 7:6, one Hebrew word occurs twice and reads, in English, first "shuttle" and then "hope." Job had run out of hope as a weaver’s shuttle runs out of thread.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

VIII.

MEN FALSE: GOD OVERBEARING

Job 6:1-30; Job 7:1-21

Job SPEAKS

WORST to endure of all things is the grief that preys on a mans own heart because no channel outside self is provided for the hot stream of thought. Now that Eliphaz has spoken, Job has something to arouse him, at least to resentment. The strength of his mind revives as he finds himself called to a battle of words. And how energetic he is! The long address of Eliphaz we saw to be incoherent, without the backbone of any clear conviction, turning hither and thither in the hope of making some way or other a happy hit. But as soon as Job begins to speak there is coherency, strong thought running through the variety of expression, the anxiety for instruction, the sense of bewilderment and trouble. We feel at once that we are in contact with a mind no half-truths can satisfy, that will go with whatever difficulty to the very bottom of the matter.

Supreme mark of a healthy nature, this. People are apt to praise a mind at peace, moving composedly from thought to thought, content “to enjoy the things which others understand,” not distressed by moral questions. But minds enjoying such peace are only to be praised if the philosophy of life has been searched out and tried, and the great trust in God which resolves all doubt has been found. While life and providence, ones own history and the history of the world present what appear to be contradictions, problems that baffle and disturb the soul, how can a healthy mind be at rest? Our intellectual powers are not given simply that we may enjoy; they are given that we may understand. A mind hungers for knowledge, as a body for food, and cannot be satisfied unless the reason and the truth of things are seen. You may object that some are not capable of understanding, that indeed Divine providence, the great purposes of God, lie so far and so high beyond the ordinary human range as to be incomprehensible to most of us. Of what use, then, is revelation? Is it given merely to bewilder us, to lead us on in a quest which at the last must leave many of the searchers unsatisfied, without light or hope? If so, the Bible mocks us, the prophets were deceivers, even Christ Himself is found no Light of the world, but a dreamer who spoke of that which can never be realised. Not thus do I begin in doubt, and end in doubt. There are things beyond me; but exact or final knowledge of these is not necessary. Within my range and reach through nature and religion, through the Bible and the Son of God, are the principles I need to satisfy my souls hunger. And in every healthy mind there will be desire for truth which, often baffled, will continue till understanding comes.

And here we join issue with the agnostic, who denies this vital demand of the soul. Our thought dwelling on life and all its varied experience-sorrow and fear, misery and hope, love threatened by death yet unquenchable, the exultation of duty, the baffling of ambition, unforeseen peril and unexpected deliverance-our thought, I say, “dealing with these elements of life, will not rest in the notion that all is due to chance or to blind forces, that evolution can never be intelligently followed.” The modern atheist or agnostic falls into the very error for which he used to reprove faith when he contemptuously bids us get rid of the hope of understanding the world and the Power directing it, when he invites us to remember our limitations and occupy ourselves with things within our range. Religion used to be taunted with crippling mans faculties and denying full play to his mental activity. Scientific unbelief does so now. It restricts us to the seen and temporal, and, if consistent, ought to refuse all ideals and all desires for a “perfect” state. The modern sage, intent on the study of material things and their changes, confining himself to what can be seen, heard, touched, or by instruments analysed, may have nothing but scorn or, say, pity for one who cries out of trouble-

“Have I sinned? Yet, what have I done unto Thee, O Thou Watcher of men?

Why hast Thou set me as Thy stumbling block,

So that I am a burden to myself?

And why wilt Thou not pardon my transgression,

And cause my sin to pass away?”

But the man whose soul is eager in the search for reality must endeavour to wrest from Heaven itself the secret of his dissatisfaction with the real, his conflict with the real, and why he must so often suffer from the very forces that sustain his life. Yes, the passion of the soul continues. It protests against darkness, and therefore against materialism. Conscious mind presses toward an origin of thought. Soul must find a Divine Eternal Soul. Where nature opens ascending ways to the reason in its quest; where prophets and sages have cut paths here and there through the forest of mystery; where the brave and true testify of a light they have seen and invite us to follow; where One stands high and radiant above the cross on which He suffered and declares Himself the Resurrection and the Life, -there men will advance, feeling themselves inspired to maintain the search for that Eternal Truth without the hope of which all our life here is a wearisome pageant, a troubled dream, a bitter slavery.

In his reply to Eliphaz, Job first takes hold of the charge of impatience and hasty indignation made in the opening of the fifth chapter. He is quite aware that his words were rash when he cursed his day and cried impatiently for death. In accusing him of rebellious passion, Eliphaz had shot the only arrow that went home; and now Job, conscientious here, pulls out the arrow to show it and the wound. “Oh,” he cries, “that my hasty passion were duly weighed, and my misery were laid in the balance against it! For then would it, my misery, be found heavier than the sand of the seas: therefore have my words been rash.” He is almost deprecatory. Yes: he will admit the impatience and vehemence with which he spoke. But then, had Eliphaz duly considered his state, the weight of his trouble causing a physical sense of indescribable oppression? Let his friends look at him again, a man prostrated with sore disease and grief, dying slowly in the lepers exile.

“The arrows of the Almighty are within me,

The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up.

The terrors of God beleaguer me.”

We need not fall into the mistake of supposing that it is only the pain of his disease which makes Jobs misery so heavy. Rather is it that his troubles have come from God; they are “the arrows of the Almighty.” Mere suffering and loss, even to the extremity of death, he could have borne without a murmur. But he had thought God to be his friend. Why on a sudden have those darts been launched against him by the hand he trusted? What does the Almighty mean? The evildoer who suffers knows why he is afflicted. The martyr enduring for conscience sake has his support in the truth to which he bears witness, the holy cause for which he dies. Job has no explanation, no support, he cannot understand providence. The God with whom he supposed himself to be at peace suddenly becomes an angry incomprehensible Power, blighting and destroying His servants life. Existence poisoned, the couch of ashes encompassed with terrors, is it any wonder that passionate words break from his lips? A cry is the last power left to him.

So it is with many. The seeming needlessness of their sufferings, the impossibility of tracing these to any cause in their past history, in a word, the mystery of the pain confounds the mind, and adds to anguish and desolation an unspeakable horror of darkness. Sometimes the very thing guarded against is that which happens; a mans best intelligence appears confuted by destiny or chance. Why has he amongst the many been chosen for this? Do all things come alike to all, righteous and wicked? The problem becomes terribly acute in the case of earnest God-fearing men and women who have not yet found the real theory of suffering. Endurance for others does not always explain. All cannot be rested on that. Nor unless we speak falsely for God will it avail to say, These afflictions have fallen on us for our sins. For even if the conscience does not give the lie to that assertion, as Jobs conscience did, the question demands a clear answer why the penitent should suffer, those who believe, to whom God imputes no iniquity. If it is for our transgressions we suffer, either our own faith and religion are vain, or God does not forgive excepting in form, and the law of punishment retains its force. We have here the serious difficulty that legal fictions seem to hold their ground even in the dealings of the Most High with those who trust Him. Many are in the direst trouble still for the same reason as Job, and might use his very words. Taught to believe that: suffering is invariably connected with wrong doing and is always in proportion to it, they cannot find in their past life any great transgressions for which they should be racked with constant pain or kept in grinding penury and disappointment. Moreover, they had imagined that through the mediation of Christ their sins were expiated and their guilt blotted out. What strange error is there in the creed or in the world? Have they never believed? Has God turned against them? So they inquire in the darkness.

The truth, however, as shown in a previous chapter, is that suffering has no proportion to the guilt of sin, but is related in the scheme of Divine providence to life in this world, its movement, discipline, and perfecting in the individual and the race. Afflictions, pains, and griefs are appointed to the best as well as the worst, because all need to be tried and urged on from imperfect faith and spirituality to vigour, constancy, and courage of soul. The principle is not dearly stated in the Book of Job, but underlies it, as truth must underlie all genuine criticism and every faithful picture of human life. The inspiration of the poem is so to present the facts of human experience that the real answer alone can satisfy. And in the speech we are now considering some imperfect and mistaken views are swept so completely aside that their survival is almost unaccountable.

Beginning with the fifth verse we have a series of questions somewhat difficult to interpret:-

“Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?

Or loweth the ox over his fodder?

Can that be eaten which is unsavoury, without salt?

Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

My soul refuseth to touch them;

They are to me as mouldy bread.”

By some these questions are supposed to describe sarcastically the savourless words of Eliphaz, his “solemn and impertinent prosing.” This, however, would break the continuity of the thought. Another view makes the reference to be to Jobs afflictions, which he is supposed to compare to insipid and loathsome food. But it seems quite unnatural to take this as the meaning. Such pain and grief and loss as he had undergone were certainly not like the white of an egg. But he has already spoken wildly, unreasonably, and he now feels himself to be on the point of breaking out afresh in similar impatient language. Now, the wild ass does not complain when it has grass, nor the ox when it has fodder; so, if his mind were supplied with necessary explanations of the sore troubles he is enduring, he would not be impatient, he would not complain. His soul hungers to know the reason of the calamities that darken his life. Nothing that has been said helps him. Every suggestion presented to his mind is either trifling and vain, without the salt of wisdom, like the white of an egg, or offensive, disagreeable. Ruthlessly sincere, he will not pretend to be satisfied when he is not. His soul refuses to touch the offered explanations and reasons. Verily, they are like mouldy bread to him. It is his own impatience, his loud cries and inquiries, he desires to account for; he does not attack Eliphaz with sarcasm, but defends himself.

At this point there is a brief halt in the speech. As if after a pause, due to a sharp sting of pain, Job exclaims: “Oh that God would please to destroy me!” He had felt the paroxysm approaching; he had endeavoured to restrain himself, but the torture drives him, as before, to cry for death. Again and again in the course of his speeches sudden turns of this kind occur, points at which the dramatic feeling of the writer comes out. He will have us remember the terrible disease and keep continually in mind the setting of the thoughts. Job had roused himself in beginning his reply, and, for a little, eagerness had overcome pain. But now he falls back, mastered by cruel sickness which appears to be unto death. Then he speaks:-

“Oh that I might have my request, That God would give me the thing I long for, Even that God would be pleased to crush me, That He would loose His hand and tear me off; And I should yet have comfort, I should even exult amidst unsparing pain, For I have not denied the words of the Holy One.”

The longing for death which now returns on Job is not so passionate as before; but his cry is quite as urgent and unqualified. As we have already seen, no motion towards suicide is at any point of the drama attributed to him. He does not, like Shakespeares Hamlet, whose position is in some respects very similar, question with himself,

“Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?”

Nor may we say that Job is deterred from the act of self-destruction by Hamlets thought,

“The dread of something after death

that makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of.”

Job has the fear and faith of God still, and not even the pressure of “unsparing pain” can move him to take into his own hands the ending of that torment God bids him bear. He is too pious even to dream of it. A true Oriental, with strong belief that the will of God must be done, he could die without a murmur, in more than stoical courage; but a suicide he cannot be. And indeed the Bible, telling us for the most part of men of healthy mind, has few suicides to record. Saul, Zimri, Ahithophel, Judas, break away thus from dishonour and doom; but these are all who, in impatience and cowardice, turn against Gods decree of life.

Here, then, the strong religious feeling of the writer obliges him to reject that which the poets of the world have used to give the strongest effect to their work. From the Greek dramatists, through Shakespeare to Browning, the drama is full of that quarrel with life which flies to suicide. In this great play, as we may well call it, of Semitic faith and genius, the ideas are masterly, the hold of universal truth is sublime. Perhaps the author was not fully aware of all he suggests, but he feels that suicide serves no end: it settles nothing; and his problem must be settled. Suicide is an attempt at evasion in a sphere where evasion is impossible. God and the soul have a controversy together, and the controversy must be worked out to an issue.

Job has not cursed God nor denied his words. With this clear conscience he is not afraid to die; yet, to keep it, he must wait on the decision of the Almighty-that it would please God to crush him, or tear him off like a branch from the tree of life. The prospect of death, if it were granted by God, would revive him for the last moment of endurance. He would leap up to meet the stroke, Gods stroke, the pledge that God was kind to him after all.

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,

And the barriers fall,

Though a battles to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

According to Eliphaz there was but one way for a sufferer. If Job would bow humbly in acknowledgment of guilt, and seek God in penitence, then recovery would come; the hand that smote would heal and set him on high; all the joy and vigour of life would be renewed, and after another long course of prosperity, he should come to his grave at last as a shock of corn is carried home in its season. Recalling this glib promise, Job puts it from him as altogether incongruous with his state. He is a leper; he is dying.

“What is my strength that I should wait,

And what my term that I should be patient?

Is my strength the strength of stones?

Is my flesh brass?

Is not my help within me gone,

And energy quite driven from me?”

Why, his condition is hopeless. What can he look for but death? Speak to him of a new term; it was adding mockery to despair. But he would die still true to God, and therefore he seeks the end of conflict. If he were to live on he could not be sure of himself, especially when, with failing strength, he had to endure the nausea and stings of disease. As yet he can face death as a chief should.

The second part of the address begins at the fourteenth verse of chapter 6. (Job 14:6) Here Job rouses himself anew, and this time to assail his friends. The language of their spokesman had been addressed to him from a height of assumed moral superiority, and this had stirred in Job a resentment quite natural. No doubt the three friends showed friendliness. He could not forget the long journey they had made to bring him comfort. But when he bethought him how in his prosperity he had often entertained these men, held high discourse with them on the ways of God, opened his heart and showed them all his life, he marvelled that now they could fail of the thing he most wanted-understanding. The knowledge they had of him should have made suspicion impossible, for they had the testimony of his whole life. The author is not unfair to his champions of orthodoxy. They fail where all such have a way of failing. If their victim in the poem presses on to stinging sarcasm and at last oversteps the bounds of fair criticism, one need not wonder. He is not intended as a type of the meek, self-depreciating person who lets slander pass without a protest. If they have treated him badly, he will tell them to their faces what he thinks. Their want of justice might cause a weak man to slip and lose himself.

Pity from his friend is due to the despairing,

Lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty:

But my brethren have deceived as a torrent,

Like the streams of the ravine, that pass away,

That become blackish with ice,

In which the snow is dissolved.

What time they wax warm they vanish,

When it is hot they are dried up out of their place.

The caravans turn aside,

They go up into the desert and are perishing.

The caravans of Tema look out,

The merchants of Sheba hope for them.

They were ashamed because they had trusted,

They came up to them and blushed.

Even so, now are ye nought.

The poetical genius of the writer overflows here. The allegory is beautiful, the wit keen, the knowledge abundant; yet, in a sense, we have to pardon the interposition. Job is not quite in the mood to represent his disappointment by such an elaborate picture. He would naturally seek a sharper mode of expression. Still, the passage must not be judged by our modern dramatic rules. This is the earliest example of the philosophic story, and elaborate word pictures are part of the literature of the piece.

We accept the pleasure of following a description which Job must be supposed to have painted in melancholy humour.

The scene is in the desert, several days journey from the Jauf, that valley already identified as the region in which Job lived. Beyond the Nefood to the west towers the Jebel Tobeyk, a high ridge covered in winter with deep snow, the melting of which fills the ravines with roaring streams. Caravans are coming across the desert from Tema, which lies seven days journey to the south of the Jauf, and from Sheba still farther in the same direction. They are on the march in early summer and, falling short of water, turn aside westward to one of the ravines where a stream is expected to be still flowing. But, alas for the vain hope! In the wadi is nothing but stones and dry sand, mocking the thirst of man and beast. Even so, says Job to his friends, ye are treacherous; ye are nothing. I looked for the refreshing waters of sympathy, but ye are empty ravines, dry sand. In my days of prosperity you gushed with friendliness. Now, when I thirst, ye have not even pity. “Ye see a terror, and are afraid.” I am terribly stricken. You fear that if you sympathised with me, you might provoke the anger of God.

From this point he turns upon them with reproach. Had he asked them for anything, gifts out of their herds or treasure, aid in recovering his property? They knew he had requested no such service. But again and again Eliphaz had made the suggestion that he was suffering as a wrong doer. Would they tell him then, straightforwardly, how and when he had transgressed? “How forcible are words of uprightness,” words that go right to a point; but as for their reproving, what did it come to? They had caught at his complaint. Men of experience should know that the talk of a desperate man is for the wind, to be blown away and forgotten, not to be laid hold of captiously. And here from sarcasm he passes to invective. Their temper, he tells them, is so hard and unfeeling that they are fit to cast lots over the orphan and bargain over a friend. They would be guilty even of selling for a slave a poor fatherless child cast on their charity. “Be pleased to look on me,” he cries; “I surely will not lie to your face. Return, let not wrong be done. Go back over my life. Let there be no unfairness. Still is my cause just.” They were bound to admit that he was as able to distinguish right from wrong as they were. If that were not granted, then his whole life went for nothing, and their friendship also.

In this vivid eager expostulation there is at least much of human nature. It abounds in natural touches common to all time and in shrewd ironic perception. The sarcasms of Job bear not only upon his friends, but also upon our lives. The words of men who are sorely tossed with trouble, aye even their deeds, are to be judged with full allowance for circumstances. A man driven back inch by inch in a fight with the world, irritated by defeat, thwarted in his plans, missing his calculations, how easy is it to criticise him from the standpoint of a successful career, high repute, a good balance at the bankers! The hasty words of one who is in sore distress, due possibly to his own ignorance and carelessness, how easy to reckon them against him, find in them abundant proof that he is an unbeliever and a knave, and so pass on to offer in the temple the Pharisees prayer! But, easy and natural, it is base. The author of our poem does well to lay the lash of his inspired scorn upon such a temper. He who stores in memory the quick words of a sufferer and brings them up by and by to prove him deserving of all his troubles, such a man would cast lots over the orphan. It is no unfair charge. Oh for humane feeling, gentle truth, self-searching fear of falsehood! It is so easy to be hard and pious.

Beginning another strophe Job turns from his friends, from would be wise assertions and innuendoes, to find, if he can, a philosophy of human life, then to reflect once more in sorrow on his state, and finally to wrestle in urgent entreaty with the Most High. The seventh chapter, in which we trace this line of thought, increases in pathos as it proceeds and rises to the climax of a most daring demand which is not blasphemous because it is entirely frank, profoundly earnest.

The friends of Job have wondered at his sufferings. He himself has tried to find the reason of them. Now he seeks it again in a survey of mans life:-

“Hath not man war service on earth?

And as the days of a hireling are not his?”

The thought of necessity is coming over Job, that man is not his own master; that a Power he cannot resist appoints his task, whether of action or endurance, to fight in the hot battle or to suffer wearily. And there is truth in the conception; only it is a truth which is inspiring or depressing as the ultimate Power is found in noble character or mindless force. In the time of prosperity this thought of an inexorable decree would have caused no perplexity to Job, and his judgment would have been that the Irresistible is wise and kind. But now, because the shadow has fallen, all appears in gloomy colour, and mans life a bitter servitude. As a slave, panting for the shade, longing to have his work over, Job considers man. During months of vanity and nights of weariness he waits, long nights made dreary with pain, through the slow hours of which he tosses to and fro in misery. His flesh is clothed with worms and an earthy crust, his skin hardens and breaks out. His days are flimsier than a web (Job 7:6), and draw to a close without hope. The wretchedness masters him, and he cries to God.

“O remember, a breath is my life

Never again will mine eye see good.”

Does the Almighty consider how little time is left to him? Surely a gleam might break before all grows dark! Out of sight he will be soon, yea, out of the sight of God Himself, like a cloud that melts away. His place will be down in Sheol, the region of mere existence, not of life, where a mans being dissolves in shadows and dreams. God must know this is coming to Job. Yet in anguish, ere he die, he will remonstrate with his Maker: “I will not curb my mouth, I will make my complaint in the bitterness of my soul.”

Striking indeed is the remonstrance that follows. A struggle against that belief in grim fate which has so injured Oriental character gives vehemence to his appeal; for God must not be lost. His mind is represented as going abroad to find in nature what is most ungovernable and may be supposed to require most surveillance and restraint. By change after change, stroke after stroke, his power has been curbed; till at last, in abject impotence, he lies, a wreck upon the wayside. Nor is he allowed the last solace of nature in extremis; he is not unconscious; he cannot sleep away his misery. By night tormenting dreams haunt him, and visions make as it were a terrible wall against him. He exists on sufferance, perpetually chafed. With all this in his consciousness, he asks, –

“Am I a sea, or a sea monster,

That thou keepest watch over me?”

In a daring figure he imagines the Most High who sets a bound to the sea exercising the same restraint over him, or barring his way as if he were some huge monster of the deep. A certain grim humour characterises the picture. His friends have denounced his impetuosity. Is it as fierce in Gods sight? Can his rage be so wild? Strange indeed is the restraint put on one conscious of having sought to serve God and his age. In self-pity, with an inward sense of the absurdity of the notion, he fancies the Almighty fencing his squalid couch with the horrible dreams and spectres of delirium, barring his way as if he were a raging flood. “I loathe life,” he cries; “I would not live always. Let me alone, for my days are a vapour.” Do not pain me and hem me in with Thy terrors that allow no freedom, no hope, nothing but a weary sense of impotence. And then his expostulation becomes even bolder.

“What is man,” asks a psalmist, “that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” With amazement Gods thought of so puny and insignificant a being is observed. But Job, marking in like manner the littleness of man, turns the question in another way:- “What is man that Thou magnifiest him, And settest Thine heart upon him? That Thou visitest him every morning, And triest him every moment?”

Has the Almighty no greater thing to engage Him that He presses hard on the slight personality of man? Might he not be let alone for a little? Might the watchful eye not be turned away from him even for a moment? And finally, coming to the supposition that he may have transgressed and brought himself under the judgment of the Most High, he even dares to ask why that should be:-

“Have I sinned? Yet what have I done unto Thee,

O Thou Watcher of men?

Why hast Thou set me as Thy butt,

So that I am a burden to myself?

And why will Thou not pardon my transgression,

And cause my sin to pass away?”

How can his sin have injured God? Far above man the Almighty dwells and reigns. No shock of human revolt can affect His throne. Strange is it that a man, even if he has committed some fault or neglected some duty, should be like a block of wood or stone before the feet of the Most High, till bruised and broken he cares no more for existence. If iniquity has been done, cannot the Great God forgive it, pass it by? That would be more like the Great God. Yes; soon Job would be down in the dust of death. The Almighty would find then that he had gone too far. “Thou shalt seek me, but I shall not be.”

More daring words were never put by a pious man into the mouth of one represented as pious; and the whole passage shows how daring piety may be. The inspired writer of this book knows God too well, honours Him too profoundly to be afraid. The Eternal Father does not watch keenly for the offences of the creatures He has made. May a man not be frank with God and say out what is in his heart? Surely he may. But he must be entirely earnest. No one playing with life, with duty, with truth, or with doubt may expostulate thus with his Maker.

There is indeed an aspect of our little life in which sin may appear too pitiful, too impotent for God to search out. “As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.” Only when we see that infinite Justice is involved in the minute infractions of justice, that it must redress the iniquity done by feeble hands and vindicate the ideal we crave for yet so often infringe; only when we see this and realise therewith the greatness of our being, made for justice and the ideal, for moral conflict and victory; only, in short, when we know responsibility, do we stand aghast at sin and comprehend the meaning of judgment. Job is learning here the wisdom and holiness of God which stand correlative to His grace and our responsibility. By way of trial and pain and these sore battles with doubt he is entering into the fulness of the heritage of spiritual knowledge and power.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary