Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 12:1
And Job answered and said,
Job 12:1-5
But I have understanding as well as you.
The effect of the friends speeches upon Job
The whole world, Job feels, is against him, and he is left forlorn and solitary, unpitied in his misery, unguided in his perplexity. And he may well feel so. All the religious thought of his day, all the traditions of the past, all the wisdom of the patriarchal Church, if I may use, as I surely may, the expression, is on one side. He, that solitary sufferer and doubter, is on the other. And this is not all, or the worst. His own habits of thought, his own training, are arrayed against him. He had been nursed, it is abundantly clear, in the same creed as those who feel forced to play the part of his spiritual advisers. The new and terrible experience of this crushing affliction, of this appalling visitation, falling upon one who had passed his life in the devout service of God, strikes at the very foundation of the faith on which that life, so peaceful, so pious, and so blessed, as it has been put before us in the prologue to the tragedy, has been based and built up. All seems against him; his friends, his God, his pains and anguish, his own tumultuous thoughts; all but one voice within, which will not be silenced or coerced. How easy for him, had he been reared in a heathen creed, to say, My past life must have been a delusion; my conscience has borne me false witness. I did justice, I loved mercy, I walked humbly with my God. But I must in some way, I know not how, have offended a capricious and arbitrary, but an all-powerful and remorseless Being. I will allow with you that that life was all vitiated by some act of omission or of commission of which I know nothing. Him therefore who has sent His furies to plague me, I will now try to propitiate. But no! Job will not come before his God, a God of righteousness, holiness, and truth, with a lie on his lips. And so he now stands stubbornly at bay, and in this and the following two chapters he bursts forth afresh with a strain of scorn and upbraiding that dies away into despair, as he turns from his human tormentors, once his friends, to the God who seems, like them, to have become his foe, but to whom he clings with an indomitable tenacity. (Dean Bradley.)
Independency of thought in religion
Now in these verses Job asserts his moral manhood, he rises from the pressure of his sufferings and the loads of sophistry and implied calumny which his friends had laid upon his spirit, speaks out with the heart of a true man. We have an illustration of independency of thought in religion, and this shall be our subject. A man though crushed in every respect, like Job, should not surrender this.
I. From the capacity of the soul.
1. Man has a capacity to form conceptions of the cardinal principles of religion. He can think of God, the soul, duty, moral obligation, Christ, immortality, etc.
2. Man has a capacity to realise the practical force of these conceptions. He can turn them into emotions to fire his soul; he can embody–them as principles in his life.
II. From the despotism of corrupt religion. Corrupt religion, whether Pagan or Christian, Papal or Protestant, always seeks to crush this independency in the individual soul.
III. From the necessary means of personal religion. Religion in the soul begins in individual thinking.
IV. From the conditions of moral usefulness. Every man is bound to be spiritually useful, but he cannot be so without knowledge, and knowledge implies independent study and conviction.
V. From the teachings of the Bible. The very existence of the Bible implies our power and obligation in this matter.
VI. From the transactions of the judgment. In the great day of God men will have to give an account of their thoughts and words as well as deeds. Let us, therefore, have the spirit of Job, and when amongst bigots who seek to impose their views on us and override our judgment, let us say, No doubt ye are the people, end wisdom shall die with you; but I have understanding as well as you. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XII
Job reproves the boasting of his friends, and shows their
uncharitableness towards himself, 1-5;
asserts that even the tabernacles of robbers prosper; and that,
notwithstanding, God is the Governor of the world; a truth
which is proclaimed by all parts of the creation whether
animate or inanimate, and by the revolutions which take place
in states, 6-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And Job answered and said. In reply to Zophar, and in defence of himself; what is recorded in this and the two following chapters.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 The Job began, and said:
2 Truly then ye are the people,
And wisdom shall die with you!
3 I also have a heart as well as you;
I do not stand behind you;
And to whom should not such things be known?
The admission, which is strengthened by , truly then (distinct from , for truly, Job 36:4, similar to , behold indeed, Psa 128:4), is intended as irony: ye are not merely single individuals, but the people = race of men ( , as Isa 40:7; Isa 42:5), so that all human understanding is confined to you, and there is none other to be found; and when once you die, it will seem to have died out. The lxx correctly renders: (according to the reading of the Cod. Alex.); he also has a heart like them, he is therefore not empty, , Job 11:12. Heart is, like Job 34:10, comp. , Job 11:12, equivalent to ; Ewald’s translation, “I also have a head even as you” (“brains” would better accord with the connection), is a western form of expression, and modern and unbiblical (vid., Division ”Herz und Haupt,” Psychol. iv. 12). He is not second to them; , like Job 13:2, properly to slip from, to be below any one; is not the comparative (Ewald). Oetinger’s translation is not bad: I cannot slink away at your presence. Who has not a knowledge of such things as those which they, by setting themselves up as defenders of God, have presented to him! is equivalent to , , Isa 59:12.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Job’s Reply to Zophar. | B. C. 1520. |
1 And Job answered and said, 2 No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. 3 But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these? 4 I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn. 5 He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
The reproofs Job here gives to his friends, whether they were just or no, were very sharp, and may serve for a rebuke to all that are proud and scornful, and an exposure of their folly.
I. He upbraids them with their conceitedness of themselves, and the good opinion they seemed to have of their own wisdom in comparison with him, than which nothing is more weak and unbecoming, nor better deserves to be ridiculed, as it is here. 1. He represents them as claiming the monopoly of wisdom, v. 2. He speaks ironically: “No doubt you are the people; you think yourselves fit to dictate and give law to all mankind, and your own judgment to be the standard by which every man’s opinion must be measured and tried, as if nobody could discern between truth and falsehood, good and evil, but you only; and therefore every top-sail must lower to you, and, right or wrong, we must all say as you say, and you three must be the people, the majority, to have the casting vote.” Note, It is a very foolish and sinful thing for any to think themselves wiser than all mankind besides, or to speak and act confidently and imperiously, as if they thought so. Nay, he goes further: “You not only think there are none, but that there will be none, as wise as you, and therefore that wisdom must die with you, that all the world must be fools when you are gone, and in the dark when your sun has set.” Note, It is folly for us to think that there will be any great irreparable loss of us when we are gone, or that we can be ill spared, since God has the residue of the Spirit, and can raise up others, more fit than we are, to do his work. When wise men and good men die it is a comfort to think that wisdom and goodness shall not die with them. Some think Job here reflects upon Zophar’s comparing him (as he thought) and others to the wild ass’s colt, ch. xi. 12. “Yes,” says he, “we must be asses; you are the only men.” 2. He does himself the justice to put in his claim as a sharer in the gifts of wisdom (v. 3): “But I have understanding (a heart) as well as you; nay, I fall not lower than you;” as it is in the margin. “I am as well able to judge of the methods and meanings of the divine providence, and to construe the hard chapters of it, as you are.” He says not this to magnify himself. It was no great applause of himself to say, I have understanding as well as you; no, nor to say, “I understand this matter as well as you;” for what reason had either he or they to be proud of understanding that which was obvious and level to the capacity of the meanest? “Yea, who knows not such things as these? What things you have said that are true are plain truths, and common themes, which there are many that can talk as excellently of as either you or I.” But he says it to humble them, and check the value they had for themselves as doctors of the chair. Note, (1.) It may justly keep us from being proud of our knowledge to consider how many there are that know as much as we do, and perhaps much more and to better purpose. (2.) When we are tempted to be harsh in our censures of those we differ from and dispute with we ought to consider that they also have understanding as well as we, a capacity of judging, and a right of judging for themselves; nay, perhaps they are not inferior to us, but superior, and it is possible that they may be in the right and we in the wrong; and therefore we ought not to judge or despise them (Rom. xiv. 3), nor pretend to be masters (Jam. iii. 1), while all we are brethren, Matt. xxiii. 8. It is a very reasonable allowance to be made to all we converse with, all we contend with, that they are rational creatures as well as we.
II. He complains of the great contempt with which they had treated him. Those that are haughty and think too well of themselves are commonly scornful and ready to trample upon all about them. Job found it so, at least he thought he did (v. 4): I am as one mocked. I cannot say there was cause for this charge; we will not think Job’s friends designed him any abuse, nor aimed at any thing but to convince him, and so, in the right method, to comfort him; yet he cries out, I am as one mocked. Note, We are apt to call reproofs reproaches, and to think ourselves mocked when we are but advised and admonished; this peevishness is our folly, and a great wrong to ourselves and to our friends. Yet we cannot but say there was colour for this charge; they came to comfort him, but they vexed him, gave him counsels and encouragements, but with no great opinion that either the one or the other would take effect; and therefore he thought they mocked him, and this added much to his grief. Nothing is more grievous to those that have fallen from the height of prosperity into the depth of adversity than to be trodden on, and insulted over, when they are down; and on this head they are too apt to be suspicious. Observe,
1. What aggravated this grievance to him. Two things:– (1.) That they were his neighbours, his friends, his companions (so the word signifies), and the scoffs of such are often most spitefully given, and always most indignantly received. Psa 55:12; Psa 55:13, It was not an enemy that reproached me; then I would have slighted it, and so borne it; but it was thou, a man, my equal. (2.) That they were professors of religion, such as called upon God, and said that he answered them: for some understand that of the persons mocking. “They are such as have a regard to heaven, and an interest in heaven, whose prayers I would therefore be glad of and thankful for, whose good opinion I cannot but covet, and therefore whose censures are the more grievous.” Note, It is sad that any who call upon God should mock their brethren (Jas 3:9; Jas 3:10), and it cannot but lie heavily on a good man to be thought ill of by those whom he thinks well of, yet this is no new thing.
2. What supported him under it. (1.) That he had a God to go to, with whom he could lodge his appeal; for some understand those words of the person mocked, that he calls upon God and he answers him; and so it agrees with ch. xvi. 20. My friends scorn me, but my eye poureth out tears to God. If our friends be deaf to our complaints, God is not; if they condemn us, God knows our integrity; if they make the worst of us, he will make the best of us; if they give us cross answers, he will give us kind ones. (2.) That his case was not singular, but very common: The just upright man is laughed to scorn. By many he is laughed at even for his justice and his uprightness, his honesty towards men and his piety towards God; these are derided as foolish things, which silly people needlessly hamper themselves with, as if religion were a jest and therefore to be made a jest of. By most he is laughed at for any little infirmity or weakness, notwithstanding his justice and uprightness, without any consideration had of that which is so much his honour. Note, It was of old the lot of honest good people to be despised and derided; we are not therefore to think it strange (1 Pet. iv. 12), no, nor to think it hard, if it be our lot; so persecuted they not only the prophets, but even the saints of the patriarchal age (Matt. v. 12), and can we expect to fare better than they?
3. What he suspected to be the true cause of it, and that was, in short, this: they were themselves rich and at ease, and therefore they despised him who had fallen into poverty. It is the way of the world; we see instances of it daily. Those that prosper are praised, but of those that are going down it is said, “Down with them.” He that is ready to slip with his feet and fall into trouble, though he has formerly shone as a lamp, is then looked upon as a lamp going out like the snuff of a candle, which we throw to the ground and tread upon, and is accordingly despised in the thought of him that is at ease, v. 5. Even the just upright man, that is in his generation as a burning and shining light, if he enter into temptation (Ps. lxxiii. 2) or come under a cloud, is looked upon with contempt. See here, (1.) What is the common fault of those that live in prosperity. Being full, and easy, and merry themselves, they look scornfully upon those that are in want, pain, and sorrow; they overlook them, take no notice of them, and study to forget them. See Ps. cxxiii. 4. The chief butler drinks wine in bowls, but makes nothing of the afflictions of Joseph. Wealth without grace often makes men thus haughty, thus careless of their poor neighbours. (2.) What is the common fate of those that fall into adversity. Poverty serves to eclipse all their lustre; though they are lamps, yet, if taken out of golden candlesticks, and put, like Gideon’s, into earthen pitchers, nobody values them as formerly, but those that live at ease despise them.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JOB – CHAPTER 12
JOB ANSWERS ALL THREE FRIENDS (?)
Verses 1-25:
HE IS FAMILIAR WITH THEIR PLATITUDES
Verses 1, 2 recount Job’s first stinging rebuke against the empty platitudes and presumptions of his visiting foreign accuser-friends: 1) Eliphaz the Temanite, 2) Bildad the Shuhite, and 3) Zophar the Naamathite, Job 2:11. He suggests that according to their air of “know-all” attitude they were the only genuine people of earth who were righteous and wise, and surely wisdom would die when they died, a note of stinging sarcasm, indeed, Rom 10:19. He followed Paul’s concept “Them that sin rebuke openly, before all, that others also may fear,” 1Ti 5:20; 1Co 3:18-20. To the church at Corinth Paul advised if any appeared to be a “wise one”, they were to treat him as a fool, a moron, that he might mature to be wise.
Verse 3 relates Job’s rebuttal that he had understanding of spiritual things that was not inferior to his advisors. Then he chided them whether or not there was any person of spiritual knowledge who did not already know all that they related, that no sin goes unpunished. But they did not seek wisdom on why Job suffered, see? They presumed to know all, Job 2:6-10; Job 13:2.
Verse 4 recounts Job’s testimony that he is (exists) as one who is mocked by his neighbors, who call upon God, but receives no immediate help, Job 11:3; Job 29:3-5; Psa 91:15-16. The end for Job has not yet come. Victory is yet certain, Job 42:10; 1Co 15:58.
Verse 5 states that one who is ready to slip with his feet; standing on a banana peeling, as these three presumptuous false friends were on slippery ground, is like a lamp despised (taken lightly) by the thought of him that was at ease. Job was at peace with God, knowing he was in the will of God, even as his ready to fall phony advisers doled out pious platitudes of wisdom to him, without any spiritual understanding that Satan was testing him in his primary state of innocence, Job 2:6; Pro 14:2.
Verse 6 adds that the tabernacle of robbers (thugs and bandits) prosper, for a time; and those who oppose God are secure, live and move through him, whom God prospers, giving to them impartially, life and breath and all things, Act 17:28. But after this, the judgment, Heb 9:27; Psa 12:4; Psa 37:1-2; Psa 73:2-3; Pro 23:17; Pro 24:19; Hab 1:11.
Verses 7, 8 recount Job’s direct appeal to his three friends to inquire of the beasts of the fields and fowls of the air and they could and would teach them lessons they needed to learn, that the violent live securely, v. 6. The vulture is more secure than the dove, the lion than the ox, the shark more than the dolphin and the thorn is more secure than the rose, see? Make inquiry of all the earth and her creatures, the sea and her creatures, and the heavens and her creatures and you may learn that it is not the bad and the evil that always suffer most, in the will of God. Else Jesus would never have suffered, Heb 7:24. The mother and father may suffer in innocence from ills of their own or of others.
Verses 9, 10 inquire who it is that does not know or recognize that it is the hand of the Lord (the Jehovah) that preserves or sustains the good and the bad, with life and daily sustenance. It is He in whose hand or care the soul-life of all living creatures and all mankind daily live, whether they be good or bad, Num 16:22; Dan 5:23; Act 17:28. It is wrong, even wicked, to attribute all human suffering and affliction to personal guilt for personal sins, Joh 9:2-3; Joh 11:14.
Verses 11,12 further inquires if these three friends are not aware that the ear tries or tests words and the mouth tastes its meat, selects what it hears and tastes good to the palate of each, from among the wise sayings of the ancients; Though each interprets it in the isolated context of his own pre-dispositions of fixed judgment. Job concedes that wisdom came from the ancients, the aged, as well as understanding from those of length of days, for observations and experiences. But he would warn them of making mountainous conclusions on serious matters with but a thimble full of evidence, Job 15:10; Pro 29:20.
Verses 13, 14 assert that wisdom, strength, counsel, and understanding exist in and with the Lord, who breaks down so that none can rebuild and shuts up, cuts off, imprisons one, so that there can be no opening, except He should will it so, Job 11:10. This is the nature of the Living God, 1Sa 17:48; Job 16:11; Pro 8:14; Isa 22:22; Rom 11:32; Rev 3:7. See also Jer 38:6; Dan 5:19.
Verse 15 declares that this sovereign Lord withholdeth waters, so that they dry up, as the flood, as certified Gen 8:1-2; Genesis 1 Kg 8:35, 36; 17:1; Psa 104:7; Jer 14:22; Nah 1:4; Luk 4:25. He also mandates and they (the floods of waters) overturn the earth, Gen 7:11.
Verses 16, 17 add that strength and wisdom (to use it) exist with Him. The deceived and the deceiver belong to Him, by right of creation, all are in His hand or care, Eze 18:4; Act 17:28. He also leads counsellors away spoiled and makes judges (like these three) to appear as presumptuous fools, as a captive stripped of his clothes and barefooted, Isa 20:4; 1Co 3:18-20.
Verses 18, 19 add further that it is the Lord who looses the bonds, or ties that kings have over their subjects, as expressed Isa 45:1; Dan 2:21; Dan 5:19. Instead of the royal girdle he also places on them the cord-girdle of captives, Gen 14:4; Isa 22:21. He also leads princes who were also household priests or (Heb cohanim) away as spoils-captives, overthrowing the mighty or the established chief rulers, Psa 99:6; 2Sa 8:18.
Verse 20 states that He removes, takes away in His judgment the speech (eloquence of speech) of the trusty, the leading speaker in the gate, Isa 3:3. With removed eloquence he also takes away the astuteness of discernment or understanding in His judgment wrath, Dan 2:14; Dan 5:20-21.
Verse 21 asserts that He pours out contempt (continually) upon the prince: And He weakens the strength or girdle of those firmly rooted in power, Psa 107:40. He destroys them, causes them to lose their influence in the eyes of the people, their subjects.
Verse 22 ascribes to the Lord the discovery or disclosure of deep (hidden things) out of darkness, as described, 1Kg 6:12; Job 11:6; Job 28:20-23; Psa 44:21; Psa 139:12; Isa 29:15; Jer 23:24; Dan 2:22; Mat 10:26; 1Co 2:10; 1Co 4:5. Truly he “revealeth the deep and secret things,” and bringeth out to light the shadow of death, Psa 23:4.
Verse 23 declares that He increases or multiplies the nations, and destroys or scatters, breaks them up in His power and will, Isa 9:3; Psa 107:39; Psa 107:39; As also described v. 21 above. He causes the nations in wickedness to be straitened or reduced and led away captives, 2Kg 18:11.
Verse 24 explains that He takes away the heart (intelligent impulses and emotions) of .people of the earth, causing them to wander in a wilderness of desolation, as Belshazzar did, Dan 5:19-25; See also Psa 107:4; Psa 107:40.
Verse 25 concludes that God, in His own purpose, causes nations and individuals to grope in darkness, and stagger or wander like a drunken man: Sometimes it is because of direct judgment for sin, Deu 20:4-5; Gal 6:7-8. Again it is that God may be glorified in or through them, without any personal guilt on their part, Joh 9:2-3; Joh 11:4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
JOBS BRILLIANT REBUTTAL
Job 12-14.
THAT Job is an eager spokesman, this debate makes evident. He has it hard to abide his time. In fact, the text would indicate that he breaks in before his opponent has fully finished, and after we read the arguments of his opponents, we cannot seriously blame him.
Eliphaz, the old man, was, of the three, the most reasonable. Time teaches lessons not otherwise to be learned. Holding, as he does, to false philosophy of the time, and of all time, that God is the author of affliction, he yet urges Job to trust God through it all, committing his cause to Him, and by an elaborate argument of forty-eight verses, he attempts to prove that if Job be righteous, God will bring him out beautifully in the end.
Job doesnt wait for the speech of the other two, but immediately answers Eliphaz. It is interesting to measure the length of the arguments on the part of these two old men. Job requires fifty-one verses for his reply. Bildad, the second spokesman, and somewhat younger than Eliphaz, speaks more briefly (twenty-two verses), in defense of Gods sovereignty, and strongly intimates that only the hypocrite experiences the deepest chastisement. When he leaves off with the statement, They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to naught, Job can keep silence no longer and in the torrent of words (fifty-seven verses) he defends himself. Then Zophar, the youngest and altogether the shallowest and least respectful, makes his speech, and Job shortly shows his impatience with the prattle of the new theologian and at the end of twenty verses, a short chapter, breaks in upon him with an answer covering the whole case! He introduces his remarks with stinging sarcasm, as he sweeps with his aged yet keen eye, the three, and finally spits out the statement, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you!
It is easy to imagine this outstanding figure of the centuries who had once walked the earth, tall, erect, stately, honorable, commanding, consciously superior, as he now sits in ashes, covered with boils from head to foot, sick in body, bewildered in spirit, irritated by false arguments to the point where impatience and disease combine to make the false prattle of these men an unmeasured exasperation, and when he can endure no more, he answers in a justifiable heat, I have understanding as well as you. I am not inferior to you. In spite of outward appearances, physical suffering, disgusting boils, recent and terrific misfortunes, I am just as good as any one of you. You may mock and laugh if you like; you may in your physical comfort hold my condition to scorn; treat it with as much contempt as the man who at ease in his home treats the travelers limp. You seem to forget that the world is full of evidences that your philosophy is wrong. The tabernacles of robbers prosper; and they that provoke God are secure; they are blessed with the worlds abundance. Even the beasts would teach you a better philosophy if you went to them. The fowls of the air will tell you they have never sinned, but they sicken and die. The fishes of the sea will affirm the same fact, and everybody knows that God hath wrought this with them, God in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind Your ear is made to try words and your mouth to taste meat. You should not forget also that age tests wisdom and length of days understanding.
The old man has some sense. His counsel is worth attention and his understanding worthy of regard. He knows that God breaks down and it cannot be built, and shuts up and there can be no opening. He tries the heavens at His pleasure, or scourges it with a flood at His will. He holds all in His handsthe good and the bad, the great and small. He knows all things, and He doeth according to His own pleasure. Now, he says, I have seen all this and I know what I am talking about, and I know as much as you do, and am no more sinful than you are, and I wish you would keep silence while I have a chance to talk with God, for you make me tired.
Once more, Zophar might charge him justly with a torrent of words and we can readily imagine all three of them sitting in silence, in open-mouthed wonder, that a man so sick and afflicted should speak after such a manner.
Out of all this argument of Jobs, we find three distinct lines of defense; they relate not to himself, but to God.
GODS WISDOM
Wisdom of the highest sort is not with men. That is the meaning of Jobs sarcasm, No doubt but ye are the people and wisdom shall die with you. I have as much understanding as you have. These things that you speak I knew before you said them.
Everybody knows them. What is the use then of making me a mockery and laughing me to scorn when your knowledge is in no sense superior? You are simply playing the part of men who, being in physical comfort, forget the needs of the sufferer and who are speaking a philosophy that is false, namely, that my affliction is the proof of my iniquity, the evidence of hypocrisy!
As before he met their charge of sinfulness by confessing it and including them with him in the just condemnation that rests upon all men, so again he meets their air of superiority by confessing his own ignorance and insisting that their vision is not superior. This was both a true and a Scriptural reply, and when a man has the truth backed by the Book, who shall answer? He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace (Pro 11:12).
Wisdom, in the truest sense, belongs alone with God. With Him is wisdom and strength, He hath counsel and understanding (Job 12:13). He is to wisdom what the sun is to our planetary system, the source of all light. The match makes a light, but it must receive the powfcr to do so from the sun. The electric bulb makes a light, but it originated with the sun. Burning wood makes a light, but that is only the stored up rays of the sun. The moon and stars reflect light, but they also first receive the same from the sun.
So with wisdom; God is its original and only source. The wisest man only has his wisdom because God gives it to him, and the man who lacks wisdom is deficient through faithlessness, for He has promised, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him (Jas 1:5).
The world is full of folly because men have no faith. I have seen the man poorly endowed so truly trust God as to make his whole course and conduct a brilliant success as compared with the wretched course and ignoble end of another man who, though talented by nature, was a fool to grace.
Wisdom, Divine, is not destroyed by inscrutable ways. Job practically admits that he cannot understand many of the ways of God, but in spite of that he trusts. It is very easy for a sophomore to say, I wouldnt do so! We will believe nothing we cannot explain. Then the realm of faith is frightfully limited! Shall the minnow refuse to believe in the sea because he cannot understand its extent or in the passing whale because he cannot explain his size?
With Him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are His.
He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
He leadeth princes away spoiled and overthroweth the mighty.
He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged (Job 12:16-20).
But while all of this seems to involve contradictions in His conduct, one may be assured of the fact that through it all, God remains God and His conduct is forever consistent with righteous character, and in the end He will recompense the afflicted, enrich the poor, give health to the sick, liberate the enslaved, and show himself the friend of the faithful. All of which leads to the point of
GODS JUSTICE
In the judgment of Job, three things are certain:
Gods child can afford to order his cause before Him. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God (Job 13:3). Ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom (Job 13:4-5). Who can blame Job? Some men talk so much they leave no time in which to talk to God, and they talk so falsely they leave no opportunity to get from Him the truth, and they voice so many prescriptions that you cannot get to the Great Physician; while the moment another wise good man becomes the subject of misfortune, the object of Gods pity, that very misfortune makes him the subject of mans inhumanity, his criticisms, his mockery.
If I am ever convinced of the truth of evolution, it will not be on the ground of similarity in embryos. If I am ever convinced of the truth of evolution, it will not be by the very foolish argument that though we can find no instance of one species becoming another, we cannot tell what the eternity of the past might have wrought or the eternity of the future may accomplish. That is silliness palmed off in the name of science. If I am ever convinced of the animal origin of man, it is because there is so much of the brute remaining in him. It is a well-known fact that the finest wolf of the pack, the leader of all his fellows, if he be wounded by a shot from the enemy, instantly becomes their prey, and they will turn upon him and rend him.
I do not know that I have ever known a man big enough and great enough to escape the teeth of his fellows when misfortune befell him. Job in the day of his prosperity was everywhere recognized as a prince. In his presence the noblest of men made obeisance, but now that he is poor, stripped, diseased, decrepit, they stand about him and mock him. They look him in the face and indict him with hypocrisy. They point at his boils and cry, Just judgment. What a comment on human depravity!
In that very circumstance I think we find an illustration of another thing, namely,
Gods professed friends often and grievously misrepresent Him. Throughout this whole Book of Job, these three philosophers hold tenaciously to the theory that God is the author of Jobs affliction. This is not only false to the fact of the record that the devil did this, but it is also a misrepresentation of God Himself. Our God is not in the business of sending Chaldeans and Sabeans to strip men of their wealth. They come, sharks of every sort, but not at His behest. They have their gold-brick schemes, their promotion enterprises, their oil stock, their pistols and robberies, but not by Gods will. Cyclones and earthquakes sweep the earth and destroy man and beast, and men say, How strange for God, forgetting that Satan is the god of this world at present, the prince of the power of the air. Saintly men fall on sickness, and glorious, godly women are bound in body and tortured in flesh, and men, observing, remark, How strange are the ways of God, when God is not in any of it. His friends have so long misrepresented Him and maligned Him, that there is a revolt, and when men revolt they go to an opposite extreme and indulge a foolish reaction, and Christian Science is the expression of it, a philosophy that tells you truly that God is love, and denies foolishly that sin, sickness, sorrow and death, and even the devil, have any existence. But who can blame them? So-called orthodox preaching repeats this old lie that God is back of the worlds afflictions and sufferings, and is equally responsible for the new lie that there are none such. They tell us it used to be taught that there were infants in hell not a span long, and this was done by devoted ministers who held to the eternal sovereignty of God, and to the doctrine of election, with a vengeance. It was a misrepresentation and without a single Biblical text for its base. No wonder Job says, Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for Him? (Job 13:7).
The professors who deny God altogether or who would substitute falsehoods for the heavenly faith, and Natures laws for His Divinely wise regulations, make infidels of the students who sit at their feet; but not much more than do those supposedly orthodox ministers who preach an unbiblical sentimentalism and who present God after a manner unknown to His true character, and unjustified by Biblical teaching. We sometimes say we need to be delivered from our fool friends. The Heavenly Father is not exempt from the same remark. We grow so impatient with such misrepresentations that we are tempted with Job to say, Hold your peace. Let come on me what will, I prefer affliction to the voice of such folly. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
Gods ears are never closed to the sincere appeal. Job proceeds further, Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified (Job 13:18). That is the language of the man who truly trusts. He believes that God has heard his cry and that God will consider it. It is the confidence of the man who truly prays. Christ Himself justified and encouraged such confidence. The importunate widow prayed, and was not relieved, but ceased not on that account. She repeated her petition again and again and again, until even an unjust judge acceded to her request. Men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Zions Herald says truly, The church is in danger of getting to believe nothing at all. We need not less preaching about humanity but more about God. If the church is to have no firmer foundation than moral idealism of humanitarian cults, confusion and disaster await us! The church, in its haste to save the world, may be confounded by the world. The church of today needs a Pentecostal revival of power that never comes unless the church believes something and believes it tremendously.
There is a place for doctrine in the Christian church, and of all the doctrines, the chiefest is the doctrine of GOD. Tell me what sort of a God you have, and I need know nothing else about your religion; I can measure it accurately and record it correctly, for in a religion, God is everything. You can say, God is love, and be a one-sided sentimentalist; you can say, God is justice, and be an autocratic fatalist; you can say, God is wisdom, and be a scientific fool; you can say, God is grace, and be a libertine; you can say, God is mercy, and multiply your iniquities, but the man who has a truly complete God, such as the God of the Bible, will find his whole character and life influenced by that fact, and will take on in character what he attributes to the great Being before whom he bends his knee in prayer and adoration.
But to conclude:
GODS MERCY
Man is the subject of both sin and sorrow. Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not (Job 14:1-2).
This testimony from Job has an unusual value. Had he been wretchedly born, badly bred; had he known the grind of poverty and discomfiture and defeat of ignorance; had his business enterprises been a failure and his name a hissing and a by-word, we could not blame him for talking after this manner. But for one so well born, so splendidly trained, so eminently successful, so universally honored, as Job had always been until now, to speak this way sounds strangely indeed, and yet what man is exempt?
Take Solomon, the son of the king, the favorite of the people, the elect of God, the richest of the earth, the mightiest monarch living; the man whose glory astounded other potentates and forced from their lips the speech, The half hath not been told; and yet if you read the Book of Ecclesiastes you will find that he had all the things the natural heart commonly craves; wisdom was his inheritance, wine was his custom, women were at his command, wealth with him was unmeasured; work was according to his own pleasure and appointment; personal winsomeness was his favor from the Lord, but he sums it all up and declares it is vanity and vexation of spirit.
These are lessons not learned from the grade studies nor the high school class recitations, nor the college curriculum, nor by correspondence. They are the product of experience. It is said, Experience is the best teacher. One thing is sure and that is that its lessons of sorrow are not shortly forgotten, and what day brings none? Man comes into the world with a cry and leaves it with a groan and struggle, and cries and groans and struggles mark the path from the cradle to the grave.
In ones personal life there are so many opportunities of mistake and so many pitfalls into which one can land with a single step, and so many unforeseen circumstances by which one may suffer, and so many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that may enter ones flesh; in his business life there are so many investments that return less than they promised, and so many adversities one did not anticipate and so many financial crashes by which one may be caught; in his moral and spiritual life there are so many insidious temptations, so many conscienceless enemies, so many fateful neglects, and frightful iniquities that one is compelled, reviewing it all, to say concerning life, A few days and full of trouble.
Ones grief is not limited to his own life, labor, fortune or family. The griefs of others get in on him, the sins of others sadden him, the misfortunes of others weigh him down. I confess very frankly that just at this present moment and in the midst of the battle with modernism, my greatest single burden is that of my loyal brethren who hold positions dependent upon the good will of the ecclesiastical machine, and whose refusal to sell conscience and speak the shibboleth of infidelity is the repeated occasion of their crucifixion.
If one were more Christ-like his greatest burden would be not martyred saints but unsaved sinners the thoughtless throngs that press their way to the pit, the mighty multitudes who make a mockery of life itself, live and end it in sin and go to an eternal judgment!
But who shall draw a map of the realms of sorrow; who shall lay limits upon the experience of trouble? Who shall measure mans misery? All his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity (Ecc 2:23).
His life and death involve insoluble problems.
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into judgment with Thee?
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up;
So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
Oh that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! (Job 14:2-13).
Job here admits what every man knows full well; namely, that you cant explain all of human experience. You cant explain why the greatest of all Gods creatures should be the most sorrowful. You cant explain why he should be cut down permanently, whereas the tree, when cut down, is able to reproduce itself from the stump and bring forth boughs. Even mans death involves a question about which he would never be clear if it were not for Gods revelation, namely, If a man die, shall he live again? (Job 14:14). And yet, that there is an eventual objective in all nature who can question? When the sun sets it is that it may rise again. When the stars fade out we know they will reappear. When the floods come and devastate the earth, we know they are leaving rich deposits behind. When the earthquake is past, we know that the earth will settle into new form. When the storms are over, we know the sun will shine and the rainbow itself will blaze into the heavens in fresh testimony of Gods pledge that never again shall all nature be submerged. When the trees die, we know God will enrich the earth with them and bring out of their very decomposition a greater foliage and more abundant fruit.
As to the intermediary steps between life and death, no man can explain them all; no man can understand them all; but that we journey to an objective is hardly to be questioned. Job at least held a positive conviction, All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands (Job 14:14-15).
This Scripture with what follows to the end of the 14th chapter indicates another thought
Eternity is the promise of correction for the mistakes of time. The change Job anticipated he elsewhere discusses. He believed in life after death and a life of such harmonies as to make plain the present insoluble problems, and of such victory as to justify all battles.
One cannot interpret this language aright without anticipating the more positive declaration to which Job will later give himself,
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job 19:25-26),
a translation which, if accepted at its face value, means the blessed doctrine of the resurrection of the body, a confirmation of Pauls teaching
It is sown in corruption;, it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body (1Co 15:42-44).
If, on the other hand, one prefer the revised version, Then without my flesh shall I see God, then it is an equal confirmation of the Apostles teaching and another proof of the falseness of the doctrine of soul-sleeping, and is attested by the teaching of the same Apostle, To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, an explanation of the same Apostles desire to depart and to be with Christ which he declares far better; an expression of the hope that he penned to the Hebrews, of access to the City of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general Assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect (Heb 12:22-23); so that by either translation, either interpretation, Job confidently awaited the great change that should bring him to God and holiness and Heaven with its eternal felicity. How blessed a faith!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
JOBS REPLY TO ZOPHAR
I. Defends himself against the charge of ignorance implied in Zophars speech (Job. 12:2-3).
His defence is:
1. Ironical (Job. 12:2). No doubt but ye are the people; and wisdom shall die with you; the wisdom of mankind is collected in your person, and when you die wisdom must perish at the same time. Times when it may be proper to use the language of irony and sarcasm. Its proper use to put error and pretension to shame. So Elijah to the worshippers of Baal: Cry aloud for he is a God; and Paul to the Corinthians: Ye are rich; ye have reigned as kings without us (1Co. 4:8). Assumption on the part of preachers and monitors sure to render their words powerless and themselves ridiculous.
2. Serious (Job. 12:3). But I have understanding as well as you: I am not inferior to you. Times when modesty does not forbid a man to speak in his own commendation. Allowable when for our own defence, or for the interests of truth. Paul compelled by his detractors to this foolishness of boasting (2Co. 12:11). A mans duty to know himself; and especially to know whether he has understanding to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, which is life eternal (2Co. 13:5; 1Jn. 5:20; Joh. 17:3).
3. Contemptuous. Yca, who knoweth not such things as these (margin, with whom are not such things as these?). Conceit and pretension to be taken down. Zophars vaunted wisdom was after all
(1) Commonplace. His speech mostly such moral and religious sentiments as were found in everybodys mouth.
(2) Borrowed; second-hand maxims handed down from the fathers. Preachers to be careful
(1) Not to deal in mere commonplace sentiments, or to ring changes on a few universally admitted truths. Hearers to be taught something which they do not already know. The instructed scribe to bring out of his treasure things new and old. Necessary to present new truths, or old ones in a new, clearer, or more impressive light.
(2) Not to parade before others what is not really their own, without acknowledging it. False prophets reproved for stealing Gods words, every one from his neighbour, and passing them off as if delivered to themselves (Jer. 23:30).
II. Complains of his being treated with scorn in consequence of affliction (Job. 12:4).
I am as one (or, I am one who is) mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God and he heareth him (or, that he may answer him; or, and let him answer him; possibly the taunt of his enemies, as Psa. 22:8; Mat. 27:43); the just upright man is laughed to scorn. This treatment, according to the ordinary way of the world (Job. 12:5). He that is ready to slip with his feet is a lamp despised (or a torch thrown away as useless) in the thought of him that is at case (or, contempt adheres to calamity in the mind of the prosperous and secure, ready for those who slip with their feetwho are tottering, or already fallen into adversity and trouble). Probably one of proverbial maxims referred to in Job. 12:4, quoted by Job on his side of the question, and as descriptive of his own case.
1. He was mocked. No small aggravation of his affliction (ch. Job. 16:10; Job. 16:20; Job. 17:2; Job. 17:6; Job. 21:3; Job. 30:1; Job. 30:9-10). The experience of David (Psa. 22:7; Psa. 35:16; Psa. 69:11-12; and of Davids Lord (Mat. 26:67-68; Mat. 27:27-31; Luk. 23:35). Mockery worse to bear than open violence. The bitterness of this treatment enhanced by the previous experience of honour and respect (ch. Job. 29:7-25). Believers not to be staggered at cruel mockings, either from the world or nominal professors. Such mockery the expression of inward contempt,in the thought of him, &c. The followers of a despised Christ to expect no better treatment than their Master (Isa. 53:3; Joh. 13:16).
2. Was mocked in consequence of his affliction (Job. 12:5). An aggravation of the treatment. Affliction painful enough in itself, and demanding sympathy. Hard to endure, and cruel to inflict, mockery and contempt on account of it. This experience of Job also that of David, and of the great Antitype of both. Christ was mocked by men when bruised by God.
3. Job thus mocked notwithstanding his uprightness and piety.
(1.) His uprightness,the just upright man. The testimony already given him by God (ch. Job. 1:8; Job. 2:3).
(2.) His piety. Manifested in his prayerfulness,who calleth upon God, &c. Exemplified in his conduct in reference to his children (ch. Job. 1:5). His practice still in his affliction (ch. Job. 16:20). Made at last an intercessor for his friends (ch. Job. 12:8; Job. 12:10). A man of piety necessarily a man of prayer. Affliction draws a good man nearer to God, sends a bad one farther from Him. Terrible aggravation of the sin when the mocked sufferer is an upright child of God. The tremendous guilt of the Jews in relation to Jesus. Jobs prayers ordinarily heard and answered, though apparently not so now. So with Jesus in his last suffering (Psa. 22:2; Luk. 22:42, compared with Joh. 11:42). Prayer, offered believingly in the name of Christ, heard and answered, though in Gods own time and way. Gods answer to believers prayers his testimony to the acceptance of their persons.
4. Job was mocked by these who were at ease themselves (Job. 12:5). Another aggravation of the sin as well as of the suffering occasioned by it. To be at ease, a common description of the ungodly. Too often applicable even to the professors of religion (Amo. 6:1). Jobs complaint that of Christs suffering church (Psa. 123:3-4). Suffering in ourselves the parent of sympathy for others.
III. Re-asserts the prosperity of the ungodly (Job. 12:6).
The tabernacles of robbers prosper; yea, they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly (or, to whom God bringeth with his hand, or, to him who carrieth God in his hand). Repeats more fully what he had asserted (ch. Job. 9:24). Perhaps quotes another maxim of the ancients. Observe
1. The characters spoken of.
(1) Robbers. Reference to the ungodly who put might for right. The earth, previous to the flood, filled with violence by such. The giants in those days, mighty men of renown (Gen. 6:1). The flood the consequence of their violence and its prosperity. A similar state of things not long after that event. Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. Hence the war of the kings (Genesis 14). The Sabeans and Chaldeans (ch. 1517) other specimens of these robbers. Lust for property, power and pleasure, the natural tendency of fallen men. Hence wars and fightings (Jas. 4:1-2). Tyrants, despots, and great conquerors, often only robbers on a large scale. Unlawful gains, oppression of the poor, and mercantile dishonesty, other forms of robbery (Jer. 22:13; Heb. 2:12).
(2) They provoke God to anger. The effect of all ungodliness. God angry with the wicked every day. The wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and righteousness of men (Rom. 1:18). Gods anger especially provoked by cruelty and wrong. The whole life of the ungodly a continued provocation of God. Wealth treasured up against the day of wrath (Rom. 2:5). Patience no proof of the want of provocations.
2. What is asserted of them. They prosper. The prosperity of the ungodly more fully enlarged upon (ch. Job. 21:7-13). The stumbling-block of Asaph (Psa. 73:2; Psa. 73:12); the perplexity of Jeremiah (Jer. 12:1).
(1) Their dwellings are in outward peace and prosperity. Their tabernacles prosper. A cluster of tents required to form an Oriental chieftains household. The families of the ungodly appear to prosper (ch. Job. 21:8-9; Job. 21:11). Full of children, and leaving the rest of their substance to their babes (Psa. 17:14). Their homes appear likely to stand for many generations. Their lands called by their own names (Psa. 49:11).
(2) They enjoy abundance of earthly comforts. Their abundance brought to them in the providence of God, though idolatrously ascribed to their own hand (Deu. 8:17; Heb. 1:11). Observe(i.) Good fortune no proof of Divine favour. Dives had his good things in this life, Lazarus his evil things, (ii.) Earthly goods as well as trials at the Divine disposal. These often mysteriously, always wisely, distributed. As compared with spiritual blessings, rather the husks that the swine eat, or the bones thrown to the dogs. Ordinarily given as incitements to repentance, gratitude, and love. When lusted after, often given in judgment rather than in mercy. The desire granted, while leanness is sent into the soul (Psa. 106:15).
IV. An Appeal to the irrational creation (Job. 12:7-10).
Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, &c. Who knoweth not in all these (or, which among all these knoweth not) that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? (that Godhere alone in the dialogues spoken of as the Lordis both Creator and Governor of all things). Perhaps a third proverbial maxim quoted by Job.Observe:
1. All animate and inanimate nature mans teachers.
The Book of Nature
Its lessons manifold both as to faith and practice. Job, in the end, referred to its teachings by God himself. Heaven and earth an open Bible, speaking both from God and of Him. The nocturnal sky a wide unfolded scroll, with every star a character. Davids delight to spell in it the glory and perfections of God (Psa. 19:1-2). Every rising sun proclaims anew His goodness and faithfulness (2Sa. 3:23). Solomon sent his readers to the ants for a lesson of industry. Jesus directs His disciples to the birds and the flowers to learn implicit confidence in the care of their heavenly Father. The book of nature distinctly enough written, and the voices of creation sufficiently audible and clear. But sin has dimmed our spiritual vision, dulled our hearing, and made us slow to learn either about God or ourselves.
2. The existence of an all-pervading, all-sustaining, and all-controlling
Providence
Insisted on by Zophar as if Job had been ignorant of it. Declared by the dust on a butterflys wing as well as by the lustre of the Dogstar. Proclaimed by the motion of an insect as it dances in the sun-beams, as well as by the rising and setting of sun, moon, and planets. The hand that upholds the, sun in the heavens guides the sparrow in its fall to the ground. Not a fly but has had infinite wisdom concerned, not only in its structure, but in its destination. [Young] Natures works designed to lead up to natures God.In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath (or spirit) of all mankind (Job. 12:10). All life in and from God. First created, and then supported and preserved by Him. In Him we live, &c.,not only by Him but in Him. The life of men, animals and plants, no longer continued than He pleases. The laws of existence established by Him, and still under His control. The spirit or thinking part of man as well as the soul or feeling part of animals, equally proceeding from and dependent upon Him. The highest creature no more able to prolong his existence a moment beyond His will than to create a universe. The power of a man to think, as well as the sense to feel, and the muscles to act, alike from Him. A glance of His eye able to reduce creation to its original nothingness. All events under His control. Moral evil permitted, penal evil inflicted by Him. The twin truths of creation and providence everywhere taught by external nature. The truth that nature fails to teach, that which man most needs to learn. For man to learn the way of pardon and reconciliation with God, the volume of nature required to be supplemented by that of revelation.
V. The right and duty of exercising private judgment, (Job. 12:11).
Doth not the ear try words, and the mouth taste his meat? (or, as the mouth tastes its food). The office of the ear to try or judge of the statements submitted to it. The ear put for the judgment or reason which acts through it. Moral and religious truths at that time conveyed through the ear rather than the eye. Books or writings rarely, if ever, found among the peopleMens duty to examine and judge of what they hear. Applicable to the quotations already, or yet to be, made from the ancients by Job and his friends, as well as to the sentiments uttered by themselves. Job bespeaks candour and attention to his speeches, and resolves to judge for himself as to what is advanced by his friends. Observe, in reference to
Private judgment
1. Man possesses a faculty by which to judge of moral and religious statements. Such a faculty distinguishes man from the brutes, and allies him to angels. The faculty of reason or judgment originally given and still continued to men, though weakened and depraved by sin. Appealed to by God in His messages to men (Isa. 5:3); by Christ (Luk. 12:57); by His apostles (1Co. 10:15; 1Co. 11:13-14). Lies at the foundation of all efforts to instruct, enlighten, and persuade others in reference to religious subjects. Implies the possession and the apprehension of a standard of right and wrong. Its highest office to judge of moral and religious statements by that standard. A standard of moral judgment implanted in mans nature at his creation, but now much effaced. Renewed in the moral law and in the Scriptures in general. The object of the Bible and of the Holy Spirit to exhibit that standard, and to lead men to judge, conclude, and act according to it.
2. Mans duty to exercise that faculty in regard to all statements of moral and religious subjects. Appeal to the law and the testimony in reference to what man teaches, enjoined by God Himself (Isa. 8:20). Men commanded to cease to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge (Pro. 19:27). The apostolic injunctionProve all things, hold fast that which is good. Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God (1Th. 5:21; 1Jn. 4:1). The part of the simple to believe every word. The Berans commended for searching the Scriptures daily to see whether the things spoken by the apostles were according to them (Act. 17:11). Superstition and priestcraft deny to men the right of private judgment, and forbid the ear to do its office. To believe only because the Church or our forefathers have done so, is for the ear no longer to try words. Man responsible to God for the right exercise of the judgment He has given him. When God speaks, the office of the judgment is to discover that He has done so, to ascertain what He has spoken, and then, unquestioningly, to accept it. Gods announcements often above reason, never contrary to it. The judgment to be exercised on moral and religious subjects with
(1) Seriousness and attention;
(2) Candour and patience;
(3) Modesty and humility;
(4) Impartiality and absence of prejudice;
(5) Prayer for Divine enlightenment.
3. Human authority on religious subjects to be respected, but not regarded as paramount (Job. 12:12-13). With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days is understanding. With Him (i.e. God) is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding,wisdom in both its forms, speculative and practical; or, wisdom to direct and strength to accomplish. The latter verse probably the commencement of another quotation. Jobs object in it
(1) To vindicate his knowledge of God as not inferior to that of his friends;
(2) To show that the wisdom of God infinitely surpasses that of the wisest of men. Human wisdom acquired by study, observation and experience,by the long-continued exercise of the judgment referred to in Job. 12:11. By reason of use men have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, and so become men of full age in understanding, instead of children (Heb. 5:13-14; 1Co. 14:20). That wisdom always imperfect and fallible. God the only infallible teacher. Wisdom, in men, as something communicated; with God, as something eternally and essentially abiding. In man as a stream, limited and uncertain; with God, as a perennial fountain. An appeal, therefore, to be made from mans teaching to Gods. Divine teaching to be implicitly submitted to and confided in, as that of infinite wisdom.
VI. Spirited description of Gods providence in the world (Job. 12:14-25.
Probably a quotation of ancient poetry, or the production of the poet put into Jobs mouth. Properly commences with Job. 12:13. A magnificent ode or hymn on the Divine perfections and procedure in the world. The similarity in language and sentiment to parts of 107th Psalm remarkable. Celebrates especially the various
Acts of Divine Providence
Exhibits its operations on a grand and extensive scale. Represents God as ruling over nations as well as individuals. His Providence viewed more in its solemn and judicial aspects.
1 In acts of destruction (Job. 12:14). He breaketh down, and (or so that) it cannot be built again. The part of the Divine Ruler is to pull down as well as to build upto kill as well as to make alive (Isa. 45:7; Amo. 3:6; Deu. 32:39). Breaks down houses, cities, individuals, families, nationsthe earth itself. Seen in the Flood, the Cities of the Plain, perhaps the Tower of Babel. Breaks down cities, buildings, &c., by earthquakes, inundations, volcanoes, lightnings, tempests, &c; nations and kingdoms by invasions, wars, civil discord, foolish counsels, &c; individuals by diseases and misfortunes. Breaks down in various ways human schemes and enterprises (Gen. 11:3-8; 2Ch. 20:36-37). Reference to one form of destruction in Job. 12:15. He withholdeth the waters and they dry up; also he sendeth them out and they overturn the earth. Exemplified in the Deluge. The windows of heaven then opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up (Gen. 7:11). Inundations frequent in Arabia and Egypt.
2. In laying restraints on individuals. He shutteth up a man (Heb. over a man) and there is no opening. Reference to underground prisons (Jer. 37:18). God in His providence shuts up individuals as prisonersby affliction and misfortune (Job himself an example); by delivering them up into the hand of enemies; by bringing them into difficulties and straits; by inward darkness and distress; by insanity, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar. When God shuts up, none but Himself can open (Isa. 22:22).
3. In overruling both mens misery and mischief (Job. 12:16). The deceived and the deceiver are His. The deceiver can only act, and the deceived suffer, by His permission. The deceiver His, to restrain his deception and employ it for His own wise purposes. The deceived His, to deliver him from the deception, or to correct or punish him by it. The deceiver Gods instrument in trying the good and punishing the bad. Satan the deceiver of the nations (Rev. 20:3). Lying spirits in the mouth of false prophets, Gods instruments in punishing Ahab and his people (1Ki. 22:20). False Christs and false prophets to deceive many, but not the elect (Mat. 24:11-24). Antichrists advent to be with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those that receive not the love of the truth (2Th. 2:11).
4. In punishing nations and their rulers (Job. 12:17). He leadeth councillors away spoiled (stripped as captives taken in war, or deprived of their dignity, or as persons bereft of judgment), and maketh the judges fools; (so infatuates them, that they shall give wrong judgment, and so bring the nation into trouble). So God threatened to take away from Judah the judge, and the prudent, and the councillor, and to give children to be their princes, and to cause babes to rule over them (Isa. 3:2-4). No greater woe to a land than when God in judgment gives it up to unwise rulers and statesmen (Ecc. 10:16).Job. 12:18. He looseth the bond of kings (dissolves their authority, as in the case of Rehoboam and the Ten Tribes), and girdeth their loins with a girdle (perhaps a cord or rope, as indicative of servitude). No uncommon thing for despotic rulers to be dethroned by their oppressed and discontented subjects, and instead of the insignia of royalty to have to wear the habit of a prisoner or an exile (Jer. 52:8-11; Jer. 52:31-33). Numerous examples in Europe within the last century.(Job. 12:24-25). He taketh away the heart (or understanding) of the chief of the people of the earth (or the land), and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way, &c. Easy with God in judgment on themselves or the nation, to leave rulers and statesmen in such perplexity as not to know what to do, and to abandon them to foolish and ruinous counsels. So Rehoboam adopted the unwise counsel given him by his youthful advisers. The result of such judicial infatuation seen in foolish and hurtful wars, in the adoption of unwise public measures, in the enactment of intolerant, partial, and unjust laws, and in a short-sighted reactionary policy after one of enlightened progress.
5. In humbling the brave, the gifted, and the great (Job. 12:19). He leadeth princes (or priestsprobably civil rulers, viceroys, or ministers of state) away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty (warriors mighty in battle). No king saved by the multitude of a host. The battle is the Lords, who gives the victory to whom He will. Threatened to take from Judah the mighty man and the man of war. At times turned the edge of Israels sword, so that they could not stand in the battle (Psa. 89:43). Armies and their generals often overthrown when calculating on certain victory. God sometimes overthrows the mighty by allowing them to overthrow themselves through foolish and ambitious counsels. (Job. 12:20.)He removeth away the speech of the trusty (the cloquence of the patriotic orator), and taketh away the understanding of the aged (the prudence and wisdom of the experienced senator). So God threatened to take away from Judah the eloquent orator, the ancient and the honourable man (Isa. 3:2-3). May remove such by disease or death without supplying their places, by withholding the desire to serve their country with their gifts, or by withdrawing the gifts themselves. Persuasive eloquence and penetrating judgment not in mens own keeping. The influence of wise and confidential advisers sometimes destroyed to serve Gods own purposes (2Sa. 15:31; 2Sa. 17:14; 2Sa. 17:23).Job. 12:21. He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. Numerous examples furnished by France and other European countries during the last hundred years.
6. In disclosing hidden wickedness (Job. 12:22). He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
(1) Wicked and deeplaid schemes. Examples: the diabolical contrivance of Haman for the destruction of the Jews (Book of Esther); the Gunpowder Plot for the overthrow of the Protestant religion in England.
(2) Secret crimes long hidden from men. Examples: Josephs brethren, Achan, David. The verse in this sense quoted by the Apostle, 1Co. 4:5.
7. In the increase and decay of nations (Job. 12:23). He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them; He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them again. A nation sometimes made to rise within a short time to great power and influence. Examples: Rome; Israel under David and Solomon; and in more modern times, England, America, and Prussia. Examples of the decay of nations: Israel, after the death of Solomon; Rome, after the prevalence of luxury, pride and cruelty; Spain, after its persecution of the truth and exclusion of an open Bible. Changes in the condition of nations perhaps as early as the times of Job (Genesis 14). Egypt, a powerful monarchy at a very early period, ultimately for its idolatry, the basest of kingdoms. The seven nations of Canaan extirpated for their wickedness and lust. Only a short period occupied by the rise and fall of each of the first three universal empires.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
G. COURAGEOUS CONFRONTATIONJOBS RESPONSE (Job. 12:1Job. 14:22)
1. He ridicules the wisdom and judgment of his friends. (Job. 12:1-6)
TEXT 12:16
12 Then Job answered and said,
2 No doubt but ye are the people,
And wisdom shall die with you.
3 But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you:
Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
4 I am as one that is a laughing-stock to his neighbor,
I who called upon God, and he answered:
The just, the perfect man is a laughing-stock.
5 In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for misfortune;
It is ready for them whose foot slippeth.
6 The tents of robbers prosper,
And they that provoke God are secure;
Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
COMMENT 12:16
Job. 12:1This is Jobs longest speech apart from his final soliloquy. Each of his three friends has spoken and has unanimously refused to accept Jobs claim to innocence. Now, after his attack on God, he turns with burning sarcasm on his three would-be counselors. In resume each has strongly asserted that a sovereign creator Lord governs the universe. In another doxology Job describes how God, in His own wisdom, guides the rise and fall of peoples, nations, and civilizations. Each participant in the drama has set forth Gods sovereignty as a theological truth but each generated a false deduction. In the concrete world of space-time, it is not often an easy task to decipher the presence of a holy, righteous God in human affairs. The friends reject the mystery explanations. But the empirical evidence does not always support the claims of Gods three would-be spokesmen. Job could endure this brief pitiful pilgrimage of pain if there could finally be happy reconciliation with God. But death is the end of everything (note this attitude is comparable to the contemporary Buddhist influence in American cultureLive it up today; today is all you may have). The speech hurtles us toward the same terminal despair as before in chapters 7 and 10. The speech falls neatly into three themes: (1) Jobs resentment of the assumed superiority of his friends and recognition of Gods power and wisdom (Job. 12:2-25); (2) Rejection of the empty arguments of his friends and his determination to reason with God (Job. 13:1-28); and (3) Painful acknowledgement of the brevity of life and the ultimacy of death (Job. 14:1-22).
Job. 12:2Job addresses his listeners as people of the land Cam), who represent the upper class male citizenry.[149] Only royalty and the priesthood rank above them. With biting sarcasm, Job suggests that wisdom will pass from the earth at their demise. They really have only a monopoly on ignorance.
[149] See for analysis J. Reider, Vetus Testamentum IV, 1954, pp. 289fF.
Job. 12:3In view of Zophars comparison of Job with a wild ass in Job. 11:20, Job asserts that he has a heart, here in the American Version is translated understanding (or comprehension). I am not inferior to you is repeated in Job. 13:2.
Job. 12:4Job expected sympathy, but received scorn. Instead of support, his friends make him an object of derision, (Job. 8:21; Jer. 20:7). To Job his afflictions are not Gods answers, but his despotic response to his cry for help. The just and blameless man is a laughing stock (Genesis 6; Genesis 9; Eze. 14:14; Eze. 14:20).[150]
[150] Pope, Job, p. 90 remarks that Job. 12:4-6 break the train of thought. This judgment is both critically unnecessary and gives no consideration to Jobs emotion-charged speech.
Job. 12:5This could represent an adage expressing general attitude toward anyone fallen into difficulties. Jobs prosperous friends have nothing but contempt for him in his misfortune. Job is here attacking the theology of the prosperous. The second line means that the Mends not only withhold help, they even intensify Jobs misfortune.
Job. 12:6There are a number of grammatical difficulties[151] in this verse, but the meaning is probably those who make a god of their own power (Moffatt) are secure; at least the empirical evidence often suggests this deduction. This is Jobs presentation of the anomalies of Gods providence.
[151] See Dhorme, Job, p. 1701.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XII.
(1) And Job answered and said.Each of the friends has now supplied his quota, and Job proceeds to reply to the third, showing that he is far more conversant with the wisdom and majesty of God than they are themselves, though in their own esteem they alone are wise.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JOB’S THIRD REPLY, Job 12:12-14.
1. Job answered He scouts the pompous pretensions of the “friends” to superior wisdom, which, however, he remarks, do not prevent their treating misfortune with contempt. A single matter-of-fact utterance, (Job 12:6,) foils all their laboured arguments a fact which they should have learned from the most ordinary view of society. The inferior creation is ready to instruct man, if he will but listen, instead of pluming himself with the wise saws of the ancients, which Job says are not to be accepted until they have been fully tested. Infinite in knowledge and in power, God holds all events and results in his hands; and his wisdom and might are not less mysterious and inexplicable in his providence over men than in the worlds of nature. (Chap. 13.) Conscious of innocence, and assured that he will not find justice at the hands of men, who, for various reasons, are ever ready to pervert the truth, Job takes the only course open to him, and formally, as in open court, makes his appeal to God. He is painfully sensible that he takes his life in his hands; and yet, such is his faith in God and in truth, that he triumphantly declares that if God should smite him down he would still hold fast to his faith even in death God should be his salvation. Though pain, passion, and despair burn within him, the flame that lifts itself to sight is one of blended faith and hope which nothing can extinguish. His appeal commences with a bold and unjustifiable challenge, (23-28,) and ends in a heart-rending wail. Chap. 14. Heir of a fleeting existence, which brings with it the taint of corruption, Job pleads the miserable lot of man as a reason for clemency on the part of God. For vegetation there is a possible renewal of life, but for man there is none in this present world, not even till the heavens be no more. His one striking prayer is, that he may be hidden in the grave until the present dark scheme shall have ended, and another day have dawned, when God shall try the cause of Job under an economy different from that which now prevails (Job 12:15). In a scene where even rocks and mountains waste away, man can cherish but little, if any, hope. A gloom rests upon the whole of mortal life, “which is lighted up as by a lightning flash, only by the possibility of another life after death.” Dillmann. This, the last and greatest address of Job in the first debate, divides itself according to the chapters, the first of which is in two sections of about equal length.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 12:24-25 Comments God Humbles the Great – The greatest illustration of Job 12:24-25 is King Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 4:28-33, who was driven from men and lived like a beast until his mind was restored.
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 Strange Good Fortune of the Godless.
If Zophar’s arguments had been valid and Job’s suffering was to be regarded as the direct punishment for a specific sin, then his faith in the justice of God would have been severely shaken. For that reason Job answers in a tone of great severity.
v. 1. And Job answered and said, v. 2. No doubt but ye are the people, v. 3. But I have understanding as well as you, v. 4. I am as one mocked of his neighbor, v. 5. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease, v. 6. The tabernacles of robbers prosper,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
The discourse of Job, here begun, continues through three chapters (Job 12:1-25; Job 13:1-28; Job 14:1-22.). It is thought to form the conclusion of the first day’s colloquy. In it Job for the first time really pours scorn upon his friends, and makes a mock of them (see verses 2, 8, 20; Job 13:4-13). This, however, is a secondary matter; his main object is to justify his previous assertions,
(1) that the whole course of mundane events, whether good or evil, must be attributed to God (verses 6-25);
(2) that his sufferings entitle him to plead with God, and demand to know why he is so punished (Job 13:3-28). A comparatively mild expostulation concludes the first series of speeches (Job 14:1-22.).
Job 12:1, Job 12:2
And Job answered and said, No doubt but ye are the people. Bitterly ironical. Ye are those to whom alone it belongs to speakthe only “people” to whom attention is due. And wisdom shall die with you. “At your death,” i.e; “all wisdom will have fled the earth; there will be no one left who knows anything.” At least, no doubt, you think so.
Job 12:3
But I have understanding as well as you. “I, however, claim to have just as much understanding [literally, ‘heart’] as you, and to be just as well entitled to speak, and to claim attention;” since I am not inferior to you. “I am not conscious,” i.e; “of any inferiority to you, intellectual or moral. I do not fall below you in either respect.“ Yea, who knoweth not such things as these? “Not,” Job means to say, “that much understanding is necessary in such a ease as this; any man of common intelligence can form a correct judgment on the point in dispute between us.” The special point, in Job’s mind, seems to be God’s complete mastery over the world, and absolute control over all that takes place in it (see the introductory paragraph).
Job 12:4
I am as one mocked of his neighbour. You have accused me of mockery (Job 11:3): but it is I that have been mocked of you. The allusion is probably to Job 11:2, Job 11:3, Job 11:11, Job 11:12, and Job 11:20. Who calleth upon God, and he answereth him. You mock me, though I have always clung to religion, have called upon God in prayer, and from time to time had my prayers answered by him. Thus it is the just upright man that is laughed to scorn.
Job 12:5
He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease; rather, as in the Revised Version, In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for misfortune; it (i e. contempt) is ready for them whose foot dippeth. The meaning is, “I am despised and scorned by you who sit at ease, because my foot has slipped, and I have fallen into misfortune.”
Job 12:6
The tabernacles of robbers prosper. Having set at rest the personal question between himself and his friends, Job reverts to his main argument, and maintains that, the whole course of mundane events being under God’s governance, all the results are to be attributed to him, and among them both the prosperity of the wicked, and, by parity of reasoning, the sufferings of the righteous. And they that provoke God are secure (comp. Job 9:24; Job 10:3). Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly. So both the Authorized and the Revised Versions; but recent critics mostly render, “who bring their God in their hand,” i.e. “who regard their own right hand as their God” (comp. Virgil, ‘Aen; 10:773, “Dextra mihi Dens”)
Job 12:7
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee. Job here begins his review of all creation, to show that God has the absolute direction of it. The order of
(1) beasts,
(2) birds,
(3) fishes, is that of dignity (comp. Gen 9:2; Psa 8:7, Psa 8:8).
Job maintains that, if appeal were made to the animal creation, and they were asked their position with respect to God, they would with one voice proclaim him their absolute Ruler and Director. And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee. The instincts of birds, their periodical migrations, their inherited habits, are as wonderful as anything in the Divine economy of the universe, and as much imply God’s continually directing hand.
Job 12:8
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee. If the material earth be intended, the appeal must be to its orderly course, its summers and winters, its seedtime and harvest, its former and latter rains, its constant productivity, which, no less than animal instincts, speak of a single ruling power directing and ordering all things. If the creeping things of the earth, the reptile creation, be meant, then the argument is merely an expansion of that in the preceding verse. The instincts of reptiles are to be ascribed, no less than those of beasts and birds, to the constant superintending action and providence of the Almighty. And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. The testimony will be unanimousbeasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes will unite in it.
Job 12:9
Who knoweth not in all these; or, by all these; i.e. by all these instances. That the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? literally, the hand of Jehovah. The name “Jehovah does not occur elsewhere in the dialogue, though it is employed frequently in the historical sections (Job 1:6-12, Job 1:21; Job 2:1-7; Job 38:1; Job 40:1, Job 40:3,Job 40:6; Job 42:1, Job 42:7-12). The writer probably regards the name as unfamiliar, if not unknown, to Job’s neighbours, and therefore as avoided by him in his discussions with them. But here, for once, he forgets to be consistent with himself. Outside Scripture, the name is first found on the Moabite Stone, where it designates the God worshipped by the Israelites.
Job 12:10
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing. A brief summary of what had been said in Job 12:7, Job 12:8, to which is now appended the further statement, that in God’s handwholly dependent on himis the entire race of mankind also. And the breath of all mankind; literally, and the spirit of all flesh of man.
Job 12:11
Doth not the ear try words? and the month taste his meat? rather, as the palate tasteth its meat? (see the Revised Version). In other words, “Is it not as much the business of the ear to discriminate between wise and unwise words, as of the palate to determine between pleasant and unpleasant tastes?” The bearing of the verse on the general argument is not clear.
Job 12:12
With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. Men get their wisdom gradually and painfully by much experience during a long stretch of time, so that it is not until they are” ancient” that we can call them wise or credit them with “understanding.” But with God the case is wholly different.
Job 12:13
With him is wisdom and strength. With God wisdom and strength dwell essentially. He is not wiser or stronger at one time than at another. Time and experience add nothing to the perfection of his attributes, which are unchangeable. Such wisdom infinitely transcends any to which man can attain, and therefore is doubtless the wisdom whereby the world is governed. He hath counsel and understanding. God has these qualities as his own. They are not acquired or imparted, but belong to him, necessarily and always.
Job 12:14
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again. Professor Lee thinks that the allusion is to the cities of the plain (Gen 19:24-29). But the sentiment is so general, that we may well doubt if particular instances were in Job’s mind. At any rate, the destructive agencies of nature must be as much included as any supernatural acts. He shutteth up a man (comp. Job 11:10). God “shuts up” men when be hedges them in with calamities or other circumstances, which take away from them all freedom of action (Job 3:23; Job 19:8) When he does this, the result followsThere can be no opening. No other power can give release.
Job 12:15
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up. God, at his pleasure, causes great droughts, which are among the worst calamities that can happen. He withholds the blessed rain from heaven (Deu 11:17; 1Ki 8:35; 1Ki 17:1), and the springs shrink, and the rivers dry up, and a fruitful land is turned into a desert, and famine stalks through the land, and men perish by thousands. Also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth; i.e. he causes floods and inundations. Once upon a time he overwhelmed the whole earth, and destroyed almost the entire race of mankind, by a deluge of an extraordinary character, which so fixed itself in the human consciousness, that traces of it are to be found in the traditions of almost all the various races of men. But, beside this great occasion, he also in ten thousand other cases, causes, by means of floods, tremendous ruin and devastation, sweeping away crops and cattle, and even villages and cities, sometimes even “overturning the earth,” causing lakes to burst, rivers to change their course, vast tracts of land to be permanently submerged, and the contour of coasts to be altered.
Job 12:16
With him is strength and wisdom; rather (as in the Revised Version), with him is strength and effectual working. God has not only the wisdom to design the course of events (Job 12:13), but the power and ability to carry out all that he designs. The deceived and the deceiver are his. Not only does God rule the course of external nature, but also the doings of men. “Shall there be evil in a city, and shall not he have done it?” (Amo 3:6) He allows some to deceive, and others to be deceived. Moral evil is thus under his control, and, in a certain sense, may be celled his doing. But it behoves men, when they approach such great mysteries, to be very cautious and wary in their speech. Job touches with somewhat too bold a hand the deepest problems of the universe.
Job 12:17
He leadeth counsellors away spoiled. The wise of the earth cannot resist or escape him; he frustrates their designs and overthrows them, and, as it were, leads them away captive. And maketh the judges fools; rather, and judges maketh he fools. There is no article, and no particular judges are referred to (comp. Isa 44:25).
Job 12:18
He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle. This may either mean that God at his pleasure both looses kings from captivity, and also binds them with a cord and causes them to be carried away captive; or that he looses the authority which kings have over their subjects, and then lets them be carried away captive by their enemies. The latter is perhaps the more probable sense.
Job 12:19
He leadeth princes away spoiled; rather, priests (), as in the Revised Version. This is the only mention of “priests” in the Book of Job, and a priest-caste, such as that of Egypt or of Israel, can scarcely be meant. The priests are placed among the mighty, on a par with kings (verse 18), princes (verse 21), and “the strong” (verse 21). This context makes us naturally think of those priest-kings whom we hear of in the olden times, such as were Melchizedek (Gen 19:18-20) and Jethro (Exo 3:1; Exo 18:1-27), and the Egyptian kings of the twenty-first dynasty, and Ethbaal of Tyre, and Sethos, and others. Job’s allusion is probably to persons of this exalted class, who no doubt were sometimes defeated and dragged into captivity, like other rulers and governors. And overthroweth the mighty. Schultens understands by ethanim () “great teachers;” but the ordinary meaning of the word is “strong” or “mighty” (see Job 33:19; Mic 6:2).
Job 12:20
He removeth away the speech of the trusty. God deprives trusted statesmen of their eloquence, destroys their reputation and their authority. And taketh away the understanding of the aged. He turns wise and aged men into fools and drivellers, weakening their judgments and reducing them to imbecility.
Job 12:21
He poureth contempt upon princes; literally, upon the munificent. But the word has often the more generic sense of “princes,” “great men” (see 1Sa 2:8; Pro 25:7, etc.). And weakeneth the strength of the mighty; literally, looseth the belt of the strong. But our version sufficiently expresses the meaning.
Job 12:22
He discovereth deep things out of darkness. By “deep things” are probably meant the “deeply laid schemes” which wicked men concoct in darkness (or secrecy). These God often “discovers,” or causes to be laid bare. English history can point to such a case in the discovery of the famous “Gunpowder Plot” in the second year of King James I. And bringeth out to light the shadow of death. There is nothing secret which God cannot, if he choose, reveal; nor is there anything hid which he cannot make known. Dark, murderous schemes, on which lies a shadow as of death, which men plan in secret, and keep hidden in their inmost thoughts, he can, and often does, cause to be brought to light and made manifest in the sight of all. Every such scheme, however carefully guarded and concealed, shall be one day made known (Mat 10:26). Many are laid bare even in the lifetime of their devisers.
Job 12:23
He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them. God’s providence concerns itself, not only with the fate of individual men, bet also with that of nations. With Israel, his “peculiar people” (Deu 14:2), he especially concerned himself, but not with Israel only. Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Elam, Edom, Ammon, Moab, were likewise objects of his attention, of his guidance, of his chastening hand, of his avenging rod. Particular nations were consigned by God to the charge of particular angels (Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20). At his pleasure he can “increase” nations by blessing them with extraordinary fecundity (Exo 1:7-12), or “destroy” them by internal decay, by civil wars, or by the swords of their neighbours. He enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again; i.e. “enlarges their bounds, or diminishes them.” In Western Asia, where Job lived, empires were continually starting up, growing and expanding, increasing to vast dimensions, and then after a while shrinking back again to their original narrow limits Egypt, Elam, Babylon, and the Hittite nation were eases in point.
Job 12:24
He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth; rather. the chiefs of the people‘ or “the popular chief talus” (Lee). He deprives these “chiefs” of their wisdom or courage, or both, and thus brings down the nations under their governance. And causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way; rather, in a chaosone of the words used in Gen 1:2 to describe the condition of the material universe before God had ordered and arranged it. The chieftains, deprived of their “heart,” are so confused and perplexed that they do not know what to do, or which way to turn.
Job 12:25
They grope in the dark without light (comp. Job 5:14 and Deu 28:29). And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man; literally, to wanderto pursue a devious course instead of a straight one.
HOMILETICS
Job 12:1-5
Job to Zophar: 1. The conduct of the friends criticized.
I. ARROGANT ASSUMPTION REPELLED.
1. With sarcastic admiration. “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.” Irony is a weapon difficult and dangerous to use, apt to wound the hand that wields it as well as the heart that feels it, and seldom becoming on the lips of any, least of all of good men. Admirably adapted to sting and lacerate, it rarely improves or conciliates those against whom it is directed. Yet, not being absolutely sinful, it may be employed with success against arrogant pretension and haughty assumption. Elijah on Mount Carmel (1Ki 18:27), and St. Paul in his Epistles (Gal 5:15; Php 3:2; 1Co 4:8), used satire with remarkable effect. Job also in the present instance may be held as justified in retorting on Zophar and his colleagues, whose conduct richly deserved castigation.
2. With vehement self-assertion. “But I have understanding [literally, ‘a heart’] as well as you; I am not inferior to you [literally, ‘I fall not beneath or behind you’].” Modesty, which at all times becomes good men (Pro 30:3; Dan 2:30; Joh 1:27; 2Co 3:5), and is specially enjoined upon God’s people (Psa 25:9; Isa 66:2; Mic 6:8), and Christ’s followers (Mat 5:3; Mat 18:4; Rom 12:3; Col 3:12; 1Pe 5:5), need not prevent a frank self-assertion when one is, like Job, unjustly aspersed. It is sometimes false humility to sit with uncomplaining silence beneath the tongue of slander. Provided one indulge not in extravagant assertion, and assume not the credit of gifts and graces which have descended from above, a man may honestly and even boldly maintain his intellectual and moral worth, should these appear to be maliciously traduced. Job might have safely claimed to surpass his antagonists in mental capacity and acquaintance with the culture of the day, in ripe personal experience and ability to interpret the ways of God to man; but with much modesty he only aspires to be their equal, to have a heart (Anglice, a head, a brain) as well as they, and not to be the shallow-pated witling, or wild ass’s colt, they insinuated.
3. With scornful contempt. “Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?” The sublime wisdom with which they sought to overwhelm him was the veriest commonplace; their much-paraded teaching but a string of threadbare maxims, “familiar in the mouth as household words,” of which he himself could supply an endless series of examples, as beautiful and more correctwhich he does in the present chapter. It is a just ground of complaint when old and hackneyed sentiments in morals or religion, science or philosophy, are served up with the air of, and made to do duty for, original discoveries. Yet it is proper to remember that truth once apprehended by the mind does not deteriorate, or become less valuable, by age. Besides, it is of more consequence that a doctrine should be true than that it should be new. Still, new truth, or, what is often mistaken for such, new aspects of old truths, possess a singular fascination for vigorous and independent minds.
II. UNKIND BEHAVIOUR RESENTED.
1. Its character described. “I am as one mocked of his neighbour;” “The just upright man is laughed to scorn.” By serving up such trite platitudes as Job had listened to, they had simply been converting him and his calamities into a laughing-stock, because they saw him standing on the sharp edge of ruin, as a traveller might cast away “a despised lamp,” of which he had no further need. To make a man the subject of laughter, the butt of ridicule, the object of scornful wit on account of either personal appearance (Gen 21:9), bodily infirmity (2Ki 2:23), providential adversity (Lam 2:15), or religious character (Psa 42:3), is severely reprehended by the Word of God (Pro 3:34 :; Pro 17:5; Pro 30:17). Yet good men may expect to receive such treatment at the hands of worldly unbelievers and nominal professors, since the like was meted out to Christ (Mat 26:67, Mat 26:68; Mat 27:27-31; Luk 23:35), David (Psa 22:7; Psa 35:16; Psa 69:11, Psa 69:12), and the apostles (Act 2:13), to Old Testament saints (2Ch 30:10; 1Ki 22:24; Heb 11:36), and New Testament preachers (Act 17:32) and disciples (Jud Job 1:18).
2. Its aggravations recited. These were twofold.
(1) Job, who had been subjected to this scornful laceration, had been
(a) a good man, personally just and upright, and therefore such a one as saints should not have ridiculed;
(b) one who had enjoyed confidential communications with Heavena man of prayer, who had called upon God and been answered by himand therefore not a person to be lightly spoken of or to; and
(c) a miserable sufferer overtaken by adversityone who was “ready to slip with his feet,” and on that account all the more requiring to be comforted instead of scorned.
(2) They who had scorned him had been
(a) his neighbours, his friends, at whose hands he should rather have received pity (Job 6:14); and
(b) were themselves in the enjoyment of ease, which might have kindled in their flinty bosoms a spark of sympathy for his misfortunes.
3. Its extenuation stated. It was common. “Contempt for the weak, who totter and fall on slippery paths, is the habitual impulse of those who stand firmly on the firm ground of security, and see no reason why other men should not be as vigorous and ‘resolute’ and prosperous as themselves” (Cox). The world worships success; failure is its unpardonable sin. When fortune smiles upon a person he is known of all; when adversity engulfs him, he is forgotten by all (Job 8:18). Recall the language of Buckingham on his way to execution: “This from a dying man receive as certain,” etc. (‘King Henry VIII.,’ act 2. sc; 1); and Mark Antony’s address over Ceasar’s dead body: “But yesterday,” etc. (Julius Caesar,’ act 3. sc. 2).
Learn:
1. If adversity has its uses, prosperity has its dangers, being prone to engender self-conceit, arrogance, lack of sympathy, and contempt for others.
2. Wisdom is the noblest excellence of man; yet of wisdom no man enjoys a monopoly.
3. It is no disparagement to truth to be styled commonplace, since precisely as it becomes commonplace does it accomplish its mission.
4. As prayer will not always hinder persecution, so neither should persecution by either friends or foes be allowed to extinguish prayer.
5. Few faults of men are so completely bad that no sort of extenuation can be discovered for them.
Job 12:5-13
Job to Zophar: 2. The dogma of the friends demolished.
I. BY THE FACTS OF EXPERIENCE.
1. The adverse fortunes of the good. Exemplified in Job’s own case, which showed
(1) that a man might be upright and yet lull into misfortune;
(2) that a person enjoying confidential relations with Heaven, calling upon God and receiving answers, might sink so low in the mire of adversity as to become a scorn and a byword, and be regarded as a sort of infidel and outcast; and
(3) that the largest and heaviest portion of a good man’s affliction might even come from the good themselves, from those who enjoyed the reputation at least of being religious, from his neighbours and friends, who were themselves sitting in the sunshine of prosperity. And the entire veracity of these deductions is abundantly confirmed by the concurrent testimony of all past ages, by the histories, e.g. of Abel, of Joseph, of David, of Christ; while it is sustained by the voice of all contemporary observation.
2. The prosperous fortunes of the bad. Apt illustrations were at hand in the seemingly unchanging success which waited on the footsteps of those marauding caterans with which Arabia Deserta was overrun.
(1) As to character, they were notoriously wicked, in fact, flagrantly immoral, outrageously ungodly. They were:
(a) Robbers of men, violent and rapacious plunderers, who put might for right, “men of the arm” (Job 22:8), acting on
“The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can;”
like the Nephilim and Gibborim of Noah’s day, who deluged the world with immorality and violence (Gen 6:4)
(b) Defiers of God, impudent and audacious sinners who openly and presumptuously trampled on Heaven’s laws in order to obtain their unhallowed will, like the tower-builders of Babel (Gen 11:4), like Pharaoh (Exo 5:2), like Sennacherib (2Ki 18:19-35), like wicked men generally, whose foolish tongues “talk loftily,” and “set themselves against the heavens,” and “walk through the earth” (Psa 73:8, Psa 73:9), and whose carnal minds, inflamed with enmity against God (Rom 8:7), conspire against the Lord and his Anointed (Psa 2:2).
(c) Worshippers of the sword, who had no deity but the dagger which they carried in their bands, as the glutton has no god but his belly (Php 3:19); who, like Lamech, made ballads to their rapiers (Gen 4:23); like Laban, regarded brute force as the supreme power of the world (Gen 31:29); and like the ancient Chaldeans, took military strength for their god (Hab 1:11).
(2) As to fortune‘ it was as widely removed from that of the virtuous and pious as it could welt be.
(a) Their tents were peaceful. That is, their habitations were tranquil, their families were united and numerous; their domestic felicity was deep (cf. Job 21:8-11; Psa 17:14; Psa 49:11).
(b) Their persons were secure. Calamity seldom, almost never, overtook them. Winds and hurricanes that desolated the righteous left them untouched (Psa 73:4).
(c) Their baskets were full. Retaining the Authorized Version (Carey and others), we understand Job to have said that God brought to them abundantly with his own hand, as if he had taken them under his especial protection.
II. BY THE TEACHINGS OF THE CREATURES.
1. The teachers. The entire circle of animate and inanimate creationeverything on the earth, in the air, and in the sea. The natural and the supernatural, the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual, the mundane and the heavenly, are in God’s universe so indissolubly linked together, and so wisely adjusted to each other, that the one is a picture or reflection of the other, the earthly and material an emblem of the heavenly and spiritual. Hence all nature is full of subtle analogies to things and thoughts existing in the realms above itthe intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, the human, the celestial. Hence the wise student of nature may find
“Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
(‘As You Like It,’ act 2. sc. 1.)
Hence man is frequently counselled by Scripture writers to learn wisdom from the creatures. “Solomon sends us to the ant; Agur to the coney, the locust, the spider; Isaiah to the ox and the ass; Jeremiah to the stork, the turtle-dove, the crane, the swallow; and the heavenly Teacher himself to the fowls of the air” (Thomas). Of all teachers Christ stood indisputably first in interpreting the hidden thoughts of nature.
2. The teaching. While the creatures say much to man concerning God, his almighty power, unerring wisdom, unwearied goodness, and ever-watchful care; and concerning duty, reminding man that he, like them, should act in harmony with the laws of his nature, and in obedience to the will of his Creator (Psa 148:7-13), they are here introduced as instructors on the subject of Divine providence. Among the lower creatures phenomena exist analogous to those above described as occurring in the higher world of men. How often is the harmless lamb devoured by the wolf, the kid by the panther, the gazelle by the tiger, the patient ass by the ferocious lion! Are not the eagle, the vulture, and the hawk but as rapacious robbers swooping down upon the dove the sparrow, and the robin? Can greater plunderers be found than the vast aquatic monsters, the whale, the shark, and the crocodile, which roam through the deep, striking terror among the lesser tribes that haunt the seas? And yet “who knoweth not in all these that the hand of Jehovah hath wrought this, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?” Well, if these things occur under God’s government among the lower creatures, why, asks Job, might similar occurrences not transpire under the same government among men?
III. BY THE SAYINGS OF THE FATHERS.
1. The ground of their authority. The weight attached by Zophar, and indeed allowed by Job himself, to the maxims of antiquity, was derived from the fact that they were the concentrated wisdom of antecedent ages, which had been carefully elaborated by long-lived sages as the result of their individual and collective experience (vide homiletics on Job 8:8-22).
2. The limit of their authority. Granting that these sagacious apothegms and profound parables were fairly entitled to be heard, Job contended that they were not possessed of absolute authority. They were not to be accepted with unquestioning submission, but with wise and intelligent discrimination, the ear, and of course “the judgment which sits behind the ear,” having been given to try words as the palate does food. And even at the best they were only human judgments, the thoughts of long-lived patriarchs, of much-observing as well as deep-reflecting sages, but not at all to be compared with the thoughts of him with whom is “wisdom and strength, counsel and understanding” (verse 13). They were, therefore, not to be accepted as final interpretations of the facts of providence, which were the concrete expressions of eternal Wisdom, as much as these traditional maxims were the abstract utterances of patriarchal wisdom. Man’s thoughts never can be more than a finite projection, or contracted image, of God’s. Hence the danger of setting man’s thoughts in place of God’s, investing confessions, catechisms, and symbolical books generally with the authority which belongs only to the supreme revelation of God’s mind. Hence also the folly of attempting to crush the boundless realm of God’s truth into the narrow dimensions of any formula, however beautiful or well-arranged, however strictly scientific or profoundly philosophic. The fundamental principles of all intelligent Protestantism may be summed up in two thoughts: man’s formulas are not the exact measure of God’s revelations; “prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”
3. The verdict of their authority. If rightly discriminated, the voice of patriarchal wisdom will be found to be on Job’s side; in support of which assertion he proceeds, in the next section, to recite other sayings of antiquity, which certainly give countenance rather to his than to their view of God’s providential government of the world and mankind. So perhaps it will be generally found that the best thoughts of men in all ages harmonize with the thoughts of God as expressed both in the Bible and in providence.
Learn:
1. “He that is first in his own cause seemeth right; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.”
2. “A half-truth is sometimes as dangerous as a whole lie.”
3. “In contemplation of created things, by steps we may ascend to God.”
4. It is not true that “man is the measure of the universe.”
5. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in man’s philosophy.”
6. “That alone is true antiquity which embraces the antiquity of the world, and not that which would refer us back to a period when the world was young.”
Job 12:13-25
Job to Zophar: 3. The providence of God described.
I. As INFINITELY WISE AND POWERFUL. “With God is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding” (verse 13)a sentiment repeated in verse 16. Of the two attributes here mentioned, the first is involved in his supreme Divinity; though in the connection Job seems to base it on his eternal existence, as if he meant to say, “You affirm that in length of days is understanding, and I grant it; but what then must be the wisdom of him who is eternal in his years?” The second, which is equally involved in the conception of Godhead, may here be said to rest upon the already stated fact that “in his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” (verse 10). The Creator of the universe must be strong, and the Eternal Intelligence must be wise. Being, then, infinitely wise and powerful, the like qualities must appear in his handiwork. As the artist puts his conceptions into the painting which he executes, and the artificer directs attention to the work he has fashioned as a proof of his ability; so, reasons Job, will the providential government of God be seen, when thoroughly examined, to reflect the matchless wisdom of his omniscient mind, and attest the measureless force of his almighty hand.
II. AS ABSOLUTELY SOVEREIGN AND RESISTLESS. “Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening” (verse 14). The first may allude to the destruction of the Tower of Babel, and the second to the confusion of tongues; though the reference may be more general, to such acts of destruction/and, by implication, of restoration) and of restraint (and again, by implication, of liberation) as attest his almighty power. Illustrations of the former may be found in the burning of Sodom by fire; the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus; the overthrow of Babylon and Nineveh; the engulfment of Herculaneum and Pompeii by volcanic agency; while the shutting up of men in prisons may be regarded as having been exemplified in Joseph (Gen 37:24), Jeremiah (Lam 3:53; cf. Jer 38:6), Jon 1:17.
III. AS EXTENDING TO NATURE AND MAN.
1. To nature. “Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth” (Jon 1:15). Perhaps exemplified in the first formation of the dry land (Gen 1:9), and in the Deluge (Gen 7:11); though more probably pointing to the Divine agency as the true cause of drought (1Ki 17:1), and of floods or destructive inundations.
2. To man. “The deceived and the deceiver are his” (Jon 1:16). Possibly alluding to himself and his companions (M. Good), though it is better to give the language a wider reference. Exemplified in Satan and man (Job 1:12; Rev 20:3), the lying spirit and Ahab (1Ki 22:22), antichrist and unbelievers (2Th 2:11). The language forcibly expresses God’s complete control over all classes of men.
IV. As CONTROLLING INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES.
1. Individuals.
(1) Civic riflers. “He leadeth counsellors away spoiled [literally, ‘naked,’ i.e. ‘stripped of their official robes, and of their clothes and shoes as captives ‘], and maketh judges fools,” destroying their power and degrading their position (cf. Isa 3:2, Isa 3:4; Isa 40:23; Isa 44:25). “He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle” or cord; meaning either he unbinds their prisoners, and makes them prisoners instead, or he unlooses the jewelled girdle of kings, the insignia of royalty, and ties their loins with the cords of servitude. Illustrations: Zedekiah, Napoleon, etc.
(2) Ecclesiastical officers. “He leadeth princes [literally, ‘priests’] away spoiled [literal]y, ‘stripped of their robes ‘], and overthroweth the mighty [or, ‘the long established’those of great and high repute for sanctity and wisdom, probably such priest-princes as Melchizedek and Jethro].’
(3) Eloquent senators. “He removeth away the speech [literally, ‘the lip’] of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged” (verse 20). So he turned the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness (2Sa 15:31).
(4) Haughty nobles. “He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty;” literally, “looseth the girdle of the strong” (verse 21). The girdle being the belt by which the garments were fastened prior to undertaking any violent exertion, the language expresses the idea that it is God’s province either to impart or to withhold the strength requisite for any undertaking in which man may engage.
(5) Intriguing politicians. “He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death” (verse 22). While the language may with perfect propriety be applied to the power possessed by God of disclosing truths which lie beyond the reach of the human intellect, as e.g. those of revelation, or of bringing to light recondite discoveries in science and philosophy, which are ever wrapt in impenetrable darkness till he is pleased to unfold them, the connection seems to rather point to God’s ability to read the secret thoughts and intentions of the human heart (Heb 4:12, Heb 4:13), and in particular to detect and expose “the deep and desperate designs of traitors, conspirators, and other state villains” (Good); as those, e.g. of Absalom against David (2Sa 15:6), and Haman against the Jews (Est 3:9), of Herod against Christ (Mat 2:8), and of the Jews against Paul (Act 23:21), as the Catiline conspiracy in Rome, and the Gunpowder Plot in England.
2. Communities.
(1) National tendencies. The deep things out of darkness and the discovered death-shade may also allude to “the hidden bents and currents which slowly give shape to the character and functions of a nation or ever it is aware, or ever even its rulers are aware, of them; that stream of tendency running partly underground for a while, which silently carries us we know not whither, we know not how, and lands us in enterprises and modes of national activity alien and opposed to those towards which our subtlest politicians supposed they were guiding us” (Cox).
(2) National movements. “He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again” (verse 23). The original distribution of mankind into nations, and their dispersion over the face of earth, although effected in accordance with natural law, was directly the work of God (Gen 10:1-32; Gen 11:1-32.). So national increase and national diminution, national prosperity and national adversity, however these may seem to be the result of well-known and invariably operating causes, are traceable in the last analysis to the will and power of God (Psa 22:28; Psa 24:1; Psa 47:2, Psa 47:3; Isa 40:22, Isa 40:23; Dan 4:17; Act 17:26). He increased Israel in Egypt (Exo 1:12), and diminished it in the wilderness (Num 14:29), advanced it to prosperity under David (2Sa 8:6, 2Sa 8:11, 2Sa 8:14), and gave it up to decay from the time of Rehoboam forward (1Ki 12:24). He enlarged in turn Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, and in turn straitened them. He has exalted Britain, America, Germany, but he has not deprived himself of power to bring them to the dust again.
(3) National leaders. “He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way,” leaving them to their own foolish and distracted counsels, so that “they grope in the dark without light,” and causing them “to wander in a wilderness where there is no way” (verses 24, 25). It is not in man that walketh, whether he be a statesman or a ploughman, to direct his steps aright. They that guide either themselves or others by the light of their own understanding are like travellers who follow an ignis fatuus to their destruction. Hence no politician can safely guide a state, unless God first guides him. A gigantic intellect, splendid eloquence, prolonged experience, the subtlest craft, the most careful deliberation, the rarest sobriety of judgment, will not suffice for political success (of the highest kind) without the help of Divine wisdom and strength. Even a Solomon, if deserted by God, will begin to play the fool, and a Samson to be weak as other men.
Learn:
1. To recognize God’s hand in the providential government of the world. Habitually to do so is no inconsiderable sign of a gracious heart.
2. Not to look for an exact distribution of rewards and punishments on earth. It is not included in the Divine programme that the justice of God’s procedure here shall always be perceptible by those to whom it relates.
3. To rest assured notwithstanding that God doeth all things well “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
4. To reverently bow before the providential dispensations of him who reigns in heaven and rules on earth. Though his will is too absolute to be resisted, yet the choice of how we shall submit to that will has been placed in our hands.
5. To carry the thought of God’s overruling providence with us into all the relations and duties of life. It is a great help to piety to recollect that God is near.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Job 12:1-6
The resentment of a wounded spirit.
Repeated reproaches and accusations falling upon the conscience of an innocent man sting him into self-defence. They may do a service by rousing him out of stupor and weakness, and may bring to light the nobler qualities of his soul. We are indebted to the slanders of the Corinthians for some of the noblest self-revelations of St. Paul.
I. OUTBURST OF INDIGNANT SCORN. (Job 12:1-3.) With bitter irony Job rebukes the assumption of these men to know better than himself concerning matters which belonged to the common stock of intelligence, and in which he was in no wise inferior to them. To claim superior knowledge over others is always offensive. To do so against a sick and broken man from the vantage-ground of health and prosperity is nothing less than a cruelty. And to make this pretension in matters of common tradition and acceptance, where all stand about on a level, is an insult to the sufferer’s understanding.
II. INDIGNANT REMONSTRANCE AGAINST THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. (Verses 4-6.)
1. Cruel inversions of life. Job, who in his just and innocent life, had hitherto stood in confidential relations with God, who had prayed and whose prayers had been heard, is now a butt for laughter and scorn. He calls now and God no longer hears (verse 4).
2. The injustice of human opinion. (Verse 5.) “Contempt belongs to misfortune, in the opinion of the secure.” A true description of the opinion of the world. If “nothing succeeds like success; then nothing damns like failure in the common opinion of the unfeeling world. “It awaits those whose foot is slipping.” As the herd of wolves turn upon the sick and fallen brute, so the thoughtless man tramples upon the man who is down. To those who are banded together by the tie of selfish pleasure only or convenience, the very sight of that which interferes for a moment with their content is hateful. How different the sanctified instincts of pity, compassion, and helpfulness which Christ has planted in his society, the Church! It is the mission of the Christian community to leaven with its principles the heartless mass of society. On the other hand, nothing succeeds like success; “restful dwellings” (verse 6) and confident security are enjoyed by the wasters or desolators who by word and deed hold God in contempt, and think to make him bend to their purposes. The rude man of violence, who owns no law but that of the strong hand, thinks that where force is there is God, and all must bow to force as if to God. So he “taketh God in his hand;” he “imputes his power unto his god;” he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense unto his drag (Hab 1:11, Hab 1:16). His motto is like that of the impious warrior, “My right hand is god” (Virg; ‘AEn.‘ 10.773, “Dextra mihi deus”).J.
Job 12:7-12
The wisdom and tile power of God a truth universally known.
It is not the peculiar possession of those fancied wise friends. It is a truth impressed on all nature and on the experience of man.
I. APPEAL TO THE LIVING CREATURES. (Job 12:7-10.) The beasts, the birds of the air, the earth with all its living growths, the creatures of the sea,all bear traces of his skill, all receive from him their life and sustenance, all are subject to his omnipresent power (comp. Psa 104:26-30).
II. APPEAL TO THE EXPERIENCE OF AGE. As the palate tries and discriminates between the different dishes on the table, so does the ear try the various opinions to which it listens, and selects the best, the ripest, as its guide (Job 12:11). Long life means large experience, and largo experience gives the criterion of truth and the guide of life. Yet experience is but the book of common experiences. It fails us when we have to deal with the peculiar and the exceptional, which is the present situation of Job (verse 12).
III. ELOQUENT DESCRIPTION OF THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD. (Verses 13-25.) Here Job rivals and surpasses his friends. With repeated blows, as of the hammer on the anvil, he impresses the truth that the might and intelligence of the Supreme are irresistible, and before him all human craft and power must be reduced to impotence. The power and the wisdom of God alternately occupy his thought, appear and reappear in a variety of images.J.
Job 12:13-15, Job 12:18-21, Job 12:23-25
Images of the irresistible power of God.
I. THE WALL, OR HOUSE, OR CITY THUS DEMOLISHED CANNOT BE BUILT UP AGAIN. (Job 12:14.) Swept with the besom of destruction, it becomes the possession of the bittern and pools of water (Isa 14:23). The ruined walls of Babylon and her charred gates defy the weary toil of the people (Jer 51:58); she sinks, and shall not rise from the evil that Jehovah will bring upon her (Jer 51:64). Men may build, but he will throw down (Mal 1:4).
II. THE PRISON–DOORS WHICH HE SHUTS NO MAN CAN OPEN. (Job 12:14.) He hath the key of David (Isa 22:22; Rev 3:7). Vain all human bravery when the Lord hath determined to “deliver a man into the hand of his enemy” (1Sa 26:8). Yet there is a merciful aspect of this seeming harsh truth, as pointed out by St. Paul: “He hath shut them all up in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all” (Rom 11:32).
III. THE DRYING UP AND SENDING OF FLOODS. (Job 12:15.) As illustrated in the ancient story of Gen 6:1-22. and 8; and of the drought in Elijah’s time (1Ki 17:1-24.). He shuts the heaven (1Ki 8:35), arid he alone can give showers (Jer 14:22).
IV. THE SUBJUGATION OF EARTHLY KINGS. (Gen 6:18.) As illustrated in the carrying of Manasseh captive to Babylon (2Ch 23:1-21.), and of Zedekiah (Jer 52:1-34.). The thought is repeated in verse 21, and further illustrations may be drawn from the cases of Pharaoh, of Saul, of Ahab.
V. THE DEPRIVATION OF SPEECH AND WISDOM. (Verse 20.) Men’s sagacity is turned to folly; their prudence is vain when it pleases him to put forth his power (comp. Isa 3:1-3). So in verse 24, where we are reminded of the striking judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:1-37.).
VI. THE INCREASE AND DESTRUCTION OF NATIONS. (Verse 23.) The rise and fall of empires and peoples is determined by constant laws. Obedience to law means increase and prosperity; violation of law, decay and ruin.
VII. CONFUSION AND BEWILDERMENT are evidences of the practical power of God (verses 24, 25). Chaos, wandering, darkness, helpless vacillation, fall upon men and nations from time to time, because they have been unfaithful to the true light and the Divine leading.J.
Job 12:16, Job 12:17, Job 12:22
Instances of the overruling wisdom of God.
I. THE DECEIVER AND THE DECEIVED ARE HIS. (Job 12:16.) He can cause the spirit of the faithless prophet to be a lying spirit (1Ki 22:1-53.), to be deceived in his oracles, and incur destruction (Eze 14:9).
II. So THE JUDGES ARE MADE FOOLS. (Job 12:17.) In short, God hath made from time to time the wisdom of this world foolishness (1Co 1:1-31.), that no flesh might glory in his presence.
III. HE BRINGS NEW DISCOVERIES OF TRUTH TO LIGHT. (Job 12:22.) This is the revelation of God in history, and its page is full of illustrations. The calling of Abraham; the raising up of Moses; the deliverance of Israel; the elevation of David, the “rod out of his stem'” the lowly Messiah; the progress of the gospel and triumph over the wisdom of Greece and pride of Rome; the beginnings of the Reformation,are but a few of the salient points in this providential history of the world.
The whole description is fitted to teach:
(1) Humility in the sense of the feebleness of our power, the inferiority of our knowledge in presence of the power and wisdom of God.
(2) Reverence in the study of history and the observation of nature.
(3) Watchful and confident expectation of changes in the course of providence, by which iniquity will be overturned, the rule of falsehood be brought to an end, and the Divine kingdom be advanced in the world.J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Job 12:1-6
Contempt the lot of misfortune.
Job is driven to retort. He affirms his own competency to speak. He claims equality with his would-be teachers, whose words are yet far from healing or comforting his sorely afflicted heart. “I have understanding as well as you.” But to him belongs the contempt which is the lot of misfortune. Sad is the story told in a sentence here, but repeated in every day’s history and in every land and every age. The selfish heart, rising to a higher level of prosperity, looks down, and looks contemptuously down, on him over whom Misfortune casts her dark shade. “The just upright man is laughed to scorn.” Note the truth of this, its wrong and its remedy.
I. UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE TESTIFIES TO THISTHAT CONTEMPT IS THE LOT OF MISFORTUNE. The testimony comes up from a thousand sufferers towards whom fortune has shown no favour. The wounds may be deep, the pangs of sorrow keen; dark desolation may encompass; but the joyful, the well-to-do, on whom the smile of prosperity rests, become incompetent to descend to the lowly lot. On such the tale of woe makes little impression. There is a sad, if not even natural, revulsion from the mere sight of suffering, and the step is easy from this to the bitter, scathing complaint, “Ah! he brought it all upon himself!’ From Job’s days downward the same has been ever seen. Prosperity seems to blind the eyes, to harden the heart, to withdraw the sympathies even from the friend overtaken in misfortune. It is an interruption to ease and felicity, to quiet and comfort. And Well-to-do resists as impertinent the appeals of the victim of misfortune; or, as here, takes up an accusation against him, and treats him as an offender. Everywhere the truth of this is seen. “He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thoughts of him that is at ease;”
II. IT IS NOT MORE GENERAL THAN IT IS WRONG. It is unworthy, unbrotherly, unneighbourlike. The great Teacher hit the evil with his hard words, and exposed for ever to the gaze of men the self-sufficiency of the prosperous one and his carelessness as to the condition of the sufferer. He passes by on the other side, indisposed to help the poor wretch lying in his blood, stript and sore. Pride fills the heart to overflowing that is well-nigh full of treasure. There is little room in it for sympathy and pity, and the tender communion of sorrow. He who is lifted up does not feel that the lot of him who is trodden down is any affair of his. He cannot be hindered on his way. Shame upon the heart that is so far forgetful of the common interest that it leaves the needy and sad, and finds itself absorbed in its own comfort! The curl of contempt upon the lip and the hard word upon the tongueJob fathomed this depth, and in the bitterness of his soul rebukes the wrong.
III. WE TURN TO OTHER WORDS FOR THE CORRECTION OF THIS ERROR. True, Job by his irony accuses his severe friends, who transport themselves into accusers. In their hard words he traces the contempt of which he complains, and takes his lot with others who suffer like himself. He is not unmindful of the true Source of help. He is one who “calleth upon God.” lie retains his integrity, and the consciousness of it gives him support even under this trouble. “The just upright man is laughed to scorn.” But the assurance of his uprightness is a deep consolation. Here, then, are the true sources of help. The tested faith in God will find its reward, and the testimony of a good conscience is of price untold. By these Job is upheld, and by that strength which is secretly imparted to all faithful ones who call upon God, though it may seem as though they were abandoned and forgotten. If the “neighbour” mocketh, the righteous Judge does not mock; and though the trial is permitted and continued, a Divine and gracious end is reserved which Job lived fully to prove.R.G.
Job 12:7-10
The testimony of the creature to the Divine government.
Job again vindicates himself in presence of his accusing friends. He professes his knowledge to be as theirs, and he even points them to the lower animals to find wisdom from them. The very beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, the fruitful field, the fishes in the deep, all tell the great truthJehovah reigns supreme. “In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind;” all proclaim the Almighty, all speak of the Ever-living One in whom all live. This testimony is witnessed
I. IN THE CONSCIOUS LIFE OF EVERY CREATURE. Even man, at the head of all, is conscious of the dependence of his life upon some power higher than himself. There is one Lord of life, Author of all life, Supporter of all. Every individual life declares “the hand of the Lord hath wrought this.” In his hand alone is “the soul “the life “of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.” He is the Creator and Preserver of every life.
II. IN THE INFINITE VARIETY OF LIFE. What an unlimited variety do we behold! The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, abound in a wide diversity of life. All speak of the infinite Creator, in whom are the possibilities of infinite life; who, of his own infinite resources, has created and made the whole. That the species vary according to the encircling conditions of their life does not detract from their testimony to the infinite and supreme Power. For the very existence of every life speaks of that Power. How great is he whose creative skill reveals itself in this unlimited variety!
III. NOT LESS TESTIMONY IS BORNE BY THE CONTINUOUS REPRODUCTION OF THE VAST VARIETIES. That age after age this power continues to bring forth, each after its own kind, is another testimony to the greatness of him “in whose hand is the soul of every living thing.” The creation and preservation of the many species age after age speaks to the thoughtful mind of him who is the one Lord of all life, who by his omnipotent overruling preserves all in their order and in their continuance.
IV. BUT IN THE MARVELLOUS STRUCTURE OF THEIR BODIES ANOTHER TESTIMONY IS BORNE. How delicate are the organs of the bodythe powers of sight, of hearing, of activity; the strength of one, the delicacy of the structure of another! How wonderful are the nerves of the body, conveying the impression from the outer world to the brain! Equally so the blood-vessels, and the hidden powers by which the bones are built up, and again the powers of nutrition gathering food from without and assimilating it to the body in all its parts. This is done without the knowledge and consent of the creature; for the creature, even man, knows not how it is done. it is above him; it speaks definitely and distinctly and loudly of God, “in whose hand is the breath of all mankind.”
V. YET A FURTHER TESTIMONY IS TO BE SEEN IN THE ABUNDANT PROVISION MADE FOR THE SUSTENANCE OF ALL. Notwithstanding the vastness of the realm in which creature-life is found, and the variety of the forms of life, each having its own peculiar needs, yet he “satisfieth the desire of every living thing,” Food is abundant for man and beast, and of the fowls of the air it is truly said, “he feedeth them.” So the Divine work is seen on every side; and from all the varieties of conscious life one testimony arises to the great truth, “The Lord reigneth.” On every work the truth lies clearly impressed, “The hand of Jehovah made this.”R.G.
Job 12:11-25
The Devine supremacy illustrated.
Bildad appeals to “the ancients.” Job replies, “I also know their teaching.” But there is a wisdom higher than that of the ancients. Wisdomunfailing wisdomis a Divine attribute. From the earthly to the heavenly wisdom Job turns. He speaks of a higher and a mightier OneOne “with whom is strength and wisdom,” by which he rules. The supremacy of that Divine rule he illustrates from a very wide field of survey. He points to the evidences of the Divine almightiness
I. IN THE CONTRASTED POWERLESSNESS OF THE HUMAN OPPOSITION TO THE DIVINE WILL. (Verse 14.)
II. IN THE CONTROL OF THE MIGHTY ELEMENTS OF NATURE. The very “waters” obey his behest (verse 15).
III. IN COMPELLING EVEN THOSE THAT ERR AND THOSE THAT DECEIVE TO BE SUBSERVIENT TO HIS WILL AND PURPOSE. (Verse 16.)
IV. IN CONFOUNDING THE WISDOM OF THE WISE. Leading “counsellors away spoiled,” and bringing down the judge to the level of the fool (verse 17).
V. IN HUMBLING KINGS AND PRIESTS AND MIGHTY MEN. (Verses 18, 19.)
VI. IN RESTRAINING THE SPEECH OF THE ELOQUENT AND ROBBING THE AGED OF THEIR UNDERSTANDING. (Verse 20.)
VII. IN CASTING CONTEMPT UPON THE HONOURABLE, AND MAKING THE STRONG TO TOTTER WITH WEAKNESS. (Verse 21.) He giveth or taketh away wisdom and might as it pleaseth him, proving that he is wise and mighty above all; for these are his gifts to the children of men that have them.
VIII. HE FURTHER SHOWS THAT THE HIDDEN THINGS OF DARKNESS ARE OPEN TO HIS VIEW. He discovereth the secret works of evil. Even the thick shadow of death cannot hide from him (verse 22).
IX. NATIONAL HISTORY IS EQUALLY UNDER HIS CONTROL. His power is over the nations; he enlarges or straitens as he pleases. He scatters or gathers as he will (verse 23).
X. THE VERY CHIEFEST AMONG ALL THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH ABE SUBJECT TO HIS SOVEREIGN SWAY. It is a little thing for him to remove the light of reason from them, confounding and Confusing them, and casting them into darkness and gloom. Elsewhere we learn why and when the Almighty deals thus with men. Job’s purpose is to show that man is as nothing before him. In his highest honour, in his utmost wisdom, in his greatest strength, he cannot Contend with Jehovah. Over the individual life in all its various conditions, over the Combined lives of men in their national or political combinations, he is still supreme. And over the heavens and the earth he is Lordeven over all. This is Job’s faith and his declaration. He can proclaim the supreme and absolute majesty of Jehovah as truly, and even more strikingly than his friends.R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Job 12:2
Irony.
I. IRONY IS TO BE FOUND IN SCRIPTURE. There is great variety in the style of Scripture. Almost every modification of language is to be found in the Bible, consecrated to some holy purpose. Even the faculty of humour is utilized, as in the incident of Balaam’s ass (Num 22:28-30), and in St. Paul’s recommendation that the woman who will not wear a veil had better complete the exposure of her head by being shorn (1Co 11:6). The prophets abound in irony. Christ used irony in the parable of the rich fool (Luk 12:16-20).
II. THERE IS A PLACE FOR IRONY IN DISCOURSE. Some evils can be best met just by being exposed. Now, irony is a method of showing a thing in an unexpected light, so that, while admitting all its claims, we make it apparent that those very claims are absurd. Slight failings will be best castigated with simple ridicule; more serious ones, if they are not great sins, with grave irony.
III. PRETENTIOUSNESS ESPECIALLY PROVOKES IRONY. Each of Job’s three friends has now spoken. Though they were not alike in attainments nor in natural dispositions, they agreed in their dogmas and in their judgment of Job. A tone of conscious superiority and irritating censoriousness rings through all their speeches. This not only vexes Job; it prompts an ironical retaliation. It is dangerous to make grand pretensions. Humility is a great security, and when humility is lost, we lay ourselves open to attack on the ground of our assumptions. Pretentiousness does not only thus provoke ironical replies; it best meets its merited castigation by these replies, which humilitate it in a most unanswerable manner.
IV. IRONY IS A DANGEROUS WEAPON FOR A CHRISTIAN TO WIELD. It may be a lawful weapon- There are times when it can be used in the cause of righteousness with tremendous effect. But there is great danger lest the employment of it should destroy “the greatest thing in the world”love. There is always a tendency to push it too far, and to go beyond wholesome rebuke in the direction of cruel scorn. This is distinctly unchristian. Moreover, as Job’s friends did not understand him, possibly he did not understand them. If so, his irony may have been too severe for justice. We should be careful that we are in no error before we venture to use irony against our brother. Even then, zeal for righteousness should be tempered by brotherly kindness.
V. GOD DISPLAYS IRONY IN PROVIDENCE. The Greek tragedians saw irony in fate. Man’s greatness was shown to be a very small thing, and his boasted success a mere bubble. The old classical idea was dark and hard, for it did not take into account the Fatherhood of God. But within God’s infinite purpose of love there is room for irony. By the slow unrolling of the course of events, the boasting of the pretentious ends in confusion. God humbles his creatures in their pride and vanity, giving them sudden falls, by means of which they cannot but feel their helplessness and littleness. The monarch is choked by a fly. Such things are not done vindictively, or in scorn; but because we are mined by boasting and saved in our humiliation. Thus the ugly weapon of irony may prepare us for the healing grace of the gospel.W.F.A.
Job 12:5
Contempt for the unfortunate.
Like Jesus, when he prayed for his murderers, with the plea that they knew not what they were doing (Luk 23:34), though in much less perfect magnanimity, Job sees some excuse for the conduct of his censors. He finds that conduct to be an instance of a common rule of action, viz. that the prosperous despise the unfortunate.
I. WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE TROUBLE WE DO NOT SHARE. Job’s vast woe was quite beyond the comprehension of his would-be sympathizers. They thought that they had fathomed its depths, and that they were in a position to adjudicate upon its merits. But they had scarcely skimmed its surface. They did not know what Job suffered; much less did they see why God had permitted him to be thus afflicted. The happy look flora their sunny homes on the dark abodes of misery, but they cannot understand the sorrows they have never tasted. They who have always had their wants satisfied simply do not know what hunger and thirst are. The unbroken family cannot conceive of the agony of bereavement
II. WE ARE TEMPTED TO DESPISE THE TROUBLE WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND. As We have not the faculty to dive into its mystery, it seems to us a shallow thing. Therefore, when the sufferers appear to make much of it, we are inclined to think that they are exaggerating it; that they are giving way to it in a cowardly weakness; that they are indecently demonstrative or even shamming hypocritically. The rich are too often ready to regard the very poor as whining impostors. They who have never felt the pangs of conscience look with contempt on the penitent’s tears.
III. WE MAY USE OUR OWN TROUBLE AS A MEANS OF STIMULATING OUR SYMPATHY WITH THE TROUBLES OF OTHERS. Possibly this is one reason why it is sent to us. We have been too narrow and selfish in our view of it, thinking it must be confined to some effect directly and solely beneficial to ourselves. But it may be largely intended to prepare us for our work in helping others in trouble. The widow can sympathize with the widow; the poor show most kindness to the poor. The experience of the prostration of a great illness enables a person to understand and help sick people. Thus sorrow is a talent to be used for the good of others, by being invested in sympathy.
IV. THE SORROWS OF CHRIST HELPED TO MAKE HIM A PERFECT SAVIOUR. If Christ understands anything, it is sorrow; for was he not “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”? Therefore the sufferer who is despised by his prosperous brethren can turn with assurance of sympathy to the Saviour of men. Christ not only understands sorrow, he knows how to use it. He converted his cross into a lever for raising a fallen world. He will help his suffering disciples to despise their own sorrows while sympathizing with the sorrows of others. Strong in his victory over sin, sorrow, and death, Christ for ever sanctifies suffering. While the superficial may despise it, true Christians can now see in it a means of heavenly grace.W.F.A.
Job 12:7-10
Lessons of nature.
I. NATURE REBUKES MAN‘S IGNORANCE. Job refers his friends to nature in a tone of reproach. They ought to have known what nature was proclaiming. There are two grounds for this rebuke.
1. The wealth and fulness of nature‘s testimony to her Creator. Go where one may, nature is ready to speak for God. The beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the creeping things on the ground, the fishes of the sea, all speak for the power and wisdom of their Maker. There is variety in this grand utterance of nature, yet there is unity. Many creatures, of diverse sorts, concur to bear witness to the same great truths. If we cannot understand the beasts, the birds may teach us; if the insects are an enigma, the fishes may instruct us. Though all these different voices of nature may not be sounding in our ears as once, we cannot be long out of the reach of some of them. Therefore
“In contemplation of created things
By stops we may ascend to God.”
(Milton.)
2. The greater intelligence of man. “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee”as though those dull brutes knew what man had missed discovering. So the lord of creation is sent to be a pupil of his humblest subjects. Of course, to be prosaically accurate, it must be said that the beasts do not understand the lessons they teach; that only man can know God, and that the testimony of nature is unconscious. Still, the higher faculty of man makes it a shame that he should not know what nature is teaching in so many ways all around him.
II. NATURE REVEALS GOD‘S PRESENCE.
1. By its constitution. The very variety of the creation bespeaks the mind and power of the Creator. For this variety is not confused, but orderly. There must be a sameness about the very disorder of chaos which is not seen in the cosmos. The various species of living creatures keep their several places in the scale of creation, fulfil their distinctive destinies and perform their separate functions. There is mind and purpose in the very variety of nature.
2. By its life. Nature is not a huge mosaic. If its variegated picture were motionless and changeless, we could not but admire the infinite skill with which it had been put together. The exhibition of stuffed specimens of dead animals in a natural history museum gives us abundant proof of the skill of the Creator. But the fields show us what no museum can reveal. In the great world of nature all is life and movement. Thus we have not the relics of an ancient Divine activity of God, like fossils of extinct animals, but the creatures in the very flush of life. And this life must be constantly maintained. Then by its very continuance it proclaims the presence of God. He is in nature, energizing in it every moment. In his hand is the soul of every living creature.
3. By its human connections. Man shares in the common life of nature. The hand that holds the soul of every living thing holds the breath of all mankind. “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Act 17:28). Therefore we have not only to lock around us on the animal creation. If we do but consider our own existence, we have daily evidence of the presence of God. The testimony of creation is designed to remind us of our own dependence on God. It is especially a good corrective of the subjective notions of a visionary. Job answers Eliphaz and his awful vision most aptly by appealing to the great living voice of nature.W.F.A.
Job 12:11
Discrimination.
Job seems to mean that, as the mouth detects differences of taste, so the ear discerns distinctions of words. We do not eat all that we taste. We can reject the nauseous and select the palatable. In the same way we do not accept and believe all that we hear. We can discriminate between the sayings that come to us. Bildad in particular has been attempting to settle the question of providence by appealing to the traditions of antiquity. Job shows that he can make the same appeal to another series of proverbs, and the result will be very different. Tradition is not unanimous. It is not reasonable, therefore, to take all that comes to hand from it as infallible truth. We must examine and test it, selecting what is wise, rejecting what is erroneous.
I. DISCRIMINATION IS NEEDED. Note why.
1. Many voices claim a hearing. We are not left to a monotone of advice. A very Babel of tongues assails us. We are besieged on all sides by claimants for our belief. We live under a perfect rain of rival notions. Every theory pretends to be absolute truth; yet each novel theory gives the lie to its predecessor. In religion this is very painfully apparent. Not only do the great historic religions of the world compete for supremacy, but Christianity itself speaks to us in many voices. What are we to believe amid the conflict of the sects and parties, some urging to extreme sacerdotalism, others to evangelicalism; some contending for the ancient creeds, others favouring new lights? We must use discrimination, for it is childish folly to give our assent to the first voice that chances to attract our attention.
2. It is important to accept the purest truth. Truth is the food of the soul. We dare not play with its ideas in dilettante indifference. To be deluded is to be ensnared. We suffer by feeding on error. As we must distinguish between wholesome and unwholesome diet if we would be in bodily health, so we must distinguish between truth and error if we would be in spiritual health. There are even deadly poisons which look beautiful They must be detected and rejected if our souls are not to be killed.
II. DISCRIMINATION IS POSSIBLE.
1. We have a natural faculty of judgment. Job claimed to possess this, and he compared it with the natural discriminating ability of the palate. Our minds were made by God for use. If we weakly and indolently fail to employ them, and so become the slaves of any unscrupulous deceiver, we have only ourselves to blame for our ruinous error. While we have to walk by faith, we need first to use our reason in order to be assured of a good ground of faith. To deny the possibility of doing so is to play into the hands of the ultramontane Roman Catholics.
2. Our judgment can be enlightened by the Holy Spirit. We must be aware that we often err. The palate is not an infallible guide, for what is pleasant to the taste may be most unwholesome. There are sweet poisons. How shall we be able to avoid attractive errors? This question is most important, because our taste has been depraved; a vicious appetite has perverted the natural faculty of discrimination. But Christ has provided for the difficulty by promising the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth (Joh 16:13). Let us but be sure we are humbly depending on the Spirit of God, and we cannot err fatallyW.F.A.
Job 12:13-25
The wisdom and might of God.
Job meets his friend’s authoritative utterances of proverbs and worldly maxims by a citation of similar sayings, but with a different import. It is not true that the righteous always prosper, and that the wicked always suffer. Such a primitive notion implies too anthropocentric a conception of the universe; it goes on the assumption that all things are done just to suit our condition and conduct. Now, Job takes a higher and wider view. He appeals to sayings that speak of the supreme wisdom and irresistible might of God, altogether irrespective of man and his concerns.
I. GOD‘S WISDOM AND MIGHT ARE OVER ALL. We cannot fathom his thought; we cannot resist his arm. He will do what he thinks best whether we concur or not. The universe is under an irresistible Ruler. It is possible for us to question what God does, but we cannot answer him. We may rebel against his authority, but we cannot overthrow it. Therefore we should escape from our petty parochialism, and consider God’s large world and universal rule, before we attempt to form any theory of life.
II. GOD‘S SUPREME WISDOM AND MIGHT CONCERN OTHER INTERESTS THAN THOSE OF MAN. Our narrow views of God’s government lead to false opinions about his action. We are tempted to fancy that all he does is solely with a view to its effect on ourselves. Thus we colour the universe with our egotism. But the Lord of all must have vast interests to consider of which we know nothing. What looks foolish to us because we cannot see the end in viewan end often quite outside ourselves, would appear in a very different light if we knew all God’s far-reaching designs.
III. GOD‘S WISDOM AND MIGHT ARE BOTH IN HARMONY WITH HIS GOODNESS. This is not so apparent in Job’s representation of the Divine action as it must be to a Christian. The patriarch has fallen into the error of a one-sided view in combatting the narrow and erroneous opinion of his friends, and he has come to represent God too much as the irresponsible Oriental autocrat, whose only law is his will, but whose will may follow mere caprice, and may be free from all considerations of justice. Job would not say as much of God, but his description leans in this direction. Now, we know that the most supreme thing in God is not his might, nor is it his wisdom; it is his love (1Jn 4:8, 1Jn 4:9). Therefore, although we cannot understand his large purpose, that must be a good one. We see God in his irresistible might casting down kings and princes, leading clever people into scenes of bewilderment, apparently playing with all sorts of men as mere pawns. But this is only because we are short-sighted. The large purposes which include other worlds than ours do not exclude our world. God does not brush man aside as a nonentity when he goes forth to achieve his vast designs. One of God’s greatest purposes is the redemption of man by the gift of his own Son (Joh 3:16).W.F.A.
Job 12:22
Deep things out of darkness.
I. HOW GOD DISCOVERS DEEP THINGS OUT OF DARKNESS. He has means of knowledge which are sealed to us, a key which unlocks the most secret chamber, an eye that can see down to the most hidden depths. He sees the skeleton in the cupboard. The mask of the hypocrite can never deceive him.
1. God sees inwardly. Man looks on the outward countenance, God on the heart (1Sa 16:7). His indwelling Spirit sees as far as it influences, and it influences the inmost springs of our being.
2. God sees immediately. This results from his inward vision. We have to infer and draw conclusions by means of a chain of reasoning. God can dispense with this process. He sees everything; his knowledge is direct and intuitive.
3. God sees everywhere. Our vision is limited to a certain area. Even when we stand on the top of a mountain and endeavour to take in a great panorama of scenery, we can only look attentively at one part of the prospect at a time. But God’s infinite gaze takes in all the facts of the universe at once.
II. WHAT DEEP THINGS GOD BRINGS TO LIGHT.
1. He discovers hidden sin. The nefarious design of the unscrupulous statesman concocted within the locked doors of the council-chamber, the dark plot of the little band of desperate conspirators, the ugly scheme of the robber horde, the fell purpose of the betrayer, are all quite known to God from the moment when the first black thoughts entered the minds of their originators. The sin which has once been committed is all known to God, though it may have been hushed up and kept from the observation of men. In the great day of judgment God will bring it to light.
2. He discovers hidden goodness. All that God brings out of its secret hiding-place is not evil. There are hidden treasures. Miners bring up precious minerals from the dark interior of the earth. The voyage of the Challenger was a means of bringing to light many wonderful works of God from the dim depths of the sea. God observes all hidden worth.
“The violet born to blush unseen”
is perfectly well known to him. He also understands the innocence that is cruelly misjudged and condemned as guilt by men. Some day he will bring that to light, and vindicate the cause of every true martyr.
III. THE CONSEQUENCES THAT RESULT FROM GOD‘S DISCOVERY OF THE DEEP THINGS OF DARKNESS: He will rectify all wrong. He will give righteous judgments. The dark creatures of sin that are brought to light cannot be left out in the full blaze of the sun to befool the day with their obscenity. As we stamp on the unclean things that creep out of dark places when they are suddenly disturbed and crush them, so God must destroy the wicked when their evil is brought to light. The revelation can only be preliminary to the condemnation. Meanwhile the delusion which leads men to harbour their sin is fatal. Whatever excuse covers it is a lie.
“For love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen.”
On the other hand, the ultimate vindication of the right is a grand encouragement to “patient perseverance in well-doing.”W.F.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. XII.
Job reproves the boasting of his friends: he shews that in this life it is frequently well even with those men who offend the Lord; yet allows that nobody could deny their general doctrine, that all things were governed by an Almighty God.
Before Christ 1645.
Job 12:1. And Job answered In this and the two following chapters Job replies to Zophar. Greatly vexed that his friends should entertain so firm an opinion of his being a wicked man; that they should press him so hard with their maxim, “That affliction was a demonstration of guilt,” and should make a mock of his appeal to God, he can no longer refrain from being very sharp in his treatment of them. He taxes them with self-conceit; their maxims he treats as mean and poor, the contrary of which was evident to all observing persons; good men were frequently in distress, while robbers and public plunderers enjoyed their ill-gotten wealth in perfect security; Job 12:2-6. This was so notorious, that it was impossible it could have escaped their observation; Job 12:7 to the end. This was, indeed, the work of Jehovah, who was all-wise and all-powerful, and no one could call him to account. All this he was as sensible of as they could be, for which reason he was the more desirous to argue the point with God; Job 13:1-10. And as for them, if they would pretend to be judges, they should take great care to be upright ones; since God would by no means excuse corruption of judgment, though it should be in his own behalf; and his all-seeing eye would penetrate their motives, though ever so closely concealed from human view; and in his sight, all their maxims of wisdom, on which they seemed so much to value themselves, would be regarded as dross and dung. He was not, he intimated, in the least apprehensive of bringing his cause to an issue; because he was satisfied that the Almighty, far from oppressing him by dint of power, would rather afford him strength to go through his defence; and he was persuaded that the issue would be favourable to him; Job 12:11-19. He, therefore, challenges any one among them to declare himself the accuser; secure enough as to that point, as he well knew they could not make good their charge: and as, in case of false accusation, the accuser was to undergo the punishment due to the accused if guilty, he knew they would run no such hazards, unless they knew themselves able to prove their charge. He, therefore, again ends with a tender expostulation with the Almighty, begging that he might, before his death, have an opportunity of publicly vindicating his integrity; since afterwards he could have no hope of doing it; Job 12:20 to the end of chap. 14: Heath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
B.Jobs Reply: Attack upon his friends, whose wisdom and justice he earnestly questions:
Job 12-14
1. Ridicule of the assumed wisdom of the friends, who can give only a very unsatisfactory de scription of the exalted power and wisdom of the Divine activity:
Job 12
1And Job answered and said,
2No doubt but ye are the people,
and wisdom shall die with you.
3But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you;
yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
4I am as one mocked of his neighbor,
who calleth upon God, and He answereth him;
the just, upright man is laughed to scorn!
5He that is ready to slip with his feet
is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
6The tabernacle of robbers prosper,
and they that provoke God are secure;
into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
7But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee,
and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
8 or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee,
and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
9Who knoweth not in all these
that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
10In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
and the breath of all mankind.
11Doth not the ear try words,
and the mouth taste his meat?
12With the ancient is wisdom;
and in length of days understanding.
13With Him is wisdom and strength,
He hath counsel and understanding.
14Behold He breaketh down, and it cannot be built again;
He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
15Behold, He withholdeth the waters, and they dry up;
also He sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth,
16With Him is strength and wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are His.
17He leadeth counsellors away spoiled,
and maketh the judges fools.
18He looseth the bond of kings,
and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
19 He leadeth princes away spoiled,
and overthroweth the mighty.
20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty,
and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
21He poureth contempt upon princes,
and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.
22He discovereth deep things out of darkness,
and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
23He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them;
He enlargeth the nations, and straighteneth them again.
24He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth,
and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
25They grope in the dark without light,
and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
2. The resolution to betake himself to God, who, in contrast with the harshness and injustice of the friends will assuredly do him justice:
Job 13:1-22
1Lo, mine eye hath seen all this,
mine ear hath heard and understood it.
2What ye know, the same do I know also;
I am not inferior unto you.
3Surely I would speak to the Almighty,
and I desire to reason with God.
4But ye are forgers of lies,
ye are all physicians of no value.
5O that ye would altogether hold your peace,
and it should be your wisdom.
6Hear now my reasoning,
and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
7Will ye speak wickedly for God,
and talk deceitfully for Him?
8Will ye accept His person?
will ye contend for God?
9Is it good that He should search you out?
or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock Him?
10He will surely reprove you,
if ye do secretly accept persons.
11Shall not His excellency make you afraid?
and His dread fall upon you?
12Your remembrances are like unto ashes,
your bodies to bodies of clay.
13Hold your peace, let me alone that I may speak,
and let come on me what will.
14Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth,
and put my life in mine hand?
15Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him:
but I will maintain mine own ways before Him.
16He also shall be my salvation:
for a hypocrite shall not come before Him.
17Hear diligently my speech,
and my declaration with your ears.
18Behold now, I have ordered my cause;
I know that I shall be justified.
19Who is he that will plead with me?
for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.
20Only do not two things unto me;
then will I not hide myself from Thee.
21Withdraw Thine hand far from me;
and let not Thy dread make me afraid.
22Then call Thou, and I will answer:
or let me speak, and answer Thou me!
3. A vindication of himself, addressed to God, beginning with the haughty asseveration of his own innocence, but relapsing into a despondent cheerless description of the brevity, helplessness, and hopelessness of mans life:
Job 13:23 to Job 14:22
23How many are mine iniquities and sins?
make me to know my transgression and my sin.
24Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face,
and holdest me for Thine enemy?
25Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?
and wilt Thou pursue the dry stubble?
26For Thou writest bitter things against me,
and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
27Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks,
and lookest narrowly unto all my paths;
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth,
as a garment that is moth-eaten.
Job 14
1Man that is born of a woman,
is of few days, and full of trouble.
2He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down;
he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
3And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such an one,
and bringest me into judgment with Thee?
4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
not one!
5Seeing his days are determined,
the number of his months are with Thee,
Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
6turn from him that he may rest,
till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.
7For there is hope of a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
8Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,
and the stock thereof die in the ground;
9yet through the scent of water it will bud,
and bring forth boughs like a plant.
10But man dieth, and wasteth away!
yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
11As the waters fail from the sea,
and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
12so man lieth down and riseth not:
till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,
nor be raised out of their sleep.
13O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave,
that thou wouldest keep me secret until Thy wrath be past,
that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14If a man die, shall he live again?
all the days of my appointed time will I wait,
till my change come.
15Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee;
Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands.
16For now Thou numberest my steps;
dost Thou not watch over my sin?
17My transgression is sealed up in a bag,
and Thou sewest up mine iniquity.
18And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought,
and the rock is removed out of his place.
19The waters wear the stones;
Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth;
and Thou destroyest the hope of man.
20Thou prevailest forever against him, and he passeth;
Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
21His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not;
and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
22But his flesh upon him shall have pain,
and his soul within him shall mourn.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Zophar in Job 11 had specially arrayed against Job the wisdom and omniscience of God, in order to convict him partly of ignorance in Divine things, partly of his sinfulness and need of repentance. Job now meets this attack by strongly doubting the wisdom of his friends, or by representing it as being at least exceedingly ordinary and commonplace, being capable neither of worthily comprehending or describing the Divine wisdom and greatness, nor of demonstrating actual sin and guilt on his part. This demonstration of their incompetency, delivered in an ironical tone, accompanied by a description of the wisdom and strength of God far transcending that of Zophar in energy and inspired elevation of thought, forms the first part of his discourse (Job 12.) This is followed by an emphatic asseveration of his innocence, clothed in the declaration of his purpose to appeal to God, the righteous Judge, and from Him, by means of a formal trial, to which he purposes summoning Him, to obtain testimony in favor of his innocence, which shall effectually dispose of the suspicions of the friends (Job 13:1-22). As though such a trial had already been instituted, he then turns to God with a solemn assertion of his innocence, but failing to meet with a favorable declaration from God in answer to his appeal, he immediately sinks back into his former discouragement and despair, to which he gives characteristic expression in a long description of the shortness of life, the impotence and helplessness of man as opposed to the Divine omnipotence (Job 13:23 to Job 14:22). [Davidson characterizes this discourse as this last and greatest effort of Job]. Each of these three parts is subdivided into sections which are distinctly separated, Parts I. and II. into two sections each of about equal length; Part III. into five strophes of 5 to 6 verses each.
2. First Division.First Section: Sarcasm on the wisdom of Zophar, and the two other speakers, as being quite ordinary and commonplace: Job 12:2-12.
First Strophe: Job 12:2-6. [Sarcasm on the friends (Job 12:2) changing into angry invective (Job 12:3), then into bitter complaint of his own lot (Job 12:4), of the way of the world (Job 12:5), and of the security of the wicked (Job 12:6)].
Job 12:2. Of a truth ye are the people. , with the logical accent on the first word, signifies not: ye are people, the right sort of people, but: ye are the people, the totality of all people, the race of men; , therefore as in Isa 40:7; Isa 42:5. The Cod. Alex. of the LXX. expresses correctly the sense; . As to , comp. the simple , Job 9:2.
Job 12:3. I also have a heart as well as you, i.e., I lack understanding no more than you. therefore as above in Job 8:10; Job 9:4; comp. Job 11:12 [he also has a heart like them, he is therefore not empty, , Del.], and as below in Job 12:24.I do not stand behind you: lit., I do not sink down beneath you, or: I do not fall away before you; the in relates to the stand-point of the friends, from which Job might seem to be a , one falling below them, meaner than themselves. [Ewald takes in the comparative sense, which however would give an unsuitable rendering, to fall more than another].And to whom are such things not known? Lit., and with whom is not the like of these things? viz., the like of your knowledge of Divine things. , lit. with, is used here in the sense of an inward indwelling, as also in Job 14:5 b, and as elsewhere is used: Job 9:35; Job 10:13, etc.
Job 12:4. A mockery (, lit., a laughing, laughter, Inf. subst., like , Job 17:6) to my own friend must I be.[Lit., a mockery to his neighbor, etc.]. Instead of one might expect to find ; an exchange of persons, however, takes place, that the expression may be made as general as possible: one who is a mockery to his own friend must I be. Comp. similar examples of the exchange of persons in Psa 91:1 seq.; Isa 2:8. [Must I become, best as exclamation, expressing Jobs sense of indignity: (1) At such treatment from friends; (2) such treatment to such as he, (Dav.) see remainder of verse].I who called to Eloah and found a hearing: lit., one calling [still in 3d person] to Eloah, and He heard him, in apposition to the subjectIin : which is the case also with , one who is just, godly (pure, blameless), comp. Pro 11:5 a, these words being placed with emphasis at the end of the whole exclamation. [Zcklers rendering of this clause being: a mockery (am I);the just, the godly man! Noyes and Wemyss render the second member: I who call upon God that He would answer me (or to listen to me). Noyes objects to the other rendering the use of the present participle. This form, however, is used to denote a continuous fact in Jobs life, and a permanent quality grounded thereon, the Vav. consec. then indicating the Divine result consequent on Jobs conduct and character.E.].
Job 12:5. For misfortune scornaccording to the opinion of the prosperous: i.e., the prosperous (lit. the secure, who lives free from care, comp. Isa 33:20) thinks, that contempt is due to the unfortunate. [It is the ordinary way of the great multitude to over-whelm the unfortunate with contempt, and to give to the tottering still another push. Dillm.] thus = contemptus, as in Job 12:21, and Job 31:34; = destruction, ruin, misfortune, as in Job 30:24; Job 31:29; Pro 24:22; and (plur. fem. st. constr. from ), or, after a form which is better authorized, , signifies an opinion, fancy, thought (from , to fashion, used of the minds fashioning its thoughts). This is the interpretation adopted by most of the moderns, since the time of Aben Ezra. The rendering of the Targ., Vulg., [E. V.], Levi b. Gerson, and other Rabbis, preferred also by Luther, De Wette, Rosenm. [Noyes, Carey, Rod.], etc., which takes in the sense of a torch, yields no tolerable sense, at least no such sense as suits the second member (a torch of contempt [Luther: a despised taper] in the opinion of the prosperous is he who is ready to totter, or to whom it is appointed that his feet slip, etc.) [Against this rendering, found in E. V., may be urged (1) The expression a despised torch is meaningless. As Con. suggests a consumed or expiring torch would be pertinent, but a torch despised is like anything else that is despised. (2) is superfluous and insipid. Why ready to waver? (3) This rendering presupposes a noun , with the meaning vacillatio, wavering, lit. ready for waverings, for which however there is no authority, and which would require here rather the vowel pointing: .(4) It destroys the rhythm of the verse. See Con., Dillm., Dav. and Delitzsch. E.]. The rendering of Hitzig (Geschichte des Volkes Israel I., 112) is peculiar; he takes to mean: a soothing bandage, a cure (from the root , to wind, or bind around, here the sing. corresponding to the plur. found in Jdg 4:4, which is not a proper name [Lapidoth], but taken in connection with the preceding signifies: a mistress of healing bandages), so that the sense would then be: Healing is a scorn [is scorned] in the opinion of the prosperous (?).Ready (is it, the contempt) for those whose foot wavers., Part. Niph. from , hence , ready, as in Exo 34:2. Comp. below Job 15:23, where may also be found the wavering of the foot as a figurative expression of falling into misfortune; Psa 38:17 (16) Ewald (Bibl. Jahrb. IX. p. 38) would instead of read , a stroke, and Schultens and Dillmann would assign this same meaning of plaga, percussio to this same form (from ,): a stroke, is due to those whose foot wavers. As if a new parallelism of thought must of necessity be found between a and b!
Job 12:6. Secure are the tents of the spoilers, lit. to the spoilers; i.e., to powerful tyrants, savage conquerors, and the like. On tents comp. Job 5:24; Job 11:14. is the aramaizing third plur. form of a verb which has for its perf. (see Job 3:26), but which derives its imperf. forms from . Moreover is not merely a pausal form, but stands here removed from the place of the tone: comp. the similar pathetic verbal forms in Psa 36:9; Psa 57:2; Psa 73:2; also Ewald, 194, a.And security, plur. et abstr. from (secure, free from care), have they who defy God [ denotes the sin of these undeservedly prosperous ones against men, (lit. those who provoke God, who insolently assail Him) their wickedness against God. Schlott.] they who carry Eloah in their hand: lit., he who carries, (….. ); from among those who rage against God and defy Him, one is selected as an example, such an one, viz., as bears God in his hand, i.e., recognizes no other God than the one he carries in his hand or fist, to whom therefore his fighting weapon is to be his God; comp. Hab 1:11; Hab 1:16; also the dextra mihi Deus of Virg. Aen. 16, 773. [Delitzsch renders a little more precisely perhaps: he who causes Eloah to enter into his hand; from which translation it is clear that not the deification of the hand, but of that which is taken into the hand is meant. That which is taken into the hand is not, however, an idol (Abenezra), but the sword; therefore he who thinks after the manner of Lamech, as he takes the iron weapon of attack and defense into his hand, that he needs no other God. The deification of the weapon which a man wields with the power of his own right hand, and the deification of the power which wields the weapon, as in Hab. l. c. and Mic 2:1, are, however, so nearly identical as descriptive of the character here referred to, that either resolves itself into the other. Conant, who adopts the rendering of E. V.: he into whose hand God bringeth (E. V. adds abundantly) i.e. whom God prospers, objects that by the other rendering the thought is expressed very coarsely, as to form, when it might be done in the Hebrew with great felicity. It is difficult to see, however, how the sentence: he who takes God in his hand could be expressed more idiomatically or forcibly than in the words of the passage before us. Wordsworth somewhat differently: who grasps God in his hand. The wicked, in his impious presumption, imagines that he can take God prisoner and lead Him as a captive by his power. But this is less natural than the above.E.]
Second Strophe: Job 12:7-12. [Return to the thought of Job 12:3the shallowness of the friends wisdom on the Divine. Such knowledge and deeper every one possessed who had eyes and ears. For (1) every creature in earth and sea and air proclaimed it (710); and (2) every man of thought and age uttered it in the general ear (11, 12). Dav.]
Job 12:7. But ask now even the beaststhey can teach thee.[, recovery from the crushing thought of Job 12:4-6, and strong antithesis to the assumption of the friends. Dav.] , as also in the second member, voluntative [or, jussive], hence not literally futurethey will teach it to theeas commonly rendered. Here the form of address is different from that adopted heretofore in this discourse, being now directed to one only of the friends, viz. to Zophar, to whose eulogy of the absolute wisdom of God (Job 11:7-9) reference is here made, with the accompanying purpose of presenting a still more copious and elaborate description of the same.
Job 12:8. Or think thoughtfully on the earth: lit. think on the earth, i.e. direct thoughtfully thy observation to the earth (which comes under consideration here, as is evident from what follows, as the place where the lower order of animals is found, the , Gen 9:2; 1Ki 5:13), and acquire the instruction which may be derived from her. The rendering of as a substantive, in the sense of shrub (comp. Job 30:4; Gen 2:5), is on several grounds untenable; for , shrub is, according to those passages, masculine; the use of the preposition instead of the genit., or instead of or before , would be singular; and the mention of plants in the midst of the animals (beasts, birds, fishes), would be out of place (against Berleb. Bib., Bttcher, Umbreit, etc.).
Job 12:9. Who would not know in all this, etc.So is to be rendered, giving to the instrumental sense, not with Hahnwho knows not concerning all this, which would yield too flat a sense, and lead us to over look the retrospective reference which is to be looked for to the various kinds of animals already cited. Neither with Ewald [Hengst., Noyes] is it to be taken in the sense of among all these, as if the passage contained a reference to a knowledge possessed by all the creatures of God as their Creator, or possibly to the groaning of the creature after the Godhead, as described in Rom 8:18 sq. This partitive rendering of (which Renan as well as Ewald adopts: qui ne sat parmi tous ces tres, etc.) is at variance with the context, as well as the position of the words ( before ).That the hand of Jehovah hath made this. refers essentially to the same object with , only that it embraces a still wider circle of contemplation than the latter expression, which refers only to the classes of animals afore-mentioned. It denotes the totality of that which surrounds us, the visible universe, the whole world ( , Heb 11:3); comp. Isa 66:2; Jer 14:22; where is used in this comprehensive signification; so also above in Job 11:8 seq., to which description of the all-embracing greatness of God there is here a manifest reference. Ewald, Dillmann [Conant, Davidson] translate: that the hand of Jehovah hath done this. By , this, Ewald understands the decreeing of suffering and pain (of which also the groaning creation would testify); Dillmann refers it to the mighty and wise administration of God among His creatures; both of which explanations are manifestly more remote than the one given above. [The meaning of the whole strophe is perverted if is, with Ewald, referred to the destiny of severe suffering and pain. Since as a glance at what follows shows, Job further on praises God as the governor of the universe, it may be expected that the reference is here to God as the creator and preserver of the world. Bildad had appealed to the sayings of the ancients, which have the long experience of the past in their favor, to support the justice of the Divine government; Job here appeals to the absoluteness of the Divine rule over creation. Delitzsch.]Apart from the Prologue (Job 1:21), the name occurs only here in the mouth of Job, for the reason doubtless that the whole expression here used, which recurs again word for word in Isa 41:20 (Isa 66:2) was one that was everywhere much used, not unfrequently also among the extra-Israelitish monotheists (and the same is true of the expression , Job 28:28).
Job 12:10. In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all the bodies of men.[Evidently these words are more naturally referred to the act of preservation than to that of creation. Schlottm.] Observe the distinction between , the lower principle of life, which fills all animals, and , the godlike personal spirit of man. Otherwise in Ecc 3:19; Ecc 3:21, where , in a wider sense, is ascribed even to the beasts.
Job 12:11-12. To the knowledge of God which rests on the observation of the external cosmos (notitia Dei naturalis externa s. acquisita), is here added the human wisdom and insight which springs from experience, especially that of the aged, as a second source from which Job might draw (which may be regarded as the equivalent of that which is sometimes called notitia Dei naturalis interna).
Job 12:11. Does not the ear prove sayings, even as [adquationis, as in Job 5:7] the palate tastes food for itself (Dat. commodi). Both comparisons illustrate the power of judicious discrimination possessed by the human spirit, by which it discerns the inner worth of things, especially as it exists in aged persons of large experience. So again later in Elihus discourse, Job 34:3. The opinion of Umbreit, Delitzsch, etc., that Job in this verse utters an admonition not to receive without proof the sayings of the ancients, to wit, those of which Bildad had previously spoken, Job 8:10 (should not the ear prove the sayings?), lacks proper support. A reference to that remote passage in the discourse of Bildad should have been more clearly indicated than by the accidental circumstance that there as here the word , sayings, utterances, is used. Moreover the aged who are here mentioned (, as in Job 15:10; Job 29:8) are by no means identical with the fathers of former generations, whom Bildad had mentioned there.
Job 12:12. Among the aged is wisdom, and a long life (works, gives) understanding [or lit. length of days is understanding]. The verse is related to the preceding as logical consequent to its antecedent: As the ear determines the value of words, or the palate the taste of food, so aged men have been able to acquire for themselves in the course of a long life a true insight into the nature of things, and a truly rational knowledge of the same,and I have been to school with such men, I have also ventured to draw from this source! This is the meaning of the passage as clearly appears from the context, and it makes it unnecessary to assume: a. with Starke, etc., that Job reckons himself among the aged, and as such sets himself in the fullness of his self-consciousness against, the three friends as being younger than himself (which is distinctly refuted by what we find in Job 5:26; Job 29:8; Job 29:18; Job 15:10); b. with Ewald, to conjecture the loss of a passage after Job 12:12, which would furnish the transition from that verse to Job 12:23; c. with Dillmann, that originally Job 12:12 stood before Job 12:9-10, thus immediately following Job 12:8; d. with Delitzsch, Hengstenberg. etc., that Job 12:23 is to be connected closely and immediately with Job 12:12, so that thus the following order of thought would be expressed: assuredly wisdom is to be found among the aged, but in reality and in full measure it is to be found only with God, etc. [i.e. with Conant, that the verse is to be rendered interrogatively, on the ground that Job would not appeal to tradition in support of his positions; to which Davidson replies that Job assails tradition only where he has found it false; and here, where he is exposing the vulgarity of the friends much-boasted insight, it is quite in place to refer to the facility any one had for coming in contact with such information; and in Job 13:2, where Job recapitulates Job 12:13-25, these two sources of information, sight and hearsay are directly alluded to.Besides Delitzsch and Hengstenberg, Schlottmann and Merx connect the verse with the preceding. On the contrary Con., Dav., Dillm., Ren., Good, Wemyss, etc., connect it with the following, and correctly so on account of the strict connection in thought, and especially the resumption of the thought in varying language in Job 12:16.In answer to the objection of abruptness in the transition if Job 12:13 be detached from the preceding, Davidson says well that it is quite in place; the whole chapter and speech is abrupt and passionate.E.].
First Division: Second Section: An animated description of the exercise of Gods wisdom and power, by way of actual proof that he is by no means wanting in the knowledge of God, which Zophar had denied to him: Job 12:13-25. [It is possible perhaps to exaggerate this idea that Job in the passage following is consciously emulating his opponents. Something there is of this no doubt, but it must not be forgotten that the description here given of the Divine wisdom and omnipotence is an important part of Jobs argument, as tending to show that these attributes so far from being employed by the ends which they had described, are exercised to produce hopeless confusion and ruin in human affairs.E.].
First double strophe: Job 12:13-18 (consisting of two strophes of 3 verses each).
a. Job 12:13-15. [The theme in its most general statement].
Job 12:13. With Him are wisdom and might, His are counsel and discernment.The suffixes in and point back to Jehovah, Job 12:9-10, to whom the whole following description to Job 12:25 in general relates. [With Him, , him, doubly, emphatic (a) in opposition to the just mentioned wisdom of men, Job 12:12; (b) with awe-ful omission of Divine name, and significant allusion and intonation in the pronoun. Dav.]. The verse before us forms as it were the theme of this description, which presents Jobs own personal confession of faith in respect to the nature and wisdom of God. It is therefore neither an expression of the doctrinal views of a hoary antiquity, or of the aged sages of Job 12:12 (Umbreit) [Ewald, Schlottm.], nor a statement of that which is alone to be esteemed as genuine Divine wisdom, in antithesis to the more imperfect wisdom of the aged (Delitzsch, Hengstenberg). There is to be sure a certain progression of thought from Job 12:11 on: the adaptation to their uses of the organs of hearing and of taste, the wisdom of men of age and experience, and the wisdom of God, transcending all else, and united with the highest power, are related to each other as positive, comparative, and superlative. But there is not the slightest intimation of the thought that the absolute wisdom of God casts into the shade those rudiments of itself which are to be found in the sphere of the creature, or would hold them up as utterly worthless. Rather is what is said of the same in our verse in some measure the fruit, or a specimen of the wisdom of the aged, which Job also claims to possess, as a pupil of such aged men. Comp. below Cocceius, in the Homiletical Remarks on Job 12:10-13. Of the four designations of the absolute Divine intelligence here given, which accord with the language of Isa 11:2, and the accumulation of which intensifies the expression to the utmost, denotes that side of Gods intelligence which perceives things in the ground of their being, and in the reality of their existence [the general word and idea comprehensive of all others, Dav.]. that which is able to carry out the plans, purposes, and decisions of this universal wisdom against all hindrance and opposition [virtus, , vir. Dav.]; , that which is never perplexed as to the best way of reaching its purpose; , that which can penetrate to the bottom of what is true and false, sound and corrupt, and distinguish between them: Delitzsch; [ actively force, passively strength, firmness: Dav.].
Job 12:14. Lo, He tears down, and it is not built up (again). This is the first example of the irresistible exercise of this absolute might and wisdom of God. Job describes it as directed above all else to the work of tearing down and destroying, because in his recent mournful experiences he had been led to know it on this side of its activity; comp. Job 9:5 seq., where in like manner the mention of the destructive activities of the Divine omnipotence precedes that of its creative and constructive operation. Whether there is a reference to Zophars expression (Job 11:10; so Dillmann) is doubtful. He shuts up a man (lit. He shuts over a man), and it cannot be opened. The expression , to shut over any one, is to be explained from the fact that use was frequently made of pits, perhaps of cisterns, as prisons, or dungeons: comp. Gen 37:24; Jer 38:6; Lam 3:53. Where this species of incarceration is not intended, is used either with the accus. or with (comp. Job 3:10; and 1Sa 1:6).
Job 12:15. Lo, He restrains the waters, and they dry up (Is. 50:38); He letteth them forth (again), and they overturn the earth. A remarkable parallel in thought to this description of the operation of the Divine omnipotence in the visible creation, now withdrawing and now giving life, but ever mighty in its agency, may be found in Psa 104:29-30. A reference to Zophars comparison of past calamity with vanished waters (Job 11:16) is scarcely to be recognized.
b. Job 12:16-18. [Resumption of the themespecially of the Divine wisdom bringing confusion and humiliation on earths mightiest].
Job 12:16. With Him are strength and true knowledge (, precisely as in Job 11:6). His are the deceived and the deceiver [the erring one, and the one who causes to err]: i.e., His intelligence is so far superior to that of man that alike he who abuses his wisdom in leading others astray, and he who uses it for their good, are in His hand, and constrained to serve His purposes. He thus makes evil, moral and intellectual, subservient to the good: Gen 50:20; Psa 18:27. [ and here are to be understood not so much in the ethical as in the intellectual sense: if a man thinks himself wise because he is superior to another, and can lead him astray, in comparison with Gods wisdom the deceiver is not greater (in understanding) than the deceived; He has them both in his hand, etc. Dillm.]
Job 12:17. He leads counsellors away stripped: or who leads counsellors, etc.for from this point on to the end of the description (Job 12:24) Job speaking of God uses the present participle. The circumstantial accus. , which here and in Job 12:19 is used in connection with , (and that in the singular, like , Job 24:7; Job 24:10), is rendered by the ancient versions captive, or chained (LXX., Targ. on Job 12:19 : ; Targ. on Job 12:17 : catenis vinctos), whereas etymologically the signification made naked (exutus), violently stripped is the only one that is authenticated. The word therefore is equivalent to the expression naked and barefoot, Isa 20:4, not to barefoot alone, as Oehler, Hitzig, Dillmann, etc., suppose from comparison with the LXX. in Mic 1:8. Naturally we are to understand the description here to be of counsellors led away stripped as captives taken in war: comp. Is. l. c. and 2Ch 28:15, as also what pertains to , counsellors in Job 3:14.And judges He makes fools. , as in Isa 44:25, to infatuate, to show to be fools. Such an infatuation of judges as would cause the military and political ruin of their country to proceed directly from them (as in the breaking out of great catastrophes over certain kingdoms, e.g. over Egypt, Isa 19:17 seq.; over Israel and Judah, 2Ki 19:26; etc.), is not necessarily to be assumed here (comp. Job 5:20), although catastrophes of that character are here especially prominent in the thought of the speaker.
Job 12:18. He looses the bond of kings; i.e., He looses the bond, or the fetters, with which kings bind their subjects, He breaks the tyrannical yoke of kings, and brings them rather into bondage and captivity, or as the second member expresses this thought more in the concrete: He binds a girdle on their loins. It seems that lit. girdle, in this second member should accord with in the first. So much the more should the latter be pointed , and be construed as stat. constr. Comp. (= , from , to bind). Of less authority, etymologically, is the interpretation required by the Masoretic punctuation regarded as st. constr. of , discipline, castigatio, although it gives a sense quite nearly related to the preceding, it being presupposed that discipline is to be understood in the sense of rule, authority (so among the moderns, Rosenm., Arnh., Vaih., Hahn, Delitzsch [Ges., Carey], etc.). But discipline is a different conception from authority, and can very well take for its object , fetters, Job 39:5; Psa 116:16, but not castigationem. So Dillmann correctly, who also however rightly rejects the interpretation of Ewald, Hirzel, Heiligst., Welte, etc., according to which denotes the fetters, with which kings are bound, so that the relation between a and b would be not that of a logical progression, but of direct antithesis, as in Job 12:15. [Hengstenberg calls attention to the paronomasia of , and ].
Second Double Strophe: Job 12:19-25 (divided into one strophe of three, and one of four verses): [The description continued: the agency of the Divine wisdom in confounding the great of earth].
a. Job 12:19-21. [Special classes of leaders brought to shame described].
Job 12:19. He leads priests away spoiled (see on Job 12:17), and those firmly established He overthrows. [ priests, not princes (E. V.) In many of the States of antiquity the priests were personages no less important, were indeed even more important and honored than the secular authorities. Dillm. The juxtaposition of priests and kings here points to the ancient form of priestly rule, as we encounter the same in the person of Jethro and in part also in Melchizedek. Schlott.].All objects are called , firmly-enduring [perpetual], which survive the changes of time. Hence the term is applied, e.g., to water which does not become dry (aqu perennes), or firmly founded rocks (Jer 49:19; Jer 50:44), or mighty, invincible nations (Jer 5:15), or, as here, distinguished and influential persons (Vulg., optimates). [, slip, in Piel, overthrow, aptly antithetic [to . Dav.].
Job 12:20. He takes away the speech of the most eloquent: lit. of the trusted, of those who have been tried as a peoples orators and counsellors; for they are the (from , to make firm, trustworthy, not from , to speak, as D. Kimchi thinks, who would explain the word diserti, as though it were punctuated ). On b comp. Hos 4:11; and as regards , taste, judgment, tact, see 1Sa 25:33.
Job 12:21. He pours contempt on nobles (exactly the same expression as in Psa 107:40), and looses the girdle of the strong, ( lit. containing of great capacity [Delitzsch: to hold together, especially to concentrate strength on anything] only here and Job 41:7; i.e., He disables them for the contest (by causing the under-garments to hang down loosely, thus proving a hindrance for conflict; comp. Isa 5:27; also below Job 38:3; Job 40:7). The translation of Delitzsch is altogether too forced, and by consequence insipid: He pours contempt on the rulers of the state, and makes loose the belt of the mighty.
b. Job 12:22-25. [The Divine energy as especially operative among nations].
Job 12:22. [This verse must naturally form the prelude to the deeper exercise of power and insight among nations, and its highest generalization, comp. 16b. Dav.].He discovereth deep things out of the darkness, and brings forth to light the shadow of death;i.e., not: He puts into execution His hidden purposes in the destiny of nations (Schlottm.), [for who would call the hidden ground of all appearances in God, ! Dilllm.], but: He brings forth into the light all the dark plans and wickedness of men which are hidden in darkness; comp. 1Co 4:5 : ( . . ., and the proverb: There is nothing spun so fine but all comes to the light; see also Job 24:13 seq.; Isa 29:15; Rom 13:12; 1Th 5:5, etc. [Deep things out of the darkness, , must mean hidden tendencies and principles, e.g., those running under national life, Job 12:23, naturally more subtle and multiplex than those governing individual manifestation on however elevated a scale) and darkness, and shadow of death, figures (Job 11:8) descriptive of the profoundest secresy. These secret tendencies in national life and thoughtnever suspected by men who are silently carried on by themHe detects and overmasters either to check or to fulfil. David. A truth which brings joy to the good, but terror to all the children of darkness (Job 24:13 seq.), and not without threatening significance even to the friends of Job. Dillmann].
Job 12:23. He makes nations great, anddestroys them; He spreads nations abroad andcauses them to be carried away (or: carries them away captive, comp. , synonymous with , abducere in servitutem; also 2Ki 18:11). [Rodwell: then straitens them: leads them, i.e., back into their former borders]. Instead of the LXX. () as well as some of the Rabbis read , who infatuates, makes fools. But the first member of the verse corresponds strictly in sense to the second, on which account the Masoretic reading is to be retained, and to be interpreted of increase in height, even as the parallel in b of increase in breadth, or territorial enlargement (not as though it meant a dispersion among other nations, as the Vulg. and Aben Ezra incorrectly interpret this ). [The in both members, says Schlottmann, is not used Aramaice with the accus., but as sign of the Dat. commodi.]
Job 12:24. He takes away the understanding ( as in Job 12:3) of the chief of the people of the land (, can certainly signify the people of the earth, mankind, [Hirzel], after Isa 42:5; for its use in the more limited sense of the people of a land, comp. below Job 15:19). [We have intentionally translated nations, people, for is the mass held together by the ties of a common origin, language, and country; , the people bound together by unity of government. Delitzsch].And makes them wander in a pathless waste: ( , synonymous with , or with , comp. Job 38:26; and Ewald, 286, 8). The whole verse, the second member of which recurs verbatim in Psa 107:40 presents an exact Hebrew equivalent for the Latin proverb: quem Deus perdere vult, prius dementat, a proverb on which the history of many a people and kingdom, from the earliest antiquity down to the present, furnishes an actual commentary that may well make the heart tremble. Concerning the catastrophes of historic nationalities in the most ancient times, which the poet here may not improbably have had before his mind, comp. Introd., 6, e.
Job 12:25. They grope in darkness without light and He makes them to wander like a drunken man. Comp. Isa 19:14, and especially above in Job 5:13-14, a similar description by Eliphaz, which Job here seems desirous of surpassing, in order to prove that he is in no wise inferior to Eliphaz in experimental knowledge of the righteous judgments of God, the infinitely Wise and Mighty One.
4. Second Division: First Section: Resolution to appeal to the judicial decision of God, before which the harsh, unloving disposition of the friends will assuredly not be able to maintain itself, but will be put to shame: Job 13:1-12.
First Strophe: Job 13:1-6. [Impatience with the friends, and the purpose to appeal to God].
Job 13:1. Behold, mine eye hath seen all (that), mine ear hath heard and perceived for itself. here equivalent to , all that has been here set forth, all that has been stated (from Job 12:13 on) in respect to the evidences of the Divine power and wisdom in the life of nature and men. [, dativus commodi, or perhaps only dat. ethicus: and has made it intelligible to itself (sibi); of the apprehension accompanying perception. Del.].On Job 13:2 comp. Job 12:3, the second member of which is here repeated word for word.
Job 13:3. But I will speak to the Almighty. , but nevertheless, puts that which now follows in emphatic antithesis to the preceding: notwithstanding that I know all this, I will still, etc. [Three feelings lie at the back of this antithesis: (1) The folly of longer speaking to the friends. (2) The irrelevancy of all such knowledge as they paraded, and which Job had in abundance. (3) Antagonism to the prayer of Zophar that God would appearJob desires nothing more nor betterbut I, to the Almighty will I speak. Dav.]. Observe also the significantly accented , I ( ), which puts the speaker in definite antithesis to those addressed (, Job 13:4, ), as one who will not follow their advice to make penitent confession of his guilt towards God; who will rather plead against God.I desire to plead with God. , Inf. absol. as obj. of the verb; comp. Job 9:18; and for the signification of , to plead, to vindicate ones cause against an accusation, comp. Amo 5:10; Isa 29:21; also below Job 13:15, Job 19:5. , to desire, to be inclined, here essentially as in Job 9:3. always for in pause]. That passage (Job 9:3) certainly stands in some measure in contradiction to this, implying as it does the impossibility of contending with God; it is however a contest of another sort from that which is intended there that he proposes here, a contest not of one arrogantly taking the offensive, but of one driven by necessity to the defensive.
Job 13:4. But ye are (only) forgers of lies. puts another antithetic sentence alongside of the first which was introduced by (Job 13:3), without however laying any special stress on ; hence: and however, but again, etc.; not: ye however (Hirzel). (from , to plaster, to smear, to paste together; comp. , plaster Eze 13:10 seq., and Talmudic grease) are lit. daubers of lies, i.e., inventors of lies, concinnatores s. inventores mendacii; not: imputers, fasteners of falsehood, assutores mendacii, as Stickel, Hirzel, Schlottmann, Delitzsch, etc., explain both against philology and the context (neither Job 14:17 nor Psa 119:69 support this definition); nor again: deceitful patchers, sarcinatores falsi, i.e., inanes, idutilis, as Hupfeld explains.Physicians of no value are ye all. are not patchers [Con. botchers] of vanity, i.e., such as patch together empty unfounded assertions (Vulg., Ew., Olsh., Dillm.), [Good, Con., Dav.], but in accordance with the universal usage of : worthless, useless physicians, medici nihili, miserable quacks, who are incapable of applying to Jobs wounds the right medicine to soothe and heal. [Job calls their false presuppositions regarding his guilt , their vain attempts at a Theodicy and Theory of Providence . Dav.].
Job 13:5. Oh that ye would be altogether silentthat would be reckoned to you for wisdom.Comp. Pro 17:28; the Latin proverb: Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses; also the honorable title, bos mutus, the mute ox, given to Thomas Aquinas during his student life at Paris, by his fellow-students, as well as by his teacher, Albertus Magnus. The jussive, , is used in a consecutive sense: then would it be, prove, pass for; comp. Ewald, 347, a, Gesen., 128, 2.
Job 13:6. Hear now my reproof, and give heed to the charges of my lips.So correctly Hirzel, Dillm., Del., etc., while several other moderns explain: Hear my defense [Con., E. V., reasoning], and attend to the arguments of my lips. As if could signify anything else than , correptio (so correctly LXX,, Vulg.Comp. in Job 6:25; Job 40:2), and as if (defectively for ) could even in one instance sink the meaning of the stern word , to strive, to quarrel! Furthermore it is a long moral reproof and animadversion of the friends which immediately follows, Job 13:7-12. His reply and vindication of himself to God first follows Job 13:13 seq., or indeed properly not before Job 13:17 seq.
Second Strophe: Job 13:7-12. [Scathing rebuke of their dishonesty and presumption in assuming to be Gods advocates (Job 13:7-9), and warning of the consequences to themselves when God shall rebuke them for their conduct].
Job 13:7. Will ye for God [ emphatic] speak that which is wrong, will ye for Him speak deceitfully?The preposition signifies here for, in favor of any one, as also in Job 13:8, Jdg 6:31. On comp. Job 5:16; Job 6:30.
Job 13:8. Will ye show partiality for Him (lit. lift up His countenance, i.e. show preference for His person), or will ye take the part of Gods advocates? (lit. contend for God, comp. , Jdg 6:31). These are the two possible ways in which they could speak in favor of God: either as clients, dependents, taking His part slavishly, for mercenary ends, or as patrons or advocates, presumptuously and naively taking Him under their protection. [There thus appears a subtle and very effective irony in these questions of Jobs. His charge of partiality is also, as Davidson says, a master-stroke of argumentation, effectually debarring the friends from any further defense of God in this direction, or almost at all.E.].
Job 13:9. Will it be well [for you] when He searches you out (goes to the bottom of you, as in Pro 28:11; Psa 139:23) or can you deceive Him as a man is deceived?viz. in regard to your real disposition and the sentiment of your heart, of which a more searching investigation must reveal to Him that it by no means corresponds to His holy nature and life., Hiph. from (in Imperf. , with a non-syncopated , for , Gesen. 53 [ 52] Rem. 7 [Green, 142, 3]), is lit. to cause to waver [to hold up anything swaying to and fro], to keep one in suspense, to make sport of any one, [E. V. to mock], hence to deceive; ensnare; comp. Gen 31:7; Jdg 16:10; Jer 9:4.) [Schlott., who renders: will ye mock him? explains by quoting from Jarchi: dicendo: in honorem tuam mendacia nos finximus].
Job 13:10. Surely He will sorely chastise you (Job 5:17) if ye are secretly partial:i.e. if ye are actuated not by love of the truth and conscientious conviction, but by selfish interest in your relations with Him, as One who is mightier. That with which Job hereby reproaches them is (as Del. rightly observes) a , Rom 10:2 (comp. Joh 16:2), an advocacy contrary to ones better knowledge and conscience, in which the end is thought to sanctify the means.
Job 13:11. Will not His majesty (, as in Job 31:23, exaltation, dignity; not a kindling of wrath, or a lifting up for contention, as Bttch. renders it after the Vulg.) confound you (Job 3:5), and the dread of Him ( the dread, the terror which He inspires) fall upon youthen, namely, when He will reveal Himself as your Judge. Job here anticipates what according to Job 42:7 seq. really happened afterwards. [It is a peculiarity of the author of our book that he drops every now and then hints of how the catastrophe is to turn out, showing unmistakably both the unity of conception and the authorship of the book. Dav.]
Job 13:12. Your maxims (become) proverbs of ashes: to wit, then when God will judge you. , memorable sayings, apothegms, memorabilia [Dav. old saws] (comp. Mal 3:16; Est 6:1): so does he name here, not without irony, the admonitions and warnings which they had addressed to him, in part as the Chokmah of the ancients, or even as divinely inspired communications. [The sarcasm in the word is cutting: comp. of Eliph. Job 4:7; and Job 8:8. Dav.] He characterizes these maxims as , i.e. as empty and unsubstantial like ashes or dust, like ashes (the emblem of nothingness and worthlessness, Isa 44:20) scattered to every wind. The second member is strictly parallel: Your bulwarks become bulwarks of clay. [While Job 13:12 a says what their speeches, with the weighty nota bene, are, Job 13:12 b says what their become; for always denotes a = , and is never the exponent of the predicate in a simple clause. Del.] , lit. back, ridge (comp. Job 15:26) here equivalent to breastwork, bulwark; so does Job call here the reasonings behind which they sought refuge, the glittering, pathetically urged arguments which they had arrayed against him. Comp. , Isa 41:21, and , 2Co 10:4. [The rendering of E. V. your bodies (are like) to bodies of clay, is evidently taken from the signification back: and the whole verse is a reminder of their mortality. But this is much less suited to the language used, less pertinent to the context, and less effective for Jobs purpose than the rendering here given.E.] For , mud, potters clay, as an emblem of what is frail, easily destroyed, incapable of resistance, comp. Job 38:14; Isa 45:9 seq.
Second Division: Second Section: Declaration of his consciousness of innocence as against God in the form of a solemn confession, in which he boldly challenges Him: Job 13:13-22.
First Strophe: Job 13:13-16. [Turning from the friends, he expresses more emphatically than before his purpose to appeal to God, cost what it may at the first, confident of ultimate acquittal. Dillmann says: It seems that the poet intentionally cut this strophe short, in order by this very brevity to emphasize more strongly the gravity of these thoughts.]
Job 13:13. In silence leave me alone: lit. be silent from me (), i.e., desist from me, cease from your injurious assaults, and let me be in peace. [According to Schlott. the preposition here is the of source or cause: be silent because of the weight of my words; acc. to the above, a constr. prgnans is assumed. Conant, etc., translate: Keep silence before me. Barnes thinks it possible that Job may have perceived in them some disposition to interrupt him in a rude manner in reply to the severe remarks which he had made. Comp. on Job 6:29. More probably, however, the verse is, like Job 13:5, an expression of his weariness with their vain platitudes, and unjust accusations, and a demand that they should stand by in silence while he should plead directly with God.E.]Then will I speak, or: in order that I may speak. [Conant: That I now may speak:. Strong double emphasis in the use of the cohortative future, and the pronoun; the latter emphasizing the first person, the former his strong determination to speak.E.]And let come upon me what will. as in Deu 24:5. here for , a condensed form of expression similar to , 2Sa 18:22; comp. Ewald, 104, d.
Job 13:14. Wherefore should I take my flesh into my teeth:i.e. be solicitous to save and to preserve my body at any price, like a beast of prey, which drags off its booty with its teeth, and so secures it against other preying animals. This proverbial saying, which does not occur elsewhere, is in itself clear (comp. Jer 38:2). The second member also signifies essentially the same thing: and (wherefore should I) put my soul in my hand:i.e. risk my life, seek to save it by means of a desperate exertion of strength (comp. the same expression in Jdg 12:3; 1Sa 19:5; 1Sa 28:21). [This, says Dillmann, is indeed scarcely the original meaning of the phrase; nor is it to be understood, as commonly explained, that what one has in the hand easily falls out and is lost. The primary meaning is rather: to commit or entrust the life to the hand in order to bear it through, i.e. to make a desperate effort to save it (see Ewald on the passage): such an attempt is indeed dangerous, because if the hand fails, the life is lost, and so the common explanation attaches itself naturally to the phrase, to expose the life to apparent danger. Here, however, the original meaning is altogether suitable, and indeed necessary, because only so do the first and second members agree: why should I make an extreme effort to save my life?] Such a desperate effort Job would make, in case he should declare himself guilty of the reproaches brought against him. while at the same time he bore no consciousness of guilt within himself. This, however, would not be of the least avail, for according to Job 13:15 a he has nothing more to hope for, he sees before him nothing but certain death from the hand of God. Hence, therefore, his question: Wherefore should I seek to save my life at any priceI who have nothing more to hope for? Compared with this interpretation, which is the only one suited to the context, and which is adopted by Umbreit, Ewald, Vaih., Dillm., etc., the many interpretations which vary from it are to be rejected, especially those according to which the second member is not to be regarded as a continuation of the question, but as an assertionaccording to Hirzel in the positive form: and even my life do I riskaccording to Hahn and Delitzsch in the negative: nay, I even put my life at stake: in like manner, that of Bttcher: wherefore should I seek to preserve my life at any price, seeing that I willingly expose it, etc.
[Wordsworth agrees in this interpretation of the meaning of each member of the verse, but differs from Zckler, etc., in the application: The question (he says) is put hypothetically. You may ask me why I am thus bold to desire to expose myself to a trial before God? The reason is because I am sure that I have a good cause; I know that in the end He will do me right. See what follows.The Vulg. renders: Quare lacero carnes meas dentibus meis, et animam meam porto in manibus meis? Hengstenberg follows this rendering, explaining the first clause of the wrong, the violence which he would do to his moral personality, if by silence he should plead guilty to the accusations of the friends. Schultens, who is followed in substance by Rosenmller, Good, Wemyss, Bernard, Barnes, Renan, Davidson, Carey, Rodwell, Elzas, regards both members as proverbially expressing the idea of risking life, and the clause not in its usual interrogative sense, but as equivalent to: in spite of every thing. (Schult., super quid, on any account.) is thus a resumption of the in 13b. This rendering gives a consistent and forcible sense throughout: Be silent now, and let me alone, and I for my part will assuredly speak, be the consequence what it may: Cost what it may, I will risk it all, I will risk my person and my life: lo, He will slay me, etc., yet in his very presence, etc, (comp. on Job 9:21-22). The objection to this is of course the unusual rendering of . On the other hand the objection to the interpretation adopted in our comm. is the unusual sense in which we are constrained to take the proverbial expressions of the verse, particularly the latterto take the life in the handwhich according to this interpretation must mean to seek to save the life, whereas in every other instance it means to risk it. It is thus at best a choice between difficulties, or unusual expressions. And it may fairly be queried whether the difficulty in regard to is not largely obviated by the close connection in which it stands with the just preceding.E.].
Job 13:15. Lo, He will slay me:viz. through my disease, which will certainly bring about my speedy dissolution (comp. Job 6:13; Job 7:6; Job 9:25; Job 10:20). I have no (more) hope; i.e., I do not direct my thoughts to the future, I am not in a state of waiting, expectation ( without an obj., prstolari, exactly as in Job 6:11; Job 14:14), and this indeed is so naturally, because for me there is nothing more to wait for, seeing that my condition is hopeless, and my fate long since decided. So, according to the Kthibh is the phrase to be explained, while the Kri, must signify in accordance with the suffix: until then, viz., until I am slain, I wait (so substantially Luther), or again: I wait for Him, that He may slay me (Delitzsch) [i.e., I wait what He may do, even to smite with death]. The context by no means yields the rendering of the Vulg., which also rests on the Kri; etiam si occiderit me, in ipso (Deo) sperabo [so also E. V., though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him]: an utterance which has acquired a certain celebrity as a favorite sentiment alike of pious Jews and Christians (comp. Delitzsch on the passage), as the funeral text of the Electoress Louise Henriette of Brandenburg, and as the poetic theme of a multitude of popular religious hymns. It scarcely expresses however the meaning here intended by Job, which is far removed from any expression of a hope reaching beyond death.Only my ways (viz., the innocence of my ways) will I prove in His presence. , referring back to the whole preceding sentence, hence the game as nevertheless, however. He has already despaired of life, but of one thing he does not despair, freely and openly to prove before God the blamelessness of his life: physically therefore he can succumb, that he concedes, but morally he cannot (Del.).
Job 13:16. Even this will be my salvation that the unholy comes not before Him:i.e., does not dare to present himself so confidently before Him. In the fact that He is filled with towards God he sees accordingly a pledge of salvation, i.e., of victory in the trial in which he is involved. For this sense of comp. 1Sa 14:45; 2Ch 20:17; Hab 3:8 (not however in Job 30:15, where it signifies rather prosperity, and that of the earthly sort). [He wavers between two contradictions: on the one side he believes according to an opinion widely prevalent in the Semitic East, that no one can see God without dying; on the other side he reassures himself with the thought that God cannot reveal Himself to the wicked. Renan]. is referred by Bttcher, Schlott., [Con., Dav., and so E. V.], etc., to God: He also ministers to my help, to my deliverance, for, etc. But this does not agree with the contents of the preceding verse. For the neuter rendering of , which we find already in the LXX., ( ) comp. Job 15:9; Job 31:28; Job 41:3. [In favor of the personal sense for , referring it to God, Schlottmann argues that it would scarcely be said of a circumstance in Hebrew that it would be anybodys salvation: and Davidson objects to the neuter rendering that it originates in a cold conception of Jobs mental agitation, and gives to a sense feeble almost to imbecility. On the other hand Dillmann argues against the masculine sense that in that case the connection between the first and second members of this verse would be imperfect, and that the contrast between what would thus be said of God in this verse and that which has been said in Job 13:15 would be too violent].
Second Strophe: Job 13:17-22. [Determination to cite God finally reached, with conditions of pleading before Him.Dav.].
Job 13:17. Hear, O hear my declaration. , a strongly emphasized appeal that they should hear him, essentially the same in signification as Isa 6:9, only that here is not intended as there a continued but an attentive hearing for the time being; comp. Job 21:2; Job 37:2., here declaration, signifies in Arabic confession, religion. Its synonym in he second member, [and let my utterance sound in your ears], formed from the Hiph. of the verb (Job 15:17; Psa 19:3) signifies here (the only place where it occurs in the O. T.) not brotherly conduct as in post-biblical Hebrew, but utterance. With it is better to supply or , let it enter, let it sound in your ears, than to repeat from a.
Job 13:18. Behold now I have made ready the cause. , causam instruere, as in Job 23:4; comp. the simple , Job 33:5. On b comp. Job 11:2.
Job 13:19. Who is he that will contend with me?i.e., attempt with success to prove that I am in the wrong. As to the thought compare the parallel passages, Isa 1:9; Rom 8:34; and as to the lively interrogative , Job 4:7.Then indeed (if any one succeeds in that, in convicting me of wrong) I would be silent and die: then, as one defeated within and without, I would without offering further resistance, let death come upon me as merited punishment. The explicitness and calmness with which he makes this declaration shows how impossible it seems to him that he should be proved guilty, how unalterably firm he stands in the consciousness of his innocence. [E. V., for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost, is less simple, and less suited to the connection].
Job 13:20. Only two things do not Thou unto me: these are the same two things which he has already deprecated in Job 9:34 in order that he may successfully achieve his vindication, and so, as it is here expressed in b, not be obliged to hide before God. In Job 13:21 we are told wherein they consist, viz., a, in heavy unremitting calamities and chastisements (Thy hand remove Thou from me), here of the hand which punishes, as previously in Job 9:34); and b, in terror, confusion, and trepidation produced by His majesty; comp. above, Job 13:11.
Job 13:22. Thenif these two alleviations are granted to mecall Thou and I will answer:i.e., summon me then to a criminal trial, or which would be eventually still more advantageous to me: allow me the first word, let me be the questioner. Obviously it is in this sense that we are to take b, where , to reply (supply ) is connected transitively with accus. of the person, as elsewhere ; comp. Job 20:2; Job 32:14; Job 40:4.
6. Third Division. The vindication of himself to God, with a complaint over the vanity and helplessness of human existence: Job 13:23Job 14:22. [That Job, lifted up by the proud consciousness of innocence, might really fancy for the moment that God would answer his challenge, is not in itself improbable in view of the present temper of his soul, and the entire plan of the poem, according to which such an intercourse of God with men as may be apprehended by the senses lies within the bounds of possibility (Job 38. seq.), and should not be described (with Schlottm.) as a fanatical thought; although indeed he could not long continue in this fancy; not only the non-appearance of God, but also every consideration of a more particular sort must convince him of the idleness of his wish. Dillmann. Hence the sudden change of his apology to a lamentation].
First Strophe: Job 13:23-28. Having repeatedly announced his purpose (Job 13:13 seq., 17 seq.), Job now at length passes directly to the demonstration of his innocence, but at once falls from a tone of confident self-justification into one of sorrowful lamentation, and faint-hearted despair, out of which he does not again emerge during this discourse.
Job 13:23. How many are (then) my iniquities and sins; my wickedness and my sin make known to me!Inasmuch as denotes sin or moral aberration in general (occasionally also indeed sins of weakness), transgression or evil-doing of a graver sort, however flagrant wickedness, open apostasy from God (comp. Hoffmann, Schriftbew. I., 483 seq.), the enumeration which is here given is on the whole neither climactic nor anti-climactic, but alike in a and b the more special and stronger expression precedes, while the more general term follows. Observe still further that the characteristic expression used to denote the smallest and slightest offenses, (Psa 19:13) is not introduced here at all. Of such failures of the most insignificant sort Job would indeed be perfectly well aware that he was guilty; comp. above Job 9:2; Job 9:14 seq.
Job 13:24. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face (a sign of the Divine displeasure, comp. Isa 54:8) and regardest me as Thine enemy?The question is an expression of impatient wonder at the non-appearance of God.
Job 13:25. A driven leaf wilt Thou terrify? with He interrog. like , Job 15:2. Comp. Gesenius 100 [ 98], 4 [E. V. wilt thou break a leaf, etc. And so Bernard: but against usage]. And pursue the dry chaff? The meaning of this troubled plaintive double question is: How canst Thou, who art Almighty and All-sufficient, find Thy pleasure in persecuting and afflicting a weak and miserable creature like me? It is not with reference to the universal frailty of mankind, of which he partook (Hahn), but with special reference to the fearful visitation which had come on him, and he destruction which had begun in his body, that he compares himself to a driven leaf, i. e. one that is tossed to and fro by the wind [comp. Lev 26:36), and to the dry chaff, which is in like manner blown about (comp. Psa 1:4, etc.).
Job 13:26. For Thou decreest for me bitter things (or also with consecutive rendering of : that Thou decreest, etc.). here is equivalent of course to bitter painful punishments; and , lit. to write, refers to a written decree announcing a judicial sentence: comp. Job 31:35; Psa 149:9; Isa 10:1.And makest me to inherit the iniquities of my youth: the sins of my earlier years, long since forgiven and forgotten, by comparison with which as being the half-conscious misbehaviour of childhood, or the manifestations of youthful thoughtlessness (Psa 25:7), so severe and fearful a penalty would seem to be needless cruelty. [He can regard his affliction only as the inheritance of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath to reproach himself with. Del.E. Ver. makest me to possess, etc., not sufficiently expressive. His old age inherited the accumulated usury and consequence of youthful sins. Dav.] To cause one to inherit anything is the same as causing him to experience the consequences of anything (here the bad consequences, the punishments); comp. Pro 14:18; Ps. 69:37 (Psa 69:36); Mar 10:17; 1Co 6:10, etc.
Job 13:27. And puttest my feet in the block:i. e. treatest me as a prisoner. , poet. for , Ewald, 443, b. [jussive in form though not in signification; used simply from the preference of poetry for a short pregnant form. Del.], comp. Job 15:33; Job 23:9; Job 23:11. here and Job 33:11 is a wooden block with a contrivance for firmly fastening the feet of a prisoner, the same with the of Jer 20:3, and the of Act 16:24, or , or the Roman instruments of torture called cippus, codex or nervus. In times still recent wooden blocks of this kind were in use among the Arabians, as Burckhardt had occasion to observe (Travels, p. 420). And watchest all my paths:i. e. does not allow me the slightest freedom of motion: comp. Job 7:12; Job 10:14.Around the roots of my feet Thou dost set bounds:i. e. around the place where I stand, where the soles of my feet are placed (the soles firmly fixed in one point being compared to the roots of a tree), Thou dost make marks, bounds, lines of demarcation, which Thou dost not permit me to cross. This is the simplest and philologically the most suitable definition of the Hithpael (from ,); found only here, in which definitions Gesenius, Ewald (1st Ed.), Schlottm., Hahn, Del, Dillm., [Con., Elz.and see below the rendering of Hirzel, Noyes, etc.], etc., essentially agree. Not essentially different as to the sense, although philologically not so well authenticated are the explanations of Rosenm., Umbreit [Hengst., Merx], etc.: Thou drawest a circle around my feet; of Ewald (2d Ed.): Thou makest sure of my feet (comp. Peshito and Vulgate: vestigia pedum meorum considerasti); of Hirzel [Frst]: Thou dost make Thyself a trench around the roots of my feet [others, e. g. Noyes, Renan, Davidson, Rdiger, take in this sense of cutting or digging a trench, but regard the Hithpael as indirectly and not directly reflexive, sibi, not se susculperedost dig a trench for thyself]; of Raschi, Mercier, etc.: Thou fastenest Thyself to the soles of my feet. [E. V., Good, Wem., Bernard, etc.: Thou brandest (settest a print upon, E. V.) the soles of my feet; evidently supposing the expression to refer to some process of branding criminals in the feet: for which, however, there is no good authority.]The three parallel figures contained in the verse all find their actual explanation in the fearful disease, with which Job was visited by God, in consequence of which he was doomed to one place, being unable to move on account of the unshapely swelling of his limbs. [Mercier has already called attention to the gradation which marks the proofs given in these verses of the Divine anger. (1) God hides His face. (2) He shows Himself an enemy. (3) He issues severe decrees against him. (4) He punishes sins long since passed. (5) He throws him into cruel and narrow imprisonment. Hengst.]
Job 13:28. Although he (the persecuted one) as rottenness wastes away, as a garment which the moth has eaten (comp. Job 4:19). This forcible description of the weakness and perishableness of his condition is given to emphasize the thought, how unacccountably severe is Gods treatment of him (comp. above Job 13:25). It is introduced by (instead of ) objectivizing the subject, and giving to the discourse a more general application, valid also for other men, and at the same time providing a transition to the following lament, referring to human misery in general. [Thou hast set this enclosure around one who does not grow like a tree, but moulders away moth-eaten like a garment. Job looks at himself ab extra; he will hardly own himself; he hardly recognizes himself, so changed is he by affliction and disease, and he speaks of himself in the third person. How natural and touching is this! Wordsworth.]
Third Division: Second and Third Strophes: The lament over mans mortality, frailty and vanity continued: Job 14:1-12.
Second Strophe: Job 14:1-6. [Mans physical frailty and moral impurity by nature made the ground of a complaint against the severity of Gods treatment, and of an appeal for forbearance.]
Job 14:1-2. Man, born of woman, of few days, and full of trouble, cometh up as a flower [and withereth, and fleeth as a shadow, and abideth not].This is the only right construction of the passage. The first verse contains only the subject, together with three appositional clauses more particularly descriptive of the same. Of these the first, (a phrase which is elsewhere exactly synonymous with man, e. g.Sir 10:18 : , and Mat 11:11 : .), belongs immediately to the notion contained in the subject, man, whom it characterizes according to his innate quality of weakness (as also in Job 15:14; Job 25:4), while the two following clauses illustrate the shortness of his life, (, constr. st. of , comp. Job 10:15), and the trouble which fills it (, as in Job 3:17; Job 3:26). It is disputed whether the second verb in Job 14:2, means to wither, or to be cut off. Etymologically both these definitions are possible, since may be taken either as Imperf. Niph. of = , succidi, or as Imperf. of a secondary Kal. (an alternate form ), synonymous with , to wither, to become dry, marcescere. The meaning to be cut off, however, is loss suitable to the flower than to fade [the latter, and not the former, being, as Dillmann points out, the natural destiny alike of the flower and of man]; comp. Isa 40:7; Psa 37:2; Psa 90:10; Psa 103:15 seq.; Mat 6:30; 1Pe 1:24; moreover, in the two parallel passages of our book, Job 18:16; and Job 24:24, it is by no means necessary to render in the sense of succidi, prcidi (against Hirzel, Gesenius, Delitzsch [Conant, Dav., E. V.], etc.). On b comp. Job 8:9; Psa 90:5; Psa 90:9-10. [Conant regards the article before as having a definite signification, that which marks the passing and declining day. This, however, would scarcely be in harmony with the verb , which describes rather the fleeting shadow of the cloud, to which the art. would be equally suitable. Merx transposes Job 14:28, of chap. 7., and inserts it here between Job 14:1-2, thus depriving it of the force and beauty which belong to it as the closing verse of that strophe, and as a transition to this, and at the same time weakening the beauty and pathos of this passage by the accumulation of figures.E.]
Job 14:3. And upon this one dost Thou keep Thine eye open?viz. in order to watch him, and to punish him for his sins, comp. Psa 34:17 [16]. , emphatically connecting something new with what has already been given, like our over and above. , upon this one, i. e. upon such an one as he is here described, upon so wretched a creature (Psa 103:14). [The pronoun here descriptive, such an one, talis, rather than demonstrative. By position the phrase is emphatic. E. V., Conant, etc., render the verb simply to open,=so much as open the eyes, so much as look upon him. The rendering given in our commy. to keep the eye open upon presupposes a double emphasis, the first and principal one on the pronoun, the second on the verb.E.]And me ([, emphatic, me] this particularly wretched example of the human race), dost thou bring into judgment before Thee?i. e., to judgment at Thy tribunal, where it is impossible to maintain ones cause.
Job 14:4. O that a pure one might come forth out of an impure:i. e., would it were only possible that one might remain free from the universal sinfulness of the human race, and from the misery accompanying the same, which is now absolutely universal and without exception, so that it has the appearance of unpitying severity when God visits those belonging to this race with punishment (comp. Job 14:5-6). , the customary optative formula (as in Job 14:13; Job 6:8), here connected with an accusative of the object, specifying the contents of the wish (so also in Job 31:31; Job 31:35; Psa 14:7; Deu 28:67). Hence not: who makes [E. V.: can bring] a pure one out of an impure? (Rosenm., Arnheim, Welte, [Renan]); nor: where can a pure one be found among the impure? as if here could have the partitive sense before the singular . [The Opt. rendering not only denies the possibility (of a morally clean coming out of a morally unclean), but gives utterance to the desire that it was otherwise. Dav.]. Not one: to wit, comes forth. [Not therefore can bring forth, as might be inferred from the literal rendering of ]. Not one pure will ever come forth in the line of development which has once been contaminated by sin; comp. Psa 51:7 [5]; also the expression Psa 14:3, which reminds us very closely of this . Ewald, with whom Dillmann agrees, punctuates instead of , and conforms the second member to the first: Oh that there were one! for the reason that a wish does not properly contemplate an answer. But a wish which is in itself incapable of realization is equivalent to a question, the answer to which is a strong negation. Moreover the passage is incomparably stronger and more emphatic according to the common rendering, than according to that of Ewald. [Moreover, why should he desire one such specimen? Plainly, the desire is nothing to the purpose, except as implying that not one such is to be found; and precisely this is asserted in the proper and usual construction of the words. Con.]. On the relation of this assertion by Job of the universality of human corruption to the earlier affirmation of Eliphaz in Job 4:17 seq., see the Doc. and Eth. Remarks.
Job 14:5-6, (the former the antecedent, the latter the consequent).If his days are determined (, lit. cut off [decisi], sharply bounded, defined ; comp. Isa 10:22; 1Ki 20:40), the number of his months with Thee (viz. is established, firmly fixed; here equivalent to , comp. Job 10:13), and Thou hast made [or set] his limit (read with the Kthibh, not the plural with the Kri, which is here less suitable, there being but one limit, one terminus to this earthly life)which he cannot pass (lit. and he passes it not) [observe that the particle in the first member of the verse extends its influence over all three members]: then look away from him, ( the opposite of Job 14:3 a; comp. Job 7:19) that he may rest ( here as in 1Sa 2:5 : to rest, to keep holiday, to be released from the of Job 14:1) that he may enjoy as a hireling his day.The last member literally reads: until that (to the degree that as in Job 8:21; 1Sa 2:5; Isa 47:7) he, like a day-laborer, find pleasure in his day, or, be satisfied with his day. This is the meaning of with the accus.(comp. Jer 14:10; Psa 102:15, and often); not to satisfy, in the sense of to discharge, to make good, [E. V. to accomplish] as Delitzsch explains it, when he translates: until he discharges [accomplishes] as a hireling his day. In favor of this latter rendering indeed, Lev 26:34; Lev 26:43, and 2Ch 36:21 may be cited; but the sense thence resulting is in each case harsh and artificial. For just why it should be said of a hireling, that he (in death) makes complete his days (comp. , Col 1:24) is not altogether apparent: the comparison of the (comp. Job 7:1) seems superfluous, inconsistent indeed, if we have to do simply with the thought: until the completion of the days of his life. [It is difficult to see why the definition adopted by the E. V. and Del. is not perfectly suitable to the connection. The objection to it is that it is not supported by usage, means everywhere to regard favorably, to take pleasure in. We are not justified in taking it in any other sense here. But the expression to enjoy as a hireling his day is variously understood. Some take here in some specific sense; e. g., the day of his discharge, his last day as a hireling (Bernard); his day of rest (Rodwell); and something similar is suggested by Jeromes optata dies. But this thought would have been more distinctly expressed.Others (Hengst., Wordsworth, Noyes, Barnes), explain it as a wish that man may enjoy his life at least as much, with the same freedom from care, as the hireling. But to this there are several objections. (1) would scarcely be used to express this idea, least of all, as here, without any qualification. (2) That Job regarded the day or service of a hireling as a term of hardship, from which deliverance was to be sought rather than as affording any measure of satisfaction to be desired, is evident from the parallel passage in Job 7:1-2. Comp. Job 3:19. (3) He has already expressed the burden of his longing in . This clause is rather to be regarded as an amplification of that thought: the rest, the enjoyment which the end of the days labor brings.It is unnatural to suppose that having reached in thought the goal of rest, he would go back to the joyless, even though painless toil preceding it. We are thus led to the explanation that the enjoyment hero spoken of is that which succeeds the labors of the day. The hirelings real enjoyment of his day comes when the shadow of evening (Job 7:2) brings with it the rest which he covets, and the wages he has earned. In like manner Job desires for man agitated by unrest ( Job 14:1) a respite, however brief, the satisfaction which the end of toil and sorrow would bring. It is not death however that he here prays may come, for that, as the following verses show, is a hopeless condition. And yet the thought of the end of toil suggests at once the thought of death and that hopeless beyond.E.].
Third Strophe: Job 14:7-12. The hopelessness of man when his earthly life is ended.
Job 14:7. For there is yet hope for the tree. , for introduces the reason for the request preferred in Job 14:6 in behalf of miserable and afflicted man: look away from him, etc. [The predication of hope made very strongly both by and the accent, the main division of the verse is at hope. Dav.].If it be cut down, It shoots up again (viz., the stump left in the ground, comp. Isa 6:13), and its sprout, the tender young shoot from the root [suckling], LXX. ; comp. h. Job 8:16) faileth not. Carey, Delitzsch, and others, correctly understand the tree of whose vitality and power of perpetual rejuvenescence Job seems more particularly to think here to be the datepalm, which on account of this very quality is called by the Greeks . It is not so probable that the oak or terebinth [E. V. teil] mentioned in the parallel passage in Isa 6:13, is intended here.
Job 14:8-9, present not properly another case, (Dillmann), but they develop the illustration already presented still further and more forcibly.If its root becometh old in the ground (, inchoative Hiph., senescere), and its trunk dieth in the dust (comp. Isa 40:24), i. e., if the tree die, not interrupted in its growth by the violent hand of man, while yet young and vigorous, but decaying with age, becoming dry and dead down to the roots.Through the scent of water (i. e., so soon as it feels the vivifying energy of water; comp. Jdg 16:9) [, may be taken either subjectively of the scenting, or inhalation of water by the tree; or, bettor, of the scent which water brings with it. When the English army landed in Egypt in 1801, Sir Sydney Smith gave the troops the sure sign that wherever date-trees grew there must be water. Vide R. WilsonsHistory of the Expedition to Egypt, page 18] it sprouts (again; comp. Psa 92:14) and puts forth boughs (comp. Job 18:16; Job 29:19), like a young plant; or also like a sapling newly planted (LXX.: ). That this description also is pre-eminently suitable to the palm appears from the fact that, as every oriental knows very well, in every place where this tree grows, water must be very near at hand, generally from the indestructible vitality and luxuriant fulness of this , (comp. Delitzsch on this passage. [Even when centuries have at last destroyed the palmsays Masius in his beautiful and thoughtful studies of naturethousands of inextricable fibres of parasites cling about the stem, and delude the traveller with an appearance of life. Del.]).
Job 14:10-12 present the contrast to the above: the hopelessness of man in death.
Job 14:10. But man dies and is brought down ( here in the intrans. sense confectum esse, to be prostrated, to be down, whence the usual signification, to be weak, is derived: [the Imperf, when transitive, is written ; when intransitive, as here, ]); man expires (, Imperf. consec., because the cheerless consequences of death are here further set forth), and where is he?where does he then go to? what becomes of him? Comp. the similar yearning question in Ecc 3:21.
Job 14:11. The waters flow away [lit. roll off] out of the sea, and a stream falls and dries up.This is the protasis of a simile, the apodosis of which is introduced, Job 14:12, by so, as below in Job 14:19, and as above in Job 5:7; Job 11:12 (in which latter passages indeed the figure follows, not precedes, the thing illustrated). Comp. the description, imitative of the present passage, in Isa 19:5, describing the drying up of the Nile ( ,) by a Divine judgmenta description which indeed the advocates of a post-Solomonic authorship of our book regard as the original of the passage before us (e.g., Volck, de summa carm. Job sent., p. 31). [ here should be taken of an inland sea or body of water, a sense which the application of the word to the lake of Tiberias, Num 34:11; the Euphrates, Isa 27:1; the Nile, see above, abundantly justifies. Such a drying up of large bodies of water is no uncommon phenomenon in the torrid regions of the East.E.]
Job 14:12. So man lies down and rises no more; till the heavens are no more, they awake not. , until the failure, i. e., the disappearance of the heavens (comp. the exactly equivalent phrase, , Psa 72:7), the same in meaning with , Psa 148:6. For according to the popular conception of the ancient Hebrews, the heavens endure forever: Psa 89:30 [29]; Jer 31:35. When in Psa 102:27; Isa 51:6; Isa 65:17 the heavens are described as waxing old and being changed, this statement does not exclude their eternal existence; for the supposition of a destruction of the universe in the sense of its annihilation is everywhere foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. The expression before us, not to awake till the heavens are no more, is accordingly in any case equivalent to not to awake for ever [or never to awake], as the third member of the verse also clearly indicates: and are never aroused out of their sleepthey sleep a , Jer 51:39; Jer 51:57, an endless sleep of death. [It is assuredly straining the language, and at variance with the connection, and with Jobs present mood, to assume in the expression an implication that when the phenomenal heavens should disappear, man would awake. How far Jobs mind does reach out towards the idea of a resuscitation of humanity will be seen presently. Amid such fluctuations of thought and feeling as characterize his utterances, we are not to look for self-consistency, much less for a careful and exact expression of the highest forms of truth, whether as revealed elsewhere, or even as at times revealed to his own mind.E.] How unchangeable the cheerless outlook on such an eternal condition of death In Sheol presents itself to Job, is shown by the vividly expressed wish which Immediately follows that God, if it were possible, would cause him again to emerge out of this condition, which, however, he immediately recognizes as a yearning which is absolutely incapable of being realized.
8. Third Division: Fourth and Fifth Strophes: Continuation and conclusion of the description of the hopelessness of man in the prospect of death: Job 14:13-22.
Fourth Strophe: Job 14:13-17 : [If God would only permit a hope of the cessation of His wrath, and of his restoration from Sheol, how joyfully he would endure] until the change should come; but now He punishes without pity his sins.]
Job 14:13. Ah that Thou wouldst hide me (Hiph. as in Exo 2:3) in the realm of the dead, wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath should change (comp. the description of such a hiding from Gods wrath in Isa 26:20; Psa 27:5; Psa 31:21 [20]), wouldst appoint me a set time (a , see on Job 14:5), and then remember meviz., for good, in order to re-establish me in the fellowship of Thy grace, and cause me to live in the same. This last expression accented with the emphasis of glowing passion, is the culmination of the yearning wish which Job here expresses, from which, however, he immediately recoils again, as from a chimerical idea which has no real foundation.
Job 14:14. If man dies, will he live?i. e., is it possible that he who has once died, will come to life again? The asyndetic introduction of this short but frequent question after the preceding verse, produces a contrast which is all the stronger. No answer to the question follows, because it is self-evident to the reader that it can be answered only in the negative. But strong as is his conviction of the impossibility of a return to life of the dead, equally sweet and gracious is the charm of the thought which dwells on the opposite possibility, which he has just expressed in the form of a wish. [If a man die, etc., finely natural interpretation of the cold reason and of doubt, striving to banish the beautiful dream and presentiment of a new bodily life with God; but in vain, the spirit tramples down the rising suspicion, and pursues more eagerly the glorious vision. Dav.] All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my discharge (lit. my exchange, comp. Job 10:17) should come.Job uses the term warfare here somewhat differently from Job 7:1 to denote not only the remainder of his toilsome and troublesome days on earth, but the whole dismal interval between the present and that longed-for goal in the future when he should be released from Hades; this release is here, in accordance with the figure of military service, designated as an exchange or discharge. [Hence the change here spoken of is not, as the old Jewish expositors, followed by some moderns, have explained it, the change produced by death. The word , however, has here a double significance, which should be appreciated to realize the full beauty of the passage. In addition to its primary and principal meaning as expressing the discharge of the soldier whose term of hard service has expired, it suggests also the sprouting anew (, Job 14:7) of the trunks and roots of the tree which has been cut down. The , in a word, which Job yearns for is a release from service which would be at the same time a springing up anew from death to life. That this double meaning is not forced, that it is a beautiful and happy stroke of genius, will not seem at all incredible to any one who will carefully trace out our authors masterly use of words in their various possibilities.E.]
Job 14:15. Thou wouldst call (to wit, in this discharge [by Ewald and others referred to the forensic call to the final trial, wherein Job confidently hoped to be acquitted; but the connection here indicates rather the call of love, yearning after its object; the voice of God returning to take His creatures to Himself (Dav.)E.], and I would answer Thee (would follow Thy call); Thou wouldst yearn after the work of Thy hands (Job 10:3); i. e., Thou, as. Creator, wouldst feel an affectionate longing after Thy creature, which Thou hadst hitherto treated harshly, and rejected. The true character of the relation of love between the Creator and His creature would again assert itself, it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa 54:8), and love the true and essential necessity of His being. Del. [Job must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past, to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future. Schlott.] Although only a phantasy of hope (Schlott.), it still furnishes an unconscious prophecy of that which was accomplished in Christs descent into Hades for the salvation of the saints of the Old Covenant.
Job 14:16. For now Thou numberest my steps, i. e., for at this time Thou watchest every step and motion, as those of a transgressor, comp. Job 13:27. , as in Job 6:21, introducing the contrast between a point of time on which the eye fixes in the future, and the sad reality of the present. [ assigns the reason for the wish which forms the contents of Job 14:13-15. It is not necessary, with Hirzel and Schlott., to supply any thing between Job 14:15-16, as, e. g., Thou dost not yearn for Thy creature now, for, etc. The construction of Umbreit, etc., which takes as an emphatic clause,=indeed now, is to be rejected.E.]And dost not hold Thyself back on account of my sins.This is the most satisfactory rendering of . It is found already in Mercier, (non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem), and is of late advocated by Delitzsch [and Wordsworth. It seems to Del. that the sense intended must be derived from , which means to keep anger, and consequently to delay the manifestation of it; Amo 1:11.] Dillmanns explanation gives the same sense: Thou dost not pass over my sins; a rendering, indeed, which rests on an emendation of the text to: , which is favored in some measure by the version of the LXX. Also the rendering advocated by Ewald, Heilig., Schlott. and Hahn: Thou givest no consideration to my sins (to ascertain, namely, whether they do in truth deserve to be punished so severely), does not differ very essentially. Other explanations lack satisfactory support: such as those of the Rabbis, which differ widely among themselves: e.g. Raschis: Thou waitest not over my sins, i. e. to punish them; Ralbags: Thou waitest not for my sins=repentance punishment; Aben-Ezras: Thou lookest not except on my sins. The same may be said of the attempt of Rosenm., Hirzel and Welte to render the sentence as an interrogative without : Dost Thou not keep watch over my sin? [So E. V., Conant, Dav., Rod., Gesen., Frst.In view of Job 13:27 b, it is not apparent why this rendering should be said to lack satisfactory support. The preposition cannot be urged against it, for it harmonizes well with the idea thus expressed; and the interrogative form gives vividness, force and variety to the passage.E.]
Job 14:17. Sealed up in a bag is my gullt. , lit. wickedness, as in Job 13:23 b, here of the aggregate of Jobs former transgressions (comp. Job 13:26 b), of the sum total, the entire mass of guilty actions committed by him, which, as he must believe, is preserved and sealed up by God with all care as a treasure, to be used against him in his own time; comp. Deu 32:34; Hos 13:12. For the figurative expression: to tie up in a bag,=to keep in remembrance, comp. Psa 56:9; 1Sa 25:29. Ewald, Hirzel, Renan, incorrectly explain the guilt sealed in a bag to be the judicial sentence of condemnation by God already issued against Job, which now only awaits execution; for of the preservation of such penal sentences in a bottle all oriental antiquity knows nothing whatever. [The figure is taken from the mode of preserving collected articles of value in a sealed bag. Del.]And Thou hast devised additions to my transgressions: lit. and Thou hast still further stitched (to wit, other, new transgressions) on my transgressions; i. e. hast made mine iniquity still greater than it is, and punished it accordingly more severely than it deserves. This accusation which Job here prefers against God is a bold one; but it is too much to affirm that it is pure blasphemy (Dillm.), because the language of Job throughout is simply tropical, and his real thought is that Gods treatment of him is as severe as if, in addition to his actual transgressions, he were burdened with a multitude of such as had been fabricated (comp. Hengstenberg on the passage). Hence the rendering of Ewald: Thou hast patched up, sewed up my transgression [E. V., Dillmann, Good, Wemyss, Bernard, Con., Barnes, Dav., Rod.], is equally unnecessary with the similar rendering of Umbreit, Vaih., Bttch.: and Thou coverest up my sins. Substantially the right interpretation is given by Rosenmller, Arnh., Hirz., Welte, Delitzsch, Hengst. [Gesen., Frst, Noyes, Renan, Words.].
[The main argument in favor of the interpretation adopted here by Zckler is that means properly not to sew up, but to sew on, patch on, and gen. to add. So Delitzsch. But (1): It looks very much like hyper-criticism to decide, from a very limited usage, that a word, the essential meaning of which is to sew, may mean to sew on, but cannot mean to sew up; or, if the essential meaning be to plaster, to patch, that it may mean to patch on to (to add a patch), but not to patch over. (2) The point becomes still weaker in a case where the word is used, as here, in a figurative, not a literal sense. (3) The parallelism favors the meaning to sew, or to patch up. It seems somewhat, incongruous, after representing God as having sealed up transgressions in a bag, to represent Him in the next clause as stitching, patching, or fabricating other sins. On the other hand, the thought of sealing sin in a bag is suitably supplemented by the thought that the bag is not only officially sealed, but carefully sewed together; or if, with Bernard, we explain: With such care dost Thou store up my iniquities in Thy bag, that if Thou seest the slightest possibility of its giving way in any part, so that some of them might slip out and be lost, Thou immediately stoppest up the hole with a patch. (4) Admitting that the apparent blasphemy of the expression may be explained away, as above by Zckler, its admitted audacity still remains. But Job is not now in one of his Titanic moods of defiance. He resembles not so much Prometheus hurling charges against the Tyrant of the skies, as Hamlet, meditating pensively on death and the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns, but with an infinitely purer pathos than is found even in the soliloquy of the melancholy Dane. It is but a moment ago (Job 14:15 b) that he recognized in a strain of inimitable beauty the yearning bent of Creative Love. He is now indeed complaining of the present severity of Gods dealings with him, but the plaintive tenderness of that sentiment still floats over his spirit and lingers in his words, softening them into the tone of a subdued reproachful moan, very different from the bitter outcry of rebellious defiance.E.]
Fifth Strophe: Job 14:18-22. Conclusion: completing the gloomy delineation of that which in reality awaited Job, in opposition therefore to the yearning desire of his heart.
Job 14:18. But in sooth a falling mountain crumbles away: observe the paronomasia in the original between the participle describing and (). [ at the beginning as elsewhere strongly adversative, introducing in opposition to the dream of a possible restoration in the preceding strophe the stern reality, the inexorable and universal law, which dooms everything to destruction. The use of this conjunction here is a strong confirmation of the position maintained in the concluding remarks on Job 14:17 that the sentiment of Job 14:15-17 lingers also around Job 14:16-17, and that accordingly Job 14:17 b cannot be a daring suggestion of the charge of fabricating iniquity against Job.E.]And a rock grows old out of its place. is rightly rendered: to grow old, to decay by the LXX., and among moderns by Hirzel, Umbreit, Vaihinger, Schlottmann. The topical meaning: to be removed is indeed admissible, and is supported by the Vulg., Rosenm, Ewald, Hahn, and generally by the majority of moderns. The more pregnant meaning of the passage, however, would be lost by the adoption of this latter rendering, which is simply prosaic in its simplicity.
Job 14:19. In this verse a and b continue the series of figures begun in Job 14:18, which are intended to illustrate the unceasing operation of the Divine penalty or process of destruction decreed for men, whereas c first introduces that which is to be illustrated by means of the adquationis (as in Job 5:7; Job 11:12; Job 12:11). Water hollows out stones (comp. the Lat. gutta cavat lapidem);its floods wash away the dust of the earth. , fem. sing., referring to the plural , according to Gesenius, 146 [ 143] 3, [Green. 275, 4. The harshness of the construction which is necessitated by taking in the sense which belongs to it elsewhere of a self-sown growth, is shown in the rendering of E. V.: Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth. Moreover, the limitationself-sownis against this rendering, which would require rather some more comprehensive term, such as . The fem. suffix in originates in the same principle which determines the fem. form of the verb, and like the latter refers to .E.].And the hope of mortal man [note the use of , bringing man into the category of destructible matter.E.]Thou destroyest:i. e. just as incessantly and irresistibly as the physical objects here mentioned yield to the gradual processes of destruction in nature, so dost Thou cause man to perish without any hope of being brought to life again, and this too at once, suddenly (, Perf, of the accomplished fact. [For the form of the verb see Green, 112, 3]). The four figures here used are not introduced to exemplify the idea of incessant change ruling in the realm of nature, whereas from man all hope of a change for the better in his lot is taken away (so Hahn, who takes the in c in the adversative sense, but they describe the processes of destruction in nature, and more especially in the lower sphere of inorganic nature, as types of the gradual ceaseless extinction to which man succumbs in death. This moreover is not to be understood as though Job contemplated those processes with a view to console himself with the thought that his destruction in death was a natural necessity, (Hirzel), but in order to exhibit as forcibly and thoroughly as possible the absolute hopelessness of his condition in prospect of the dark future which death holds up before him; see Job 14:20-22, which admit of no other than this disconsolate sentiment for Job 14:19 c. [The descending gradation in the series of objects from which the illustrations here are taken is quite noticeablemountainrockstonesdust; and suggests at least the query whether we do not have here something more than four distinct emblems of decay, whether it is not intended to show a succession of stages in the process: the mountains crumbling into rocks, the rocks breaking down from age into stones, the stones wearing away into dust, and the dust being washed by the waters into the abyss; whether accordingly all nature is not thus resolving itself into the dust to which man too at the last returns What hope is there indeed for man, whose house of clay is crushed like the moth (Job 14:19), when the doom even of the everlasting mountains isdust!E.].
Job 14:20. Thou overpowerest him foreverthen he passeth away. with accus. if the person is not: to assail (Hirzel) [Con. Del.], but as in Job 15:24; Ecc 4:12, to overpower, and is not continually, evermore, but forever; comp. Job 4:20; Job 20:7; Job 23:7.As to the emphatic , then he passeth away, Greek , , comp. Job 10:21; also in respect of form the same poet. Imperf. in Job 16:6; Job 16:22; Job 20:25.Disfiguring his countenance, so Thou sendest him away; i. e., in the struggle of death, or when decay sets in, Thou makest him unlike himself, distortest his features, etc., and so sendest him forth out of this life ( as in Lev 20:23; Jer 28:16; the consecut. very nearly as in Psa 118:27).
Job 14:21. Should his sons be in honor, he knows it not; if they are abased he perceives them not: [ after here of the direct object: in Job 13:1 however as dat. ethicus. Del.]. The same contrast between , to come to honor, and , to be insignificant, to sink into contempt, is presented in Jer 30:19; for comp. also Isa 66:5. The mention of the children of the dead man has nothing remarkable about it, since Job is here speaking in general terms of all men, not especially of himself. It is somewhat different in Job 19:17; see however on the passage. The description in the passage before us of the absolute ignorance of the man who is in Sheol of that which takes place in the world above, reminds us of Job 3:13 seq. Comp. in addition Ecc 9:5-6 (see Comm. on the passage).
Job 14:22. Only his flesh in him feels pain, and his soul in him mourns: i. e., he himself, his nature, being analyzed into its constituent parts of soul and body (comp. Job 17:16), perceives nothing more of the bright life of the upper world; he has only the experience of pain and sorrow which belongs to the joyless, gloomy existence of the inhabitants of Sheol, surrounded by eternal night. The brevity of the expression makes it impossible to decide with certainty whether Job here assumes that man carries with him to Sheol a certain corporeality (a certain residue, kernel, or some reflex of the earthly body), or whether he mentions the flesh along with the soul because (as is perhaps the case also in Isa 66:24; Jdt 16:17) he attributes to the decaying body in the grave a certain consciousness of its decay (Dillmann; comp. Delitzsch, who would cast on the departed soul at least a painful reflection of that process). The former view, however, is the more probable in view of what is said in Job 19:27 (see below, Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks on Job 19., No. 3). By means of , in him, occurring in both members, the two factors of the nature belonging to the man who has died are emphatically represented as belonging to him, as being his own; the suffixes in and are thus in like manner strengthened by this doubled as in Greek the possessive pron. by . It is not probable that only, is through a hyperbaton to be referred simply to , expressing the thought: only he himself is henceforth the object of his experiences of pain and mourning, he concerns himself no more about the things of the upper world (Hirzel, Delitzsch), [Noyes, Schlott.]. This rendering is at variance with the position of the words, and with the doubled use of . Dillmann rightly says: the limiting belongs immediately not to the subject, but to the action: he no longer knows and perceives the things of the upper world, he is henceforth only conscious of pain, etc. Hengstenberg on the contrary arbitrarily explains [and so Wordsworth]: The situation in Job 14:22 is in general not that of the dead, but of one who is on the point of death, of whose flesh (animated as yet by the soul) alone could the sense of pain be predicted (?).
[Job 14:21-22 are a description of the afterlife in two of its principal aspects. (1) As one of absolute separation from the present, and so of entire unconsciousness and independence in regard to all that belongs to life on earth (Job 14:21).(2). As one of self-absorbed misery, the self-absorption being indicated by the repeated , and the double suffixes in each member of Job 14:22. The thought of Job 14:21 leads naturally to that of Job 14:22. The departed knows nothing of the living, nothing of all that befalls those who during life were in the closest union with himself; the consciousness of his own misery fills him.
The description in Job 14:22 of his experience of that misery is more obscure.may be renderedon account of: only on his own account his flesh suffereth pain, etc. The objection to this is its non-emphatic position, and the separation between it and . In any case the suffix refers to the man, not (as Conant, Dav., Ren., Rod.) to flesh in a, and to soul in b, for in that case would require . The proper rendering of therefore is in him (in = Germ, an; i. e., his flesh and spirit as belonging to him, as that with which he is invested).But why connect the flesh here with the soul? The simplest explanation seems to be that the realm of the dead, the under-world, in its broadest extent embraces both the grave, where the body lies, and Hades where the soul goes, as may be seen in Psa 16:10, where and are conjoined; and that accordingly by poetic personification, the mouldering flesh is here represented as sharing the aching discontent, the lingering misery of the imprisoned soul. It is no uncommon thing even for us to speak of the comfort, rest, equality, etc., of the grave, as though its occupants might have some consciousness of the same. So on the other hand it would seem that Job here introduces into the resting-place of the body something of that which made the place of the departed soul an object of dread. It may be indeed, as our Comm. suggests above, that the passage reflects some peculiarity in the opinion of antiquity touching the relation of the corporeal and spiritual parts of humanity, after death, but our grounds for affirming this are too precarious.E.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
It is undeniable that Job in this reply to Zophars attack, which at the same time closes the first colloquy, shows himself decidedly superior to the three friends not only in acuteness, high poetic flight of thought, and penetrative fiery energy of expression, but also in what may be called doctrinal correctness, or purity. In the latter respect he seems to have made progress in the right direction from the stand-point which he had previously occupied. At least he exhibits in several points a perception of sin which is in some measure more profound and accurate, in so far as he, notwithstanding that he repeats the emphatic asseveration of his innocence (see especially Job 13:16; Job 13:19), makes mention of his own sins, not simply of those of his opponents. No doubt it is one of his principal aims to criticize sarcastically and severely their one-sided wisdom (Job 12:2 seq.; Job 13:1 seq.); no doubt he censures with visible satisfaction the one-sided application which they make of their narrow doctrine of retribution, and holds (Job 13:9) that if God in the exercise of rigid justice, should scrutinize them, the result would be anything but favorable to them! Now, however, more decidedly and explicitly than in his previous apologies, he includes himself also in the universal mass of those who are sinfully corrupt and guilty before God. He several times admits in the last division (Job 13:23Job 14:22) that by his sin he had furnished the inexorable Divine Judge, if not with valid and sufficient cause at least with occasion for the severe treatment which He had exercised toward him. Here belongs the prayer, addressed to God to show him how much and how grievously he had in truth sinned (Job 13:23). Here also belongs the supposition which he expresses (Job 13:26) that possibly it was the transgressions of his youth of which he was now called to make supplementary confession; and following thereupon we have his lamentationwhich reminds us of Davids penitential prayer (Psa 51:7; comp. Psa 14:3)concerning the nature of human depravity, which he represents as embracing all, and organically transmitting itself, so that no one is excepted from it (Job 14:4)an utterance which agrees in substance with the proposition previously advanced by Eliphaz (Job 4:17), but which more profoundly authenticates the truth under consideration, so that the Church tradition is perfectly justified in finding in it one of the cardinal sedes doctrin on the subject of original sin. Here finally belongs the description, involving another distinct confession of his own sinfulness, in which he shows how God unsparingly punishes his sin, lies in wait, as it were, for it, and carefully notes it in His book (a thought which is favored, by the corresponding Hebrew expression to seal transgression in a bag)nay, more, seems to interest Himself in wilfully enlarging this, His register of sins (Job 14:16-17). With these several indications of a more profound and comprehensive consciousness of sin, which are indeed still far from signifying a genuine contrite submission beneath Gods righteous discipline, that true penitence which Gods personal interposition at last works in him (Job 42:2 seq.), there stands immediately connected another evidence of progress in Jobs frame of mind, which is also contained in the closing division of this discourse, especially in the 14th chapter, which is characterized by wondrous beauty and astonishing power. Job utters here for the first time, if not the hope, at least the yearning desire for a release from the state of death (Job 14:13-17). He prays that, instead of being shut up in an eternally forlorn separation from God in the gloomy realm of shadows, he may rather be only kept there for a season, until the Divine wrath is ended, and then, when the Creator should remember His creature, to be restored to His fatherly love and compassion. This does not indeed amount to a hope that He would one day be actually released from Hades; it is simply a dream, born of the longing of this sorely tried sufferer, which imagination summons before him as a lovely picture of the future, of which, however, he himself is the next moment assured that it can never be a reality! If we should still call it a hope, we must in any case keep in view the wide interval which separates this forlorn flame of hope, flickering up for once only, and then immediately dying out, from that hope of a resurrection which with incomparably greater confidence is expressed in Job 19:25 seq. At best we can but say, with Ewald; The hope exists only in imagination, without becoming a certainty, while the speaker, whom it has surprised, only follows out the thought, how beautiful and glorious it would be, were it really so. This simple germ-hope of a resurrection, however, acquires great significance as a step in the doctrinal and ethical course of thought in our book. For it is the clear radiance of an unconscious prophecy of the future deliverance of spirits out of their prison through Christs victory over the powers of darkness (Mat 12:40 seq.; Luk 23:43; Eph 4:8 seq.; Php 2:10 seq.; Col 2:15; 1Pe 3:18 seq.; Rev 1:18; Heb 2:14), which here shines forth in the depths of a soul beclouded by the sorrows of death. On the other side Job expresses so strong a yearning after permanent reconciliation with his Creator, so pure a representation of the nature of the communion of man with God, as a relation which behooves to be of eternal duration, that this very intensity of the religious want and longing of his heart carries with it, in a measure, the pledge that his yearning was not in vain, or that his would one day be fulfilled. Comp. on the one side what is said by Schlottmann, who (on Job 14:15) rightly emphasizes the thought that Job must have had a deep experience in the past of the inwardness of the relation between the creature and his Creator, if he was able to give such an expression to it as this dreamy hope of the future;on the other side by Delitzsch, who not less strikingly and beautifully points out how totally different would have been Jobs endurance of suffering, if he had but known that there was really a release from Hades, and how at the same time in the wish of Job that it might be so, there is revealed the incipient tendency of the growing hope. For, he continues, the author of our book confirms us in what one of the old writers says, that the hope of eternal life is a flower which grows on the brink of hell. In the midst of the hell of the feeling of Gods wrath, in which Job is sunk, this flower blooms for him. In its blooming, however, it is not yet a hope, but a longing. And this longing cannot unfold itself into a hope, because no light of promise shines into the night which rules in Jobs soul, and which makes the conflict yet darker than it is in itself.
2. When we compare Jobs frame of mind, and religious and moral views of the world, as indicated in this discourse, with those expressed in his former discourses, we find these two points of superiority and progress: a more correct insight into sin, and above all, in his relation to the Divine Creator, an inward sense of fellowship blossoming into what is at least a lively longing after eternal union with God. In other respects, however, the present outpouring of his sorely tempted and afflicted heart exhibits retrogression rather than progress. The illusion of a God tyrannically tormenting and hostilely persecuting him has a stronger hold upon him than ever before (see especially Job 13:15 seq.). And this illusion is all the stronger in that, on the one hand, he finds within himself that the witness of his conscience to his innocence is more positive than ever (Job 13:16; Job 13:19), while on the other hand, he is unable to free himself from the preconceived opinion which influences him equally with the three friends, which admits no other suffering to be possible for men than that of penal retribution for sin (comp. Job 13:23; Job 13:26; Job 14:16 seq.). There arises thus a strange conflict between his conscience, which is comparatively pure, and the gloomy anxieties produced by that preconceived notion, and by the contemplation at the same time of his unspeakable wretchednessa conflict which, in proportion as he neither can nor will relinquish his own righteousness, urges him to cast suspicion on Gods righteousness, and to accuse Him of merciless severity. This unsolved antinomy produces within him a temper of agonizing gloominess, which in Job 13:13 seq. expresses itself more in presumptuous bluster and Titan-like storming against Gods omnipotence, in Job 14:1 seq. more in a tone of elegiac lamentation and mourning. Immediately connected herewith is the melancholy, deeply tragical character which attaches to his utterances from beginning to end of this discourse. For it has been truly remarked of the passage in Job 12:7 seq., in which, with a view to surpass and eclipse that which had been said in the right direction by his three predecessors, he describes the absolute majesty of God in nature and in the history of humanity, that it is a night-scene (Nachtgemlde), picturing the catastrophes which God brings to pass among the powers of the world of nature and of humanity; and that the one-sidedly abstract, negative, repelling, rather than attractive representation of Gods wisdom, is the reflection of the midnight gloom of his own feelings, which permits him to contemplate God essentially only on the side of His majesty, His isolation from the world, and His destructive activity. [For the wisdom of God, of which he speaks, is not the wisdom that orders the world in which one can confide, and in which one has the surety of seeing every mystery of life sooner or later gloriously solved; but this wisdom is something purely negative. Of the justice of God he does not speak at all, for in the narrow idea of the friends he cannot recognize its control; and of the love of God he speaks as little as the friends, for as the sight of the Divine love is removed from them by the one-sidedness of their dogma, so is it from him by the feeling of the wrath of God which at present has possession of his whole being. Hegel has called the religion of the Old Testament the religion of sublimity; and it is true that, so long as that manifestation of love, the incarnation of the God head, was not yet realized, God must have relatively transcended the religious consciousness. From the book of Job, however, this view can be brought back to its right limits; for, according to the tendency of the book, neither the idea of God presented by the friends, nor by Job, is the pure undimmed notion of God that belongs to the Old Testament: The friends conceive of God as the absolute One, who acts only according to justice; Job conceives of Him as the absolute One, who acts according to the arbitrariness of His absolute power. According to the idea of the book, the former is dogmatic one-sidedness, the latter the conception of one passing through temptation. The God of the Old Testament consequently rules neither according to justice alone nor according to a sublime whim. Delitzsch I.: 239, 240].
It has been still further truly remarked that the mournfulness of his lamentations over the hopeless disappearance of man in the eternal night of the gravein contemplating which he is led to regard the changes which take place in the vegetable kingdom as more comforting and hope-inspiring than the issue of mans life, with which he can compare only the processes of destruction and the catastrophes of inorganic nature (Job 14:7 seq., 18 seq.)has its echo in classical heathenism in such passages as the following from Horace (Od. IV. 7, 1):
Nos ubi decidimus
Quo pins neas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
Pulvis et umbrasumus.
Or like this from Homer (Il. VI. 146 seq.):
Like the race of leaves
Is that of humankind. Upon the ground
The winds strew one years leaves; the sprouting wood
Puts forth another brood, that shoot and grow
In the spring season. So it is with man;
One generation grows while one decays;
(Bryants Transl.)
Or like this meditation of Simonides (Anthol. Gr. Appendix, 83):
Nought among men unchangeable endures.
Sublime the truth which he of Chios spoke:
Mens generations are like those of leaves!
Yet few are they who, having heard the truth
Lodge it within their hearts, for hope abides
With all, and in the breasts of youth is planted.
Or like this elegy from Moschus (III. 106 seq.):
The meanest herb we trample in the field,
Or in the garden nurture, when its leaf,
At winters touch is blasted, and its place
Forgotten, soon its vernal buds renews,
And, from short slumber, wakes to life again.
Man wakes no more!man valiant, glorious, wise,
When death once chills him, sinks in sleep profound,
A long, unconscious, never-ending sleep.
(Gisborne.)
Or like that saying of the Arabian panegyrist of Muhamed, Kaabi ben-Sohair:Every one born of Woman, let his good fortune last never so long, is at last borne away on the bier, etc.: or like that still more impressive description in the Jagur Veda: While the tree that has fallen sprouts again from the root, fresher than before, from what root does mortal man spring forth when he has fallen by the hand of death?
Finally, it has been rightly shown that besides the tone of mourning and hopeless lamentation which sounds through this discourse, it is also pervaded by a tone of bitterness and grievous irritation on the part of Job. not only against the friends (this being most forcibly expressed in Job 4:7 seq.) but even in a measure against God, especially in those passages where he presumptuously undertakes to argue with Him (Job 13:13 seq.), and where he even reproaches Him with making fictitious and arbitrary additions to His list of charges, after the manner of the friends when they calumniated him and invented falsehoods against him (Job 14:17; see on the passage). A singular contrast with this tone of defiant accusations is furnished in the plaintive pleading tone with which he submits the twofold condition on which he is willing to prosecute his controversy with God, to wit, that God would allow a respite for a season from his sufferings, and that He would not terrify and confound him with His majesty (Job 13:20-22). It is everywhere the terrible idea of a God who deals with men purely according to His arbitrary caprice, not according to the motives of righteousness and a Fathers love, this phantom which the temptation has presented before his dim vision instead of the true God,it is this which drives him to these passionate outbreaks, which in several respects remind us of the attitude of a hero of Greek tragedy towards the fearful might of an inexorable Fate. [This phantom is still the real God to him, but in other respects in no way differing from the inexorable ruling fate of the Greek tragedy. As in this the hero of the drama seeks to maintain his personal freedom against the mysterious power that is crushing him with an iron arm, so Job, even at the risk of sudden destruction, maintains the steadfast conviction of his innocence in opposition to a God who has devoted him, as an evil-doer, to slow but certain destruction. It is the same battle of freedom against necessity as in the Greek tragedy. Accordingly one is obliged to regard it as an error, arising from simple ignorance, when it has been recently maintained that the boundless oriental imagination is not equal to such a truly exalted task as that of representing in art and poetry the power of the human spirit, and the maintenance of its dignity in the conflict with hostile powers, because a task that can only be accomplished by an imagination formed with a perception of the importance of recognizing ascertained phenomena. In treating this subject, the book of Job not only attains to, but rises far above, the height attained by the Greek tragedy; for on the one hand it brings this conflict before us in all the fearful earnestness of a death-struggle; on the other however it does not leave us to the cheerless delusion that an absolute caprice moulds human destiny. This tragic conflict with the Divine necessity is but the middle, not the beginning nor the end, of the book; for this god of fate is not the real God, but a delusion of Jobs temptation. Human freedom does not succumb, but it comes forth from the battle, which is a refining fire to it as conqueror. The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unexplained, is here cleared up. The book certainly presents much which, from its tragic character, suggests this idea of destiny, but it is not its final aimit goes far beyond: it does not end in the destruction of its here by fate; but the end is the destruction of the idea of this fate itself. Delitzsch I. 242 sec.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The points of light which these three chapters exhibit in a doctrinal and ethical respect, have a background of gloom, here and there of profound blackness. The homiletic expositor nevertheless finds in them in rich abundance both texts for exhortation and comfort, and themes for didactic edification. Here belongs of course the beautiful passage containing the physico-theological argument for an infinitely powerful and wise Maker and Ruler of the world (Job 12:7-12)a passage which in detail indeed exhibits no progressive development, but which does nevertheless present an occasion for such a teleologic advance of thought, in so far as it dwells first on the animal world, then on the realm of human life and its organic functions, in order to produce from both witnesses for a Supreme Wisdom ordering all things. But here still further belongs the description which follows of the Divine majesty and strength which display themselves in the catastrophes of human history (Job 12:13-25),a description which may be made the foundation of reflections in the sphere of historical theology, or ethical theology, as well as the physico-theological argument. Here belongs again the passage which follows, in which Job sharply censures the unfriendly judgment and invidious carping of his opponents (Job 13:1-12)a passage which reminds us in many respects of New Testament teachings, as e. g. of Mat 7:1-5, and of Mat 23:2 seq.Finally, we may put in this class the lamentation in the closing division, especially in Job 14, over the vanity and perishableness of the life of man on earth, which is compared now to a driven leaf, now to the process of mouldering, or being devoured by the moth, now to a fading flower, or a rock worn away and hollowed out by the waters, together with those passages which are interwoven with this lamentation, in which he glances at the beginning of life, poisoned by sin, and at its dismal outlook in the future appointed for it after death by the Divine justice, which is contemplated by itself, isolated from grace and mercy.The following extracts from the older and later practical expositors may serve to indicate how these themes may be individually treated.
Job 13:7-10 Brentius: All creatures proclaim the Creator, and cry out in speech that cannot be described: God has made meas Paul also says (Rom 1:19; comp. Psa 19:1 seq.). If any one therefore properly considers the nature of beasts, birds, fishes, he will discover the wonderful wisdom of the Creator (certain examples of the same being here brought forward, such as the instinct which the deer and the partridge exhibit, the wonderful strength of the little sucking-fish [Echines]). Thus by the natures of animals the invisible majesty of God is made visible and manifest. For not only did God create all things, but He also preserves, nourishes and sustains all things: the breath, whether of beasts or of men, is all lodged in His hand.Cocceius: What all these things severally contribute to the knowledge of the Creator, as it would be a most useful subject of thought, so it is too vast to be here set forth by us. Suffice it that Natural Theology is here established by Job. When he says this (, Job 13:9), he doubtless points out individual things. He thus confesses that every single thing was made and is governed by God, not only masses of things, and the universe as a whole, as the Jews dream. In fact individual animals, plants, etc., utter their testimony to the Divine efficiency. These opinions, either by the light of nature, or the intercourse of the fathers, were transmitted even to the gentiles.Hengstenberg: In order to make the wisdom of the friends quite contemptible, Job attributes to the animals a knowledge of the Divine omnipotence and wisdom, their existence being an eloquent proof of those attributes, so that they can become teachers of the man who should be so blind and foolish as to fail to know the divine omnipotence and wisdom. That which can be learned from brutes, that as to which we may go to school to them, Job will not be so foolish as not to know, neither will he need to learn it first from his wise friends. Just as here the animals, so in Psalms 19 the heavens are represented as declaring the glory of God, which is revealed in them. Jehovah, the most profound in significance of the Divine names, here bursts forth suddenly out of its concealment, the lower names of God being in this connection unsatisfactory. Jehovah, Jahveh, the One who Is, the absolute, pure Being, is most appropriately the name by which to designate the First Cause of all existences.
Job 12:11-13. Cocceius: If the mind judges concerning those things which are presented either by signs, such as words, or by themselves, as food to the palate, whether they are true or false, useful or injurious; if by experience (by which many things are seen, heard, examined), by the knowledge of very many things, and of things hidden, and by sagacity it is fitted to make a proper use of thingsdoes it not behoove that God, who gave these things should be omniscient without weakness, nay, with fulness of power, so that all things must obey His nod? For He beholds not, like man, that which belongs to another, but that which is His own. Nevertheless neither is judgment given to man for nought, but so that he may have some power of doing that which is useful, of refusing, or of not accepting that which is hurtful. Much less is Gods wisdom to be exercised apart from omnipotence or sovereignty over all creatures.
Job 12:16 seq. Cramer: Not only true but also false teachers are Gods property; but He uses the latter for punishment (2Th 2:10), yet in such a way that He knows how to bring forth good out of their ill beginning. The Lord is a great king over all gods; all that the earth produces is in His hand (Psa 95:3); even false religions must serve His purposes (comp. Oecolampadius, who remarks on Job 12:16 b: I refer this to , or false religions, of which the whole earth is full; he says here, that they come to be by His nod and permission). Such might and majesty He displays particularly toward the mighty kings of earth, to whom He gives lands and people, and takes them away again, as He wills (Dan 4:29).Zeyss: Rulers, and those who occupy their place, should diligently pray to God that He would keep them from foolish and destructive measures (in diets, council-chambers, in regard to wars, etc.), in order that they may not plunge themselves and their subjects into great distress (1Ki 3:9).
Job 13:14 seq. Brentius: You see from this passage that it is harder to endure the liability and dread of death than death itself. For it is not hard to die, seeing that whether disease precedes or not, death itself is sudden; but to hear in the conscience the sentence of death (soil.Thou shalt surely die!) this indeed is most hard! This voice no man can hear without despair, unless, on the other hand, the Lord should say to our soul: I am thy salvation!Wohlfarth: Earthly things lostlittle lost; honor lostmuch lost; God lostall lost! thus does Job admonish us.
Job 13:23-28. Oecolampadius: See the stages by which the calamities come, swelling one above the other. (1) To begin with, the face is hidden, and friendship is withheld; then (2) enmity is even declared; (3) persecution follows, and that without mercy, or regard for frailty; (4) reproaches and grave accusations are employed, and the memory of past delinquencies is revived; (5) guards are imposed, lest he should escape, and fetters in which he must rot. (Mercier and others, including of late Hengstenberg, have called attention to these same five stages.)Zeyss (on Job 13:24): Besides the external affliction, internal trials are generally added.(On Job 13:26): Even the sins of youth God brings to judgment in His own time (Psa 25:7). Think of that, young men and women, and flee youthful lusts!
Job 14:1 seq. Brentius: Mans misery is set forth by the simile of the flower; for bodily beauty and durability can be compared to nothing more suitably than to the flower and the shadow.Verily with what miseries man is filled, is too well known to need reciting. For nowhere is there any state or condition of men which does not have its own cross and tribulation; and thus all things everywhere are filled with crosses.The thing to be done, therefore, is not to shun the cross, but to lay hold on Christ, in whom every cross is most easily borne.Zeyss: Although no man is by nature pure and holy (Job 14:4), true believers nevertheless possess through Christ a two-fold purity: (1) in respect of their justification; (2) in respect of their sanctification and renewal: Heb 1:3; Heb 9:14; 1Jn 1:7, etc.
Job 14:7 seq. Zeyss: As a tree sprouts up again, so will men, who have been cut down by the axe of death, germinate again out of the grave on the Last Day; Joh 5:28-29.Hengstenberg: The prospect of a future life here vanishes away from Job. How indeed could it be otherwise, seeing that he has lost altogether out of his consciousness and experience the true nature of God, on which that hope rests, Gods justice and mercy? In these circumstances the belief in an endless life must of necessity perish within him, for to this faith there was not given until the latter part of the Old Dispensation any firm declaration from God to which it could cling, while before that it existed rather in the form of a longing, a yearning, a hope. Further on, however, [in Jobs history] it again recovers its power.
Job 14:13-17 : See Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 1.
Job 14:18 seq. Cramer: Nothing on earth is so firmly established, but it must perish; and they who occupy themselves with the things of earth, must perish in them (Sir 14:20 seq.; 1Jn 2:16 seq.).Zeyss: Although mountains, stones and rocks, yea, all that is in the world, are subject to change, Gods word, and the grace therein promised for believers, stand fast forever; Psa 117:2; Isa 54:10.Vict. Andre: Like an armed power the feeling of his present cheerless condition again overpowers Job, and again the feeble spark is extinguished, which had just before (Job 14:13-17), illumined his soul with so tender a gleam of hope. To his former reflections on nature (Job 14:7-12) he now opposes the fact, no less true, that even that which is most enduring in nature itself, such as mountains, rocks, and soils, must gradually decay. And so it seems to him now, in accordance with this fact, as though human life also were destined by God only to endless annihilation. Death it iswith its pale features so suddenly disfiguring the human countenancewhich again stands in all its horror, and annihilating power, before his despairing soul!
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
In this chapter, Job makes reply. He still dwells upon the same arguments of his own integrity, as it concerned his trust and dependence upon God. He manifests great strength of understanding, concerning the afflictions of the righteous, and contends that they are by no means marks of God’s displeasure.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) And Job answered and said, (2) No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. (3) But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these? (4) I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn. (5) He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease. (6) The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly. (7) But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: (8) Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. (9) Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? (10) In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
Poor Job, irritated by his friends, and no doubt vexed by his adversary, as Hannah felt, 1Sa 1:6 . seems for a while to forget his bodily ailments, and gives scope to an asperity not unlike those who opposed him; but his arguments are strong and conclusive. He insists upon it; that even the brute creation, since the fall, were living evidences that much evil might abound in the midst of GOD’S goodness: the whole creation groaneth under oppression; yet no impeachment ariseth out of it against the divine love and wisdom. Poor harmless animals are slaughtered to gratify the luxury of worthless men: and even the fishes of the sea are dragged forth to pamper the appetites of sinners. But, saith Job, who doth not see that in all these the goodness of GOD is the same?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 12:2
Speaking in Fors Clavigera (lx.) of the need of acquainting ourselves with the opinions of older thinkers, Ruskin satirically observes: ‘For though a man of superior sagacity may be pardoned for thinking, with the friends of Job, that Wisdom will die with him, it can only be through neglect of the existing opportunities of general culture that he remains distinctly under the impression that she was born with him’. Job 12:4 ‘She saw there something that she had not,’ says Meredith of Lady Charlotte in Sandra Belloni (chap. XXVIII.) ‘And being of a nature leaning to greatmindedness, though not of the first rank, she could not meanly mask her own deficiency by despising it. To do this is the secret evil by which souls of men and women stop their growth.’
Job 12:5
Before we reached Adrianople, Methley had been seized with we know not what ailment, and when we had taken up our quarters in the city he was cast to the very earth by sickness…. I have a notion that tenderness and pity are affections occasioned in some measure by living within doors; certainly, at the time I speak of, the open-air life which I had been leading, or the wayfaring hardships of the journey, had so strangely blunted me, that I felt intolerant of illness, and looked down upon my companion as if the poor fellow, in falling ill, had betrayed a want of spirit.
Kinglake, Eothen, chap. 11.
Job 12:6
Now and again while repeating the maxims of piety he [i.e. Theognis] suddenly breaks off, overcome by the thought of the sufferings of the righteous; he turns to Zeus and charges him with injustice in his government of the world in language almost as bold as that of the Prometheus of schylus, or of the book of Job: ‘Zeus, lord beloved, I marvel at thee; for thou reignest over all; thine is honour and great power, and thou knowest the very heart and spirit of each man, for thy might, O king, is supreme. How then, son of Cronos, can thy soul endure to hold in like regard the sinner and the righteous?… Heaven has given to mortals no clear token, nor shown the way by which if a man walk he may please the Immortals. Howbeit the wicked prosper, and are free from trouble, while those who Keep their soul from base deeds, although they love justice have for their portion poverty poverty, mother of helplessness, which tempts the mind of man to transgression, and by a cruel constraint mars the reason in his breast.’
S. H. Butcher, Aspects of the Greek Genius, pp. 143, 144.
References. XII. 8. W. R. Inge, All Saints’ Sermons, 1905-1907, pp. 191, 201. XII. 9, 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 326.
Job 12:18
The People have time enough, they are immortal; kings only are mortal.
Heine.
Job 12:22
For us vain is the dream of a shadowless world, with no interruption of brilliancy, no remission of joy. Were our heaven never overcast, yet we meet the brightest morning only in escape from recent night…. Where is that tincture of sanctity which Christ has given to sorrow, and which makes His form at once the divinest and most pathetic in the world? It is that He has wakened by His touch the illimitable aspirations of our bounded nature, and flung at once into our thought and affection a holy beauty, a Divine Sonship into which we can only grow. And this is a condition which can never cease to be. Among the true children of the Highest, who would wish to be free from it? Let the glorious burden lie! How can we be angry at a sorrow which is the birth-pang of a Diviner life.
Martineau.
Job 12:23
In our greatest literary epoch, that of the Elizabethan age, English society at large was accessible to ideas, was permeated by them, was vivified by them, to a degree which has never been reached in England since. Hence the unique greatness in English literature of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. They were powerfully upheld by the intellectual life of their nation; they applied freely in literature the then modern ideas, the ideas of the Renascence and the Reformation. A few years afterwards the great English middle-class, the kernel of the nation, the class whose intelligent sympathy had upheld a Shakespeare, entered the prison of Puritanism, and had the key turned on its spirit there for two hundred years. He enlargeth a nation, says Job, and straiteneth it again.
Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, vol. I. p. 176.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. I.
Job 12-14
“And Job answered and said, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you” ( Job 12:1-2 ).
This was unkind; but very human! Perhaps it was provoked: for we think we have discovered a tone of taunting in the three eloquent speeches which have been addressed to the patriarch. Was it worthy of Job to return taunt for taunt? Was it worthy of Elijah to mock the idolatrous worshippers? We must not separate ourselves from the human race, and stand back in the dignity of untouched critics, and say what was worthy, or what was not worthy; we must rather identify ourselves with the broad currents of human experience, and take other men as very largely representing what we would have done under the same circumstances. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Criticism may be the supreme vice. Job represents ourselves in this quick and indignant introduction. He will get better as he warms to his subject. Indeed, all the speakers have done this, straight through the story, as we have clearly seen. They began snappishly, peevishly, mockingly; but somehow a mysterious influence operated upon them, and every man concluded his speech in most noble terms. Better this than the other way. Do not some men always begin well and end ill? Are not some lives like inverted pyramids? Happy is the man who, however beefly he may begin the tale of his life, grows in his subject expands, warms, radiates until all that was little and mean in the beginning is forgotten in the splendour and magnificence of the consummation. Still, Job does begin sharply. He lifts his hand, and by a circular movement strikes every man of the three in the face, and leaves them smarting under the blow for a little while.
Job accuses the three men of being guilty of narrow criticism. Narrow criticism spoils everything. It also provokes contempt That which is out of proportion always elicits a sneering criticism: it is too high, too low; it is exaggerated in one dimension, it is out of square, and out of keeping with the harmony and the fitness of things, so that a half-blind man could almost see how the whole thing is out of true geometry. Whatever is so is pointed at, and is remarked upon, either with flippancy or with contempt. When did the bowing wall ever attract to itself the respect of the passer-by? When did ever that which is onesided, obviously out of plomb, draw to itself the commendation of any sensible critic? Job said: So far as you have gone you are right enough: who knoweth not such things as these? Your criticism lacks breadth; you are like a point rather than an edge; you see one or two things most clearly, but you do not take in the whole horizon: your minds are intense rather than comprehensive. This is the fault of the world! It is peculiarly and incurably the fault of some men. They see single points with an intensity indescribable, and you cannot get them to see any other point, and complete the survey of the whole. They are men of prejudice, stubborn men; they imagine that they are faithful, when they are only obstinate; they suppose themselves to be real, when they are only incapable. It is illustrated on every hand. Narrow criticisms have driven men away from the Church who ought to have been its pillars and its luminaries. We must, therefore, take in more field. There is what may be called a sense of proportion in man. Not only has man an ear by which to try words, and a palate by which to test foods, but he has in him a sense of proportion: he seems to know without a schoolmaster when a thing is the right length, the right shape; whether there is enough, or too much of it. Ask him to define this feeling in words, or justify it by canons of art, and he cannot do so. But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. The untaught man stops before a house that is ridiculously low, and points it out. Why should he do so? What is it that moves him but that inscrutable and undefinable sense of proportion, which would seem to be in every man? So with a house that is disproportionately high. Though in haste, the man draws up to look at it, to point it out; or if he be without companion he remembers the disproportionate thing, and relates at home what he has seen on the road. Why may not men build as they please without criticism? Simply because there is a common sentiment, a common opinion, an inborn sense of proportion and right; and men cannot be exaggeratedly individual without provoking criticism for their offence against the established customs and conclusions of the world. The three friends of Job, we now begin to see, had but a very short view of life, it was a very high one, and it went in the right direction; they were all religious men, but narrowly religious. They would have been more religious if they had been more human. They would have better represented God if they had broken down in tears, hung upon Job’s neck, and said Oh, brother, the hand is hard upon thee, and to us it is a mystery that tests our faith in God. But they were too sternly and squarely theological: they knew where God began and ended, what circuit he swept; and they judged everything by a narrow and unworthy standard. It is not enough to be right in points; it is not enough to have excellent traits of character: the whole character must be moulded symmetrically, and the whole man must be taken in before any one point of him can be understood. So it is with the living God: we are not to take out individual instances and dwell upon them in their separateness: we are to take in the whole horizon, and judge of every star in the firmament by every other star that shares the great honour of lighting the universe.
Then, again, Job points out that there is always another view to be taken than the one which is represented:
“I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you” ( Job 12:3 ).
We always omit to take in the opinion of the other man. That is papal infallibility; and it lives in every country under heaven. We forget that there is another man in the house who has not yet spoken, and until he has spoken the whole truth has not been declared. There is a child crying, and until we understand through what gamut its cry passes we cannot comprehend the whole situation of things. The dying man is as essential a witness in this great evidence, concerning God and providence, as is the testimony of the most robust and energetic witness. The truth is not with any three men. No three points can represent the circle. And God always works in circles, he knows nothing about any other geometrical figure. It seem to occur here and there, no doubt; but when taken into relation with all other things, the universe is a globe, a sphere, an infinite dewdrop. Who, then, stands up and says, Behold, this is the whole truth of God, and beside it there is nothing to be said? A man who should utter such words should be excommunicated from the altar, until he has learned that he knows nothing, and is but part of an immeasurable totality. Job insists upon being heard; he says, There are not three in this company, but four; and four is an even number, and the even number must be heard. There must be no triangular constituency in the great moral universe. Each man sees something which no other man sees; and until we have got the other man’s testimony we are operating upon a broken witness. Every man in the church should pray. When the last little child has uttered his sentence, when the poorest, frailest woman has breathed her wordless sigh into the great supplication, then heaven will have before it the whole prayer of humanity. But are there not men who are instructed in theology? The worse for the world if their instruction has led them to narrowness and to finality! Theology is not a profession; it is the whole human heart, touched, kindled with a passion that seeks God. We must hear the patient as well as the doctor; we must hear the sufferer as well as the comforter; we must listen to Job as well as to his three friends.
Then Job cannot get away from what wicked men say:
“I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn” ( Job 12:4 ).
Everything seems to favour this view. Said Job, Look at me; my neighbours who were wont to consult me now mock me; they who knew that I have called upon God say, God has answered him in sore boils, and has thrown him to the dust that he may know how great is his hypocrisy: these many years I have maintained a character as a just upright man, now I am laughed to scorn: what else can I do? Look at me: what an answer I am to their sarcasm! I cannot touch myself at any point without inflicting wounds upon my flesh with my own fingers; I am a stranger to my nearest and dearest friends: how can I claim that God hears and answers prayer? When they mock, I know they can justify their taunt; when they laugh me to scorn, I know that there is reason in the malignant laughter. So Job, too, swings down to the dark point; so Job also becomes as narrow as his critics. But there is some palliation for the narrowness which Job takes to, for he is under pain, the thong has cut to the bone; he has nobody to speak to that can understand a word that he says: if he was narrow, it was most excusable in him. Job says:
“He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease” ( Job 12:5 ).
An apparently unintelligible statement. The Revised Version says “In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for misfortune.” Take the figure of the lamp. The idea would then be that of a long dark road; a man has passed through it safely, he is in the house of security, and when he hears of some poor traveller struggling along the same road, and afraid his light will be blown out, he cares nothing for him; he himself being at ease at home “despises” the man who is struggling along the dark road with a lamp that threatens to be blown out before the journey is completed. Take the other idea, which is in substance the same, namely, that ill-regulated or unsanctified prosperity leads to the contempt of other men less fortunate other men to whom prosperity is denied. A sad effect indeed, contempt for misfortune, reviling men and saying, They ought to have done better, they have themselves to blame for all this: look at me; I have no misfortune; I have lost nothing, I miss nothing, whatever I touch becomes gold, and wherever I look upon the earth a flower acknowledges the blessing of my glance. Such is the boast of impious prosperity, unsanctified and irrational success. This is the necessity of the case, unless there be a vivid realisation of the providence of God in human life. Every night when the good man adds up his book he must write at the foot of the page, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” Then the more he has the better. He will never say look at me; he will say, Look at God: how kind his bounties are, and large! His mercy endureth for ever: the Lord my God teacheth me to get wealth; I must spend my wealth to the honour and glory of him who has taught my hands their skill, and gifted my mind with its peculiar and gracious faculty. When Job came into misfortune he heard the laughter of the mocker. He understood the rough merriment but too well; he said It is always so: “he that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease”; the men who are now laughing at me are men who have shared my bounty in brighter days. Alas, poor human nature! I am now laughed to scorn by the men who once would have been made happy by the touch of my hand.
Then Job becomes his better self. He goes out, and he takes a broad and a right view of human nature a medicine always to be recommended to diseased minds. “Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?” Yes, by taking the sufferer up the mountain, down the river, across the sea; bringing him into close identity with the spirit of nature, the healing spirit, the spirit of benediction, the spirit of sleep. Job stands up like a great natural theologian, and preaches thus:
“But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee: and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” ( Job 12:7-10 ).
He who talks so will surely live again! He is very low down now, but he will come up, because the spirit of wisdom has not deserted him. He will reason upwards. He will make himself acquainted with all the nature that is accessible to him. So we say to all men, Make the most of scientific inquiry: have telescopes and microscopes, and go to day-schools and night-schools: study every little insect that lives that you can bring under your criticism: acquaint yourselves with the habits of fowls and fishes, and animals of every name, and plants of every genera: go into all departments of nature; and depend upon it you are on the stairway which if followed will bring you up into the higher air and the broader light. Never believe there are two Gods in the universe the God of nature and the God of the Bible. There is but one God, There are two aspects of his revelation. Every pebble belongs to God. You cannot lose a pebble. The thief cannot run away without running into the very arms of the God he seeks to fly from. You cannot steal a single insect out of the museum of nature. You cannot take up one little grain of sand, and escape with it. All our felonies are little vulgar larcenies; they are all on the surface; we can mete out to them adequate punishment: but no man can steal from God in the sense of losing out of the creation anything which God has put into it. And everywhere God has written his name in large letters. The microscope is one of the doors into heaven; the telescope is another a thousand doors all in one, and all falling back on their golden hinges to let the worshippers through in millions. Who ever introduced into the Church the most horrible heresy that nature is not God’s, or that contempt for nature is the only appropriate attitude in relation to it, or the only right feeling regarding it? God is the gardener. He knows all the roses. You cannot steal a rose-leaf without his eye being upon you, and without his voice saying to the conscience, That rose-leaf is mine. You cannot shake a dewdrop off a flower without God knowing that the position of the dewdrop has been changed. There is not a little creature whose heart requires a microscope of the greatest power to see it that has not been, in one way or another do not bewilder yourselves as to methods created by the power and wisdom of God. We must, too, remember that there are two classes of workers. Some of our brethren are studying, according to Job’s direction, “the beasts,” “the fowls,” “the earth,” “the fishes of the sea.” They are still our brethren; they are not to be despised. Others are studying the greater things of God, that is to say, studying somewhat of his thought, purpose, love. They are the higher students, but they are still members of the same glorious academy. When the theologian says that the naturalist is contemptible, he is guilty of falsehood; when the naturalist says that the theologian is fanatical, he is guilty of falsehood: the two should be brothers, living together in amity and charity.
Job lays down a great doctrine which seems to have been forgotten:
“Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?” ( Job 12:11 ).
What is the meaning of the inquiry? Evidently this that there is a verifying faculty in man: the ear knows when the sentence has reached the point of music; the ear knows not only words, but, figuratively, understands reasoning; and the ear, taken as the type of the understanding, being the door through which information goes, says, Yes, that is right; No, that is wrong. Doth not the mouth taste meat, has not man a palate? The palate pronounces judgment upon everything that is eaten, saying, That is sweet, that is bitter; this is good, wholesome; that is poisonous and utterly to be rejected. What is that wondrous thing called the palate? It is not merely an animal appendage, but it is a critical faculty; it is something in the mouth that says, This may be taken, but not that. Now Job argues: As certainly as the ear tries words, and the mouth tastes meat, there is a spirit in man which says, That is true, and that is false; that is right, and that is wrong: has God given man an ear and a palate for the trying of words and the tasting of foods, and left him without understanding? The appeal is to the inward witness, the individual conscience, the inextinguishable light, or a light that can only be extinguished by the destruction of everything that makes a man. Here is the great power of Christ over all his hearers. He knows there is an answering voice. Once there stood a scribe, or other man of letters and wisdom, who said, when Christ answered a question wisely, “Well, Master, thou hast said the truth.” A man knows when he hears the truth. He may not know it today, and under this light, and within a certain number of instances; but there comes a time when every man is judge, gifted with the spirit of penetration; and by so much as he exercises that spirit of penetration will he become wise unto salvation, and in proportion as he distrusts it will he either grieve the Spirit or quench the Holy Ghost.
So Job will not be satisfied with Bildad’s tradition or with the broad generalisations of Eliphaz; he will try the words, put them to the test of spiritual experience, and pronounce upon them as he may be guided by the Spirit of the living God. That is all any Christian teacher should desire. He must find his authority in his hearers. They must begin with him wherever they can. There may be times when the hearers will separate themselves from the teachers, saying, We cannot follow you there; we have not been up so high, we have not been so far afield; we know nothing about what you are now saying, but you have said a thousand things we do know, a thousand things we have tasted and felt and handled, and we will stand there altogether, hoping that by-and-by we may ascend to higher heights, and take in the wider magnitudes: then there shall be between teacher and taught a spirit of masonry, of true love, of mutual trust; the taught shall say, Teacher sent from God, pray on, go higher and higher, but remember that we cannot go so quickly, and that at present we are upon a lower level; and the teacher should say O fellow-students, let us pray together, and go a step at a time, and wait: for the very last scholar, and where there is most infirmity let there be most love, where there is truest doubt let there be largest sympathy, and in all things let there be loving communion in Christ Jesus. Men animated by that spirit can never get far wrong. They may have a thousand misconceptions, so far as mere opinions and words are concerned, but they are right in the substance of their being, right in the purpose of their nature, right in their motive and intention, and at the last they shall stand in the light, and thank the God who did not desert them when the midnight was very dark, and the winter was intolerably cold.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. II.
Job 12-14
In the latter part of the twelfth chapter Job shows that he has a fuller and grander conception of God than any of his three comforters have. He is not behind them in the instinct or in the enjoyment of divine worship. When he speaks of God he lifts up our thought to a new and sublime level: “With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding” ( Job 12:13 ). Regarded metaphysically or spiritually, God is the great mystery of all things; he covers all the range appropriate to counsel, wisdom, and understanding: he is spiritually incomprehensible. Then actively
“Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening, Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth” ( Job 12:14-15 ).
What can man do? He cannot bring a single rain-cloud into the dry sky with promise of refreshment and fertility for the barren and languishing earth; he cannot make the sun rise one moment sooner than he is appointed by law astronomical to rise. Poor man! He can but stand in presence of natural phenomena with note-book in hand, putting down what he calls memoranda, looking these very carefully and critically over, and turning them into classical utterances which the vulgar cannot understand. But he is kept outside; he is not allowed to go to the other side of the door on which is marked the word Private. And as for God’s actions amongst the great and the mighty of the earth, they are as grasshoppers before him:
“He leadeth counselors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools. He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle” ( Job 12:17-18 )
He takes off their glittering diamond band, and replaces it with a slave’s girdle. “He leadeth princes away spoiled, and over-throweth the mighty” ( Job 12:19 ). Yet the mighty boast themselves: they live in palace, and in castle, and in strong tower; they indulge in jeering and jibing at those who have no such security. What are they in the sight of God? God is no respecter of persons: God looks upon character the very substance of life, its best and enduring quality; and where he finds right character he crowns it, he makes it better still by added blessing. But are there not those who set up their own enigmas and riddles as philosophies and revelations?
“He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty” ( Job 12:20-21 ).
When did God pour contempt upon the poor, those who have no helper, and those for whom there is no man to speak? When was he hard with the afflicted and the infirm? So Job magnifies what he himself has seen of the providence and grace of God, and makes himself as it were a solitary exception to the great sovereignty of the heavens; yet now and again he says, in effect almost in words it shall not always be so: he who has bowed me down shall straighten me again, and I shall yet live to praise him. Now and again he stands up almost a poet and a prophet, for by anticipation he enjoys the deliverance and the triumph which he is sure must supervene.
Having spoken to the comforters, therefore, in their own theological language, and showed that he was a greater theologian than any of them, he gives them to understand that in their argument they have somehow missed something:
“What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God” ( Job 13:2-3 ).
He turns away from the three talkers, practically saying, Let me continue this controversy with heaven, and not with earth: you vex me, you fret me; you do not touch the reality of the case; yours are all words, clever and beautiful words, but you never come near my wound: away! Let me speak directly to the condescending heavens: though judgment has fallen upon me, yet mercy will come from the same quarter. Job, therefore, feels that the three friends have missed something. He gropes after God. He says, The answer must come whence the mystery has come: you did not afflict me, and you cannot heal me: this is a matter of original application, of direct appeal to heaven: he who began must finish; you have nothing to do with it. How happy we should often feel ourselves if we could shake our souls free from uninformed sympathisers, and from people who offer us keys which were never meant to open the lock of God’s mystery! This is what Job does. He says in effect I have listened to you, your words have passed over me, the ear has heard them, and rejected them; now give me opportunity of talking with God.
“But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value” ( Job 13:4 ).
What is it that feels this to be the case in our human education? We listen to men, and say So far, good: there is sense in what you say; you are not without mental penetration; unquestionably your appeals are marked by ability: but somehow the soul knows that there is something wanting. The soul cannot always tell what it is, but there is a spirit in man which says The statement to which you have just listened is onesided, imperfect, incomplete; it wants rounding into perfectness. Surely there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. Wise men come before us, and say, Here is the world: what more do you want? A beautiful little world, a mere speck of light no doubt, still, there is room enough in the world to live in: we may cultivate the earth and rejoice in all its productions, flower and fruit alike: what more do you want? We listen, and say, That is a good argument: certainly the world is here, and a world that gives fruits and flowers, and has in it birds of its own, birds that cannot fly beyond its atmosphere, birds made to sing in this cage, and to make the children of men glad. But we no sooner consent to the solidity of the argument than a voice within us says O fool, and slow of heart! You are bigger than any world God ever made, greater than the universe on which he seems to have lavished an infinity of wisdom and strength: in this poor little fluttering heart lies a divinity that mocks all space, and defies all time, and tramples upon all the challenges and offers of the material universe. Then men say, Be learned, be wise; science is the providence of life, submit to it; there are certain known measurable laws, accept them, and live within them: roof yourself well in with laws and proved generalisations, and be content. No sooner have we admitted that the appeal is good and strong, certainly up to a given point unquestionably so, than the same voice within us says, Have they ever told you what life is? and you live! Not what life is beyond the stars, but what your own life is? Have they ever seen it, measured it, weighed it, revealed it to your sight? Why, sir, you live! That is a mystery next to the fact that God lives. What is life? As well ask you to be content with your garments and pay no attention to your physical condition, as ask you to be content with things that are outside your mind and neglect the mind itself. So with many a criticism passed upon the Christian religion; we feel that the criticism is clever, sharp, pungent, acute; if it were a question of mere criticism we should say, It is admirably done; but when the critic has ceased, this mysterious voice, this inner self, this impalpable, invisible thing called the soul, or the spirit, says, The statement is incomplete: it is wanting in vitality; the men who have made that statement are conscious themselves that they have not touched the limit of things. So Job felt. He said, “What ye know, the same do I know also; I am not inferior unto you.” Up to a given point we go step for step, and say, The reasoning is perfectly good, but after that what remains? What after death, what after visible facts; what about will, motive, passion, love, and all the mysterious spiritual forces that throw man into tumult or gladden him with sacred joy? About these things you seem to have nothing to say.
Job therefore directs them to keep their tongues quiet, saying, “O that ye would altogether hold your peace! And it should be your wisdom” ( Job 13:5 ). That is not mere mockery; that is solid philosophy. In presence of some mysteries we must simply be silent. He who can be reverently silent in the presence of such mysteries is a great scholar in the school of God; he has courage to say, I do not know. He is along the line, he is eloquent at many a point, but he suddenly comes to points in the line which confuse him and defy him, and there he closes his lips: but his silence is prayer, his speechlessness is religion; this is not the dumbness of opposition, it is the silence of adoration.
Now Job asks a question or two, the principle of which applies to all ages: “Will ye speak wickedly for God?” ( Job 13:7 ). What an extraordinary combination of terms! If a man speak about God, can he do so “wickedly”? The answer is a melancholy Yes. Some of the things we shall have most deeply to repent of may be our sermons respecting God. We have created our sermons, and tried to force God into them, and to make him a consenting partner in our evil deed. Who will arise to speak righteously about God, and call him Father? To what evil treatment has he been subjected! How cruel have men been with God! First of all they conceive a certain theory of the Almighty, and then they bend everything into the lines which they have laid down. There are those who would overpower conscience by sovereignty. This is never to be allowed. God never comes into conflict with the human conscience. From the beginning he has been careful to keep himself, so to say, in harmony with the self which he has given to man, in the sense of being a spirit which could discern good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, partiality and impartiality. There are those who have said that God has damned some portions of the human race. Who ever said so is a liar! He “speaks wickedly for God.” Whoever says to the human conscience, Sit down: you have no right to ask about this appearance of partiality on the part of God, speaks deceitfully for the most high. “God is love”; “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” Who can challenge great speeches like that? These are the appeals that make the whole world kin. There you find no show of favour or partiality or selection. Whenever God goes beyond what we believe to be the letter of the law, it is never to exclude but always to include men whom we thought were for ever to be kept outside. He says to the Jew, What if I go after the Gentile? I made the Gentile as certainly as I made the Jew. And what said the most stubborn of Jews? At a certain time of spiritual revelation he said, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” There you have a philosophy that will stand the wear and tear of life; there you have a gospel that you can stand up and preach to the living and the dead. Alas! it is possible to have an immoral theology; in other words, it is possible to “speak wickedly for God.” We are to stand upon great principles, eternal truths, the sweet and proved realities of grace. There you are strong, with all the strength of personal experience; there you are gracious, with all the tenderness of real human sympathy. There is a God preached by some men that ought never to be believed in. Such men have no authority for their preaching in Holy Scripture. If they quote texts, they misquote them; if they point to chapter and verse, they never point to context. The providence of God must always illustrate the grace of God, and God “is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil”; “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”: “God is love.” He must be spoken of in loving language; he must be revealed in all the attributes which indicate passion, mercy, tenderness, pity, clemency, care for the infirm, the feeble, the desolate, and the lost. In doing so, do we forget the righteousness of God? Certainly not, but it is the glory of righteousness to be compassionate; it is the glory of justice to flower out into charity. There is no unrighteousness in God. But partiality would be unrighteousness. First to give man a conscience, and then to insult and dishonour it, would be unrighteous. To teach that God has chosen one man to go to heaven and another man to go to hell, is to perpetrate a direr blasphemy than was done by the hand of Iscariot. This great evangelical doctrine must be declared in all its fulness and gravity, in all its argumentative nobleness, and in all its sympathetic tenderness, if the world is to be affected profoundly and savingly. The world is never affected by an argument which it cannot understand: men are moved by passions, impulses, instincts, intuitions, by something coming to them which has a correspondence in their own nature, and to which that which is in them answers as an echo to a voice.
Now let us take our stand on these great principles, and the world will not wish us to withdraw our ministry. When we thus magnify God we unite the human race; we do not break it up and distribute it, classify it and mark it off for monopolies and primacies and selfish sovereignties: we unite the human heart in all lands and climes, in all ages and under all circumstances. Nothing may be so impious as piety. Nothing may be so irreligious as religion. “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Job having thus rebuked his friends makes what he terms a “declaration”:
“Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears” ( Job 13:17 ).
Then he begins to say that all things are done by God; he says, Whatever is, God rules, and overrules; it is therefore not to be judged by the moment, or by some limited line, or newly-invented standard. God must have time, as well as nature. You say you must give nature time; you must remember that the seasons are four in number, and that they come and go in regular march and harmony. What you accord to nature you ought not to deny to God. It has pleased him so to make the world that not only is there in it one day, but there is a Tomorrow, and there is a third day: on the third day he perfects his Son. We must await the issue, and then we shall be called upon to judge the process. Now we see so little; we know next to nothing; we spend our lives in correcting our own mistakes: by-and-by the process will be consummated, and then we shall be asked to pronounce a judgment upon it; and in heaven’s clear light, and in the long day of eternity, we shall see just what God has done in the human race, and why he has done it Oh for patience! that mysterious power of waiting which is a kind of genius; the silence that holds its tongue under the assurance that at any moment it may be called upon to break into song, and testimony, and thanksgiving. Silence is part of true religion. He is not ignorant who says, I do not know. He may be truly wise; he may be but indicating that up to a given point he feels sure and strong and clear, and he is waiting at a door fastened on the other side until those who are within open it and bid him advance. Be it ours to be close to the door, for it may open at any moment, and we may be called to advance into larger spaces and fuller liberties.
Job is not afraid to say that “the deceiver and the deceived” are both in the hands of God. Job is not afraid to say that all affliction is sent of heaven, and that no affliction springs out of the dust. Job is represented, in the English version, as saying, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” But that is not what Job did say. He said he will slay. It would be beautiful to retain the English just as we find it, but justice of a grammatical kind will not allow it Job says: He will slay me, but I will still call his attention to great principles: in the very agony of death I will hold up before him that which he himself has told me. So Job, by a gracious and happy self-contradiction, says he will be slain, and yet he will contend; he will fall, and yet from the dust he will plead. Surely in the man’s heart was hidden a promise which he dare not divulge in words, but which was all the time warning him, comforting him, inspiring him, and making his weakness the very best and purest of his power.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. III.
Job 12-14
We have often had occasion to rejoice when Bible speakers have come down to a line with which we are ourselves familiar. Upon that line we could judge them correctly, as to their wisdom and understanding of human affairs. It is the peculiar distinction of Bible speakers and writers that now and again they ascend to heights we cannot climb: what they are uttering upon these sunlit elevations we cannot always tell; the great men are out of sight, often out of sound; we hear but reports of what they are declaring, and they themselves are more echoes than voices; they cannot tell what they have seen, or heard, or spoken; they have been but instruments in the hands of God. But, ever and anon, they come down to the common earth, and talk in our mother-tongue, and look us steadfastly in the face: then we can form some true judgment of the value of their thinking, of the scope of their imagination, and of the practical energy of their understanding. An instance of that kind occurs in the fourteenth chapter. Job begins to talk about “Man.” So long as he talked about himself there was a secret behind his speech which we could not penetrate. There is, indeed, a secret of that kind behind every man’s speech. No man says all he knows; no man can say all he means: behind the most elaborate declarations there are mysteries of motive and thought and purpose, which the man himself can never represent in adequate words. But now Job will speak about man in general; that is to say, about the human race; and when he begins so to speak, we can subject his words to practical tests, and assign them their precise value in historical criticism.
What does Job say about man? Is it true that man is a creature whose existence is measurable by days? What are “days”? mere fleeting shadows of time, hardly symbols of duration, going whilst they are coming, evaporating whilst we are remarking upon their presence? How long is it between sunrise and sunset? To the busy man it is nothing. To the idle man it is, and ought to be, a long time: but to the energetic servant, busy about his Lord’s work, what is the day? A little rent in the sky, a little gleam of light shining through a great immeasurable darkness. Is it true, then, that man’s existence, as we know it, is measurable by days? Are his days but a handful at the most? Are the days of our years statable in clear numbers? Does human existence humble itself to be settled by the law of averages? Has that mysterious quantity, that awful secret, human life, been dragged to the table of the arithmetician and made to accommodate itself to some form of statistics, so that whatever A or B may do, the common man, the medial quantity, will live to forty years, or fifty, and the whole stock of the human population may be struck down at that figure? Calculate upon that: offer them prices at that: write out their policies at that figure. Is it so, that man who can dream poems and temples and creations can be scheduled as probably finishing his dream at midnight or at the crowing of the cock? Are we so frail? Is life so attenuated a thing, that at any moment it: may snap, and our best and dearest may vanish for ever from our eyes? Job was either correct or incorrect when he said that: every man can judge the patriarch at this point. Is man like a flower which cometh forth, and is cut down? Is he no stronger than that? Beautiful indeed: a child of the sun, a spot of loveliness in a desert of desolation, a comely child: but may he die in the cradle: may his cradle become his coffin? May he never learn to walk, to talk, to love? It is so, or it is not so? There is no need to expend many words about this. Job is now talking about facts, and if the facts can be produced as against him here, we may dismiss him when he takes wing and flies away to horizons that lie beyond our ken.
But Job may be right here, and if he here talk soberly, truly, with wise sadness, he may be right when he comes to discuss problems with which we are unfamiliar. Is man “full of trouble”? Does any man need to go to the lexicon to know what “trouble” means? Is that word an etymological mystery? Do people know trouble by going to school? or do they know it by feeling it? Does the heart keep school on its own account? Do men know grief at first sight, and accost it as if they were familiar with it, and had kept long companionship with it in existences not earthly? The patriarch says “full” of trouble. That is a broad statement to make, and it is open to the test of practical observation and experience. What does “full of trouble” literally mean in the language which the patriarch employed? It means, satiated with trouble; steeped, soaked in trouble; so that the tears could be wrung out of him as if he had been purposely filled with these waters of sorrow. Is that true? Is man full of trouble, in other words, may trouble come into his life by a thousand different gates? Is it impossible to calculate, on awakening in the morning, how trouble will come into the heart through the gate of business, through personal health, through family circumstances? Will the letter-carrier bring a lapful of trouble to the man’s breakfast-table? Is man full of trouble, sated with sorrow, soaked and steeped in the brine of grief? We can tell: here we need no learned annotator with ponderous books and far-reaching traces of words: the heart knoweth its own bitterness. Who has ever stumbled at the first and second verses of the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Job, saying, These verses are not true? Nay, who has not gone to them in the dark and cloudy time and the day of desperate sorrow, and said, These words express the common experience of the race? Then Job says, man “fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.” Is this true, or is the word “shadow” a rhetorical expression? Is not our life more like a stable rock? Is not our existence firm like a mountain? Can we not say positively that we shall go into such and such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, sell, and get gain? Has the Lord not allowed us to use the one little word “year” as if we had a right to it? Were we speaking about a long lifetime or an eternity then modesty might restrain our speech; but does the Lord say we are not to lay claim to one year for residence in a foreign city for commercial purposes, but that even in a promise for a year we must say, “if the Lord will”? Let this question be settled by facts. Do not be led away by words, however many and vital, but say, Has Job thus far laid his hand upon the realities of human experience? Is he but indulging in flights of imagination, and painting pictures which have no reference to the realities of life?
Assuming Job to be right, the question comes, How to account for this? Surely man, as we know him, cannot be made to be a creature of “days,” the subject of “trouble,” a “flower” for transitoriness of existence, or a “shadow” for evanescence? “Man” is the first word in the chapter, and it is a larger word than “days,” “trouble,” “fear,” “shadow”; to use the word in the old English sense, these terms do not equivocate with the word “man.” There is something more than we see: there is the argument of consciousness, an argument without words; that great terrible argument of sentiency, inward knowledge, instinct, intuition, call it what you may: there is something in “man” that will say to “fear” and “shadow,” You do but represent one little section of my existence: I am more than you are: I am not a daisy which an ox can crush; I am not a shadow which can be chased away from the wall: in some respects I am weak enough a mere child of days; my breath is in my nostrils, I know, but I know also that there is something within all the enfoldings and complications of this mysterious condition of life which says it will not die. Left to construct an argument in words, that argument might be borne down by a greater fury of words; but how to deal with the divinity that stirs within us! After all our arguing is done, that mysterious spirit says it lives still; that mysterious Galileo says, when the inquisitorial argument and the torture process are all concluded, I still live: I cannot, will not die; only one power can crush me, and that is the power that made me. Yes, there is an argument of consciousness, after all controversy in words has had its windy way.
Now Job comes to the fixed realities of life. He says, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one ” ( Job 14:4 ). There he would seem to be philosophical in the modern sense of the term: he would appear to have fixed his reasoning upon what we call the law of cause and effect. He speaks like a wise man. The proposition which he lays down here is one which is open to immediate and exhaustive scrutiny. But he proceeds: “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass” ( Job 14:5 ). Is all that true? Do we live an “appointed” time on the earth? Are our days meted out to us one by one, and is a record kept by the Divine Economist, and can we not beg just one more day, to finish the marble column, or to put one last touch to the temple whose pinnacles are already glistering in the sun? Is all settled? Have we only liberty to obey? Let facts declare themselves. Job’s appeal to heaven, based upon these supposed facts, is full of pathos. You find the appeal in the sixth verse “Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day.” In other words, Do not look at him, O God; but let him do his little day’s work, and go to his beast’s refuge in the ground. Or in other words, The discrepancy between thy look and his fate would drive man mad: spare him thy glance: if thou hast made him to be but a superior beast of burden, oh! do not look at him; he would misunderstand thy look, it would seem to touch somewhat of kinship in his soul, and thy look might give him a hope which thou hast determined to blight; Lord of mercy, do not look at the man thou hast doomed to die; let him run through his little tale of work, and bury himself in the eternal night. Job already begins to feel a movement of the soul which cannot be content with words of a negative kind. Why should man be so affected by the look of God? No beast prays to be released from the overruling observation of God. What is this masonry that understands the signs of the heavens? What is it within us that answers to an appeal made from the highest places? There we come upon the line of mystery: and my affirmment is that nowhere do we find answers direct, clear, simple, complete, and grand to all the hunger of the soul as we find in the Book of God a Book which covers the whole space, answers the inquiry, turns the question into exultation and praise.
Job reasons, and reasons wrongly. The reasoning is good, but the application is inadequate and fallacious, thus:
“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant” ( Job 14:7-9 ).
Beautiful! fact turned into poetry: the tree blossoms under the touch of Job’s reasoning. But what does he make of it? We shall see presently. Meanwhile, Job says “there is hope of a tree.” If there is hope of anything, there must be hope of man. If you can find anywhere in nature a point at which hope begins, you have seized the key of the whole situation. If anything can die, and live again, you have secured the whole revelation of God’s purpose concerning man. We only need to find it anywhere. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed: after the mustard seed has been given the rest is but a commonplace: the trunk, the branches, the singing birds, what are these but mere sequences that cannot help themselves? the miracle is in the seed itself the first thought, the first word. Given an alphabet, and you have given a literature; given one thought, and you have given companionship to God. Job admitted the whole case the moment he got so far in his reasoning as to say “there is hope of a tree.” Job did not at once see what his reasoning; led to. It was enough, however, to have a good beginning.
Now see how he drops where he ought to have risen. The contrast begins in the tenth verse “But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost.” Does Job end there? Job cannot give up the case yet; even when he is denying a thing he asks questions which call it back again for consideration; he cannot release his hand upon the great possibility: he lets it go so far, even an arm’s length, and then he asks a question, and the subject turns back, and says, You are not done with me yet; we must have larger speech than we have yet had: come, let us continue together in sweet and hopeful fellowship, for out of discussion, contemplation, and prayer light may break, morning may dawn. Therefore Job having declared that “man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost,” ends with “and where is he?” He does not say “and is nowhere,” “and is not,” “and cannot be found any more.” Sometimes the very asking of a question is like the offering of a prayer; sometimes a question may be so put as to involve its own answer. Do not scorn men who gather around the Bible and ask questions concerning it; do not wonder that men cannot get at the meaning if the whole Bible all at once, and become completed saints at one day’s sitting over the sacred oracles; Jesus Christ encouraged the asking of great questions; he believed that the very asking of great questions was itself a process of education. So Job says, “Where is he?” “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down, and riseth not” ( Job 14:11-12 ): is that a full-stop? No; Job cannot come to a period yet; he is at a colon, the very next stop to a full one, but not a full one “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Words difficult for us to understand, but still, read in the spirit of Job’s hopefulness when he put the question, they may be made to meet a secret hope that there is coming a time in which man’s resurrection shall contrast with nature’s dissolution. Who can tell? Nay, the very word “sleep” has in it somewhat of hope “They shall not awake,” are they then but slumbering? It may be. “Raised out of their sleep,” are they, then, but recruiting their energy in a night’s rest? So it may be. We believe it. Life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel; and, bringing Christ’s preaching to bear upon the Book of Job, we see that many a dark place is lighted up. This is not a post hoc ? We are not bringing back history upon history as a mere controversial resort; this is the right and philosophical method of reading life to bring the third day to bear upon the first day to explain all its mystery and illumine all its darkness. Jesus Christ thus reasoned, and we are prepared to follow him in all his argument. Job should have reasoned the other way: but who is always right? Who is always equal to the occasion? It is easier to lie down than to stand up; it is easier to go down a hill than to struggle against a steep. We cannot blame the patriarch. He might have reasoned “There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant,” and if a common vegetable can do this, how much more shall man respond to the touch divine, and abolish death, and be like the golden wheat, springing up out of corruption, sixtyfold, an hundredfold, in answer to the sower’s care! But we are not always equal to ourselves. In one man the “selves” are many. Sometimes the man is almost an angel; sometimes he is a mighty reasoner, and can hold his work clear up to the midday sun, and defy that bright critic to show a flaw in all the process, yet that selfsame man is often tired, worn down, overborne by the long-lasting fatigues of life, so that he can hardly utter his own prayers, or crown them with an energetic Amen. Do not, therefore, rush in upon a man at his weakest moment, and say, This is what he believes: see what a palpable hypocrisy, what an ill-concealed weakness of the soul. That is not the man. Meet him tomorrow, and the vitality will be back in his eye, and the thunder will have returned to his voice. Address yourself to a man at his highest point, as God does: God answers our ideal prayers, and interprets our ideal selves, and thus sees in us more than we can for the moment see in our own nature. How we sometimes miss the parable of the growing world! All nature teaches resurrection: the trees do but sleep; the earth itself does but gather around her the coverlet of snow, and say, like a tired mother, Let me sleep awhile. All nature is a Bible written with the finger of God upon the one subject of resurrection. There is a rising again; there is a return to the paths of life; there is a perpetual urgency of nature towards larger growth. Sometimes the summer is so rich, so warm, so fecundant, that it would seem as if winter could never come back, as if the earth had entered upon the days and the delights of Paradise.
One thing is certain: we have yet to die; we have yet to be, so far as the body is concerned, like water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up, we have yet to yield up the spirit into the hands of him who created it. A right beautiful thing to do when we get into the right state of mind! Then there is no dying: there is a falling asleep, there is an ascension, there is a “languishing into life,” there is a process of passing into the bosom of God. O thou bright little dewdrop, thou dost not tremble with pain when the sun comes to call thee up to set thee in the rainbow! O poor shrinking heart of man, trembling flesh, misgiving, doubtful spirit, when thy Lord comes thou shalt not know that thy feet are in the river: he will kiss thee into peace, and life, and heaven!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. IV.
Job 12-14
A very curious specimen of the black and white art of colouring is this whole speech of Job. Sometimes it appears to be all blackness, and then it is suddenly and tenderly relieved by whiteness, like the radiance of a large, soft planet. We must not, therefore, put our finger down upon any one point and say, This is the speech. The speech has a million points, and they belong to one another, and can only be understood in their relation and their unity. We have seen Job half in the grave; yea, more than half nothing out of it but his head: but, blessed be God, so long as the head is out of the tomb we hear eloquent speech about life, and death, and trouble, and hope. And was not the heart out of the grave as well as the head, that is to say, all the affectional sentiments, all the moral impulses, all that makes a man more than a mere genius? Truly so.
Job now opens a new source of consolation:
“Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands” ( Job 14:15 ).
What artist likes to throw away his own painting? Critics do not like it: they are perfectly ingenious in discovering flaws in it; but the artist himself says: I painted that picture with my heart. We have heard of the unwillingness of a preacher to throw away his own discourses. Said one to me a gentle soul, now with the gentle angels, a man whose mind was all beauty, and whose heart was all love “The critics have been hard upon my sermons, but I know what fire and life and force I spent upon them.” They represented the man’s best power; he had embodied his very soul in the living sentences of these discourses: how could he cut them up, and scatter the fragments, as if they had cost him nothing? We have heard the mother say, when the sword was in mid-air to divide the child, “O my lord, give her the living child.” It was a mother’s cry, and Solomon detected the maternal tone in the agony. What mother likes to abandon her own child? and is not a father represented as being pitiful to his children? “like as a father pitieth his children.” That would seem to be the argument of Job in this fifteenth verse “Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands:” thou wilt not let cold cruel death break up thy child, cover him up with dust, and stamp him with the seal of annihilation and oblivion. Thus God has set many teachers within us; all our affections, emotions, impulses, everything that connects us one with another in social confidence and mutual honour, all these forces and ministries are meant to teach us that he himself is the same as we are, multiplied by infinity. Why not? God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him. He is a little God, but he belongs to the divine family; he boasts not of royal blood, but of blood divine: when he stumbles, he falls like a son of God; when he breaks away from altar and sanctuary and oath, he seems to tear the heavens, so large does he become in God’s estimation, so greatly does he bulk amid the material things that are round about him and above him: what a gap, what a vacancy, what a loss! No darkness clouds the blue heaven when the beast dies, but when man dies who knows what pain quivers at the heart of things? A beautiful thought it was for Job to realise that man was the work of God’s hands. What is it that distinguishes one life from another, say, one voice from another, one hand from another? Are not all human hands alike? Cannot all men paint with equal skill? They have the same canvas, the same colours, the same brushes: now let them proceed one by one, and the signature of the one in colour will be equal to the signature of the other. But such is not the fact: the higher artist says to the younger and lower, What your picture wants is this touch. It lives! That one touch has separated the former picture from the present by the length of infinity. So all things are the work of God’s hands the beast and the angel: but who can measure the distance between the two? Thus this word “desire” yearning is the right word, a wringing of the heart, a drawing out of the soul in exquisite solicitude tenderly tender, as if God would touch without harming, lift up and set down without leaving any marks of violence upon his child. All this is helpful, not because it is ancient in history, but because it concurs with our own desire and experience. The love we bestow upon anything is the value of it: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” We measure all things by the love we assign them. Applying that same standard to God, how much must he love the world who, in any sense, died for it!
Then Job alters his tone:
“For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?” ( Job 14:16 ).
Let us take it (though there is no little difficulty about the mere grammar of the passage) that Job is arguing from providence to morals. He proceeds in his reasoning from “steps” to “sin.” He would seem to trace the same criticism “for now thou numberest my steps”: therefore, as thou art so particular and critical about my steps, dost thou let my sin go past without observation? The passage has been rendered variously, but this would seem to be a meaning which inheres in the thought, because it is certainly true to our present conception of God’s rule. Let us be strong on the point of providence first. Have no fear of the ultimate condition of any man’s mind when that mind is perfectly certain as to the reality of a superintending providence. Deism may end in Christianity. Everything will depend upon its spirit: if it is haughty, intolerant, self-idolatrous, it will end in nothing but vanity; but if it can say, reverently, Up to this point I am clear; here I can stand, and think, and pray, and hope, be sure that the issue will be right. Is there, then, a providence in life? Do not think of some other man’s life only, but think of your own life when you are called upon to reply to this inquiry. Now go back, begin at the very first page of your own life: how unconnected the sentences, how almost incoherent the style; what a singular want of relation as between one part and another! So it is.
Unquestionably it is rough reading at the first. Now turn over a page. Has no light come? You answer, Yes, a little light has begun to dawn. Go on to the next page: add one day to another: let the events settle down into proportion; and presently you will begin to see that even your life has been as it were the darling of God. You have to deny yourself before you can deny divine providence. The matter is no longer theoretical, or you could easily dismiss it; but when a man is bound first to commit suicide before he can cease to believe, then God has wrought in him a gracious and blessed miracle. Job thus reasons: My steps are watched; I am an observed man; what I thought was a belt of cloud is a belt of omnipotence, and I cannot get through it; what I considered to be but a thin mist in the air is the very throne of God: I can do nothing without leave; I live by permission. Up to this point Job might have said: I am perfectly clear. But if so, what more? Does God pay so much attention to that which is without, and no attention to that which is within? Is he careful to measure a man’s steps, and oblivious of man’s transgression? This is the great reasoning, the fearless logic, that goes forward from point to point, and forces the soul to face the consequences of facts.
That Job is sure that his sin is watched is evident from the next verse:
“My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity” ( Job 14:17 ).
Job was acquainted with Oriental customs; he knew that the judge wore a scrip or a pouch, and that in this scrip were put all the documents which related to the particular case: the judge took them out of the scrip one by one. But there was something more than the general scrip or receptacle of the documentary evidence “Thou sewest up mine iniquity”: not only had the Oriental judge or accuser an open pouch in which he kept documents needful for the establishment of his case, but he had an inward and lesser compartment, carefully sewn up, in which were the special proofs that the general impeachment was sound. In the scrip there were two compartments one in which was the general accusation against the man, and the other in which there were the special and critical proofs cited to establish the charge. This is what Job saw when he looked upon God. Said he: I see the scrip, the full pouch; I see the documents that are written against me; and behind them all are proofs I cannot deny; the case is well ordered and set forth with masterly skill; not a point will be overlooked, and where I am strongest in denial God will be strongest in evidence. Job’s conception of the divine providence in its moral relations was not that of a general oversight, or of a loose-handed indictment as against any man or number of men; Job said in effect: Men make mistakes about this matter; they confuse their documents and their references; sometimes they lose papers which are essential to their case, and sometimes they cannot read all their own hands have written; and therefore even the wicked man will escape a just judgment: but when God undertakes to be judge, there is the scrip, there is the general accusation, there are the particular proofs, day and date down to hour and moment, and locality down to a footprint, and there is no reply to omniscience.
Now the patriarch turns, as has been his recent wont, to nature
“And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man” ( Job 14:18-19 ).
Nature is terrible as well as gracious. What is so monotonous as sunshine? What is so mocking as the fixed stars? We cannot change their temper; we can work no miracle upon their image: there they shine, from century to century, from millennium to millennium. Praise the sun who may, and that he is worthy of praise who will deny, but his is a monotonous friendship. If the clouds did not come to help us we could not bear the sun’s fierce love. What if we owe as much to the clouds as to the sun? What if the attempering atmosphere has made the heavens possible as a source of enjoyment? Is there not a great principle of mediation even in nature? Does the sun shine straight upon the earth without anything between? Woe betide the earth then! The poor little handful of soil we call the earth could not live tor a moment it would stagger under the fierce blaze: but there is scattered between the sun and the earth a great intermediary ministry, a mollifying and attempering influence. And is there not a daysman between God and humanity? Is there not what answers to an atmosphere between the Essential Glory and this poor time-space and flesh-life, this mystery of body and soul chained together for one tumultuous hour? Job saw the mountain falling. Mountains do not fall in our country. True: but they do fall in volcanic regions; they fall where earthquakes are almost familiar: there “the rock is removed out of his place.” We do not learn everything in our own little land; we must go the world over to learn something of God’s method. Here the mountains are firm; yonder they are thrown up as if they were toys in the mighty hands of some player, who trifled with them and made them spin in the air. Here the rocks are emblems of solidity, but where earthquakes are known they are torn out of their places and hurled miles away. And even where there is no violent action of nature, there is a continual process of decay or ruin “the waters wear the stones.” All nature is wearing. Nature is killing, as well as making alive, every moment. The little, gentle, beautiful, soft, plashing water is wearing away the great rocks; the continual dropping of water will wear the stone. What we think gracious is often severe, and what we think severe is often gracious. But Job has fixed his mind upon this great fact that mountains cannot be relied upon, rocks cannot; be built upon, strong stones cannot be depended upon if there is water near flowing, active water. Water will get the better of any rock. That which seems to be nothing in comparison will wear the other out, and send the rock flowing down the stream. Job, therefore, gets sight of the severe aspect of nature, and he reasons upward from mountain, and rock, and stone, and things growing out of the dust to man, and says, “Thou destroyest the hope of man”: here you have volcanic action, earthquakes tearing out rocks, waters wearing stones, beautiful growths washed away, and a sudden, strange, awful blight falling in blackness upon the hope of the soul. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
What is the meaning of all this as applied to man? The meaning is perpetual overthrow “Thou prevailest for ever against him.” It is man who always goes down; it is the creature who is bowed under the hand of the Creator. O vain man, know this! What canst thou do against God? Why bruise thy poor fingers in thumping upon the eternal granite? Why dare Omnipotence to battle? “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace”; “we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God”; lay down the arms of rebellion, and cry for quarter from the heavens: thou canst not prevail. Let the tumbling mountain teach thee, and the falling rock be an analogy for thy guidance; yea, let the stones perishing under the water teach thee, and see as the roots are washed out of the earth by the very rains that might have nourished them how terrible may be the providence of God. Say It is useless to fight against heaven; heaven’s weapons are stronger than mine, so are heaven’s hands; all the resources of infinity are with God, and I am nothing but a child of dust, and my breath is in my nostrils: I will look unto the hills whence cometh my help, and I will pray to him whom I have too long defied. That would be a wise man’s speech made tender by the tears of penitence. Man is always loser when he fights against God. Even when he seems to excel he excites but curiosity. If a man live a hundred years, he is pointed out as a curiosity in nature; attention is drawn to him as one who may have been forgotten as the angels were calling up the population of earth to heaven: he is questioned by curiosity; he is looked at by curiosity; he is written about as a curiosity. Why, ought he not to be set up as one who has defied God, and succeeded? There is a spirit in man which says, This is no triumph against eternal law, this is a curious instance, a rather striking exception: look at him very quickly, for tomorrow he may be gone! There is no successful warring against heaven. “Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.” There is a displacement of the first image. We say How changed from what he was when I saw him last! Then there was fire in his eye, there was military dominance in his voice; then he had but to speak, and it was done, within the circle in which he was lord: and now look how decrepit he is: how he falters, how he apologises for every request he makes, how dependent he is upon the meanest of those who are round about him! If he stoop, he cannot raise himself up again; being raised, he cannot stoop without danger. Poor man! how withered in complexion, how deathlike in aspect, how frail altogether! And he once was strong and bright and genial! Nor is this exceptional; this is universal. Such is the lot of every man. About the strongest giant will be said some day: He will never rise again; his life is now a question of moments; the great towering man is laid low, and cannot lift himself into his original attitude. Not only is there a displacement of the first image, but the vanity of family promotion is dead within him. He cares not what becomes of any one. “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not.” He asks his own sons what their names are; he looks upon his own children with the vacancy of absent ignorance; he asks his own child where he lives now; he asks the younger if he is not the elder, and he mistakes the elder for the younger; and when he is told that his child is now high in society, he asks a question about him upside down, and inflicts upon his honour the stigma of an unconscious irony. “And they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not.” He is not even aware that their moral character has gone down; when they use profane language, he cannot discern between such language and the speech of prayer, all language has lost all meaning for him. And all dress and culture and station and name, whether high or low, he cannot tell. And this is man! No, says nature, this is not man: this is but a phase of man; this is but one chapter in the tragedy of man: the issue is not yet Even while man’s flesh has pain, “his soul within him shall mourn.” There is hope in that very word “mourn.” Why mourn? Because all the instincts say, What is to become of us? All the passions of man’s nature say, Are we to die? The marvellous power within man that prayed and sang and lived cannot die without protesting against its own murder. Read the soul of man, if you would believe in the immortality of man. Even when man longs to sleep he longs to wake again; even when he says he shall be but as one of the common lot and go down to the ground, he says, Shall I not live again? The very question is an argument; the very inquiry is part of a great process of reasoning: to be able to ask the question is to be able to answer it affirmatively.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. V.
Job 12-14
Now that the case in some measure of completeness is before us, we may profitably consider the history on a larger scale than its merely personal aspect. We have elements enough, in these fourteen chapters, for the construction of a world. We have the good man; the spirit of evil; the whole story of affliction and loss, pain and fear; and we have three comforters, coming from various points, with hardly various messages to be addressed to a desolate heart. Now if we look upon the instance as typical rather than personal, we shall really grasp the personal view in its deepest meanings. Let us, then, enlarge the scene in all its incidents and proportions; then instead of one man, Job, we shall have the entire human race, instead of one accuser we shall have the whole spirit of evil which works so darkly and ruinously in the affairs of men, and instead of the three comforters we shall have the whole scheme of consolatory philosophy and theology, as popularly understood, and as applied without utility. So, then, we have not the one-Job, but the whole world-Job: the personal patriarch is regarded but as the typical man; behind him stand the human ranks of every age and land.
We have little to do with the merely historical letter of the Book of Genesis: we want to go further; we want to know what man was in the thought and purpose of God. The moment we come to printed letters, we are lost. No man can understand letters, except in some half-way, some dim, intermediate sense, which quite as often confuses as explains realities. Yet we cannot do without letters: they are helps little, uncertain, yet not wholly inconvenient auxiliaries. We want to know what God meant before he spoke a single word. The moment he said, “Let us make man in our image,” we lost the solemnity of the occasion, that is to say, the higher, diviner solemnity. If it had been possible for us to have seen the thought without hearing, when it was a pure thought, without even the embodiment of words, the unspoken, eternal purpose of God, then we should understand what is to be the issue of this tragedy which we call Life. It was in eternity that God created man: he only showed man in time, or gave man a chance of seeing his own little imperfect nature. Man is a child of eternity. Unless we get that view of the occasion, we shall be fretted with all kinds of details; our eyes will be pierced and divided as to their vision by ten thousand little things that are without focus or centre: we must from eternity look upon the little battlefield of time, and across that battlefield once more into the calm eternity; then we shall see things in their right proportions, distances, colours, and relations, and out of the whole will come a peace which the world never gave and which the world cannot take away. Hear the great Creator in the sanctuary of eternity; his words are these “My word shall not return unto me void.” What is his “word”? This: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Is that word not to return void to the speaker? That is certainly the decree and oath of the Bible. But how long it takes to work out this sacred issue! Certainly: because the work is great. Learn how great in the idea of God is humanity from the circumstance that it takes long ages to shape and mould and inspire a man with the image and likeness and force of God. The great process is going on; God’s word is to be verified and fulfilled; at the last there is to stand up a humanity, faultless, pure, majestic, worthy, through God, to share God’s eternity.
Now, as a matter of fact, some men are farther on in this divine line than others are. We have seen the purpose: it is to make a perfect man and an upright; a man that fears God and eschews evil and lives in God; and, as a matter of fact, let us repeat, some men are farther along that ideal line than other men are. As a simple matter of experience, we are ready to testify that there are Jobs, honestly good men, honourable persons, upright souls: men that say concerning every perplexity in life, What is the right thing to be done? what is good, true, honest, lovely, and of good report? men who ask moral questions before entering into the engagements, the conflicts, and the business of life. And, as a matter of fact, these Jobs do develop or reveal or make manifest the spirit of evil: they bring up what devil there is in the universe, and make the universe see the dark and terrible image. But for these holy men we should know nothing about the spirit of evil. Wherever the sons of God come together we see the devil most patently. We are educated by contrasts, or we are helped in our understanding of difficulties by things which contrast one another: we know the day because we know the night, and we know the night because we know the day. We are set between extremes; we look upon the one and upon the other, and wonder, and calculate, and average, and then make positive and workable conclusions. Why fight about “devil”? There is a far greater word than that about which there is no controversy. Why then fret the soul by asking speculative questions about a personality that cannot be defined and apprehended by the mortal imagination, when there lies before our sight the greater word “evil”? If there had been any reason to doubt the evil, we should have made short work of all controversy respecting the devil. It is the evil which surrounds us like a black cordon that makes the devil possible. In a world in which we ourselves have seen and experienced in many ways impureness, folly, crime, hypocrisy, selfishness, all manner of twisted and perverted motive, why should we trouble ourselves to connect all these things with a personality, speculative or revealed? There are the dark birds of night the black, the ghastly facts: so long as they press themselves eagerly upon our attention, and put us to all manner of expense, inconvenience, and suffering, surely there is ground enough to go upon, and there is ground enough to accept the existence of any number of evil spirits a number that might darken the horizon and put out the very sun by their blackness. We might discredit the mystery if we could get rid of the fact. So far, then, we have the purpose of God, the ideal man, the spirit of evil arising to counteract his purposes and test his quality; then we have the whole spirit of consolatory philosophy and theology as represented by Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar. Let us hear what that whole system has to give us:
Three things, with varieties and sub-sections; but substantially three things. First, Fate. Philosophy has not scrupled to utter that short, sharp, cruel word. Things happen because they must happen: you are high or low, bad or good, fortunate or unfortunate, because there is an operation called Fatalism severe, tyrannous, oppressive, inexorable. So one comforter comes to tell you that what you are suffering cannot be helped; you must bear it stoically: tears are useless, prayer is wasted breath; as for resignation, you may sentimentalise about it, but as a matter of fact, you must submit. One comforter talks this dark language: he points to what he calls facts; he says, Look at all history, and you will find that men have to sup sorrow, or drink wine out of golden goblets, according to the operation of a law which has not yet been apprehended or authoritatively defined: life is a complicated necessity; the grindstone is turned round, and you must lay yourselves upon it, and suffer all its will a blind, unintelligent will; a contradiction in terms if you like; a will that never gives any account of itself, but grinds on, and grinds small. That comforter makes his speech, and the suffering world says No: thou art a miserable comforter: oh that I could state my case as I feel it! continues that suffering world then all thy talk would be so much vanity, or worthless wind: thou braggart, thou stoic, thou man of the iron heart, eat thine own comfort if thou canst digest steel, and feed upon thy philosophy if thou canst crush into food the stones of the wilderness: thy comfort is a miserable condolence.
Then some other comforter says: The word “Fate” is not the right word; it is cold, lifeless, very bitter; the real word is Sovereignty intelligent, personal sovereignty. Certainly that is a great rise upon the former theory. If we have come into the region of life, we may come into the region of righteousness. Explain to me, thou Bildad, what is the meaning of Sovereignty: I am in sorrow, my eyes run away in rivers of tears, and I am overwhelmed with bitterest distress, what meanest thou by Sovereignty? I like the word because of its vitality; I rejected the other speaker who talked of Fate because I felt within me that he was wrong, although I could not answer him in words; but Sovereignty tell me about that. And the answer is: It means that there is a great Sovereign on the throne of the universe; lofty, majestic, throned above all hierarchies, princedoms, powers; an infinite Ruler; a Governor most exalted, giving to none an account of his way, always carrying out his own purposes whatever man may suffer; he moves with his head aloft; he cares not what life his feet tread upon, what existences he destroys by his onward march: his name is God, Sovereign, Ruler, Governor, King, Tyrant. And the suffering world-Job says, No: there may be a Sovereign, but that is not his character; if that were his character he would be no sovereign: the very word sovereign, when rightly interpreted, means a relation that exists by laws and operations of sympathy, trust, responsibility, stewardship, account, rewards, punishments: be he whom he may who walks from star to star, he is no tyrant: I could stop him on his course and bring him to tears by the sight of a flower; I could constrain him to marvel at his own tenderness: I have seen enough of life to know that it is not a tyrannised life, that it does not live under continual terror; often there is a dark cloud above it and around it, but every now and then it breaks into prayer and quivers into song: No! Miserable comforter art thou, preacher of sovereignty; not so miserable as the apostle of Fate, but if thou hast ventured to call God Tyrant, there is something within me, even the heartthrob, which tells me that thou hast not yet touched the reality, the mystery of this case.
Then another man Zophar he may be called says, Not “Fate,” not “Sovereignty” as just defined by Bildad, but Penalty, that is the meaning of thy suffering, O world: thou art a criminal world, thou art a thief, a liar, oft-convicted; thou hast broken every commandment of God, thou hast sinned away the morning and the midday, yea, and at eventide thou hast been far from true and good: world, thou art suffering pains at thine heart, and they are sharp pains; they are God’s testimony to thine ill-behaviour; a well-conducted world would have swung for ever and ever in cloudless sunshine; thou hast run away from God, thou art a prodigal world, thou art in a far country in the time of famine, and God has sent hunger to punish thee for thy wantonness and iniquity. And the world-Job says No: miserable comforters are ye all! There seems to be a little truth even in what the first speaker said, a good deal of truth in what the second speaker revealed to me about sovereignty, and there is an unquestionable truth in what Zophar has said about penalty: I know I have done wrong, and I feel that God has smitten me for my wrong-doing; but I also feel this, that not one of you has touched the reality of the case: I cannot tell you what the reality is yet, but you have left the ground uncovered, you are the victims of your own philosophy, and your own imperfect theology; I rise and at least convict you of half-truths: you have not touched my wound with a skilled hand.
This is the condition of the Book of Job up to this moment; that is to say, within the four corners of the first fourteen chapters Job the ideal man; Job developing the spirit of evil by his very truth and goodness; men coming from different points with little creeds and little dogmas, and imperfect philosophies and theologies, pelting him with maxims and with truisms and commonplaces; and the man says, “Miserable comforters are ye all”: I know what ye have said, I have seen all that long ago; but you have not touched the heart of the case, its innermost mystery and reality; your ladder does not reach to heaven; you are clever and well-skilled in words up to a given point, but you double back upon yourselves, and do not carry your reasoning forward to its final issue. That is so. Now we understand this book up to the fourteenth chapter. We were not surprised to find a Job in the world, a really honest, upright, good man, reputed for his integrity and trusted for his wisdom; that did not surprise us: we were not surprised that such a man should be assaulted, attacked by the spirit of evil, for even we ourselves, in our imperfect quality of goodness, know that there is a breath from beneath, a blast from hell, that hinders the ascent of our truest prayers. And we can believe well in all these comforters as realities; they are not dramatic men, they are seers and traditionalists and lovers of maxims, persons who assail the world’s sorrow with all kinds of commonplaces, and incomplete and self-contradictory nostrums and assertions: and we feel that Job is right when he says I cannot take your comfort; the meat you give me I cannot eat, the water you supply me with is poison: leave me! Oh that I could come face to face with God! He would tell me and he will yet tell me the meaning of it all. We need not pause here, because we have the larger history before us, and we know the secret of all. What is it? What was hidden from Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar? What was it these men did not see? They did not see the meaning of chastening, chastisement, purification by sorrow, trial by grief; they did not know that Love is the highest sovereignty, and that all things work together for good to them that love God; that loss is gain, poverty is wealth, that affliction is the beginning of real robustness of soul, when rightly apprehended and fearlessly and reverently applied: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby”; “Brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations”; “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” That is the real meaning of all the sorrow, allowing such portion of truth to the theory of Sovereignty and Penalty, which undoubtedly inheres in each and both of them. But God means to train us, to apply a principle and process of cultivation to us. He will try us as gold is tried: but he is the Refiner, he sits over the furnace; and as soon as God can discover his own image in us he will take us away from the fire, and make us what he in the far eternity meant to make us when he said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” How all this process of chastening becomes necessary is obvious enough, if we go back into our own hearts, and run our eye over the whole line of our own experience. If we have true light in us we shall have no doubt as to the necessity of this chastening and its meaning. Even God to reach his own ideal had himself to suffer. Is God simply a watching Sovereign, saying, These men must suffer a little more; the fire must be made hotter, the trial must be made intenser: I will watch them in perfect equanimity; my calm shall never be disturbed; the suffering shall be theirs, not mine; I will simply operate upon them mechanically and distantly? That is not the Bible conception of God. This is the Bible conception, namely, that in working out the ideal manhood, God himself suffers more than it is possible for man to suffer, because of the larger capacity the infinite capacity of woe. Now we seem to be coming into better ground. How much does God suffer for his human children? We know that he has wept over them, yearned after them, proposed to send his Son to save them, has in reality sent his Son in the fulness of time, born of a woman, born under the law; we know that the Bible declares that the Son of God did give himself up for us all, the just for the unjust, and that Christ, the God-man, is the apostle of the universe; his text is Sacrifice, his offer is Pardon. How much did God suffer? The sublimest answer to that inquiry is Behold the cross of Christ. If you would know whether God’s heart was broken over our moral condition, look at the cross of Christ; if you would understand that God is bent on some gracious and glorious purpose of man-making, behold the cross of Christ. It will not explain itself in words, but it is possible for us to wait there, to watch there, until we involuntarily exclaim, This is no man; this is no malefactor: who is he? Watch on, wait on; read yourself in the light of his agony, and at last you will say, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” What is he doing there? Redeeming the world. What is his purpose? To make man in God’s image and God’s likeness. Then is the process long-continued, stretching over the ages? Yes: he who is from everlasting to everlasting takes great breadths of time for the revelation of his fatherhood and the realisation of all the purposes of his love.
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 12:1 And Job answered and said,
Ver. 1. And Job answered and said ] Being nipped and nettled with his friends’ hard usage of him, and harsh language to him, but especially with Zophar’s arrogant and lofty preface in the former chapter, he begins now to wax warm, and more roughly and roundly to shape them an answer.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job Chapter 12
Job answers in the next chapters (12-14) and no doubt he repays them too much in their own coin. “And Job answered and said, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.” Well they deserved that rebuke. “But I have understanding as well as you.” Now there he was far more considerate than they; because he did not take the place of being so superior. “I have understanding as well as you” – “I am not inferior” – he does not say, “I am superior” – “I am not inferior to you.” “Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?” They were only talking platitudes, moral platitudes, that every person of the slightest acquaintance with God already knew. They were not giving any light upon this very difficult question, how it was that a pious God-fearing man fell under such tremendous sorrow and affliction. They did not contribute one atom to that question. They merely let out all their bad thoughts and feelings, and consequently they were really heaping up wrath, if it had been the day of wrath; but it was the day of mercy, and God humbled them, by their being indebted to Job for His not taking them away by a stroke that would have been perfectly just. “I am as one mocked of his neighbour” – they talked about his mocking – “who calleth upon God, and he answereth him; the just upright man is laughed to scorn. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.”
Now that phrase exactly gave the position; they were all at ease, these three men; there was nothing the matter with them; they had not, as Job, been taken up by God to allow the devil to do all the evil he could, and finally to allow that pious men should be the persons that would provoke them as they provoked Job. “He that is ready to slip with his feet” – that is what Job felt he was – “is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease” – because if he gives way – the lamp requires to be held steadily – if a man is slipping with his feet, what is the good of a lamp? It waves and waves down into the mud. But they were all at ease sitting in judgment upon him. “The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.” Nothing could more completely upset all their arguments.
There had been that great robber Nimrod – that man who first began to hunt beasts, and then to subdue men to his own purpose without God giving him authority. And yet God allowed it. Nimrod built great cities and became a great man. “The tabernacles,” therefore, as Job says, “of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.” That is the present state of the earth, and any state of the earth since man fell is no adequate testimony of what God thinks of people. It is not bringing out His judgment of men yet. There may bean occasional dealing of God in a particular case, as an exception to His ordinary way of leaving things apparently to their own course. But that is just the reason why there is to be a judgment – because things have not been judged according to God, but they will be.
“But ask now the beasts” – there is a very triumphant thing. “Why,” he says, “the very beasts know more than you, and prove more than all your speeches! Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea” – who have got practically no voice, and do not know how to talk – “shall declare unto thee.” That is, the whole creation – the lower creation of God upon the earth – is a proof that things are not yet according to God. Do they not prey upon one another; do not the great swallow up the small; and is not man the great executor of death upon beasts and birds and fishes, and everything, for his own gratification? I do not mean merely for food, but to please himself at all costs. In short, it is not merely what the Lord allows, but man makes it for his lusts, for his luxury, for everything except God. “Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of Jehovah hath wrought this?” He cannot deny that the Lord has left it in this way. “In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” – and yet He allows them to break forth in this lawless way. “Doth not the ear try words?” – do you think I cannot hear? – “and the mouth taste his meat?” – that I cannot discern my palate? “With the ancient is wisdom.” There again he shows how little he was for condemning where there was wisdom. He allows that with the ancient there is wisdom – “and in length of days understanding” – because there is experience that nothing else can give.
“With him is wisdom,” he says. He turns to God; for, after all, it is only in a little measure a man profits. “With him is wisdom and strength” – whereas as the ancient gets wiser he becomes weaker – “he hath counsel and understanding.” “Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again; he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening. Behold, he witholdeth the waters, and they dry up” – and what a wretched state the world is in when there is no water. But then in another way it comes, and He gives them too much water; “also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.” The waters carry everything before them. “With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.” That is the present state. “He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.” Undoubtedly those counsellors and these judges were persons eminent for their knowledge, and, were supposed to be, for their wisdom. But there is always a limit in this world, and there is often a disappointment where you most rest.
“He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle. He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty. He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them; he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.” There are all kinds of change. There is nothing therefore that shows the settled judgment of God. Everything among men is in a flux – a constant flow and change; and therefore nothing could be more foolish than the groundwork of the three friends in their attack on Job. “He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.” And that is the way where people trust in men.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
answered. See note on Job 4:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 12
So Job answered him and said, No doubt but you are the people, and wisdom is going to die with you ( Job 12:1-2 ).
He’s about had it with these guys who think they know all the answers, and they’re not really ministering or reaching him at all. Now, it’s very frustrating to try to explain yourself to people and have people in a mindset where they are determined they know all the answers about you, and yet they don’t understand it at all. Oh, how frustrating that is. To talk with people who are of that mind bent. “Oh yes, I understand completely what’s going on.” “Hey, man, you don’t understand a thing.” And all of these words of wisdom. “Well, yes, you’re the people; wisdom is going to die with you.”
But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: who doesn’t know these things you’re talking about? ( Job 12:3 )
I know all of these things. You’re not teaching me anything new.
I am as one who is mocked of his neighbor, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn ( Job 12:4 ).
You guys are mocking me. You’re laughing me to scorn.
He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease ( Job 12:5 ).
You guys have it easy. All right. So you can despise me because I’m about ready to slip in the pit. Just because you’re at ease, you can say these things. But if things were reversed, you wouldn’t find these words so easy on your lips.
Now Job points out a fallacy of their whole arguments. Because their arguments have been predicated upon, “Surely if you are righteous, you’re going to be blessed of God. And that the blessings of God are more or less proof of your righteousness. Or the plague that you’re experiencing is the proof of your sinfulness.” So you’ve got the converse. If a man is plagued because he is sinful, then he would be blessed because he is righteous. And so Job now points to the fallacy of their whole argument, and here it is:
The tents of the robbers prosper, and they who provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly ( Job 12:6 ).
So, you tell me that it’s because I’m so wicked that I’ve lost everything. But look, the tents of the robbers prosper.
But ask now the beasts, and they’ll teach you; fowls of the air, they will tell thee: Speak to the earth, it’ll teach you: the fish of the sea shall declare it unto you. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind ( Job 12:7-10 ).
He said, “Nature will testify that God has wrought all of these things. Because the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God. And the breath of all mankind.” Did you realize how totally you are dependent upon God for the sustaining of your life? There is a weird disease that some people have, or it’s a weird something, malfunction of their body. They have to think to breathe. Now wouldn’t that be horrible to have to think to breathe? But they don’t breathe in a reflex way, but they have actually have to think to breathe, and they almost die when they go to sleep. In fact, when they go to sleep they quit breathing, and then they wake up for a few seconds and think, “Oh, I’d better breathe,” they take a breath and then they drop back to sleep again. And they follow their sleep patterns. It must be miserable to have to think to breathe. I’m glad I don’t have to think to breathe; it’s just automatic. But the Bible teaches that your breath is in the hand of God.
You remember when Belshazzar was having his great feast for one thousand of his lords, and the handwriting came on the wall and he began to shake. And they called for the wise men and the counselors. None of them could tell him what the writing said, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” And so finally the queen said, “During the time of your grandfather’s reign, there was a man of great wisdom, who was one of the counselors to your grandfather. He’s of the Hebrews who were brought here into captivity.” So they ordered Daniel to come into the room. And here Daniel saw the whole scene of debauchery, drunkenness. The golden vessels that had been in the temple that had been sanctified for the service of the house of God, and they were drinking their wine out of them and praising the gods of gold and silver. And so Daniel began. This old, stately, beautiful man of God began to rebuke that pagan king, Belshazzar. And he said, “God has brought you into the kingdom and given you glory and honor and power, and you’ve ruled over the great kingdom of Babylon that God had given to your grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar; established in him, but it has been given into your hands. And yet you did not regard God, but you’ve exalted the gods of gold and silver. And the God in whose hand your very breath is, you’ve not glorified.” These people realized how totally dependent man is upon God for his very existence.
Paul said concerning God, “In Him we live, we move, we have our being.” We are dependent upon God. Our very breath. And yet, with that very breath, how many times we’re cursing God. God gives us the very breath we use to curse Him. It’s unreal.
Do not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat? With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding. Behold, he breaks down, and it cannot be built again: he shuts up a man, and there can be no opening. Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sends them out, and they overturn the earth. With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his. He leadeth counselors away spoiled, and makes the judges fools. He looses the bond of kings, and girds their loins with a girdle. He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthrows the mighty. He removes away the speech of the trusty, and takes away the understanding of the aged. He pours contempt upon the princes, and weakens the strength of the mighty. He discovers deep things out of the darkness, he brings out to light the shadow of death. He increases the nations, and destroys them: he enlarges the nations, and straitens them again. He takes away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light, and he makes them to stagger as a drunken man ( Job 12:11-25 ).
God is sovereign. He rules over all. Man’s soul, man’s breath, is in His hand. And who can withstand God? Who can withstand the purpose or the work of God? “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Job 12:1-6
Introduction
Job 12
JOB’S FOURTH SPEECH:
JOB ANSWERS NOT ONLY BILDAD BUT ALL OF HIS FRIENDS
This, along with the next two chapters is a record of Job’s reply to his three friends. Scherer pointed out that the chapter divisions here are fortunate, following the general organization of Job’s speech. In this chapter, Job sarcastically rejected the theology of his friends, appealing to a number of facts that clearly contradicted their views.
Job’s bitterly sarcastic words here do not contradict the New Testament evaluation of Job as a man of great patience. On the other hand, we should consider that, “The measure of Job’s provocation was so great that only a superhuman being could have avoided being disgusted.”
As Franks noted, “Eliphaz had appealed to revelation (that vision which he said he had); Bildad appealed to the wisdom of the ancients, and Zophar assumed that he himself was the oracle of God’s wisdom.” Job answered Zophar’s conceited claim. However, Job, in this speech, did not answer Zophar alone, but all of his `comforters.’ He labeled all of them as “forgers of lies” (Job 13:4), challenging them with his declaration that, “I am not inferior to you (Job 12:3).
Job 12:1-6
JOB DENIES THAT HIS COMFORTERS HAD ANY KNOWLEDGE THAT HE HIMSELF DID NOT POSSESS
“Then Job answered and said,
No doubt but ye are the people,
And wisdom shall die with you.
But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you:
Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
I am one that is a laughing-stock to his neighbor,
I who called upon God, and he answered:
The just, the perfect man is a laughing-stock.
In the thought of him that is at ease, there is contempt for misfortune;
It is ready for him whose foot slippeth.
The tents of robbers prosper,
And they that provoke God are secure;
Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.”
“And wisdom shall die with you” (Job 12:2). It is amazing that anyone could suppose that these words were intended as a compliment; but Blair wrote, “Job gives them the benefit of the doubt, saying, `Wisdom shall die with you.’ He inferred that they were wise.” We agree with Barnes that, “This is evidently the language of severe sarcasm; and it shows a spirit fretted and chafed by their reproaches.”
“(For) him that is at ease, there is a contempt for misfortune” (Job 12:5). Job, who had been the greatest man in the East, who had been the special object of God’s blessings, who had called upon God, and whom God had answered, – even that man, who, at the moment, had been reduced by the most superlative misfortunes, was experiencing the contemptuous laughter of his neighbors; and in these words he truly spoke of a universal trait of our fallen human nature, namely, that of despising the unfortunate.
“In sheer exasperation, Job here bewails the situation. He knows that he is a godly man of great wisdom and understanding; but here he is treated like a criminal and a simpleton, solely upon the basis of his friends’ theory, a theory that is flatly contradicted by the fact that known robbers are prospering while he is reduced to mockery.”
In these words, Job is thoroughly contemptuous of the conceited and arrogant ignorance of his `comforters’; and in this great response, he blistered them with devastating and unanswerable criticisms.
“The tents of robbers prosper” (Job 12:6). This is the dramatic and unanswerable contradiction of the false theory of his `comforters.’ “This was Job’s original proposition; and he clung to it throughout the whole encounter, that God does not deal with men in this life according to their character.”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 12:1-2. This is a form of language known as irony. That means language used in a sense just opposite of the outward and apparent meaning, and the purpose of such language is ridicule. The idea was that if the three friends were as wise as they pretended to be, when they died there would be no wisdom left.
Job 12:3. Having spoken with irony in the preceding paragraph, Job next spoke directly and in a serious mood. Who knoweth not, etc., is the point that I have been emphasizing in many of the paragraphs of this book. The three men stated many truths, but Job knew them already and they did not have any bearing on the case.
Job 12:4. Job was really a just and upright man, but the friends talked to him as if he were one beneath the notice of God.
Job 12:5. A man who is not in trouble himself will think lightly of one who is. He will disregard such an unfortunate person the same as he would a lamp of which he did not feel the need.
Job 12:6. This verse states facts that prove Job’s position in the argument to be correct. If all afflictions are in punishment for sin, then how does it come that men who are known to be sinners are prosperous?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Job’s last reply in this first cycle is to the whole argument, as well as to Zophar’s application of it. From beginning to end, it thrills with sarcasm, while it maintains its denial of personal guilt.
In the first movement he treated with contempt his friends’ interpretation of God, claiming to know more of Him than they did. In this there are two movements, in the first of which (1-6), he dealt with his friends; in the second (7-25), he turned to the subject of the wisdom and power of God with which they had dealt. His first words reveal his contempt, as in biting sarcasm he says:
No doubt but ye are the people, And wisdom shall die with you.
He then rebuked them, declaring that he was not inferior to them, and yet they had made him a laughingstock. He marked his contempt for them as he affirmed theirs for him.
Turning then to the discussion of the things they had emphasized concerning God, he declared that the knowledge was self-evident. The beast and fowl, the earth and the fishes, are acquainted with these matters. It is knowledge of the simplest that a11 these things are the works of God and that He sustains them. His wisdom is unquestioned. As to God’s power, in a passage full of passion and force, Job described it in nature, and among the great men of the earth, counselors and judges, kings and princes, both speaking and governing, amid the nations themselves, increasing and destroying, uplifting and degrading.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Gods Paths in Deep Waters
Job 12:1-25
Job sets himself to disprove Zophars contention that wickedness invariably causes insecurity in mens dwellings; and in doing so he bitterly complains that his friends mocked at him so contemptuously. He says that they remind him of those who are glad enough of a torch when their foot is slipping in the dark, but cast it aside when they reach their quarters, Job 12:5.
Those who rob are often the most prosperous, Job 12:6, and nature teaches that the animals and plants which are most sturdy in their self-assertion are most secure. Is not the vulture more secure than the dove, the lion than the ox, the shark than the dolphin, the rose than the thorn which tears it? In all such cases you cannot explain the mystery except by referring it to the will of God, whose reasons are past finding out. Similar mysteries beset human life.
Job still further illustrates his point from human life, showing that the lives of counselors, judges, kings, priests, princes, and elders are exposed to the same apparent anomalies and inequalities of treatment. We know, however, that suffering is purifying to the soul, and often redemptive, as Christs was, for others.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Job 12:7-8
I. The great lesson which the animal creation, regarded simply as the creature and subject of God, is fitted to teach us, is a lesson of the wisdom, and power, and constant beneficence of God. Job sends us to the animal creation that we may gather from it instances of the greatness of the Creator’s hand and the constancy of the Creator’s providence. For every creature there is a place, and to this each is adapted with transcendent skill and beneficence. Nowhere do we detect a fault or a flaw amid all these teeming myriads. All are perfectly complete, and attest the majesty of Him by whose hand they have been formed.
II. Consider the lessons which the lower animals are fitted to teach us by the way in which they spend their life and use the powers which God has given them. (1) They constantly and unceasingly fulfil the end of their being. Be their sphere large or small, they always occupy it to the full. What a lesson is here addressed to man, and what a rebuke to him for the studied and persevering neglect he manifests of the purpose for which God has made him and sent him into the world! (2) The lower animals are seen always to live according to their nature. They neither transgress that nature, nor do they fall short of it. Can this be said of man? How far is the best from yielding his entire nature in its symmetry and its fulness to what truth and righteousness demand of him. (3) The lower animals teach us to seek happiness according to our nature and capacity, and with a prudent foresight to avoid occasions of disaster and sorrow. Let us not despise the reproof because it comes from a humble source, but rather let the humility of the source enhance the pungency of the reproof, and appeal to us with a more cogent conclusiveness to bethink ourselves and turn into a wiser and better course.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 488.
References: Job 12:8.-H. Macmillan, Bible Teachings in Nature, p. 152; G. Morrison, The House of God, p. 113. Job 12:9, Job 12:10.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 326. Job 12:20.-G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 165. Job 12:22.-J. Martineau, Hours of Thought, vol. ii., p. 348. Job 12-14-S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. v., pp. 172, 273; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 149. Job 13:14.-J. Robertson, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 256.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTERS 12-14 Jobs Answer to Zophar
1. His sarcasm (Job 12:1-6)
2. He describes Gods power (Job 12:7-25)
3. He denounces his friends (Job 13:1-13)
4. He appeals to God (Job 13:14-28)
5. The brevity and trouble of life (Job 14:1-6)
6. The ray of light through hope of immortality (Job 14:7-22)
Job 12:1-6. He answers not only Zophar but the others as well. Before this Job had expressed his disappointment in them, rebuked them for their unkindness, and assailed as worthless their arguments, but now he treats them in a very sarcastic manner.
No doubt but ye are the people
And wisdom shall die with you.
Was he then without any understanding or inferior to them? Do you think I am ignorant of the things you have spoken to me about? You mock me; I am nothing but a laughingstock. You as my neighbors come to me and say, He calls on God, that He should answer him. Yet I am the just, the perfect man; you make sport of me. You are at ease and treat the one who is down, overwhelmed by misfortune, with contempt. But remember:
The tents of robbers prosper,
And they that provoke God are secure;
Abundance does He give unto them.
This is what Zophar had claimed in his address, that the wicked do not prosper. (See Job 11:2; Job 11:14; Job 11:19-20.) Robbers often prosper and those who are secure are often those who provoke God. Perhaps his friends with their prosperity might belong to that class.
Job 12:7-25. This is also in answer to Zophars argument. Zophar had spoken of the greatness of God. The wisdom which Zophar had tried to impress upon him is so elementary that the beasts themselves know something about it.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;
And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee;
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee;
And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
Who knoweth not in all these,
That the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind.
Job outstrips Zophars speech in every way. He is ahead in the controversy. In Job 12-13 Job seems to have Bildads statement in mind (Job 8:8-9), and he declares now that with God is wisdom and might; He hath counsel and understanding. But what follows, while true in itself, is but the one side of Gods doings, and the darkest pessimism, such as suited his mind. God spoils counsellors, maketh judges fools, looseth the bonds of kings, leadeth priests away spoiled, overthroweth the mighty, pours contempt on princes; He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them.
He taketh away the heart of the chiefs of the people in the earth,
And causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
They grope in dark without light.
And He maketh them stagger like a drunken man.
It is a dreadful picture Job has drawn of God by the one-sided description of His greatness. Not a word of His love and mercy. It is in full keeping with his despairing heart.
Job 13:1-5. He had told in the previous words that he was not an ignorant man. What his wise friends had told him he understood perfectly; both nature and history had taught him the greatness of God which they had emphasized. What ye know, I know; I am not inferior to you. I am just as good as you are. What he desires is not to speak with them but to the Almighty; he wants to reason with God. The parallelism of verses 4 and 5 is interesting and has been rendered as follows:
But as for ye, plastered with lies are ye,
Physicians of no value are ye all
Would ye but altogether hold your peace;
That, of itself, would show that ye are wise.
Still stronger is his rebuke as found in Job 13:7-13. He warns them that their whole course is wrong. They are presumptuous in talking deceitfully for God. All this he speaks in self-defense, that he is innocent, and with it the subtle accusation against God once more, that He is unjust. He also warns them that He will surely reprove you and this came true.
Job 13:14-28. Then his words addressed to God Himself. He dares to approach Him. Knowing the greatness and awfulness of God, and perhaps conscious too of not having Him honoured as he should have done, he says, this would be the meaning of the rather difficult verse (Job 13:14), Come what may I take my life in my hand and risk it. The paraphrase of the Companion Bible expresses it correctly.
Aye, come what may, I willingly the risk will take; and put my life into my hand.
But at that moment when he makes this resolve His faith breaks through and he utters one of the sublimest words which ever came from human lips. Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. And thousands upon thousands have spoken it after him, thus honouring God with faiths sweetest song in the night.
He wants God to hear his speech diligently and have declaration come into His ear. He expresses his hope that God would yet declare him just, that is justify him, then who will dare to contend with him? And then that pleading of his with so much pathos! Relieve me from the sufferings, withdraw thine hand far from me, which rests upon me; and let not thy terror make me afraid. Then call Thou, and I will answer (Job 13:20-22). Or let me speak, he says, and answer Thou me. Then once more the right note, that note which finally must be sounded to the full in his wretched misery–How many are mine iniquities and sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sins. But it was only momentarily. He breaks out in fresh charges against God. His self-righteousness has blinded him so that he asks, wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and holdest me for Thine enemy? Horrible charges he brings against His Maker, the charges of injustice (Job 13:26-28). He wanted to listen to God, but He gives Him no chance to speak. When finally God speaks Job is in the dust.
Job 14:1-6. A true picture he has drawn in these words of mans frailty. Besides this unclean, for, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. He requests that he might be let alone till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day.
Job 14:7-22. There is hope for a tree, he declares, though cut down, but it may sprout again. But man that dieth, and wasteth away; Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? He speaks of man who lieth down and riseth not. That is the language of man apart from revelation. It is the expression of one who is in darkness and uncertainty. Frequently teachers of errors, like soul-sleep, the annihilation of the wicked, etc., in defense of their false teachings quote Job and the utterances of these friends as if these were true revelations from God, when their words are only the expressions of the human mind, and often false and misleading. What Job spoke and his friends is given in an unfailing inspired account, but revelation is a different matter altogether.
Then Jobs desire is to be hidden in Sheol, until His wrath be past. That Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! In this he expresseth the wish to believe that there is hope and that some one might give him the assurance about it–If a man die, shall he live again? But this ray of hope is only for a moment and once more he gives way to despair and continues his awful suspicions that God is his enemy. The first series of controversies are a complete failure. Job by justifying himself has dishonored God, and his friends by condemning him and not giving him the comfort he needed have sinned as well.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Reciprocal: Isa 27:1 – leviathan
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 12:1. And Job answered Greatly vexed that his friends should entertain so firm an opinion of his being a wicked man, and that they should press him so hard with their maxim, that affliction was a demonstration of guilt, he can no longer refrain from answering them with great sharpness. He taxes them with self-conceit; their maxims he treats as mean and poor, the contrary of which was evident to all observing persons; good men were frequently in distress, while robbers and public plunderers enjoyed their ill-gotten wealth in perfect security, Job 12:2-6. This was so notorious, that it was impossible it could have escaped their observation, Job 12:7. This was indeed the work of Jehovah, who was all-wise and all- powerful, and no one could call him to account. All this he was as sensible of as they could be, for which reason he was the more desirous to argue the point with God, Job 13:1-10. And, as for them, if they would pretend to be judges, they should take great care to be upright ones; since God would by no means excuse corruption of judgment, though it should be in his own behalf; and his all-seeing eye would penetrate their motives, though ever so closely concealed from human view; and in his sight all their maxims of wisdom, on which they seemed so much to value themselves, would be regarded as dross and dung. That he was not in the least apprehensive of bringing his cause to an issue; because he was satisfied that the Almighty, far from oppressing him by dint of power, would rather afford him strength to go through his defence; and he was persuaded the issue would be favourable to him, Job 12:11-19. He, therefore, challenges any one among them to declare himself the accuser; secure enough as to that point, as he was sensible they could not make good their charge. He again ends with a tender expostulation with the Almighty, begging he might have, before his death, an opportunity of publicly vindicating his innocence, since afterward he could have no hope of doing it, Job 12:20 to the end of chap. 14. Heath.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 12:6. The tabernacles of robbers prosper. Or as it might be rendered, a placid tranquility gladdens the tabernacles of robbers; referring to the Arabs, who plunder the merchants. This and the following are invincible arguments.
Job 12:12. With the ancient is wisdom. The Hebrews have three words which they use to express degrees of age in old men. Zaken, a man above sixty years of age; Sheb, a man above seventy; Ishish, a man upwards of eighty. Ishish being used here, we may infer that Jobs calamities happened before he had attained that age.
Job 12:15. The watersoverturn the earth, alluding to the deluge of Noah, when the mighty tides washed the mountains, made depositions of marine productions, and stratified all the northern regions with an infinitude of reeds and plants, natives of the torrid zone. Such is the opinion of the ingenious Mr. Hutchinson. Gen 7:8.
Job 12:17. He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, or despoiled of wisdom. God is worthy of praise, not of blame, for confounding the counsel of Ahitophel. We must always treat the permission of evil as emanating from the unsearchable depths of providence, as is the sense of Job 12:22; Job 12:24. He leadeth the chiefs in a wilderness where there is no way.
Job 12:19. He leadeth princes away spoiled. The word cohen, signifies priests; but the Chaldee has princes, for the prince and the priest in Jobs time was the same person, as is exemplified in Melchizedek, Abraham, &c. Hence the use of this term is a farther argument of the great antiquity of the book of Job.
Job 12:23. He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them. If this were true in patriarchal society, how much more so in the great theatre of universal history. What great cities now lie in ruins: what vast countries, are now occupied by conquering invaders. The successive scourges of war, and the terrific pestilence, have eased the earth of its dense population.
REFLECTIONS.
Job, long afflicted with the most tremendous strokes of providence, and surrounded with clouds of darkness, which all the efforts of his wisdom tried in vain to penetrate, felt an addition to his grief, from the pointed charges of his comforters, that all his calamities were the consequences of secret crimes. Yet, blessed be God, a conscious rectitude will support a man under the severest misconstructions of character. Amidst all these afflictions he collected soul sufficient to give a smart stroke of satire at the arguments of his friends, and ably refuted the impropriety of disregarding pleas of innocence, and drawing criminal conclusions in a case as yet involved in clouds. Doubtless ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.To him, their arguments were not new; they were the current maxims of providence. Therefore he consoled himself in the exercise of reason, and in a conscious recollection of providence. He was confident that his friends had no warrant to afflict the afflicted. He felt the wrongs they had done to his soul; he was as one mocked of his neighbour. He was despised as an expiring lamp; though a burning and shining light, having instructed the ignorant, and judged his city: Job 29:7-17.
Job farther consoled himself in his afflictions from the consideration, that though their maxims were often true, nevertheless they were often counteracted by opposite maxims of providence. Hence no just inferences, or severe strictures, could be drawn from the mysterious nature of his case. Thus though his body was afflicted, yet with great mental strength he hurls back every argument on their own heads. The tabernacles of robbers prosper; and God pours affluence into the hands of those that tempt him. Ask now the beasts of the forests, and the fishes of the deep, do not the most cruel and voracious prosper best? Am I not in the right? Doth not the ear listen to a fair argument, and the mouth relish its sweetness.
In this common lot of affliction to the saint and the sinner, to the wise man and the fool, Job appeals to God alone for the solution of the equity of his way. Aged men he allows to be wise; but God alone is absolutely so, and with him is perfect understanding. Behold, he breaketh down and buildeth up; he withholds the rain, and nations perish; the innocent and the guilty, the deceived and the deceiver. He dethrones kings, and mocks at the counsellors; he discovers the deep things out of darkness, and exposes the whole of secret plots; he penetrates the shadow of death, that the crimes of the dead may be fairly traced in the historic page. If this then be the way of God with man, why should you suspect me of crimes, and accuse me of lies and of insults to my Maker?
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 12:1-25. Eliphaz had appealed to revelation, Bildad to the wisdom of the ancients, Zophar assumes that he himself is the oracle of Gods wisdom. Job answers this assumption. Firstly Zophar is not the only wise man in the world, and secondly, as to this wisdom of God, which explains everything, Job has himself studied the ways of God, and whatever wisdom there may be in them there is certainly also the most arbitrary exercise of Divine power.
The friends take themselves to be the whole people (Job 12:2); in your own estimation, Job says, youre everybody (Peake). Job, however, is not behind them in wisdom: they are not its sole oracle (Job 12:3).
Job 12:4-6. According to Duhm an interpolation. They treat of the contrast between the fate of the pious and the rebellious men of the world, and contain sentences suitable enough for Job, but not in this place. The LXX has the passage in a much shorter form. Peake defends the passage. Job speaks out of the consciousness of his own piety, and in his reference to the mockery to which he is exposed he does not mean that he was mocked on account of his godliness, which was not true in his case, but that in spite of it he was taunted with impiety.
Job 12:5 says that the prosperous despise and buffet the unfortunate.
Job 12:6 contrasts with this the happiness of the wicked. As so often in the Psalms, the prosperous and the wicked, the unfortunate and the pious are identified.
Job 12:7-10 Duhm also treats as an interpolation He says that these verses come from another poet, and express the thought that, as the animal world teaches, the life of all living beings is in Gods hand. Between this and the context he sees not the slightest connexion. The usual interpretation of the passage when it is retained for Job (Davidson, Peake) is that in reply to the boasted wisdom of Zophar, Job intimates that such knowledge is the veriest commonplace. The observation of the animal world may teach it (Davidson), or perhaps the very animals possess it (Peake); antiquity did not draw the same sharp line between human and animal intelligence as we draw. Duhm sees a confirmation of his theory that the passage is an interpolation in the use of the name Yahweh in Job 12:9. If the poet wrote Yahweh it must have been by an oversight (Peake). Some MSS. read Eloah (God).
With Job 12:11 Duhm admits that we return to the genuine speech of Job. The ear decides as to the sense or senselessness of what is heard, the palate itself knows best how things taste (cf. Job 6:6), man can therefore by means of his senses judge of the things of the external world, with which he has to dowhy should he then require to be told by others, how anything tastes or sounds? Job stands upon his own individuality; if he has observed Gods working, as he describes it in Job 12:14 ff., no one need try to persuade him of the opposite of his own impressions and preceptions. Job 12:12 we must translate as mg., With aged men, ye say, is wisdom. No, says Job, it is God who possesses both wisdom and might. Varied illustrations of this truth follow (Job 12:14-25).
The above interpretation of Job 12:11-25 is based on the assumption that it is to be retained for Job. We have seen that Duhm questions Job 12:4-6, Job 12:7-10. Siegfried, however, goes further and would reject not only Job 12:4-6, but Job 12:7 to Job 13:1; he thinks that the latter passage is an interpolation intended to bring the speeches of Job into harmony with the orthodox doctrine of retribution. The passage, however, rather illustrates the sovereign might of Gods working, and is thus more in harmony with the thought of Job than with that of the friends.
Job 12:5. Take the word translated it is ready as a noun meaning a blow.
Job 12:6. Translate as mg. that bring their god in their hand, i.e. they worship their own power and make it their god (cf. Hab 1:11; Hab 1:16).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
JOB EMPHASISES GOD’S GREATNESS AND WISDOM
(vv.1-25)
Job’s reply to Zophar was understandably sarcastic, “No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!” (v.2). Zophar had implied that he had intuitive wisdom such as Job lacked, and Job rightly reproved him in saying, “But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you” (v.3). In fact, Zophar had said only what was common knowledge: everyone knew these things.
Job felt the pathos of being mocked by his friends, ridiculed, though just and blameless (v.4). He had been a lamp, giving light, but now was despised in the thoughts of these friends who were comfortably at ease, who were ready to put down those whose feet slip. He even suggests that his friends were acting like robbers who were prospering, for they were stealing away his integrity and actually provoking God while pretending to speak on God’s behalf. Job was puzzled that his friends could be so secure, resting in the blessing God had provided them, while speaking falsely for God! (vv.5-6). Why did they prosper while he suffered? He proceeds then, in verse 7, to show far more than Zophar did, the greatness and wisdom of God. He appeals to creation, the beasts, the birds, the earth, the fish as witnesses of the great variety of actions of power and greatness on the part of the Creator. “The hand of the Lord has done this” (v.9).
In that hand of power is the life of every living thing, Job affirms, and the breath of all mankind, – not only his own breath, but that of his three friends also. He would not let them think of themselves as merely detached onlookers, who could judge matters without being judged themselves. With his ears he tested their words, and he tasted what was fed to him, to discover whether it was palatable or not (vv.10-11). Thus, he sets Zophar’s professed wisdom aside by telling him that “wisdom is with aged men, and with length of days, understanding” (v.12).
Speaking of wisdom, however, brings Job face to face with God, who is infinite in wisdom and strength, He has counsel and understanding beyond all that is human. “If He breaks a thing down, it cannot be rebuilt” (v.14). In fact Job had been broken down, but he did not realise that the One who broke him down could also rebuild him, though Job could not do it. If God imprisons one, man cannot release him, though God can do so. God could use waters also as He saw fit. If He withheld the water the earth would dry up: if He sent a torrent of water this could cause an overwhelming flood (v.15). These two extremes have often followed one another and men are helpless, though God does not explain why He does this.
There are various things of which Job speaks that he gives God credit for, without realising their significance as regards his own case. God had strength and prudence; the deceived and the deceiver were both under His control (v.16), “He leads counsellors away plundered, and makes fools of the judges,” that is, He deprives counsellors of the value of their counsel: thus man’s wisdom is brought to nothing, and the judges become foolish: man’s authority becomes as useless as his wisdom. Those who have been considered dependable are deprived of speech, the ability to be of help to others, and even elders who have been recognised for their experience will find their discernment taken away (vv.17-20).
“He pours contempt on princes, and disdains the mighty” (v.21). To princes (those in the place of dignity) God sees fit to show contempt, so contrary to what they might expect. The powerful He disarms, taking their power from them. If Job had taken time to consider the significance of these things, he might not have sunk so low in his miserable state. He sees the facts, but fails to apply their lessons in his own case. He says of God, “He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings the shadow of death to light” (v.22). Actually, Job was experiencing the pangs of darkness: he himself could not uncover deep things from the darkness, nor bring light from the shadow of death, but he realised God can do this. Could He not do it in Job’s case? Yes indeed, and He did so before long.
God could and did make nations great, and then as He saw fit, destroy them. He could enlarge the nations and guide them too, but then take away the understanding of the chiefs of the people, to reduce the nation to a wandering wilderness path, to grope in the dark without light, made to stagger like a drunkard (vv.23-25). Thus the nations are an object lesson for all mankind. God blesses them and they become proud of themselves, therefore they require the humbling dealings of God.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
6. Job’s first reply to Zophar chs. 12-14
In these chapters Job again rebutted his friends and their view of God. He also challenged God and brooded over death. Half of this section is dialogue with his friends (Job 12:1 to Job 13:19) and half is prayer to God (Job 13:20 to Job 14:22). Job could not agree with his friends’ conclusion, but neither could he explain why God was dealing with him as He was. He could only conclude that God was not just.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Job’s repudiation of his friends 12:1-13:19
Job 12:2 is irony; his companions were not as wise as they thought. Job pointed out that much of what they had said about God was common knowledge (cf. Job 5:9-10; Job 8:13-19; Job 11:7-9). Nonetheless their conclusion, that the basis of man’s relationship with God is his deeds, did not fit the facts of life. Job cited his own case as proof, as well as the fact that the wicked often prosper (Job 12:6). He said even the animals know that God sends calamities (Job 12:7-9; cf. Job 11:12).
"In spite of his censure, Job shows here a remarkably perceptive pastoral concern for the spiritual safety of his friends. . .
"The grounds of Job’s assault on his friends should be appreciated, for his attitude has been commonly misconstrued by commentators. In particular, they often say that Job doubts the justice of God. But the warning he gives his friends is based on certainty that they cannot deceive God (9), or get away with things done in secret (10). God will deal with them in strict justice, and their ’defences [sic] will crumble like clay’ (12, NEB)." [Note: Andersen, pp. 164, 165.]
Job 12:12 may also be irony; this was not what Job believed. On the other hand, Job may have been quoting his friends or asking a rhetorical question: "Is wisdom with aged men . . .?" Job then proceeded to show that God is the only truly wise Person (Job 12:13)-in refutation of Bildad (Job 8:8). Job mentioned several outrageous acts of God that demonstrate His mysterious wisdom (cf. chs. 38-41). He also pointed out God’s great power as seen in the processes of nature and the affairs of nations (Job 12:14-21). In the ancient Near Eastern myths, the qualities of wisdom and power often resided in different gods, not in the same god. [Note: Hartley, p. 213. Cf. Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, pp. 33-34.] Man can only understand God’s ways by special revelation from God. His ways are inscrutable (Job 12:22; cf. Job 11:7). God also darkens people’s understanding (Job 12:24-25). In short, history shows that all the world’s leading authorities have not enjoyed God’s blessing as they should have if his friends’ major premise was correct (Job 12:13-25).
If his companions wanted to appeal to their own experience as authoritative, Job would too (Job 13:1-2). Since Job’s friends could not solve his problems, he asked God to speak with him (Job 13:3). "Smear with lies" (Job 13:4) means "plaster with lies," cover up the truth. [Note: Victor Reichert, Job, p. 61.] Job urged his counselors to keep quiet (Job 12:5).
In his remarks dealing with his friends’ inability to represent God (Job 13:6-12), Job again used legal language. It seemed incredible to Job that God’s self-appointed defense attorneys should use faulty arguments, be partial, and be lying fools. God later did reprove these men for misrepresenting Him (Job 42:7-8). They were not really defending God but their own views about God. We should be careful not to do this. Even though Job doubted God’s concern for justice, he inconsistently believed God would judge his three friends justly. God’s justice was a major problem for Job.
As he prepared to present his case to God, Job asked his friends to be silent and to listen (Job 13:13-19; cf. Job 13:5-6). Job realized he was risking his life to speak to God as he did (Job 13:14). One translation of Job 12:15 is, "Behold, He will slay me; I do not have hope. I will present my case to His face." [Note: Zuck, Job, p. 61.] Job evidently expected God to kill him for what he was about to say, but he wanted answers more than life. Job had prepared his defense as a good lawyer (Job 13:18 a), and he believed he would win his case (Job 13:18 b; cf. Job 9:28 b) even though God would kill him. Still, his hope was in God (Job 12:15). He again asserted his innocence (Job 13:19 a).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
XII.
BEYOND FACT AND FEAR TO GOD
Job 12:1-25; Job 13:1-28; Job 14:1-22
Job SPEAKS
ZOPHAR excites in Jobs mind great irritation, which must not be set down altogether to the fact that he is the third to speak. In some respects he has made the best attack from the old position, pressing most upon the conscience of Job. He has also used a curt positive tone in setting out the method and principle of Divine government and the judgment he has formed of his friends state. Job is accordingly the more impatient, if not disconcerted. Zophar had spoken of the want of understanding Job had shown, and the penetrating wisdom of God which at a glance convicts men of iniquity. His tone provoked resentment. Who is this that claims to have solved the enigmas of providence, to have gone into the depths of wisdom? Does he know any more, he himself, than the wild asss colt?
And Job begins with stringent irony-
“No doubt but ye are the people
And wisdom shall die with you.
The secrets of thought, of revelation itself are yours. No doubt the world waited to be taught till you were born. Do you not think so? But, after all, I also have a share of understanding, I am not quite so void of intellect as you seem to fancy. Besides, who knoweth not such things as ye speak? Are they new? I had supposed them to be commonplaces. Yea, if you recall what I said, you will find that with a little more vigour than yours I made the same declarations.
“A laughing stock to his neighbours am I,
I who called upon Eloah and He answered me, –
A laughing stock, the righteous and perfect man.”
Job sees or thinks he sees that his misery makes him an object of contempt to men who once gave him the credit of far greater wisdom and goodness than their own. They are bringing out old notions, which are utterly useless, to explain the ways of God; they assume the place of teachers; they are far better, far wiser now than he. It is more than flesh can bear.
As he looks at his own diseased body and feels again his weakness, the cruelty of the conventional judgment stings him. “In the thought of him that is at ease there is for misfortune scorn; it awaiteth them that slip with the foot.” Perhaps Job was mistaken, but it is too often true that the man who fails in a social sense is the man suspected. Evil things are found in him when he is covered with the dust of misfortune, things which no one dreamed of before. Flatterers become critics and judges. They find that he has a bad heart or that he is a fool.
But if those very good and wise friends of Job are astonished at anything previously said, they shall be more astonished. The facts which their account of Divine providence very carefully avoided as inconvenient Job will blurt out. They have stated and restated, with utmost complacency, their threadbare theory of the government of God. Let them look now abroad in the world and see what actually goes on, blinking no facts.
The tents of robbers prosper. Out in the desert there are troops of bandits who are never overtaken by justice; and they that provoke God are secure, who carry a god in their hand, whose sword and the reckless daring with which they use it make them to all appearance safe in villainy. These are the things to be accounted for; and, accounting for them, Job launches into a most emphatic argument to prove all that is done in the world strangely and inexplicably to be the doing of God. As to that he will allow no question. His friends shall know that he is sound on this head. And let them provide the defence of Divine righteousness after he has spoken.
Here, however, it is necessary to consider in what way the limitations of Hebrew thought must have been felt by one who, turning from the popular creed, sought a view more in harmony with fact. Now-a-days the word nature is often made to stand for a force or combination of forces conceived of as either entirely or partially independent of God. Tennyson makes the distinction when he speaks of man:
“Who trusted God was love indeed
And love creations final law,
Though nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravin, shrieked against the creed,”
and again when he asks-
“Are God and nature then at strife
That nature lends such evil dreams,
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life?”
Now to this question, perplexing enough on the face of it when we consider what suffering there is in the creation, how the waves of life seem to beat and break themselves age after age on the rocks of death, the answer in its first stage is that God and nature cannot be at strife. They are not apart; there is but one universe, therefore one Cause. One Omnipotent there is whose will is done, whose character is shown in all we see and all we cannot see, the issues of endless strife, the long results of perennial evolution. But then comes the question, What is His character, of what spirit is He who alone rules, who sends after the calm the fierce storm, after the beauty of life the corruption of death? And one may say the struggle between Bible religion and modern science is on this very field.
Cold heartless power, say some; no Father, but an impersonal Will to which men are nothing, human joy and love nothing, to which the fair blossom is no more than the clod, and the holy prayer no better than the vile sneer. On this, faith arises to the struggle. Faith warm and hopeful takes reason into counsel, searches the springs of existence, goes forth into the future and forecasts the end, that it may affirm and reaffirm against all denial that One Omnipotent reigns who is all-loving, the Father of infinite mercy. Here is the arena; here the conflict rages and will rage for many a day. And to him will belong the laurels of the age who, with the Bible in one hand and the instruments of science in the other, effects the reconciliation of faith with fact. Tennyson came with the questions of our day. He passes and has not given a satisfactory answer. Carlyle has gone with the “Everlasting Yea and No” beating through his oracles. Even Browning, a later athlete, did not find complete reason for faith.
“From Thy will stream the worlds, life, and nature, Thy dread sabaoth.”
Now return to Job. He considers nature; he believes in God; he stands firmly on the conviction that all is of God. Hebrew faith held this, and was not limited in holding it, for it is the fact. But we cannot wonder that providence disconcerted him, since the reconcilation of “merciless” nature and the merciful God is not even yet wrought out. Notwithstanding the revelation of Christ, many still find themselves in darkness just when light is most urgently craved. Willing to believe, they yet lean to a dualism which makes God Himself appear in conflict with the scheme of things, thwarted now and now repentant, gracious in design but not always in effect. Now the limitation of the Hebrew was this, that to his idea the infinite power of God was not balanced by infinite mercy, that is, by regard to the whole work of His hands. In one stormy dash after another Job is made to attempt this barrier. At moments he is lifted beyond it, and sees the great universe filled with Divine care that equals power; for the present, however, he distinguishes between merciful intent and merciless, and ascribes both to God.
What does he say? God is in the deceived and in the deceiver; they are both products of nature, that is, creatures of God. He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them. Cities arise and become populous. The great metropolis is filled with its myriads, “among whom are six-score thousand that cannot discern between their right hand and their left.” The city shall fulfil its cycle and perish. It is God. Searching for reconciliation Job looks the facts of human existence right in the face, and he sees a confusion, the whole enigma which lies in the constitution of the world and of the soul. Observe how his thought moves. The beasts, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, all living beings everywhere, not self-created, with no power to shape or resist their destiny, bear witness to the almightiness of God. In His hand is the lower creation; in His hand also, rising higher, is the breath of all mankind. Absolute, universal is that power, dispensing life and death as it broods over the ages. Men have sought to understand the ways of the Great Being. The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat. Is there wisdom with the ancient, those who live long, as Bildad says? Yes: but with God are wisdom and strength; not penetration only, but power. He discerns and does. He demolishes, and there is no rebuilding. Man is imprisoned, shut up by misfortune, by disease. It is Gods decree, and there is no opening till He allows. At His will the waters are dried up; at His will they pour in torrents over the earth. And so amongst men there are currents of evil and good flowing through lives, here in the liar and cheat, there in the victim of knavery; here in the counsellors whose plans come to nothing; there in the judges who sagacity is changed to folly; and all these currents, and cross currents, making life a bewildering maze, have their beginning in the will of God, who seems to take pleasure in doing what is strange and baffling. Kings take men captive; the bonds of the captives are loosed, and the kings themselves are bound. What are princes and priests, what are the mighty to Him? What is the speech of the eloquent? Where is the understanding of the aged when He spreads confusion? Deep as in the very gloom of the grave the ambitious may hide their schemes; the flux of events brings them out to judgment, one cannot foresee how. Nations are raised up and destroyed; the chiefs of the people are made to fear like children. Trusted leaders wander in a wilderness; they grope in midnight gloom; they stagger like the drunken. Behold, says Job, all this I have seen. This is Gods doing. And with this great God he would speak; he, a man, would have things out with the Lord of all. {Job 13:3}
This impetuous passage, full of revolution, disaster, vast mutations, a phantasmagoria of human struggle and defeat, while it supplies a note of time and gives a distinct clue to the writers position as an Israelite, is remarkable for the faith that survives its apparent pessimism. Others have surveyed the world and the history of change, and have protested with their last voice against the cruelty that seemed to rule. As for any God, they could never trust one whose will and power were to be found alike in the craft of the deceiver and the misery of the victim, in the baffling of sincere thought and the overthrow of the honest with the vile. But Job trusts on. Beneath every enigma, he looks for reason; beyond every disaster, to a Divine end. The voices of men have come between him and the voice of the Supreme. Personal disaster has come between him and his sense of God. His thought is not free. If it were, he would catch the reconciling word, his soul would hear the music of eternity. “I would reason with God.” He clings to God-given reason as his instrument of discovery.
Very bold is this whole position, and very reverent also, if you will think of it; far more honouring to God than any attempt of the friends who, as Job says, appear to hold the Almighty no better than a petty chief, so insecure in His position that He must be grateful to any one who will justify His deeds. “Poor God, with nobody to help Him.” Job uses all his irony in exposing the folly of such a religion, the impertinence of presenting it to him as a solution and a help. In short, he tells them, they are pious quacks, and, as he will have none of them for his part, he thinks God will not either. The author is at the very heart of religion here. The word of reproof and correction, the plea for providence must go straight to the reason of man, or it is of no use. The word of the Lord must be a two-edged sword of truth, piercing to the dividing asunder even of soul and spirit. That is to say, into the centre of energy the truth must be driven which kills the spirit of rebellion, so that the will of man, set free, may come into conscious and passionate accord with the will of God. But reconciliation is impossible unless each will deal in the utmost sincerity with truth, realising the facts of existence, the nature of the soul and the great necessities of its discipline. To be true in theology we must not accept what seems to be true, nor speak forensically, but affirm what we have proved in our own life and gathered in utmost effort from Scripture and from nature. Men inherit opinions as they used to inherit garments, or devise them, like clothes of a new fashion, and from within the folds they speak, not as men but as priests, what is the right thing according to a received theory. It will not do. Even of old time a man like the author of Job turned contemptuously from school-made explanations and sought a living word. In our age the number of those whose fever can be lulled with a working theory of religion and a judicious arrangement of the universe is rapidly becoming small. Theology is being driven to look the facts of life full in the face. If the world has learned anything from modern science, it is the habit of rigorous research and the justification of free inquiry, and the lesson will never be unlearned.
To take one error of theology. All men are concluded equally under Gods wrath and curse; then the proofs of the malediction are found in trouble, fear, and pain. But what comes of this teaching? Out in the world, with facts forcing themselves on consciousness, the scheme is found hollow. All are not in trouble and pain. Those who are afflicted and disappointed are often sincere Christians. A theory of deferred judgment and happiness is made for escape; it does not, however, in the least enable one to comprehend how, if pain and trouble be the consequences of sin, they should not be distributed rightly from the first. A universal moral order cannot begin in a manner so doubtful, so very difficult for the wayfaring man to read as he goes. To hold that it can is to turn religion into an occultism which at every point bewilders the simple mind. The theory is one which tends to blunt the sense of sin in those who are prosperous, and to beget that confident Pharisaism which is the curse of church life. On the other hand, the “sacrificed classes,” contrasting their own moral character with that of the frivolous and fleshly rich, are forced to throw over a theology which binds together sin and suffering, and to deny a God whose equity is so far to seek. And yet, again, in the recoil from all this men invent wersh schemes of bland goodwill and comfort, which have simply nothing to do with the facts of life, no basis in the world as we know it, no sense of the rigour of Divine love. So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remain with us and confuse theology until some think it lost in unreason.
“But ye are patchers of lies,
Physicians of nought are ye all.
Oh that ye would only keep silence,
And it should be your wisdom”. {Job 13:4-5}
Job sets them down with a current proverb-“Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.” He begs them to be silent. They shall now hear his rebuke.
“On behalf of God will ye speak wrong?
And for Him will ye speak deceit?
Will ye be partisans for Him?
Or for God will ye contend?”
Job finds them guilty of speaking falsely as special pleaders for God in two respects. They insist that he has offended God, but they cannot point to one sin which he has committed. On the other hand, they affirm positively that God will restore prosperity if confession is made. But in this too they play the part of advocates without warrant. They show great presumption in daring to pledge the Almighty to a course in accordance with their idea of justice. The issue might be what they predict; it might not. They are venturing on ground to which their knowledge does not extend. They think their presumption justified because it is for religions sake. Job administers a sound rebuke, and it extends to our own time. Special pleaders for Gods sovereign and unconditional right and for His illimitable good nature, alike have warning here. What justification have men in affirming that God will work out His problems in detail according to their views? He has given to us the power to apprehend the great principles of His working. He has revealed much in nature, providence, and Scripture, and in Christ; but there is the “hiding of His power,” “His path is in the mighty waters, and His judgments are not known.” Christ has said, “It is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority.” There are certainties of our consciousness, facts of the world and of revelation from which we can argue. Where these confirm, we may dogmatise, and the dogma will strike home. But no piety, no desire to vindicate the Almighty or to convict and convert the sinner, can justify any man in passing beyond the certainty which God has given him to that unknown which lies far above human ken.
“He will surely correct you
If in secret ye are partial.
Shall not His majesty terrify you,
And His dread fall upon you?” {Job 13:10-11}
The Book of Job, while it brands insincerity and loose reasoning, justifies all honest and reverent research. Here, as in the teaching of our Lord, the real heretic is he who is false to his own reason and conscience, to the truth of things as God gives him to apprehend it, who, in short, makes believe to any extent in the sphere of religion. And it is upon this man the terror of the Divine majesty is to fall.
We saw how Bildad established himself on the wisdom of the ancients. Recalling this, Job flings contempt on his traditional sayings.
“Your remembrances are proverbs of ashes,
Your defences, defences of dust.”
Did they mean to smite him with those proverbs as with stones? They were ashes. Did they intrench themselves from the assaults of reason behind old suppositions? Their ramparts were mere dust. Once more he bids them hold their peace, and let him alone that he may speak out all that is in his mind. It is, he knows at the hazard of his life he goes forward; but he will. The case in which he is can have no remedy excepting by an appeal to God, and that final appeal he will make.
Now the proper beginning of this appeal is in the twenty-third verse (Job 13:23), with the words: “How many are mine iniquities and my sins?” But before Job reaches it he expresses his sense of the danger and difficulty under which he lies, interweaving with the statement of these a marvellous confidence in the result of what he is about to do. Referring to the declarations of his friends as to the danger that yet threatens if he will not confess sin, he uses a proverbial expression for hazard of life.
“Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hand?”
Why do I incur this danger, do you say? Never mind. It is not your affair. For bare existence I care nothing. To escape with mere consciousness for a while is no object to me, as I now am. With my life in my hand I hasten to God.
“Lo! He will slay me: I will not delay-
Yet my ways will I maintain before Him”. {Job 13:15}
The old Version here, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” is inaccurate. Still it is not far from expressing the brave purpose of the man- prostrate before God, yet resolved to cling to the justice of the case ashe apprehends it, assured that this will not only be excused by God, but will bring about his acquittal or salvation. To grovel in the dust, confessing himself a miserable sinner more than worthy of all the sufferings he has undergone, while in his heart he has the consciousness of being upright and faithful-this would not commend him to the Judge of all the earth. It would be a mockery of truth and righteousness, therefore of God Himself. On the other hand, to maintain his integrity which God gave him, to go on maintaining it at the hazard of all, is his only course, his only safety.
“This also shall be my salvation,
For a godless man shall not live before Him.”
The fine moral instinct of Job, giving courage to his theology, declares that God demands “truth in the inward parts” and truth in speech-that man “consists in truth”-that “if he betrays truth he betrays himself,” which is a crime against his Maker. No man is so much in danger of separating himself from God and losing everything as he who acts or speaks against conviction.
Job has declared his hazard, that he is lying helpless before Almighty Power which may in a moment crush him. He has also expressed his faith, that approaching God in the courage of truth he will not be rejected, that absolute sincerity will alone give him a claim on the infinitely True. Now turning to his friends as if in new defiance, he says:-
“Hear diligently my speech,
And my explanation with your ears.
Behold now, I have ordered my cause;
I know that I shall be justified.
Who is he that will contend with me?
For then would I hold my peace and expire.”
That is to say, he has reviewed his life once more, he has considered all possibilities of transgression, and yet his contention remains. So much does he build upon his claim on God that, if any one could now convict him, his heart would fail, life would no more be worth living; the foundation of hope destroyed, conflict would be at an end.
But with his plea to God still in view he expresses once more his sense of the disadvantage under which he lies. The pressure of the Divine hand is upon him still, a sore enervating terror which bears upon his soul. Would God but give him respite for a little from the pain and the fear, then he would be ready either to answer the summons of the Judge or make his own demand for vindication.
We may suppose an interval of release from pain or at least a pause of expectancy, and then, in verse twenty-third (Job 13:23), Job begins his cry. The language is less vehement than we have heard. It has more of the pathos of weak human life. He is one with that race of thinking, feeling, suffering creatures who are tossed about on the waves of existence, driven before the winds, of change like autumn leaves. It is the plea of human feebleness and mortality we hear, and then, as the “still sad music” touches the lowest note of wailing, there mingles with it the strain of hope.
“How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Make me to know my transgression and my sin.”
We are not to understand here that Job confesses great transgressions, nor, contrariwise, that he denies infirmity and error in himself. There are no doubt failures of his youth which remain in memory, sins of desire, errors of ignorance, mistakes in conduct such as the best men fall into. These he does not deny. But righteousness and happiness have been represented as a profit and loss account, and therefore Job wishes to hear from God a statement in exact form of all he has done amiss or failed to do, so that he may be able to see the relation between fault and suffering, his faults and his sufferings, if such relation there be. It appears that God is counting him an enemy (Job 13:24). He would like to have the reason for that. So far as he knows himself he has sought to obey and honour the Almighty. Certainly there has never been in his heart any conscious desire to resist the will of Eloah. Is it then for transgressions unwittingly committed that he now suffers-for sins he did not intend or know of? God is just. It is surely a part of His justice to make a sufferer aware why such terrible afflictions befall him.
And then-is it worthwhile for the Almighty to be so hard on a poor weak mortal?
Wilt thou scare a driven leaf-
Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble-
That thou writest bitter judgments against me,
And makest me to possess the faults of my youth,
And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And watchest all my paths,
And drawest a line about the soles of my feet-
One who as a rotten thing is consuming,
As a garment that is moth eaten?
The sense of rigid restraint and pitiable decay was perhaps never expressed with so fit and vivid imagery. So far it is personal. Then begins a general lamentation regarding the sad fleeting life of man. His own prosperity, which passed as a dream, has become to Job a type of the brief vain existence of the race tried at every moment by inexorable Divine judgment; and the low mournful words of the Arabian chief have echoed ever since in the language of sorrow and loss.
“Man that is born of woman,
Of few days is he and full of trouble.
Like the flower he springs up and withers;
Like a shadow he flees and stays not.
Is it on such a one Thou hast fixed Thine eye?
Bringest Thou me into Thy judgment?
Oh that the clean might come out of the unclean!
But there is not one.”
Human frailty is both of the body and of the soul; and it is universal. The nativity of men forbids their purity. Well does God know the weakness of His creatures; and why then does He expect of them, if indeed He expects, a pureness that can stand the test of His searching? Job cannot be free from the common infirmity of mortals. He is born of woman. But why then is he chased with inquiry, haunted and scared by a righteousness he cannot satisfy? Should not the Great God be forbearing with a man?
“Since his days are determined,
The number of his moons with Thee,
And Thou hast set him bounds not to be passed.
Look Thou away from him that he may rest,
At least fulfil as a hireling his day,”
Mens life being so short, his death so sure and soon, seeing he is like a hireling in the world, might he not be allowed a little rest? might he not, as one who has fulfilled his days work, be let go for a little repose ere he die? That certain death, it weighs upon him now, pressing down his thought.
For even a tree hath hope;
If it be hewn down it will sprout anew,
The young shoot thereof will not fail.
If in the earth its root wax old,
Or in the ground its stock should die
Yet at the scent of water it will spring,
And shoot forth boughs like a new plant.
But a man: he dies and is cut off;
Yea, when men die, they are gone.
Ebbs away the water from the sea,
And the stream decays and dries:
So when men have lain down they rise not;
Till the heavens vanish they never awake,
Nor are they roused from their sleep.
No arguments, no promises can break this deep gloom and silence into which the life of man passes. Once Job had sought death; now a desire has grown within him, and with it recoil from Sheol. To meet God, to obtain his own justification and the clearing of Divine righteousness, to have the problem of life explained-the hope of this makes life precious. Is he to lie down and rise no more while the skies endure? Is no voice to reach him from the heavenly justice he has always confided in? The very thought is confounding. If he were now to desire death it would mean that he had given up all faith, that justice, truth, and even the Divine name of Eloah had ceased to have any value for him.
We are to behold the rise of a new hope, like a star in the firmament of his thought. Whence does it spring?
The religion of the Book of Job, as already shown, is, in respect of form, a natural religion; that is to say, the ideas are not derived from the Hebrew Scriptures. The writer does not refer to the legislation of Moses and the great words of prophets. The expression “As the Lord said unto Moses” does not occur in this book, nor any equivalent. It is through nature and the human consciousness that the religious beliefs of the poem appear to have come into shape. Yet two facts are to be kept fully in view.
The first is that even a natural religion must not be supposed to be a thing of mans invention, with no origin further than his dreams. We must not declare all religious ideas outside those of Israel to be mere fictions of the human fancy or happy guesses at truth. The religion of Teman may have owed some of its great thoughts to Israel. But, apart from that, a basis of Divine revelation is always laid wherever men think and live. In every land the heart of man has borne witness to God. Reverent thought, dwelling on justice, truth, mercy, and all virtues found in the range of experience and consciousness, came through them to the idea of God. Every one who made an induction as to the Great Unseen Being, his mind open to the facts of nature and his own moral constitution, was in a sense a prophet. As far as they went, the reality and value of religious ideas, so reached, are acknowledged by Bible writers themselves. “The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity.” God has always been revealing Himself to men.
“Natural religion” we say: and yet, since God is always revealing Himself and has made all men more or less capable of apprehending the revelation, even the natural is supernatural. Take the religion of Egypt, or of Chaldaea, or of Persia. You may contrast any one of these with the religion of Israel; you may call the one natural, the other revealed. But the Persian speaking of the Great Good Spirit or the Chaldaean worshipping a supreme Lord must have had some kind of revelation; and his sense of it, not clear indeed, far enough below that of Moses or Isaiah, was yet a forth reaching towards the same light as now shines for us.
Next we must keep it in view that Job does not appear as a thinker building on himself alone, depending on his own religious experience. Centuries and ages of thought are behind these beliefs which are ascribed to him, even the ideas which seem to start up freshly as the result of original discovery. Imagine a man thinking for himself about Divine things in that far away Arabian past. His mind, to begin with, is not a blank. His father has instructed him. There is a faith that has come down from many generations. He has found words in use which hold in them religious ideas, discoveries, perceptions of Divine reality, caught and fixed ages before. When he learned language the products of evolution, not only psychical, but intellectual and spiritual, became his. Eloah, the lofty one, the righteousness of Eloah, the word of Eloah, Eloah as Creator, as Watcher of men, Eloah as wise, unsearchable in wisdom, as strong, infinitely mighty, -these are ideas he has not struck out for himself, but inherited. Clearly then a new thought, springing from these, comes as a supernatural communication and has behind it ages of spiritual evolution. It is new, but has its root in the old; it is natural, but originates in the over nature.
Now the primitive religion of the Semites, the race to which Job belonged, to which also the Hebrews belonged, has been of late carefully studied; and with regard to it certain things have been established that bear on the new hope we are to find struck out by the Man of Uz.
In the early morning of religious thought among those Semites it was universally believed that the members of a family or tribe, united by blood relationship to each other, were also related in the same way to their God. He was their father, the invisible head and source of their community, on whom they had a claim so long as they pleased him. His interest in them was secured by the sacrificial meal which he was invited and believed to share with them. If he had been offended, the sacrificial offering was the means of recovering his favour; and communion with him in those meals and sacrifices was the inheritance of all who claimed the kinship of that clan or tribe. With the clearing of spiritual vision this belief took a new form in the minds of the more thoughtful. The idea of communion remained and the necessity of it to the life of the worshipper was felt even more strongly when the kinship of the God with his subject family was, for the few at least, no longer an affair of physical descent and blood relation. ship, but of spiritual origin and attachment. And when faith rose from the tribal god to the idea of the Heaven-Father, the one Creator and King communion with Him was felt to be in the highest sense a vital necessity. Here is found the religion of Job. A main element of it was communion with Eloah, an ethical kinship, with Him, no arbitrary or merely physical relation but of the spirit. That is to say, Job has at the heart of his creed the truth as to roans origin and nature. The author of the book is a Hebrew; his own faith is that of the people from whom we have the Book of Genesis; but he treats here of mans relation to God from the ethnic side, such as may be taken now by reasoner treating of spiritual evolution.
Communion with Eloah had been Jobs life and with it had been associated his many years of wealth, dignity, and influence. Lest his children should fall from it and lose their most precious inheritance, he used to bring the periodical offerings. But at length his own communion was interrupted. The sense of being at on with Eloah, if not lost, became dull and faint. It is for the restoration of his very life-not as we might think of religious feeling, but of actual spirit energy-he is now concerned. It is this that underlies his desire for God to speak with him, his demand for an opportunity of pleading his cause. Some might expect that he would ask his friends to offer sacrifice on his behalf, But he makes no such request. The crisis has come in a region higher than sacrifice, where observances are of no use. Thought only can reach it; the discovery of reconciling truth alone can satisfy. Sacrifices which for the old world alone sustained the relation with God could no more for Job restore the intimacy of the spiritual Lord. With a passion for this fellowship keener than ever, since he now more distinctly realises what it is, a fear blends in the heart of the man, Death will be upon him soon. Severed from God he will fall away into the privation of that world where is neither praise nor service, knowledge nor device. Yet the truth which lies at the heart of his religion does not yield. Leaning all upon it, he finds it strong, elastic. He sees at least a possibility of reconciliation; for how can the way back to God ever be quite closed?
What difficulty there was in his effort we know. To the common thought of the time when this book was written, say that of Hezekiah, the state of the dead was not extinction indeed, but an existence of extreme tenuity and feebleness. In Sheol there was nothing active. The hollow ghost of the man was conceived of as neither hoping nor fearing, neither originating nor receiving impressions. Yet Job dares to anticipate that even in Sheol a set time of remembrance will be ordained for him and he shall hear the thrilling call of God. As it approaches this climax the poem flashes and glows with prophetic fire.
Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol,
That Thou wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath be past,
That Thou wouldst appoint a set time, and remember me!
If a (strong) man die, shall he live?
All the days of my appointed time would I wait
Till my release came.
Thou wouldst call, I would answer Thee;
Thou wouldst have a desire to the work of Thy hands.
Not easily can we now realise the extraordinary step forward made in thought when the anticipation was thrown out of spiritual life going on beyond death (“would I wait”), retaining intellectual potency in that region otherwise dark and void to the human imagination (“I would answer Thee”). From both the human side and the Divine the poet has advanced a magnificent intuition, a springing arch into which he is unable to fit the keystone-the spiritual body; for He only could do this who long afterwards came to be Himself the Resurrection and the Life. But when this poem of Job had been given to the world a new thought was implanted in the soul of the race, a new hope that should fight against the darkness of Sheol till that morning when the sunrise fell upon an empty sepulchre, and one standing in the light asked of sorrowful men, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
“Thou wouldst have a desire to the work of Thy hands.” What a philosophy of Divine care underlies the words! They come with a force Job seems hardly to realise. Is there a High One who makes men in His own image, capable of fine achievement, and then casts them away in discontent or loathing? The voice of the poet rings in a passionate key because he rises tea thought practically new to the human mind. He has broken through barriers both of faith and doubt into the light of his hope and stands trembling on the verge of another world. “One must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future.”
But the wrath of God still appears to rest upon Jobs life; still He seems to keep in reserve, sealed up, unrevealed, some record of transgressions for which He has condemned His servant. From the height of hope Job falls away into an abject sense of the decay and misery to which man is brought by the continued rigour of Eloahs examination. As with shocks of earthquake mountains are broken, and waters by constant flowing wash down the soil and the plants rooted in it, so human life is wasted by the Divine severity. In the world the children whom a man loved are exalted or brought low, but he knows nothing of it. His flesh corrupts in the grave and his soul in Sheol languishes.
“Thou destroyest the hope of man.
Thou ever prevailest against him and he passeth
Thou changest his countenance and sendest him away.”
The real is at this point so grim and insistent as to shut off the ideal and confine thought again to its own range. The energy of the prophetic mind is overborne, and unintelligible fact surrounds and presses hard the struggling personality.