Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 30:1
But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.
1. younger than I ] Comp. what was said of the demeanour of the youths in former days, ch. Job 30:8.
would have disdained to have set ] Or, I disdained to set.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But now they that are younger than I – Margin, of fewer days. It is not probable that Job here refers to his three friends. It is not possible to determine their age with accuracy, but in Job 15:10, they claim that there were with them old and very aged men, much older than the father of Job. Though that place may possibly refer not to themselves but to those who held the same opinions with them, yet none of those who engaged in the discussion, except Ehhu Job 32:6, are represented as young men. They were the contemporaries of Job; men who are ranked as his friends; and men who showed that they had had oppoptunities for long and careful observation. The reference here, therefore, is to the fact that while, in the days of his prosperity, even the aged and the honorable rose up to do him reverence, now he was the object of contempt even by the young and the worthless. The Orientals would feel this much. It was among the chief virtues with them to show respect to the aged, and their sensibilites were especially keen in regard to any indignity shown to them by the young.
Whose fathers I would have disdained – Who are the children of the lowest and most degraded of the community. How deep the calamity to be so fallen as to be the subject of derision by such men!
To have set with the dogs of my flock – To have associated with my dogs in guarding my flock. That is, they were held in less esteem than his dogs. This was the lowest conceivable point of debasement. The Orientals had no language that would express greater contempt of anyone than to call him a dog; compare Deu 23:18; 1Sa 17:43; 1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 3:8; 2Sa 9:8; 2Sa 16:9; 2Ki 8:13; Note Isa 66:3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 30:1-15
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision.
Jobs social disabilities
Mans happiness as a social being is greatly dependent upon the kind feeling and respect which is shown to him by his contemporaries and neighbours. The social insolence from which he suffers, and of which he complains, was marked by the following circumstances:–
I. It came from the most contemptible characters. He regarded them as despicable in their ancestry. Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. They were driven from among men, and people cried after them as after a thief. Among the bushes they brayed. These were the creatures amongst whom the patriarch now lived, and whose insolence he had to endure. They had no faculty to discern or appreciate his moral worth, and so utterly destitute of any power to compassionate distress that they treated him with a heartless cruelty and revolting insolence. Men may say that a man of his high character ought not to have allowed himself to have been pained with the conduct of such wretches. But who has ever done so? Even Christ Himself felt the reproaches of sinners, and was not indifferent to their revilings and their sneers. He endured their contradictions.
II. It was manifested in personal annoyances. Now I am their song, he says, I am their byword.
III. It was shown to him on account of his providential reverses. Not because he had become contemptible in character, or morally base and degraded. Only because his circumstances were changed, great prosperity had given way to overwhelming adversity. Learn–
1. The worthlessness of mere social fame. What is it worth? Nothing. Its breath of favour is more fickle than the wind.
2. The moral heroism of the worlds Redeemer. Christ came into a social position far more heartless and insolent than that which the patriarch here describes. Of the people there was none with Him, He was despised and rejected of men.
3. The importance of habitual reliance on the absolute. Do not trust in man. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXX
Job proceeds to lament the change of his former condition, and
the contempt into which his adversity had brought him, 1-15.
Pathetically describes the afflictions of his body and mind,
16-31.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXX
Verse 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision] Compare this with Job 29:8, where he speaks of the respect he had from the youth while in the days of his prosperity. Now he is no longer affluent, and they are no longer respectful.
Dogs of my flock.] Persons who were not deemed sufficiently respectable to be trusted with the care of those dogs which were the guardians of my flocks. Not confidential enough to be made shepherds, ass-keepers, or camel-drivers; nor even to have the care of the dogs by which the flocks were guarded. This saying is what we call an expression of sovereign contempt.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But now my condition is sadly changed for the worse.
They that are younger than I; whom both universal custom and the light of nature taught to reverence their elders and betters.
Have me in derision; make me the object of their contempt and scoffs: thus my glory is turned into shame.
I would have disdained; or rather, I might have disdained, i.e. whose condition was so mean and vile, that in the opinion and according to the custom of the world they were unworthy of such an employment.
To have set with the dogs of my flock; to be my shepherds, and the companions of my dogs which watch my flocks. Dogs are every where mentioned with contempt, as filthy, unprofitable, and accursed creatures; as 2Sa 16:9; 2Ki 8:13; Phi 3:2; Rev 22:15.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. youngernot the threefriends (Job 15:10; Job 32:4;Job 32:6; Job 32:7).A general description: Job30:1-8, the lowness of the persons who derided him; Job30:9-15, the derision itself. Formerly old men rose to me (Job29:8). Now not only my juniors, who are bound to reverenceme (Le 19:32), but even themean and base-born actually deride me; opposed to,”smiled upon” (Job29:24). This goes farther than even the “mockery” ofJob by relations and friends (Job 12:4;Job 16:10; Job 16:20;Job 17:2; Job 17:6;Job 19:22). Orientals feel keenlyany indignity shown by the young. Job speaks as a rich Arabian emir,proud of his descent.
dogsregarded withdisgust in the East as unclean (1Sa 17:43;Pro 26:11). They are not allowedto enter a house, but run about wild in the open air, living on offaland chance morsels (Psa 59:14;Psa 59:15). Here again we arereminded of Jesus Christ (Ps22:16). “Their fathers, my coevals, were so mean andfamished that I would not have associated them with (not tosay, set them over) my dogs in guarding my flock.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision,…. Meaning not his three friends, who were men in years, and were not, at least all of them, younger than he, see Job 15:10; nor were they of such a mean extraction, and such low-lived creatures, and of such characters as here described; with such Job would never have held a correspondence in the time of his prosperity; both they and their fathers, in all appearance, were both great and good; but these were a set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who, as soon as Job’s troubles came upon him, derided him, mocked and jeered at him, both by words and gestures; and which they might do even before his three friends came to him, and during their seven days’ silence with him, and while this debate was carrying on between them, encouraged unto it by their behaviour towards him; to be derided by any is disagreeable to flesh and blood, though it is the common lot of good men, especially in poor and afflicted circumstances, and to be bore patiently; but to be so used by junior and inferior persons is an aggravation of it; as Job was, even by young children, as was also the prophet Elisha, 2Ki 2:23; see Job 19:18;
whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock; either to have compared them with the dogs that kept his flock from the wolves, having some good qualities in them which they had not; for what more loving or faithful to their masters, or more vigilant and watchful of their affairs? or to set them at meat with the dogs of his flock; they were unworthy of it, though they would have been glad of the food his dogs ate of, they living better than they, whose meat were mallows and juniper roots, Job 30:4; and would have jumped at it; as the prodigal in want and famine, as those men were, would fain have filled his belly with husks that swine did eat; but as no man gave them to him, so Job disdained to give the meat of his dogs to such as those; or to set them “over” m the dogs of his flock, to be the keepers of them, to be at the head of his dogs, and to have the command of them; see the phrase in 2Sa 3:8; or else to join them with his dogs, to keep his flock with them; they were such worthless faithless wretches, that they were not to be trusted with the care of his flock along with his dogs. It was usual in ancient times, as well as in ours, for dogs to be made use of in keeping flocks of sheep from beasts of prey, as appears from Orpheus n, Homer o, Theocritus p, and other writers: and if the fathers of those that derided Job were such mean, base, worthless creatures, what must their sons be, inferior to them in age and honour, if any degree of honour belonged to them?
m “super canes”, Noldius, p. 739. No. 1825. n De Lapidibus, Hypoth. ver. 53, 54. o Iliad. 10. , &c. v. 183. & Iliad 12. v. 303. p ‘ , &c. Idyll. 5. v. 106. & Idyll. 6. v. 9, 10.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 And now they who are younger than I have me in derision,
Those whose fathers I disdained To set with the dogs of my flock.
2 Yea, the strength of their hands, what should it profit me?
They have lost vigour and strength.
3 They are benumbed from want and hunger,
They who gnaw the steppe,
The darkness of the wilderness and waste;
4 They who pluck mallows in the thicket,
And the root of the broom is their bread.
With , which also elsewhere expresses the turning-point from the premises to the conclusion, from accusation to the threat of punishment, and such like, Job here begins to bewail the sad turn which his former prosperity has taken. The first line of the verse, which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach, is intentionally so disproportionately long, to form a deep and long breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun. Formerly, as he has related in the first part of the monologue, an object of reverential fear to the respectable youth of the city (Job 29:8), he is now an object of derision ( , to laugh at, distinct from , Job 29:24, to laugh to, smile upon) to the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men. They are just the same , whose sorrowful lot he reckons among the mysteries of divine providence, so difficulty of solution ( Job 24:4-8). The less he belongs to the merciless ones, who take advantage of the calamities of the poor for their own selfish ends, instead of relieving their distress as far as is in their power, the more unjustifiable is the rude treatment which he now experiences from them, when they who meanly hated him before because he was rich, now rejoice at the destruction of his prosperity. Younger than he in days ( as Job 32:4, with of closer definition, instead of which the simple acc. was inadmissible here, comp. on Job 11:9) laugh at him, sons of those fathers who were so useless and abandoned that he scorned ( , comp. , 1Sa 15:26) to entrust to them even a service so menial as that of the shepherd dogs. Schult., Rosenm., and Schlottm. take for , praeficere , but that ought to be just simply ; signifies to range beside, i.e., to place alike, to associate; moreover, the oversight of the shepherd dogs is no such menial post, while Job intends to say that he did not once consider them fit to render such a subordinate service as is that of the dogs which help the shepherds.
And even the strength of their (these youths’) hands ( is referable to the suff. of : even; not: now entirely, completely, as Hahn translates), of what use should it be to him: ( not cur , but ad quid, quorsum , as Gen 25:32; Gen 27:46.) They are enervated, good-for-nothing fellows: is lost to them ( trebly emphatic: it is placed in a prominent position, has a pathetic suff., and is for , 1Sa 9:3). The signif. senectus, which suits Job 5:26, is here inapplicable, since it is not the aged that are spoken of, but the young; for that “old age is lost to them” would be a forced expression for the thought – which, moreover, does not accord with the connection – that they die off early. One does not here expect the idea of senectus or senectus vegeta , but vigor, as the Syriac ( ushino ) and Arabic also translate it. May not perhaps be related to , as to , the latter being a mixed form from and , the former from and , fresh juicy vigour, or as we say: pith and marrow ( Saft and Kraft)? At all events, if this is somewhat the idea of the word, it may be derived from = (lxx ), or some other way (vid., on Job 5:26): it signifies full strength or maturity.
(Note: From the root Arab. kl (on its primary notion, vid., my review of Bernstein’s edition of Kirsch’s Syr. Chrestomathie, Ergnzungsblatt der A.L.Z. 1843, Nr. 16 and 17) other derivatives, as Arab. kl’ , klb , klt , klt , klj , kld , klz , etc., develop in general the significations to bring, take, or hold together, enclose, and the like; but Arab. lkh in particular the signification to draw together, distort violently, viz., the muscles of the face in grinning and showing the teeth, or even sardonic laughing, and drawing the lips apart. The general signification of drawing together, Arab. sdd , resolves itself, however, from that special reference to the muscles of the face, and is manifest in the IV form Arab. kalaha , to show one’s self strict and firm (against any one); also more sensuously: to remain firm in one’s place; of the moon, which remains as though motionless in one of its twenty-eight halting-places. Hence Arab. dahrun kalihun , a hard season, zman sdd and kulahun , kalahi (the latter as a kind of n. propr. invariably ending in i, and always without the article), a hard year, i.e., a year of failure of the crops, and of scarcity and want. If it is possible to apply this to without the hazardous comparison of Arab. qhl , qlhm , etc. so supra, p. 300], the primary signification might perhaps be that of hardness, unbroken strength; Job 5:26, “Thou wilt go to the grave with unbroken strength,” i.e., full of days indeed, but without having thyself experienced the infirmities and burdens of the aetas decrepita , as also a shock brought in “in its season” is at the highest point of ripeness; Job 30:2: “What (should) the strength of their hands profit me? as for them, their vigour is departed.” – Fl.)
With Job 30:3 begins a new clause. It is , not , because the book of Job does not inflect this Hebraeo-Arabic word, which is peculiar to it (besides only Isa 49:21, ). It is also in Arab. more a substantive (stone, a mass) than an adj. (hard as stone, massive, e.g., Hist. Tamerlani in Schultens: Arab. ‘l – schr ‘l – jlmud , the hardest rock); and, similar to the Greek (vid., Passow), it denotes the condition or attribute of rigidity, i.e., sterility, Job 3:7; or stiff as death, Job 15:34; or, as here, extreme weakness and incapability of working. The subj.: such are they, is wanting; it is ranged line upon line in the manner of a mere sketch, participles with the demonstrative article follow the elliptical substantival clause. The part. is explained by lxx, Targ., Saad. (Arab. farrn ), and most of the old expositors, after , Arab. araqa , fut. yariq , fuge re, abire , which, however, gives a tame and – since the desert is to be thought of as the proper habitation of these people, be they the Seir remnant of the displaced Horites, or the Hauran ”races of the clefts” – even an inappropriate sense. On the contrary, rq in Arab. (also Pael arreq in Syriac) signifies to gnaw; and this Arabic signification of a word exclusively peculiar to the book of Job (here and Job 30:17) is perfectly suitable. We do not, however, with Jerome, translate: qui rodebant in solitudine (which is doubly false), but qui rodunt solitudinem , they gnaw the sunburnt parched ground of the steppe, stretched out there more like beasts than men (what Gecatilia also means by his Arab. lazmu , adhaerent ), and derive from it their scanty food. is added as an explanatory, or rather further descriptive, permutative to . The same alliterative union of substantives of the same root occurs in Job 38:27; Zep 1:15, and a similar one in Nah 2:11 ( ), Eze 6:14; Eze 33:29 ( ); on this expression of the superlative by heaping up similar words, comp. Ew. 313, c. The verb has the primary notion of wild confused din (e.g., Isa 17:12.), which does not pass over to the idea of desolation and destruction by means of the intermediate notion of ruins that come together with a crash, but by the transfer of what is confusing to the ear to confusing impressions and conditions of all kinds; the desert is accordingly called also , Deu 32:10, from = (vid., Genesis, S. 93).
The noun nuon signifies elsewhere adverbially, in the past night, to grow night-like, and in general yesterday, according to which it is translated: the yesterday of waste and desolation; or, retaining the adverbial form: waste and desolation are of yesterday = long since. It is undeniable that and , Isa 30:33; Mic 2:8, are used in the sense pridem (not only to-day, but even yesterday); but our poet uses , Job 8:9, in the opposite sense, non pridem (not long since, but only of yesterday); and it is more natural to ask whether then has not here the substantival signification from which it has become an adverb, in the signification nightly or yesterday. Since it originally signifies yesterday evening or night, then yesterday, it must have the primary signification darkness, as the Arab. ams is also traceable to the primary notion of the sinking of the sun towards the horizon; so that, consequently, although the usage of Arabic does not allow this sense,
(Note: Arab. ams is manifestly connected with Arab. ms’ , msy , first by means of the IV form Arab. ‘msy ; it has, however, like this, nothing to do with “darkness.” Arab. mas’a’ is, according to the original sources of information, properly the whole afternoon until sunset; and this time is so called, because in it the sun Arab. tamsu or tams , touches, i.e., sinks towards the horizon (from the root Arab. ms with the primary notion stringere, terere, tergere, trahere, prehendere, capere ). Just so they say Arab. ‘l – smsu tadluk , properly the sun rubs; Arab. tasf , connects itself; Arab. tusaffir , goes to the brink (Arab. sufr , safr ), all in the same signification. Used as a substantive, Arab. amsu followed by the genitive is la veille de …, the evening before … , and then generally, the day before … , the opposite of Arab. gadu with the same construction, le lendemain de – . It is absolutely impossible that it should refer to a far distant past. On the contrary, it is always used like our “yesterday,” in a general sense, for a comparatively near past, or a past time thought of as near, as Arab. gd is used of a comparatively near future, or a future time thought of as near. Zamachschari in the Kesschf on Sur. xvii. 25: It is a duty of children to take care of their aged parents, “because they are so aged, and to-day ( el – jauma ) require those who even yesterday ( bi – l – emsi ) were the most dependent on them of all God’s creatures.” It never means absolutely evening or night. What Gesenius, Thes., cites as a proof for it from Vita Timuri, ii. 428 – a supposed Arab. amsy , vespertinus – is falsely read and explained (as in general Manger’s translation of those verses abounds in mistakes); – both line 1 and line 9, Arab. ‘msy , IV form of ms’ , is rhetorically and poetically (as “sister of Arab. kan ”) of like signification with the general Arab. kan or sa r. An Arab would not be able to understand that otherwise than: “on the eve of destruction and ruin,” i.e., at the breaking in of destruction and ruin which is just at hand or has actually followed rapidly upon something else. – Fl.)
it can be translated (comp. , Jer 2:6), “the evening darkness (gloominess) of the waste and wilderness” ( as regens , Ew. 286, a). The Targ. also translated similarly, but take as a special attribute: , “darkness like the late evening.” Olshausen’s conjecture of makes it easier, but puts a word that affirms nothing in the place of an expressive one.
Job 30:4 tells what the scanty nourishment is which the chill, desolate, and gloomy desert, with its steppes and gorges, furnishes them. (also Talmudic, Syriac, and Arabic) is the orach, and indeed the tall shrubby orach, the so-called sea-purslain, the buds and young leaves of which are gathered and eaten by the poor. That it is not merely a coast plant, but grows also in the desert, is manifest from the narrative b. Kidduschin, 66 a: “King Jannai approached in the desert, and conquered sixty towns there Ges. translates wrongly, captis LX talentis ; and on his return with great joy, he called all the orphans of Israel to him, and said: Our fathers ate in their time when they were engaged with the building of the temple (according to Raschi: the second temple; according to Aruch: the tabernacle in the wilderness); we will also eat in remembrance of our fathers! And were served up on golden tables, and they ate.” The lxx translates, (not: ); as in Athenaeus, poor Pythagoreans are once called .
(Note: Huldrich Zwingli, in the Greek Aldine of 1518 (edited by Andrea of Asola), which he has annotated throughout in the margin, one of the choicest treasures of the Zurich town library, explains by , which was natural by the side of the preceding . We shall mention these marginal notes of Zwingli now and again.)
The place where they seek for and find this kind of edible plant is indicated by . is a shrub in general, but certainly pre-eminently the Arab. sh , that perennial, branchy, woody plant of uncultivated ground, about two-thirds of a yard high, and the same in diameter, which is one of the greatest blessings of Syria and of the steppe, since, with the exception of cow and camel’s dung, it is often the only fuel of the peasants and nomads, – the principal, and often in a day’s journey the only, vegetation of the steppe, in the shade of which, then everything else is parched, a scanty vegetation is still preserved.
(Note: Thus Wetzstein in his Reise in den beiden Trachonon und um das Haurangebirge.)
The poor in search of the purslain surround this Arab. sh ( shh ), and as Job 30:4 continues: the broom-root is their bread. Ges. understands according to Isa 47:14, where it is certainly the pausal form for (“there is not a coal to warm one’s self”), and that because the broom-root is not eatable. But why should broom-root and not broom brushwood be mentioned as fuel? The root of the steppe that serves as fuel, together with the shh , is called gizl (from , to tear out), not retem , which is the broom (and is extraordinarily frequent in the Belka). The Arabs, however, not only call Genista monosperma so, but also Chamaerops humilis, a degenerate kind of which produces a kind of arrow-root which the Indians in Florida use.
(Note: The description of these eaters of the steppe plants corresponds exactly to the reality, especially if that race, bodily so inferior, is contrasted with the agricultural peasant, and some allowance is made for the figure of speech Arab. mubalagat (i.e., a description in colours, strongly brought out), without which poetic diction would be flat and devoid of vividness in the eye of an Oriental. The peasant is large and strong, with a magnificent beard and an expressive countenance, while e.g., the Trachonites of the present day (i.e., the race of the W’ar, ), both men and women, are a small, unpleasant-looking, weakly race. It is certain that bodily perfection is a plant that only thrives in a comfortable house, and needs good nourishment, viz., bread, which the Trachonite of the present day very rarely obtains, although he levies heavy contributions on the harvest of the villagers. Therefore the roots of plants often serve as food. Two such plants, the gahh ( ) and the rubbe halle ( ), are described by my Reisebericht. A Beduin once told me that it should be properly called rubh lele ( ), “the gain of a supper,” inasmuch as it often takes the place of this, the chief meal of the day. To the genus rubbe belongs also the holewa ( ); in like manner they eat the bulbous plant, qoten ( ); of another, the mesha ( ), they eat leaves, stem, and root. I often saw the poor villagers (never Beduins) eat the broad thick fleshy leaves of a kind of thistle (the thistle is called Arab. suk , shok ), the name of which is aqqub ( ); these leaves are a handbreadth and a half in length, and half a handbreadth in width. They gather them before the thorns on the innumerable points of the serrated leaves become strong and woody; they boil them in salt and water, and serve them up with a little butter. Whole tribes of the people of the Ruwala live upon the small brown seed (resembling mustard-seed) of the semh ( ). The seeds are boiled up a pulp. – Wetzst.)
in the signification cibus eorum is consequently not incomprehensible. lxx (which throws Job 30:4 into sad confusion): .
(Note: Zwingli observes here: Sigma only once. Codd. Anex. and Sinait. have the reading , which he prefers.)
All the ancient versions translate similarly. One is here reminded of what Agatharchides says in Strabo concerning the Egyptio-Ethiopian eaters of the rush root and herb.
(Note: Vid., Meyer, Botanische Erluterungen zu Strabons Geographie, S. 108ff.)
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Job’s Humbled Condition. | B. C. 1520. |
1 But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. 2 Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished? 3 For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. 4 Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. 5 They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) 6 To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. 7 Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together. 8 They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. 9 And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword. 10 They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face. 11 Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me. 12 Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. 13 They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. 14 They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.
Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint of the great disgrace he had fallen into, from the height of honour and reputation, which was exceedingly grievous and cutting to such an ingenuous spirit as Job’s was. Two things he insists upon as greatly aggravating his affliction:–
I. The meanness of the persons that affronted him. As it added much to his honour, in the day of his prosperity, that princes and nobles showed him respect and paid a deference to him, so it added no less to his disgrace in his adversity that he was spurned by the footmen, and trampled upon by those that were not only every way his inferiors, but were the meanest and most contemptible of all mankind. None can be represented as more base than those are here represented who insulted Job, upon all accounts. 1. They were young, younger than he (v. 1), the youth (v. 12), who ought to have behaved themselves respectfully towards him for his age and gravity. Even the children, in their play, played upon him, as the children of Bethel upon the prophet, Go up, thou bald-head. Children soon learn to be scornful when they see their parents so. 2. They were of a mean extraction. Their fathers were so very despicable that such a man as Job would have disdained to take them into the lowest service about his house, as that of tending the sheep and attending the shepherds with the dogs of his flock, v. 1. They were so shabby that they were not fit to be seen among his servants, so silly that they were not fit to be employed, and so false that they were not fit to be trusted in the meanest post. Job here speaks of what he might have done, not of what he did: he was not of such a spirit as to set any of the children of men with the dogs of his flock; he knew the dignity of human nature better than to do so. 3. They and their families were the unprofitable burdens of the earth, and good for nothing. Job himself, with all his prudence and patience, could make nothing of them, v. 2. The young were not fit for labour, they were so lazy, and went about their work so awkwardly: Whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? The old were not to be advised with in the smallest matters, for in them was old age indeed, but their old age was perished, they were twice children. 4. They were extremely poor, v. 3. They were ready to starve, for they would not dig, and to beg they were ashamed. Had they been brought to necessity by the providence of God, their neighbours would have sought them out as proper objects of charity and would have relieved them; but, being brought into straits by their own slothfulness and wastefulness, nobody was forward to relieve them. Hence they were forced to flee into the deserts both for shelter and sustenance, and were put to sorry shifts indeed, when they cut up mallows by the bushes, and were glad to eat them, for want of food that was fit for them, v. 4. See what hunger will bring men to: one half of the world does not know how the other half lives; yet those that have abundance ought to think sometimes of those whose fare is very coarse and who are brought to a short allowance of that too. But we must own the righteousness of God, and not think it strange, if slothfulness clothe men with rags and the idle soul be made to suffer hunger. This beggarly world is full of the devil’s poor. 5. They were very scandalous wicked people, not only the burdens, but the plagues, of the places where they lived, arrant scoundrels, the scum of the country: They were driven forth from among men, v. 5. They were such lying, thieving, lurking, mischievous people, that the best service the magistrates could do was to rid the country of them, while the very mob cried after them as after a thief. Away with such fellows from the earth; it is not fit they should live. They were lazy and would not work, and therefore they were exclaimed against as thieves, and justly; for those that do not earn their own bread by honest labour do, in effect, steal the bread out of other people’s mouths. An idle fellow is a public nuisance; but it is better to drive such into a workhouse than, as here, into a wilderness, which will punish them indeed, but never reform them. They were forced to dwell in caves of the earth, and they brayed like asses among the bushes,Job 30:6; Job 30:7. See what is the lot of those that have the cry of the country, the cry of their own conscience, against them; they cannot but be in a continual terror and confusion. They groan among the trees (so Broughton) and smart among the nettles; they are stung and scratched there, where they hoped to be sheltered and protected. See what miseries wicked people bring themselves to in this world; yet this is nothing to what is in reserve for them in the other world. 8. They had nothing at all in them to recommend them to any man’s esteem. They were a vile kind; yea, a kind without fame, people that nobody could give a good word to nor had a good wish for; they were banished from the earth as being viler than the earth. One would not think it possible that ever the human nature should sink so low, and degenerate so far, as it did in these people. When we thank God that we are men we have reason to thank him that we are not such men. But such as these were abusive to Job, (1.) In revenge, because when he was in prosperity and power, like a good magistrate, he put in execution the laws which were in force against vagabonds, and rogues, and sturdy beggars, which these base people now remembered against him. (2.) In triumph over him, because they thought he had now become like one of them. Isa 14:10; Isa 14:11. The abjects, men of mean spirits, insult over the miserable, Ps. xxxv. 15.
II. The greatness of the affronts that were given him. It cannot be imagined how abusive they were.
1. They made ballads on him, with which they made themselves and their companions merry (v. 9): I am their song and their byword. Those have a very base spirit that turn the calamities of their honest neighbours into a jest, and can sport themselves with their griefs.
2. They shunned him as a loathsome spectacle, abhorred him, fled far from him, (v. 10), as an ugly monster or as one infected. Those that were themselves driven out from among men would have had him driven out. For,
3. They expressed the greatest scorn and indignation against him. They spat in his face, or were ready to do so; they tripped up his heels, pushed away his feet (v. 12), kicked him, either in wrath, because they hated him, or in sport, to make themselves merry with him, as they did with their companions at foot-ball. The best of saints have sometimes received the worst of injuries and indignities from a spiteful, scornful, wicked world, and must not think it strange; our Master himself was thus abused.
4. They were very malicious against him, and not only made a jest of him, but made a prey of him–not only affronted him, but set themselves to do him all the real mischief they could devise: They raise up against me the ways of their destruction; or (as some read it), They cast upon me the cause of their woe; that is, “They lay the blame of their being driven out upon me;” and it is common for criminals to hate the judges and laws by which they are punished. But under this pretence, (1.) They accused him falsely, and misrepresented his former conversation, which is here called marring his path. They reflected upon him as a tyrant and an oppressor because he had done justice upon them; and perhaps Job’s friends grounded their uncharitable censures of him (ch. xxii. 6, c.) upon the unjust and unreasonable clamours of these sorry people and it was an instance of their great weakness and inconsideration, for who can be innocent if the accusations of such persons may be heeded? (2.) They not only triumphed in his calamity, but set it forward, and did all they could to add to his miseries and make them more grievous to him. It is a great sin to forward the calamity of any, especially of good people. In this they have no helper, nobody to set them on or to countenance them in it, nobody to bear them out or to protect them, but they do it of their own accord; they are fools in other things, but wise enough to do mischief, and need no help in inventing that. Some read it thus, They hold my heaviness a profit, though they be never the better. Wicked people, though they get nothing by the calamities of others, yet rejoice in them.
5. Those that did him all this mischief were numerous, unanimous, and violent (v. 14): They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, when the dam is broken; or, “They came as soldiers into a broad breach which they have made in the wall of a besieged city, pouring in upon me with the utmost fury;” and in this they took a pride and a pleasure: They rolled themselves in the desolation as a man rolls himself in a soft and easy bed, and they rolled themselves upon him with all the weight of their malice.
III. All this contempt put upon him was caused by the troubles he was in (v. 11): “Because he has loosed my cord, has taken away the honour and power with which I was girded (ch. xii. 18), has scattered what I had got together and untwisted all my affairs–because he has afflicted me, therefore they have let loose the bridle before me,” that is, “have given themselves a liberty to say and do what they please against me.” Those that by Providence are stripped of their honour may expect to be loaded with contempt by inconsiderate ill-natured people. “Because he hath loosed his cord” (the original has that reading also), that is, “because he has taken off his bridle of restraint from off their malice, they cast away the bridle from me,” that is, “they make no account of my authority, nor stand in any awe of me.” It is owing to the hold God has of the consciences even of bad men, and the restraints he lays upon them, that we are not continually thus insulted and abused; and, if at any time we meet with such ill treatment, we must acknowledge the hand of God in taking off those restraints, as David did when Shimei cursed him: So let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. Now in all this, 1. We may see the uncertainty of worldly honour, and particularly of popular applause, how suddenly a man may fail from the height of dignity into the depth of disgrace. What little cause therefore have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! Those that to-day cry Hosannah may to-morrow cry Crucify. But there is an honour which comes from God, which if we secure, we shall find it not thus changeable and loseable. 2. We may see that it has often been the lot of very wise and good men to be trampled upon and abused. And, 3. That those who look only at the things that are seen despise those whom the world frowns upon, though they are ever so much the favourites of Heaven. Nothing is more grievous in poverty than that it renders men contemptible. Turba Remi sequitur fortunam, ut semper odit damnatos–The Roman populace, faithful to the turns of fortune, still persecute the fallen. 4. We may see in Job a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men and despised of the people (Psa 22:6; Psa 53:3), and who hid not his face from shame and spitting, but bore the indignity better than Job did.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JOB – CHAPTER 30
JOB’S EIGHTH REBUTTAL CONTINUED
Verses 1-31:
HIS LAMENT OVER HIS AFFLICTIONS
Verse 1 laments that in direct contrast with his former years of prosperity and universal respect, people who are younger than his seniors now hold him in derision. It was not only the three accusers but also masses of even the most uncouth, those of low birth, whose fathers he would not have even trusted with the dogs that guarded his flocks, who held him with irreverence, Lev 19:32. Orientals feel very deeply about any indignity shown by the young. These who treated him now with disdain were too sorry to run with sheep dog or cattle dogs, considered so unclean because of their eating offal and decaying flesh or a few morsels from a table; they were not permitted to enter the house or tent by respected people. Yet those who derided him, he considered to be lower and less trustworthy than those dogs, 1Sa 17:43; Pro 26:11; Psa 59:14-15. Here again one is to be reminded of Jesus’ attitude toward the lowly.
Verse 2 asks just what sympathy might be expected of the offspring of those so ill bred and base as their fathers. If their fathers were or irreverent and worthless character how might his sons be either expected to attain old age or show kindness and sympathy to those who had? They are so inhuman that let the aged suffer and die near them, showing no pity, Job 5:26; Mat 5:7.
Verse 3, 4 describe these detractors of Job as hard as a rock, by reason of want and famine. Emaciated with hunger they had lived on the run, as the rudest of Bedouins, in the deserts and wilderness, fearful of men and wild beasts by day and night, from ancient times, Isa 30:33. For food they had cut up mallows, or salt wort, a salty tasting plant in the desert eaten by the poor. And had dug up juniper roots called “retem,” bitter roots also eaten for food by the very poor.
Verses 5, 8 further describe the former way of life of Job’s current deriders. They had been driven from among men, as thieves, vagabonds, who attacked villages to plunder for livelihood to be continually driven away. Driven out they lived in caves, and darkness of valleys, and among the rocks, to hide from those they had robbed, assaulted, or whose family members they had murdered. To live out there was a mark of a wretched person in the East, even as some of God’s faithful have been forced to live because of their faith and testimony, Heb 11:37-39.
Verse 7 adds that while living, foraging for life, among the thorn bushes and under the brambles and nettles they brayed like the uncivilized, inarticulate wild ass. His detractors, faultfinders, critics, and demeaning judges are gathered against him as a rabble, wild-ass like gang of uncivilized marauders, to destroy any hope for Job’s restored health. Thus he describes them, Job 6:5.
Verse 8, 9 charge and lament that this junior generation of his tormenters are fools, little more than morons, children or offspring of impious, low-born rabblers, whose ancestors were viler than the earth, driven to be cave-dwellers only, 1Sa 25:25. They were of the Horites of mount Seer, Gen 14:6; Job 36:20-21; Deu 2:12-22. And now Job laments that he has come to be their song and byword of derision, much as our Lord was to the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Scribes, and priests, La 3:14, 63; Psa 69:11-12; See also Psa 35:15; Job 17:6.
Verse 10 comments that they abhorred him, fled from him, and did not hold back from spitting in his face, an act of violent contempt and derision to ones person, as described Num 12:14; Deu 25:9; Isa 1:6; Isa 50:6; Mat 26:67; Mat 27:30.
Verse 11 adds that because He, “the Lord,” had afflicted him, or permitted Satan to test him, they, his enemies had assumed the priority right to let loose their bridle of shame upon him, Job 12:18.
Verse 12 explains that the youths, Job’s juniors, rise up on his right hand and push away his feet, as accusers, push him aside from their paths, and raise up a fortress or strong wall of derision, opposition against him, Zec 3:1; Psa 109:6. Rather than show pity or kindness in his afflictions, Job 19:12.
Verses 13-16 explain that these low-born youthful judges, critics, and deriders marred, obstructed his progress under his calamity, made it worse, Psa 69:26; Zec 1:15; They, as contemptible people, have no helper to sympathize with Job. They are described as a wide break in a dam or wide breach in a wall to let calamity press down or roll more heavily upon him than before, 2Sa 5:20; Isa 30:13; Psa 18:4; Psa 69:14-15; Isa 8:7-8. They caused terror to come over him, and pursued him in derision of soul, like an ever-blowing wind. His well being or prosperity had passed like an empty cloud, Job 8:9; Isa 44:22.
Verse 16 again laments “my soul” is poured out upon him, by reason of the irrepressible, continuing complaints against him. Afflictions had come to affect his emotions and mind, after so long a time, Psa 22:14; Psa 42:4; Jos 7:5; Isa 53:12.
Verse 17 adds that Job’s bones, by reason of gnawing pains, seemed pierced in him, all the night long; His sinews, skin, muscles and veins found no rest or relief from the crawling pain through all the night, Job 33:19-21; Psa 6:2; Psa 38:2-8.
Verses 18, 19 declare that the force of Job’s disease had changed his outer garment of flesh to be abhorrent. He added that it bound him about the collar of his coat to choke him emotionally and mentally; v. 1-13 concern his outer garment afflictions; while v. 14-23 describe the inner garment as the hand of God that binds him thus, Job 2:7. V. 29 states that the Lord had cast Job into the mire of dust and ashes as a mourner, to make him appear a dirty color, Job 2:8.
Verse 20 is a direct address to the Lord that Job cried to Him and he did not hear; He stood up, in a reverential attitude of a subject before a king, but the Lord did not regard him, but looked sternly upon him, Psa 22:5; Mat 15:23; Matthew 1 Kg 8:14; Luk 18:11-13.
Verses 21, 22 complain that the Lord had become cruel, opposing Job with a strong hand of rejection. Job added that the Lord lifted him up to the wind, as a leaf or stubble, causing him to ride upon the wind, dissolving his substance, his wisdom and wealth, his spirit, and his hope of deliverance out of the afflictions of suffering and sorrow. He was terrified or dissolved with fear, not understanding the purpose of his testing, Exo 15:15; 1Co 10:13.
Verses 23, 24 declare that Job knew the Lord would bring him to death, having now no hope’ of being delivered from death and the grave, before his afflictions ended, though he did believe in the future resurrection, Job 19:25; He expected soon to pass to the realm of the dead to which all men are appointed, Job 28:22; Ecc 9:5; Gen 3:19; Heb 9:27. Yet he believed the Lord would stretch forth His hand, not to keep men from the grave, but to bring them forth to a resurrection of joy or despair, Job 19:25; Joh 5:28-29.
Verse 25 rhetorically asks, may I not ask for relief in my hour of trouble, for I did extend such to the poor, did I not? Implying that he did. He further asks if his soul was not grieved for the poor? And it had been, Job 29:12-16.
Verse 26 adds that when Job looked or longed for good for deliverance from or help in his early afflictions, evil came; And when he waited for light, prosperity, and joy to return, only darkness fell more heavily upon him, Job 22:28; See also Jer 8:15; Rom 5:3-5.
Verse 27 relates that when Job was submerged in this affliction his bowels boiled or burned violently, continually burned, in sickening agitation. The days of affliction prevented him, or came upon him unexpectedly, Isa 16:11.
Verse 28 adds further that Job went about mourning, blackened, though not by the sun, but by ashes of sorrow and mourning for his grief and afflictions, from the scabs and sores on his skin; He stood up and cried, as an innocent one in court, in the congregation, Jer 4:2; La 3:1, 2; Psa 38:6; Psa 42:9; Psa 43:2.
Verse 29 recounts Job’s state or condition as such that he was as a “brother to dragons,” crocodiles, even a companion of night creatures, like owls, jackals, and ostriches, each of which utters dismal screams when disturbed, Mic 1:8; Psa 102:6.
Verse 30 relates that his skin was black upon him, and his bones burned with heat, as his skin of scabs were peeled away and his body burned with fever to the bones, Job 19:20; Psa 102:5; Psa 119:83; La 4:8; 5:10; Psa 102:3.
Verse 31 concluded that Job’s harp or joy had turned to continued mourning and his organ or pipe into the voice of those who weep, contrasting the joy of the harp and sorrow of the organ or pipe, Job 21:12; La 5:15; Isa 30:29; Isa 30:32.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE CONTRAST.JOBS SOLILOQUY, CONTINUED
With his former state of happiness and honour Job now contrasts his present misery and degradation. His object as well to show the grounds he has for complaint as to ease his burdened spirit. Probably now sitting in the open air, near his own residence, outside the city. Still among the ashes, and covered from head to foot with the worst form of leprosy. Abandoned by his wife and domestics, and viewed by his pious visitors as suffering the penalty of past transgressions perhaps secretly committed, he is at the same time frequently surrounded by a rude rabble, especially of younger persons, who now, like the young men who mocked Elisha, deride him for his former piety and present affliction; perhaps taking a spiteful revenge for his former reproofs. These persons, whose character and condition, as well as that of their fathers, Job describes, probably the remains of the Horites who had been conquered and dispossessed by the Idumdans, to whom Jobs ancestors belonged, and who had now for some time been in possession of the country (Gen. 14:6; Gen. 36:20-21; Deu. 2:12; Deu. 2:22). Some of those Horites had probably been enslaved by their conquerors, while others, to preserve their liberty, had fled into the desert and taken refuge among the mountains.
I. Job describes the class of persons by whom he was now treated with scorn and insult (Job. 30:1-8). These were
1. Younger than himself. Job. 30:1.But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. Derision a bitter aggravation of affliction. Christs experience (Mat. 27:27-31; Luk. 23:34-37). Such treatment from juniors an aggravation of the trial. Seniors habitually treated with respect, and veneration paid to age among the orientals, especially in Arabia. Another aggravation in Jobs case that he had formerly been treated with deference, not only by the youth but even by aged men, himself being still comparatively young (chap. Job. 29:8). A sign of great corruption in morals when seniors are treated with disrespect, still more with derisionespecially when these are in affliction and distress. Sad state of society when the youth are rude and insolent, and particularly towards those who suffer, whether from age, poverty, or affliction. Davids prayer (Psa. 144:11-12).
2. Base-born. Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with (in the same employment; or to set over, as keepers; or to rank in equality with) the dogs of my flock. A large number of dogs required for Jobs seven thousand sheep. Dogs anciently employed, as now, both for watching flocks and dwellings (Isa. 56:10). Jobs language in reference to these men probably from their character and conduct rather than their condition. Observe
(1) Sad when men, made in the image of God and capable of engaging along with angels in the highest and most honourable services, are inferior in usefulness and condition to the dogs that guard a flock of sheep, and from want of principle unfit to be entrusted even with such an employment. Dogs in the east esteemed unclean and treated with little consideration (Psa. 59:14-15).
(2) The character of sin to degrade men beneath the brutes. Job. 30:8.They were the children of fools (or worthless, wicked menboth by birth and imitation); yea, children of base men (Heb., of men without a namewith no reputation except a bad onemen of low birth and still lower character). Parentage of great account in the east. Felt to be a disgrace, as well as a loss, to be born of base and wicked parents. Children unable to help their birth; yet often like father like child. Persons supposed to bear the character as well as the features of their parents. The education and moral training of the children of bad or base men usually neglected. Such children grow up in a morally poisonous atmosphere. The taint of the parent usually attaches more or less to the children. A mans parentage and education often indicated by his character and conduct. Children often inherit both the parents vices and their consequences. To exult over the wretched sufficient evidence of a base extraction. An aggravation of Jobs trial and degradation, to be held in derision by youths of such low and base parentage. The contempt of the vile a bitter trial to an ingenuous spirit. Davids experience (Psa. 35:15). Verified in that of Christ (Mat. 27:27-31). The class of persons here described such as, from their character, were unable to obtain any respectablehowever humbleemployment. Jobs example in regard to them to be imitated. Important for masters and heads of families to look well to the character of those whom they employ, even in the humblest situations. Davids resolution (Psa. 101:6-7).
3. Feeble and useless. Job. 30:2.Yea whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished? (or, in whom the vigour of manhood was lost; or, in whom there was no expectation of their ever reaching old age, whether from their vices or their mode of life,neither having strength to work themselves nor wisdom to direct others). Jobs reason for treating them as he did;in this case the clause applied rather to the fathers than to the sons. Observe
(1) No uncommon thing for vices, as well as inadequate means of life, to enfeeble the frame and induce premature old age and death. Races by such means often stunted in stature as well as enfeebled in mind, and often die out. Often the case with the aborigines of lands taken into possession by a foreign race. Well if the vices, as in the case of the North American Indians and others, have not been imported by the foreigners themselves.
(2) True religion favourable to physical as well as spiritual growth and development. Muscularity the natural outcome of a healthy Christianity. Gods truth and service beneficial to man in all his aspects.
(3) Godliness no less profitable to races than to individuals. Humanity itself either deteriorated by vices and their consequences, or elevated by religion and morality.
(4) Physical vigour and longevity among the features of the millennial period and the reign of righteousness upon earth. The child shall die an hundred years old, and the sinner, being an hundred years old, shall be accursed. As the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands (Isa. 65:20-22).
4. Wretched and famished. Job. 30:3.For want and famine they were solitary (or, afflicted,desolate, as in Isa. 49:21; or, in extreme want and hunger); fleeing into the wilderness (as unfit for civilized life, or as loving the solitude and independence of the desert, or finally from a sense of guilt and shame as evil-doers; or, gnawing and feeding on the wilderness), in former time desolate and waste (or, the night or darkness of the solitary waste); who cut up mallows (or purslain, a species of halimus; a saltish plant growing in deserts, beside hedges, and by the sea-shore, and used as food by the poor) by the bushes, and juniper roots (or, roots of the broom, a plant abundant in the sandy plains of Arabia) for their food (or to warm themselves,the stems of the juniper or broom being used for fuel, as the berries and roots were for food). These men probably worse off for food than were Jobs dogs. No fault however of Jobs. Some prefer the most wretched fare to following an honest calling. One of the effects of sin, somewhere, that men are in any degree destitute of the proper means of life. Abundant provision originally made by the Creator for mans comfortable subsistence (Gen. 1:29). Man, continuing in obedience, would have eaten of the good, not only of Paradise, but of every land. The finest of the wheat and honey out of the rock the promised portion of obedient Israel (Psa. 81:16). The earth in consequence of mans sin, made to yield him thorns and thistles (Gen. 5:18). Vice and indolence in some, with tyranny and oppression in others, still continue want and misery in the world. Among the blessings of the better time coming under the Prince of Peace, is, that the earth shall yield her increase, and men shall eat and be satisfied (Psa. 68:6; Psa. 68:22; Psa. 68:26; Isa. 65:21-22).
5. Excluded from civilized society. Verse.
5.They were driven from among men,to dwell in the cliffs (or clefts,perhaps rather the horrid gloom) of the valleys (ravines or torrent-beds), in caves of the earth and in the rocks. Among the bushes they brayed (like wild asses, for thirst or hunger; or groaned from want and misery): under the nettles (or brambles) they were gathered together (they huddled together; or stretched themselves, as all the resting-place they had). To dwell in valleys in the East a mark of vileness. The rocks of stony Arabia abundant in caves. The text descriptive both of the country and the manners of the inhabitants. A people in that region anciently known as Troglodytes, or dwellers in caves. Such places the usual resort of some at least of the inhabitants of a subjugated mountainous country, as well as of the lowest and most lawless among the people. The fastnesses of the mountains in Wales the last resource of the ancient Britons. Dens and caves the refuge of the persecuted worshippers of Jehovah in the days of Ahab and at other times (1Ki. 17:4; Heb. 11:38). The retreat of the Christians of Madagascar. The parties mentioned in the text expelled from the cities and inhabited parts of the country on account of their vicious conduct and disreputable character. Evil-doers in a state to be improved or expelled. The diseased limb, however, only to be cut off when all means of cure have failed. Time not to be lost in purging either Church or State of corrupt and incorrigible members. One sinner destroyed much good. Evil communications, &c. Davids resolution as king of Israel and type of Messiah: I will early cut off all evil-doers from the city of the Lord (Psa. 101:8).
6. Depraved in character and conduct. Job. 30:5.They cried after them as after a thief (in the way of threatening, or in order to their apprehension, or to warn others of their character). Job. 30:8.They were viler than the earth (or, they were whipped out of the land, viz., for their evil deeds) perhaps one of the results of Jobs careful administration of justice, for which the wretched vagabonds, or their sons, now make retaliation on the humbled magistrate (Pro. 20:8; Pro. 20:26).
The section brings us face to face with a portion of the lowest stratum of humanity and the dregs of society. Such found in most countries, Britain not excepted. The result not merely of vice and indolence in themselves and their fathers, perhaps for generations, but also probably of oppression and neglect on the part of their superiors. Their existence in a country often, under Divine Providence, a retribution. Probably due to Christianity that the description in the text was not verified in the British refugees among the mountains of Wales, and even in the Saxons after the Norman possession. The waifs and roughs, thieves and city Arabs, in the slums of London, perhaps as much the result of harsh treatment and neglect as of personal depravity. Church and State in general only now beginning to wake up to a sense of duty in regard to this class of society, when the case has become next to unmanageable. The great problem of the present dayWhat is to be done for the reclamation and elevation of the sunken masses? Much capable of being done both by Church and State, under the impulse of loving hearts and the direction of enlightened heads. The Gospel of the grace of God, suitably presented and lovingly applied, the Divinely-appointed, and therefore the most efficient, means of restoring fallen humanity. Embraces in the contemplated objects of its operation the lowest grades of society in every land. The commission of its Divine Author: Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. Possesses in itself, and along with its faithful ministration, a power sufficient to elevate the lowest and reclaim the most utterly lost of the human family. The power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of ignorance and vice. Has already proved itself adequate to this end. Has achieved its triumphs both among the profligates of Corinth, and the Bechuanas of Caffraria. The glory of Christianity, that its greatest, and perhaps most numerous, trophies have been from among the lowest classes of society. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are (1Co. 1:26-28).
Christianity suited to all classes and conditions of men. Views all men as brethren. Teaches the unity of the race. God hath made of one blood all nations of men (Act. 17:26). The Gospel an enemy to caste of every description. All nations and all classes represented by it as equally the purchase of the same precious blood of the Son of God (1Ti. 2:6). The countless multitude of the redeemed before the throne gathered out of every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue (Rev. 7:9). One of the precepts of Christianity, Honour all men (1Pe. 2:17. Fraternity, and equality, as well as liberty, emblazoned on the Gospel banner. Corresponding responsibility involved in regard to its possessors. Only a Cain asks: Am I my brothers keeper.
Solemn inquiry for every possessor and professor of the Gospel: Am I faithfully attempting to perform my part, however humble, in raising up the sunken masses of my brethren at home and abroad, by communicating to them that Gospel which has already done so much for many and for me? Am I, like the Master I profess to follow, while contemplating, whether with the eye of the body or of the mind, the multitudes that are as sheep without a shepherd, moved with compassion towards them, and so moved as, like Him also, to reach forth a helping hand? or, Am I still verily guilty concerning my brother?
II. The treatment received from these persons (Job. 30:9-14). Enlarged on by Job, as indicating how deeply he felt it. Particulars specified.
1. His sufferings and afflictions made the subject of their coarse jests and ribald mirth. Job. 30:9.And now I am their song (accompanied with a musical instrument): yea, I am their byword (or jest, probably both from his former piety and present sufferings; perhaps, also, as the rich man brought low, the proud Emir humbled, and the secret oppressor punished). Similar treatment experienced by David, and by Davids Lord and antitype (Psa. 35:15; Psa. 69:12). Christ, in His deepest affliction, taunted with His former trust in God and charity to men, while now neither delivered by God nor able to deliver Himself (Mat. 27:43; Luk. 23:35). The prophet Jeremiah in his humiliation also the song of his ungodly countrymen (Lam. 3:14; Lam. 3:63). In Jobs case this treatment from the rabble less to be wondered at after the conduct of his pious friends. NoteThe lower classes of the Arabs addicted to scurrility and abuse. Indulge freely in the streets and bazaars in satirical and abusive songs upon their rulers and superiors. Clever in extemporising verses, which they usually accompany with the music of a drum, tambourine, or lute.
2. Shunned with abhorrence. Job. 30:10They abhor me; they flee far from me. Their abhorrence of him from
(1) His loathsome disease.
(2) His lying apparently under the Divine malediction.
(3) His supposed wickedness and oppression as the cause of it. His miserable disease, instead of evoking sympathy, caused him only to be avoided as a pestilence or a sight too loathsome and shocking to be looked upon.
3. Treated with insult and contempt. They spare not (either as doing it abundantly and repeatedly, or as casting off all restraint) to spit in my face (or, in my presence). Note: Orientals seldom spit but for the purpose of insult, and much more frequently spit on the ground before the party they wish to insult than on his face or person, though both are done. To spit out before another an expression of the greatest contempt (Deu. 25:9). Frequently done by Mohammedans in respect to Christians, whom they regard as infidels and dogs. So great the affront in the East, that when done even by a father in regard to his daughter, the shame of the thing required her to shut herself up in her tent or apartment for a whole week (Num. 12:14). Sad contrast in Jobs case with his former honour (chap. Job. 29:8-11). This deep insult put more than once upon the Son of God while standing as our substitute. Predicted (Isa. 50:6). Realized (Mat. 26:67; Mat. 27:30).
4. All restraint in regard to him cast off by the rabble around him, in consequence of his affliction. Job. 30:11.Because he (the Almighty) hath loosed my cord (dissolved my strength and authority; or, according to another reading, his cord,giving loose reins to his anger), and afflicted (or humbled) me, they have also let loose the bridle before me (have cast off all restraint in my presence, and treat me with unbridled insolence). All Jobs afflictions ascribed by him to God as their first Author. His cord now loosed by Him, a sad contrast to his fond anticipation (chap. Job. 39:8-11). ObserveThe wicked sometimes allowed to say and do whatever their pleasure may suggest or their malice invent. This now done by Jobs enemies
(1) As if it were a merit to treat with insult one who appeared the object of Divine execration.
(2) From the absence either of power in himself or inclination in others to restrain them. The same experienced by the Saviour from the soldiers, servants, and others, when in the hands of his enemies (Mar. 14:65; Mar. 15:16-20).
5. Violently pushed by rude youths, who employed every method to annoy and distress him. Job. 30:12.Upon my right hand (the place of accusers; also where he should otherwise have been most able to defend himself,thus chosen for greater insult and contempt) rise the youth (Hebrew, brood,so called in disdain); they push away my feet (probably stretched out as he sat or lay among the ashes), and raise up against me the ways of their destruction (or, their destructive ways,the ways by which they may attack and destroy me, like the raised ways or banks of a besieging army, 2Ki. 19:32). A wicked and mischievous band of city youths, like those who mocked Elisha at Jericho, now surround and assault him on set purpose to annoy and do him injury, as an army employing every means they can contrive to overthrow the beleaguered fortress. A picture of deeper degradation and misery hardly conceivable; all the darker from the contrast afforded by the previous chapter. Yet, even this only a shadow of the outrages endured by the King of kings when made a curse for us (Mat. 25:3-4, to the end of that and the following chapter).
6. His sufferings increased by the rabble, who seemed to take pleasure in adding to his affliction, and completing his overthrow. Job. 30:13.They mar (cut up) my path (annoying me whenever I attempt to walk, and preventing all escape or access to me from without), they set forward my calamity [as if it afforded them profit as well as pleasure], they have no helper (persons of the lowest and most worthless character). So Christ in His last sufferings reviled by the thieves that were crucified with Him (Mat. 27:44). ObserveA mark of deepest depravity to take pleasure in anothers calamity, and to add affliction to those already afflicted. Edom and other nations severely threatened for similar conduct in regard to humbled Israel (Oba. 1:10-15; Zec. 1:15). The experience also of David and Davids son (Psa. 69:26).
7. His utter ruin eagerly sought by the rabble multitude about him. Job. 30:14.They came (or come) upon me as a wide breaking-in of waters (or, as by a wide breachthe figure of a siege still continued); in the (or, like a) desolation (or, under the crash or ruin, as of the falling walls and buildings of the breached fortress; or, with a tumult, or shout of triumph) they rolled (or roll) themselves upon me (as a storming party entering the breach). Implies
(1) The number of those seeking to distress and overthrow him.
(2) Their eagerness in their wickedness.
(3) Their actual mischief.
The section affords an affecting view of the depths of Jobs aggravated and accumulated sufferings. As if the sudden and peculiarly melancholy death of his whole ten children; the loss of his entire property; his personal suffering from a most loathsome and distressing disease; his being made the object of aversion by his wife and domestics, and of suspicion and reproach by his friendsas if all this had not been enough, he is subjected to the coarsest treatment and most unfeeling mockery from a low rabble, who take a fiendish pleasure in insulting him and adding to his affliction. Observe
1. Impossible to say to what suffering a child of God may be subjected in this world. Sometimes all the powers of wickedness in earth and hell apparently let loose against him, while at the same time suffering under distressing dispensations of Divine Providence. No trial so sharp but a godly man may meet with it. If Satan has one dart in his quiver more fiery than another, he may shoot it at him. In respect to outward trials and sufferings, but for the inward comfort and future hope afforded them, believers, sometimes, of all men the most miserable (1Co. 15:19). Tribulation and persecution promised by the Master. This, at times, abundantly and amazingly realized. Witness the sufferings of the martyrs of Lyons, Smyrna, and elsewhere, in the second century. Tortures by racks, by pincers, by faggots, by the tossings of wild beasts, by being seated in burning [iron] chairs, that the fumes of their roasting flesh might come up about them, amid scoffs and jeers from the rabble, when a word of retraction would have saved them. See Dickinsons Theological Quarterly, July, 1875, p. 389.
2. Nothing strange for a child of God to fall from esteem into contempt and disgrace (Mat. 5:11). Hatred and reproach their promised fare. Mockery not the least painful and effective species of persecution (Heb. 10:32-33; Gen. 21:9 compared with Gal. 4:29).
3. The depravity of the human heart, which is capable of conduct such as is ascribed to Jobs rabble persecutors. Murder, in its worst form, proceeding out of it (Mat. 15:19). Capable of inflicting deliberate injury on those already deeply afflicted and suffering, from the mere gratification of a fiendish pleasure in witnessing it, or from a diabolical hatred of moral excellence in the sufferer.
4. The intense malevolence and cruelty of Satan, the author of these aggravated sufferings on the part of Job, and the instigator of those wretched creatures whom he found or made his ready tools, in rendering his suffering as bitter as it could possibly be. Nothing wanting on Satans part if men are not as wretched and miserable as himself.
5. The mutability of outward happiness and popular favour. None ever enjoyed both in a higher degree than Job, and none ever, for a time, so entirely stripped of them. The fickleness of fortune and popular applause proverbial. The Hosanna of to-day the crucify Him of to-morrow. To-day a silken couchto-morrow a scaffold. To-day Paul is ready to be worshipped as a divinity; to-morrow he is dragged out of the city and all but stoned to death. The believers comfort
(1) That all these vicissitudes are under his Heavenly Fathers appointment.
(2) That his real happiness is elsewhere and far above the reach of change.
6. The love of Christ in submitting, for our sake, to sufferings and indignities which are only foreshadowed in those of the Patriarch. In the last eighteen hours of His life on earth all the bitter ingredients indicated in this chapter were infused into the cup of suffering appointed for Him as our substitute to drink. He was made a curse for us, and therefore abandoned to every species of human endurance. The Gospel narrative presents us with a scene of suffering which only finds anything approaching a parallel to it in the case of the Patriarch, as exhibited in this and preceding chapters.
III. Reverts to his personal affliction, more especially as from the hand of God (Job. 30:15-18). Laments.
1. The sad reverse in his condition. Job. 30:15.Terrors are turned upon me (or, things are changedtables are turned with me; or, I am overthrown, like a stormed fortress; or, trouble,carrying consternation with it, like the terror in a city taken by storm,pursues me); they (the terrors or calamities) pursue (like the besiegers when entering the breach they have made in the walls; or, thou pursust) my soul (Heb., my nobility or princely stateperhaps a term for the soul from its nobler nature) as the wind [pursues and drives along the chaffi.e. vehemently and irresistibly]; my welfare (all the happiness and comfort of my life) passeth away as a cloud [which leaves no trace of its former presence and can no more be recalled]. Observe:
(1). Sad reverses from a happy and prosperous condition among the most painful of human trials.
(2) Soul terrors the greatest troubles. These not unknown to a child of God (Psa. 88:15-16). Amazement and consternation among the ingredients of Christs cup (Mar. 14:33-34).
2. His inward grief, expressing itself in continual groans and lamentations. Job. 30:16.And now my soul is poured out upon me (or, within me, as if dissolved in grief; Heb., pours itself out, i.e., in tears and groans); the days of affliction have taken hold (or fast hold) of me (like armed men entering a besieged citydenoting the violence of his troubles; days of affliction, as indicating its continuance and the sad contrast with his former happy experience). ObserveDays of affliction, sooner or later, and of longer or shorter continuance, to take hold of each (Ecc. 11:8). Happy then to have one with us who in all our afflictions is afflicted (Isa. 63:9). His promise (Isa. 43:2). Christs presence with us in the furnace quenches the violence of the fire (Dan. 3:25; Heb. 11:34).
3. His bodily sufferings. Job. 30:17.My bones are pierced in me (Heb., from off me) in the night season (or, night pierceth my bones from off me,i.e. with acute pains, usually most severe in the night); and my sinews (or my gnawing pains) take (or find) no rest. Acute and gnawing pains added to all Jobs other afflictions. Satan accomplishes his wish and goes the full length of his permission,Touch his flesh and his bones. The bones sensible of the most acute and severe pain. The affliction carried into his very bones. Severe suffering usually expressed by reference to the bones (Psa. 51:8; Isa. 38:13). An aggravation of pain and suffering when endured in the night while others enjoy rest, and when ones own exhausted nature requires repose. Night also the season in which sorrow sinks deepest.
4. The pollution of his garments and the changed appearance of his skin in consequence of his disease. Job. 30:18.By the great force of my disease is my garment (either literally, in consequence of the purulent discharge from his sores; or figuratively, his skin so changed in its appearance that he could scarcely be recognized): it bindeth me as the collar of my coat (vest, tunic, or inner garmenthis loose outer garment being now so stiff with gore and matter as to sit as close to his person as his tunic; or, itthe diseasebindeth me about like my vest; sitting as closely, constantly, and completely upon me as my tunic). A sore aggravation of disease
(1) When it pollutes our garments and disfigures our persons
(2) When it appears likely to yield neither to time nor treatment.
5. Degradation coupled with extreme debility. Job. 30:19.He (God, or, it, the disease) hath cast me into the mire (as a wrestler seizing his antagonist by the throat and throwing him to the ground; or, hath rendered me filthy and abominable as one cast into the mire), and I am become like dust and ashes (as low and mean, as weak and powerless, as the ashes on which I sit; or, I am reduced to dust and ashes, deprived of vital energy, and more like a corpse than a living man; his disease such as to give his body the appearance of clods and ashes, from its dried scabs and filthy ulcers). ObservePiety enables us to keep an eye upon God as the supreme and sovereign Author of all our troubles. In one sense our troubles as truly from God, as in another from Satan, the world, or ourselves. God the ultimate Author, whoever or whatever may be the immediate instrument or occasion. No trouble but by His purpose and permission. Satan and the world only Gods hand in afflicting and chastening His children. Satans demand in regard to Job: Put forth thy hand upon him; Gods answer, He is in thine hand. Pauls thorn in the flesh from Satan, yet given by God (2Co. 12:7). Better to think of God the first cause in our trouble, than of man or any other second cause. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it (Psa. 39:9).
IV. Directs his complaint against God Himself (Job. 30:20-22).
1. As disregarding his prayer in his affliction. Job. 30:20.I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear (or hearken, so as to help and deliver) me; I stand up (in frequent and earnest supplication; or, I stand, continue waiting and expecting an answer), and thou regardest me not (or thou considerest me [and my case], but dost not answer or afford relief). Observe
(1) Crying to God a familiar exercise with Job. Good for us to have the path to the mercy-seat a well-trodden one.
(2) Job not only prayed in his affliction, but continued to do so. Unlike the hypocrite (chap. Job. 27:10).
(3) Standing a usual and Scriptural posture in prayer (Gen. 18:22; Jer. 15:1; Mat. 6:5; Luk. 18:11-13). The early Christians usually knelt in prayer on every day of the week, except the Lords day, when they stood, as a posture more befitting a day of joy and triumph.
(4) Sometimes one of the most painful trials to an afflicted child of God, to pray, and continue praying, without any apparent attention to his prayer on the part of God. The trial of David and of Davids Lord in his deepest affliction (Psa. 22:1-2; Mat. 27:46).
(5) Gods regard to our prayer not to be judged by immediate appearances.
Answers to Prayer
Believing prayer heard, though followed by no immediate or direct answer. Prayer offered through the Holy Spirits assistance never unheard or unanswered. Answers to prayer not restricted to time or form. Sometimes, the thing itself not granted, but something better in its stead. So with Paul (2Co. 12:8-9). With Christ (Luk. 22:42-43). Sometimes petitions for temporal benefits not granted, that those for spiritual and better ones may be so. The withholding an answer sometimes a greater blessing than the answer itself. God not a mere force, but an intelligence acting according to infinite wisdom and judgment in the bestowment of His mercies. The absurdity of Tyndalls famous prayer-test was, that it regarded God as simply a force in nature, and proposed to experiment with it to see just what it would do. The impossibility of knowing the motives which actuate God must for ever render the expectation of receiving an invariable answer to any prayer absurd in the extreme. The very fact that our prayers are sometimes answered and sometimes denied, and that the answers when granted are sometimes modified and often delayed, is itself proof that we are dealing with a great intelligence, whose acts are governed only by his own will and purposes.Rev. Jacob Todd, M.A., in Dickinsons Theological Quarterly, July, 1875, p. 369. True and acceptable prayer carries in it submission to the Divine will. A part of every such prayer, understood if not expressed,Not my will, but thine be done. Christ our exemplar in prayer (Luk. 22:24). Himself the example of His own teaching (Mat. 6:10). Believing prayer like seed. whose temporary disappearance in the earth is necessary to its production of fruit. All the tears of Gods people put into His bottle, and all their prayers recorded in His book (Psa. 56:8). All Jobs prayers at length abundantly answered, even in this life. Perhaps the most of believers prayers only to be answered after they have ceased both to pray and live. Better, in trouble, to pray for patience to endure it, and grace to improve it, than for deliverance out of it.
2. As acting towards him with apparent cruelty and hostility. Job. 30:21.Thou art become cruel to me (Hebrew, Art turned into a cruel one unto me); with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me, (or, carriest on a bitter hostility against me; or liest in wait for me). One of the severest things Job ever uttered in regard to God, indicating the bitterness of his grief at being thus treated by Him as an enemy. Observe
(1) The flesh has never, any more than Satan, anything good to say of God.
(2) The flesh makes the most grievous mistakes in its judgments of God and of Divine things. Says of God what is exactly true of the devil, and the very opposite of what is true of God. God is love, and Satan the impersonation of vruelty. His name Satan denotes an adcersary, and is closely allied to the word Job employs in speaking of God. Satan the opposer of every mans happiness, and especially the adversary of believers (1Pe. 5:8).
(3) God may, for wise purposes, in a little wrath hide his face from his children for a moment, and in apparent wrath may smite them, though really in love (Isa. 54:8; Isa. 57:17; Rev. 3:19). Even this not the case at present in regard to Job. While Satan was bruising, God was praising him.
(4) Jobs experience in the text, without the sin, realized by his great Antitype when uttering the cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Mat. 27:46). For our sakes, that satisfaction might be made for mans sins, God obliged to assume the aspect of a cruel one to His own beloved Son. The bitterest element of the cup given him, as our surety, to drink.
3. As sporting with his sufferings, and giving him up to destruction. Job. 30:22.Thou liftest me up to the wind (like the grain thrown up from the threshing-floor by the winnowing shovel against the wind) thou causest me to ride (tossest me up and down, or carriest me away) upon it (as the chaff of the threshing-floor when separated from the wheat, or as any light substance made the sport of the wind and carried away by it). Observe
(1) Job, under the misleading suggestions of the flesh, views God as sporting with his sufferings, while, in reality, glorying in him before principalities and powers as his faithful servant, who had not his like upon earth.
(2) What Job here ignorantly and unbelievingly ascribes to God, very like what Satan desired to do with the disciples of Jesus in the night of their Masters betrayal (Luk. 22:31-32). The thing Satan was actually doing now with Job.
4. As filling him with terror and making an utter end of him. Thou dissolvest my substance (or, my health and soundness, as well from terror as disease; or Thou dissolvest me, Thou terrifest me; or, according to another reading, Thou dissolvest me in the tempests crash). A tragic picture of inward as well as outward distress. Vague terror and deep depression of spirits among the effects of Jobs peculiar disease. Trouble of soul the soul of all trouble. Terrible experience, when in affliction and trouble God is viewed as dealing with us in anger. Sometimes the temporary experience of a believer. Sure to be the unending experience of every impenitent unbeliever. Gods terrors able to dissolve the firmest substance, and to terrify the stoutest heart. A fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
V. Reflects upon the future (Job. 30:23-24).
1. Anticipates death as the result of his present sufferings. Job. 30:23.For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living (the grave, or the earth, according to Gen. 3:19; the book of Genesis, in some form or other, most probably in Jobs hands). Jobs language that of dejection and despondency, not without an alloy of petulance. Faith again at the ebb. Despondency one of the effects of his disease. Sense and sight said: He will slay methis disease must be fatal; only faith could say: I shall not die but live. Observe
(1) The flesh ever apt to draw hasty and wrong conclusions from Gods dealings in Providence.
(2) God acknowleged by Job as the dispenser of all His afflictions, and as the disposer of all events. None go down to the grave till God brings them there, though some are brought, before their time. The keys of death and the eternal world in Christs hands.
The grave the house appointed for all living
Declares the general law relating to humanity. Only two known exceptions. More to be made at the Lords second advent. Believers then changed without tasting of death (1Co. 15:51-52; 1Th. 4:15-17). Till Christ shall come, the grave the appointed receptacle for humanity. Job mistaken as to the time and occasion of his death; no mistake as to the fact of it. Every disease, if not strictly unto death, yet brings us nearer to it. In regard to the issue of our trouble, God often better than our fears. Pauls case (2Co. 1:8-10). God as able to bring up from the grave as to bring down to it. The times of each in His hand. Useful in affliction to remember our mortality, and to regard death as the possible, if not the certain, result of it. From the universality of the grave as the house appointed for all living, we learn
(1) A lesson of humility. Pride ill becoming in any creature,preposterous in those who in a few years at most will have only a dark chamber in the earth of a few cubic feet for their dwelling, with the worms as their nearest companions, and actually making a banquet of their flesh. Such a dwelling awaiting the prince equally with the peasant.
(2) Earnestness in attending to present and important duty, more especially in seeking the eternal welfare of ourselves and others connected with us. Opportunity for attending to the concerns of eternity confined to this life. The exhortation of Divine wisdomWhatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, &c., in the grave, whither thou goest (Ecc. 9:10). The night cometh when no man can work.
(3) The evil of sin. The grave not originally the house appointed for all living. Death to mankind the result of transgression. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin. The wages of sin is death. No grave but sin has dug it. Terrible evil which has filled the world with sepulchres and dead mens bones. Sad to be in love with that which has proved the murderer of the race. So great an evil must require a corresponding means for its expiation and removal.
(4) The inflexible character of the Divine law. The sentence against transgressors of that law fulfilled, though a whole race must be reduced to death. Adequate satisfaction to be made to it before the grave can close its mouth or yield up its dead to an eternal life. That satisfaction, through Divine compassion, already made. By man came death; by man came also the resurrection from the dead. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. He suffered for our sins, the just One in the room of the unjust. All we like sheep have gone astray; and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was wounded for our transgressions. By His stripes we are healed. For the transgression of My people was he stricken. He hath made his soul an offering for sin. He bare the sin of many (1Co. 15:21; Rom. 6:23; Joh. 11:25; Isa. 53:5-12).
(5) True wisdom to seek a better than an earthly portion. The house appointed for all living the end of all mere earthly enjoyments and possessions. Sad to spend our time only in the pursuit of such, and to be found at last with nothing we can carry with us beyond it.
(6) The grave the vestibule to two other houses, both eternal in their duration, but immensely different in their character. The one of these a home of light and beauty, peace and purity, life and health, joy and song, where death is unknown and no tear is shed. The other one of darkness and despair,weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Solemn and important question for eachwhich of these shall be my home? Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.
2. Despairs of help being afforded in answer to his prayers, and looks only for relief in the grave. Job. 30:24.Howbeit (or surely) he will not stretch out his hand (in the way of help and deliverance) to the grave (now when I am already on the verge of it; or, surely prayer avails nothing when he stretches forth his hand, viz., to smite or to slay); though they (or men) cry in his destruction (the destruction sent by himwhile he is visiting with destruction). The verse, however, may also be read as expressing the assurance of rest in the grave: Howbeit he will not stretch out his [afflicting] hand to the grave (so as to afflict in or beyond it); in the destruction He sends there is deliverance. Or even as justifying prayer in such circumstances as this: Howbeit, do not men [still] stretch out the hand [imploring help] in ruin, and utter a cry on account of it in the destruction which is sent by Him? Observe
(1) The language of unbeliefThere is no hope. The flesh, even in a believer, ever ready in protracted trial and disappointed hope, to say, with Ahab: Why should I wait any longer?
(2) Faith in a believer has its ebbs and flows. Low water with Abrahams faith when he spoke to God of Eliezer of Damascus being his heir, and when he prayed that Ishmael might live before him,as if he were to have no other son. Mounts and triumphs when he goes forth at Gods command to offer up to God the heir of promise, believing that He was able even to raise him from the dead. Faith in its ebb with David when he said: I shall one day fall by the hand of Saul. At its flow, when he wrote in the 118th Psalm: I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord. Faith high in Elijah when he sent for Ahab and told him to gather together all the prophets of Baal; low, when he fled from the face of Jezebel and sat down under the juniper tree, with the prayer Take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers. Hard to believe when all appearances are, and continue to be, clean contrary to our prayers. The part of faith to hope against hope, having to do with a God to whom all things are possible, and who adopts as his titleThou that hearest prayer (Psa. 65:2).
(3) Sweet consolation to a suffering child to know that he has at least rest and deliverance in the grave. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they do rest from their labours (Rev. 14:13). Man cannot lay on his afflicting hand in the grave, and God will not. A believers faith may not be able to see deliverance on this side of death, but clearly sees it on the other.
(4) A believer prays, although answers are withheld and there appears little prospect of any. Prayer a necessity of his nature. A latent faith always in the renewed heart that God is gracious, and that He is the hearer and answerer of prayer.
VI. Expresses his disappointment and the grounds of it (Job. 30:25-26).
1. The grounds of his disappointment. Job. 30:25.Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? His sympathy deep and real. Conscience bore its testimony to the sincerity of his charity. Could appeal to those around him for the general and genuine character of his compassion. The question affirmed by the admission of Eliphaz (chap. Job. 3:3-4). Having shown sympathy and compassion to others when in trouble, he calculated on experiencing the same himself when in similar circumstances. The same thought expressed by the Psalmist, speaking as the type of Messiah (Psa. 35:13-14). A natural as well as Scriptural lawWith the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again (Luk. 6:38). True in respect to God, though sometimes for a time apparently otherwise. One of the laws of His kingdom,Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Mat. 5:7). Generally, though not always, true in relation to men. Job and Jobs Antitype remarkable examples of the contrary. In Christs case, unbounded compassion and tenderest sympathy repaid with cruelty and insult. An aggravation of trouble when sympathy and compassion are withheld where there is a just right to expect them. Mark of monstrous depravity when the sympathizing and compassionate are treated With unkindness and cruelty.
Job, according to the text, a beautiful example of Christian sympathy. The exemplification of the precept: Weep with them that weep (Rom. 12:15). Remarkable manifestation of the grace of the Spirit in patriarchal times. May well put many living under the Christian dispensation to the blush. The great want in the Church of Christ, the Masters sympathy and compassion for the poor and afflicted. Yet the glory of Christianity and the evidence of its Divine character, that such a spirit has been so largely produced under it. Among its characteristic precepts are: Be pitiful; Put on bowels of mercies (1Pe. 3:8; Col. 3:12). Christs compassionate spirit, in a greater or less degree, infused into all His members. The privilege as well as duty of believers, to be filled and pervaded with it (Eph. 5:18). Provision made for this in the present dispensation by the full bestowment of the Holy Spirit. Such sympathy and compassion the necessary qualification for Christian usefulness.
2. The disappointment itself. Job. 30:26.When I looked for good, then evil came unto me; and when I waited for (or expected) light (happiness and joy), there came darkness (trouble and distress). Natural to expect happiness as the result of piety. Godliness has the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come (1Ti. 4:8). Wisdoms ways pleasantness, and all her paths peace. Experienced as a matter of fact. The experience of Job himself previous to his calamities, and again after they were past. Promises of temporal happiness and comfort to be understood with an exception of needful trials. Fear of future trials not foreign to Job in the time of his prosperity (chap. Job. 3:25-26; Job. 1:5; Job. 2:10). Observe
(1) Trials as well as comforts necessary in a state of discipline. Darkness as well as light needful in the spiritual as in the natural world.
(2) A believers expectation, if good, always realized, though not always in this life or in the things of it. His trials and disappointments blessings as well as his comforts.
VII. Enlarges on his troubles (Job. 30:27-31).
1. Incessant inward as well as outward affliction. Job. 30:27.My bowels boiled (with inward distress, as Lam. 1:20, or as the physical effect of his disease), and rested not (continued to do so without intermission, night and day); the days of affliction prevented me (met me or came upon me suddenly and unexpectedlyan aggravation of the trouble).
2. Continued grief. Job. 30:28.I went (moved about) mourning (or black, in person or attire) without the sun. Not as the effect of exposure to the heat; or, in gloomy solitary places; or, in a state of dejection and sorrow. Reference perhaps to his experience previous to his disease, which probably kept him confined to his dwelling or the vicinity of it; enough in the loss of his ten children to occasion it.
3. Public and unrestrained complaint. Job. 30:28.I stood up [through deep earnestness and anguish], and I cried (as the expression of deep and uncontrollable grief, or as imploring relief and aid) in the congregation (assembled for public business or Divine worship). Here also probable reference to the period in which he was still able to mingle with others and to appear in the public assemblies, and hence previous to his being smitten with his leprosy. Lepers excluded from society (Lev. 5:2-3). Miriam, under the same disease, shut out from the camp seven days (Num. 12:15). King Azariah, when a leper, obliged to dwell in a several, or separate house, and cut off from the house of the Lord (2Ch. 26:20-21. Usual for Orientals to give vent to their feelings in public.
4. Solitary moaning. Job. 30:29.I am a brother (by close resemblance) to dragons (or jackals, which roam in solitary places and utter doleful and hideous cries, especially in the night), and a companion to owls (or ostriches, also remarkable for their loud nocturnal cries (Mic. 1:8).
5. The disfigurement of his person, and internal physical suffering. Job. 30:30.My skin is black upon me (or, becomes black [and falls] from off me, among the effects of his disease, hence called the black leprosy: the skin, however, also blackened by grief, Psa. 119:83; Jer. 8:21; Lam. 5:16); and my bones are burned with heat (as the result of internal inflammation, or expressive of inward distress, Psa. 102:3).
6. His whole experience one of sorrow and lamentation. Job. 30:31.My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ (or pipe) into the voice of them that weep (as at funeralsthe early practice of funereal wailing still continued in the East). The harp, and organ or pipe, instruments of music earliest in use. Mentioned Gen. 4:21. Indicative of the period in which the patriarch lived. Especially employed on joyful occasions. The language descriptive of a melancholy change from a joyous to a sorrowful experience. The sudden transition from previous joy an aggravation of present sorrow. Observe
(1) Jobs previous life one rather of gaiety than gloom. True piety the sister of innocent pleasure. Wisdoms ways those of pleasantness. The voice of rejoicing and salvation heard in the tabernacles of the righteous.
(2) The holiest heart and the happiest home liable to be overtaken by sudden and overwhelming sorrow. The major key often exchanged for the minor, and the song of gladness for the wail of grief. His Fathers house the only place where the believers sun never goes down, and his moon never withdraws itself. Heaven the only land where the harp and the organ are always in use, and the garments are always white.
Job held up in these tragic verses as an affecting picture of human distress. The inquiry suggestedwhy such grief and trouble under the administration of a benevolent Creator? Why its existence at all? Why in connection with comparative innocence? Why in the experience of a child of God?
(1) The existence of suffering easily accounted for on the ground that sin is in the world. Sorrow and suffering the shadow cast by sin. Sin and suffering inseparably linked. Absence of sorrow impossible in a world of sin. Suffering to be viewed either(i.) As the necessary and inevitable accompaniment of sin, as pain accompanies inflamation; or (ii.) as the infliction of a penalty, as punishment follows transgression in the state; or (iii.) as a kind and salutary discipline, like that employed by a father with his children. No absolutely innocent person in the world. The comparatively innocent necessarily suffer along with the guilty. Often suffer in consequence of the sin and suffering of others.
(2) Suffering in a child of God part of the treatment necessary for his perfection and preparation for his eternal inheritance. A need-be for his heaviness through manifold temptations. Gold necessarily tried and purified in the fire. The believers troubles necessary for the exercise and development of the graces of the Spirit. Made to conduce to the glory of God and the benefit of others. God sometimes glorified more in His patient than in His prosperous children. Suffering a theatre for the display both of the excellence and reality of true religion. Often the very result of the character and condition of a child of God. Such the special object of Satans temptations and the worlds persecution. By his renewed nature, made more sensible of the evil of sin within himself, and more deeply affected with the sufferings and sins of others. The glory and privilege of a child of God to be made a partaker of the afflictions of Christ, and for the same object (Col. 1:24).
(3) Suffering and sorrow to be expected in the world as long as Satan is permitted to go up and down in it (chap. Job. 1:7). This not always to be the case (Rev. 20:1-3).
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
2. Sorrowful description of his present sad estate (Job. 30:1-31)
a. The contempt he has from men of lowest class (Job. 30:1-15)
TEXT 30:115
1 But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,
Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock
2 Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me?
Men in whom ripe age is perished.
3 They are gaunt with want and famine;
They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.
4 They pluck salt-wort by the bushes;
And the roots of the broom are their food.
5 They are driven forth from the midst of men;
They cry after them as after a thief;
6 So that they dwell in frightful valleys,
In holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7 Among the bushes they bray;
Under the nettles they are gathered together.
8 They are children of fools, yea, children of base men;
They were scourged out of the land.
9 And now I am become their song,
Yea, I am a byword unto them.
10 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me,
And spare not to spit in my face.
11 For he hath loosed his cord, and afflicted me;
And they have cast off the bridle before me.
12 Upon my right hand rise the rabble;
They thrust aside my feet.
And they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
13 They mar my path,
They set forward my calamity,
Even men that have no helper.
14 As through a wide breach they come:
In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves upon me.
15 Terrors are turned upon me;
They chase mine honor as the wind;
And my welfare is passed away as a cloud.
COMMENT 30:115
Job. 30:1Jobs irretrievable prestigious past is abruptly contrasted with the present chaos derived from the calamities he is presently enduring. Sharp abruptness is conveyed by the repetition of But nowJob. 30:1; Job. 30:9; Job. 30:16 (ksurely in Job. 30:24). The prince who has shared his abundance to meet their needs, his compassion to heal their suffering, is now despised; he is beneath them. These miserable outcasts now despised their former benefactor. Their arrogant ingratitude is now one of Jobs great burdens. Job pours out his soul in this poem, which contains four divisions: (1) Irreverence of impious menJob. 30:1-8; (2) Resentment of societyJob. 30:9-15; (3) Gods indifferenceJob. 30:16-23; and (4) Misery born of destitutionJob. 30:24-31.
The young had formerly treated Job with marked respectJob. 29:8; now they make sport of him. The verb translated as have me in derision is the same as in Job. 29:24, but the preposition is different. In Job. 29:24 he describes their gracious smile; here their vulgar mockery. The cultural decorum called for the respect of all eldersJob. 15:10. But those who watched over his former flocks with their guard dogs publicly expressed disrespectIsa. 56:10 ff; 1Sa. 17:43; and Psa. 68:23. The dogs were scavengers and so were those who watched my flocks. Now they think they are better than I am.
Job. 30:2Perhaps this verse describes the fathers of the youth in verse one. The fathers are weaklings (kalah here, kelah in Job. 5:26, where firm strength is conjectured) unfit and unable to do hard work. These men, who are not profitable to anyone, even they despise me.
Job. 30:3Through hunger these men are stiff and lifeless. The word gaunt as in A. V. is from a word meaning hard or stony and is rendered barren in Job. 3:7. They are so destitute that they gnaw (rqoccurs only here and in Job. 30:17) the roots of the dry ground. The emphasis here is not so much hunger as destitution of diet, diet limited to desert roots. The last line alliterative and literally reads yesterday desolate and waste, clearly suggesting the ruin and utter desolation of their habitat. Even these desert rats hate me.
Job. 30:4Their diet is so poor that they eat saltwort. This is a saline plant with sour leaves, which grows in salt marshes. This is miserable food eaten in miserable circumstances. The broom roots yield charcoalPsa. 120:4; Isa. 47:14; but they are not edible. Only the destitute would eat this type of plant.
Job. 30:5Dahood suggests that the obscure phrasemin gew[303]should be translated with a shout they are driven forth, i.e., driven away when they approached inhabited places. These are not like the people of Job. 24:5 ff who are forced to steal to have subsistence level of food; but they are social outcasts who are chased away from any community.
[303] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1957, pp. 318ff.
Job. 30:6Since they are not welcome in any community, they live in the dreadful ravines among the rocks. Job bitterly relates how even these people taunt him, now that he is also an outcast living on a dunghill.
Job. 30:7The root -nhq is used only twice in Job and means bray. It can mean bray suggesting lust, like a stallion in Jer. 5:8; but surely here its meaning is the hoarse cries of hunger. The miserable rabble huddle together under the plant (harul) rendered nettle in A. V. They huddle for warmth, not sexual perversion, as Peake suggests. But the meaning is uncertain, though it is related to certain leguminous plantsPro. 24:31.
Job. 30:8These outcasts are sons of no name. They have no respectable standing in any community; they are nobodys.[304] These unwelcomed were thrown out of the land (Heb. nakarendered scourged in A. V. should be thrust out or thrown out).
[304] W. M. W. Roth, Vetus Testamentum, 1960, pp. 402ff, suggests outcasts for sons of a senseless person.
Job. 30:9This verse ties the threads together from verse one forward. These nobodys sing taunting songs which make Job the butt of their mockeryPsa. 69:12; and especially Lam. 3:14.
Job. 30:10Yesterday kings and princes revered Job. Now the most contemptuous men despise him. His description of this ilk has been rather elaborateJob. 30:3-8; and Psalms 59; Psalms 64; Psalms 73. This conglomeration of socially wretched even spit on the ground in front of methe height of insult!
Job. 30:11The metaphors are obscure. Line one is in the singular he has loosed (following the Kethib reading his cord rather than the Qere reading my cord); the second line is in the plural, they have cast off. It is unclear what cord is intended, but the removal of the restraint (A. V.bridle) is an insolent act intended to humiliate Job.
Job. 30:12All of the images suggest an assault context. On my right hand could suggest a court of law, where the accuser stood at the right hand; but the context is that of a siege or assault. The word rendered rabble as in A. V. could mean chicks as in Deu. 22:6 and Psa. 83:3, and thus young ones with a deprecatory implication, that is insolent pups. The verb rendered cast off in Job. 30:11 appears here and means to drive out, or forth; thus the line implies that they have driven Job down roads of ruin or destruction (lit. they have cast off my feet).
Job. 30:13The verb (ntsrendered as A. V. -mar) means to break up or pull down. Job continues with the destruction imagery. The outcasts make Jobs path impossible. These diabolical persons actively promote (A. V. set forward) his troubles. Those who aggressively attack him have no restraint (A. V. helper). G. R. Driver[305] has shown that the word has polarized meanings of help or hinder; this context calls for hinder.
[305] G. R. Driver, American Journal of Semitic Literature, 19356; p. 163; see also Blommerde, who tenders the line as there is none to help me against them.
Job. 30:14The imagery of a besieged city under attack is also maintained in this verse. Here the wall is breached and wave after wave of soldiers pour through the wall like a tempest (soahPro. 1:27; Eze. 38:9). In the midst of the ruin expresses the fact of falling stones from the breached wall (Heb. under the crash). The hordes of soldiers roll through (the verb means rollAmo. 5:24) the wall like billows or waves. As if inexhaustible, Jobs enemies roll over him as a storm-tossed sea.
Job. 30:15Terrors are overthrown on top of me. The picture is strikingly violent. Jobs princely dignity, once so widely acknowledged, is now blowing in the windJob. 21:18 and Psa. 1:4. His well-being (Heb. yesuah[306]prosperity, often rendered salvation) passes swiftly away.
[306] Material and physical welfare is the dimension of the biblical doctrine of salvation often missed and is presently being strongly emphasized by Neo-Marxist Roman Catholics, especially in Latin America. See my Seminar SyllabusSin and Salvation.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXX.
(1) Whose fathers I would have disdained.Rather, whose fathers I disdained to set. The complaint is that the children of those who were so inferior to him should treat him thus.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
First strophe Formerly a prince among nobles, Job is now grossly maltreated by hordes of pariahs, whose mode of life links them with beasts rather than with men, Job 30:1-8.
1. The dogs In the East the dog serves as a symbol for every kind of uncleanness, (Rev 22:15,) and is universally abhorred. The scoffers Job speaks of were not fit to associate with dogs. Mohammed says, “Angels will enter no house where are dogs and pictures.” In his annals, Sardanapalus speaks of a captive king, “With the dogs I placed him, and I caused him to be chained.” Column 8:29.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 30:30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
Job 30:30
Psa 102:3, “For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.”
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
Job Complains of the Contempt he Receives from Men.
v. 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, v. 2. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, v. 3. For want and famine they were solitary, v. 4. who cut up mallows, v. 5. They were driven forth from among men, v. 6. to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks, v. 7. Among the bushes they brayed, v. 8. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men, v. 9. And now am I their song, v. 10. They abhor me, they flee far from me, v. 11. Because He hath loosed my cord, v. 12. Upon my right hand rise the youth, v. 13. They mar my path, v. 14. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, v. 15. Terrors are turned upon me,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Job 30:1-31
The contrast is now completed. Having drawn the portrait of himself as he was, rich, honoured, blessed with children, flourishing, in favour with both God and man, Job now presents himself to us as he is, despised of men (verses 1-10), afflicted of God (verse 11), a prey to vague terrors (verse 15), tortured with bodily pains (verses 17, 18), cast off by God (verses 19, 20), with nothing but death to look for (verses 23-31). The chapter is the most touching in the whole book.
Job 30:1
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. As Job had been speaking last of the honour in which he was once held, he beans his contrast by chewing how at present he is disgraced and derided. Men who are outcasts and solitary themselves, poor dwellers in caves (verse 6), who have much ado to keep body and soul together (verses 3, 4), and not men only‘ but youths, mere boys, scoff at him, make him a song and a byword (verse 9). nay, “spare not to spit in his face” (verse 10). There seem to have been in his vicinity weak and debased tribes, generally contemned and looked down upon, regarded as thieves (verse 5) by their neighbours, and considered to be of base and vile origin (verse 8), who saw in Job’s calamities a rare opportunity for insulting and triumphing over a member of the superior race which had crushed them, and thus tasting, to a certain extent, the sweetness of revenge. Whose fathers I would have disdained (rather, I disdained) to have set with the dogs of my flock. Job had not thought their fathers worthy of employing even as the lowest class of herdsmen, those reckoned on a par with the sheep-dogs.
Job 30:2
Yes, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? Men, who had no such strength in their hands as to yield an employer any profitpoor, weak creatures, in whom old age (rather, manly vigour) was perished. An effete race seems to be pointed at, without strength or stamina, nerveless, spiritless, “destined to early decay and premature death;” but how they had sunk into such a condition is not apparent. Too often such remanents are merely tribes physically weak, whom more powerful ones have starved and stunted, driving them into the least productive regions, and in every way making life hard for them.
Job 30:3
For want and famine they were solitary; rather, they were gaunt (see the Revised Version). Compare the descriptions given to us of the native races of Central Africa by Sir S. Baker, Speke, Grant, Stanley, and others. Fleeing into the wilderness; rather, gnawing the wilderness; i.e. feeding on such dry and sapless roots and fruits as the wilderness produces. In former time desolate and waste; or, on the eve of wasteness and desolation.
Job 30:4
Who cut up mallows by the bushes. One of the plants on which they feed is the malluch, not really a “mallow,” but probably the Atriplex halimus, which is “a shrub from four to five feet high, with many thick branches; the leaves are rather sour to the taste; the flowers are purple, and very small; it grows on the sea-coast in Greece, Arabia, Syria, etc; and belongs to the natural order Chenopodiace“. And juniper roots for their meat. Most moderns regard the rothen as the Genista monosperma, which is a kind of broom. It is a leguminous plant, having a white flower. and grows plentifully in the Sinaitic desert, in Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. The root is very bitter, and would only be used as food under extreme pressure, but the fruit is readily eaten by sheep, and the roots would, no doubt, yield some nourishment.
Job 30:5
They were driven forth from among men. Weak races retreat before strong ones, who occupy their lands, and whose will they do not dare to dispute. They are not intentionally “driven out,” for the strong raecs would gladly make them their drudges; but they retire into the most inaccessible regions, as the primitive population has done in India and elsewhere. They cried after them as after a thief. Outcast tribes naturally, and almost necessarily, become robber-tribes. Deprived of their productive lands, and driven into rocky deserts, want makes them thieves and marauders. Then those who have made them what they are vilify and decry them.
Job 30:6
To dwell in the cliffs of. the valleys; of in the clefts (Revised Version). Western Asia is full of rocky regions, seamed with deep gorges and clefts, the walls of which rise abruptly or in terraces, and are themselves pierced with caves and cracks. The tract about Petra is, perhaps, the most remarkable of these regions; hut there are many others which closely resemble it. These places afford refuges to weak and outcast tribes, who hide in them, either in caves of the earth, or in the rocks. The Greeks called these unfortunates “Troglodytes”, the Hebrews “Horim,” from “a hole.”
Job 30:7
Among the bushes they brayed. The sounds which came from their mouths sounded to Job less like articulate speech than like the braying of asses. Compare what Herodotus says of his Troglodytes: “Their language is unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats.” Under the nettles (or, wild vetches) they were gathered together; rather, huddled together.
Job 30:8
They were children of fools. The physical degeneracy whereof Job has been speaking is accompanied in most instances by extreme mental incapacity. Some of the degraded races cannot count beyond four or five; others have not more than two or three hundred words in their vocabulary. They are all of low intellect, though occasionally extremely artful and cunning. Yea, children of base men; literally, children of no name. Their race had never made for itself any name, but was unknown and insignificant. They were viler than the earth; rather, they were scourged out of the land. This must not be understood literally. It is a rhetorical repetition of what had been already said in verse 5. The expression may be compared with the tale in Herodotus, that when the Scythian slaves rebelled and took up arms, the Scythians scourged them into subjection (Herod; 4.3, 4).
Job 30:9
And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword (see above, Job 17:6; and comp. Psa 69:12).
Job 30:10
They abhor me, they flee far from me; rather, they abhor me, they stoat aloof from me (see the Revised Version). And spare not to spit in my face. This has generally been taken literally, as it seems to have been by the LXX. But it, perhaps, means no more than that they did not refrain from spitting in Job‘s presence.
Job 30:11
Because he hath loosed my cord. “He,” in this passage, can only be God; and thus Job turns here to some extent from his human persecutors to his great Afflicter, the Almighty. God has “loosened his cord,” i.e. has relaxed his vital fibre, taken away his strength, reduced him to helplessness. Hence, and hence only, do the persecutors dare to crowd around him and insult him. And afflicted me. God has afflicted him with blow after blowwith impoverishment (Job 1:14-17), with bereavement (Job 1:18, Job 1:19), with a sore malady (Job 2:7). They have also let loose the bridle before me. This has given his persecutors the courage to east aside all restraint, and lead him with insult after insult (verses 1, 9, 10).
Job 30:12
Upon my right hand rise the youth; literally, the brood; i.e. the rabblea crowd of half-grown youths and boys, such as collects in almost any town to hoot and insult a respectable person who is in trouble and helpless. In the East such gatherings are very common and exceedingly annoying. They push away my feet; i.e. they try to throw me down as I walk. They raise up against me the ways of their destruction. They place obstacles in my way, impede my steps, thwart me in every way that they find possible.
Job 30:13
They mar my path; i.e. interfere with and frustrate whatever I am bent on doing. They set forward my calamity, Professor Lee translates, “They profit by my ruin.” They have no helper. If the text is sound, we must understand, “They do all this, they dare all this, even though they have no powerful men to aid them.” But it is suspected that there is some corruption in the passage, and that the original gave the sense which is found in the Vulgate,” There is none to help me.”
Job 30:14
They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters; i.e. with a force like that of water when it has burst through a bank or dam. In the desolation they relied themselves upon me. Like the waves of the sea, which follow one after another.
Job 30:15
Terrors are turned upon me Job seems to pass here from his human persecutors to his internal sufferings of mind and body. “Terrors’ take hold upon him. He experiences in his sleep horrible dreams and visions (see Job 7:14), and even in his waking hours he is haunted by fears. The “terrors of God do set themselves in array against him” (Job 6:4). God seems to him as One that watches, and “tries him every moment” (Job 7:18), seeking occasion against him, and never leaving him an instant’s peace (Job 7:19). These terrors, he says, pursue my soul as the wind; literally, pursue mine honour, or my dignity. They flutter the calm composure that befits a godly man, disturb it, shake it, and for a time at any rate, cause terrors and shrinkings of soul. Under these circumstances, my welfare passeth away as a cloud. It is not only my happiness, but my real welfare, that is gone. Body and soul are equally in sufferingthe one shaken with fears and disturbed with doubts and apprehensions; the other smitten with a sore disease, so that there is no soundness in it.
Job 30:16
And now my soul is poured out upon me (comp. Psa 42:4). My very soul seems to be gone out of me. “I faint and swoon away, because of my fears” (Lee). The days of affliction have taken hold upon me. All my prosperity is gone, and I am come to “the days of affliction.” These “take hold on me,” and, as it were, possess me.
Job 30:17
My bones are pierced in me in the night season. In Elephantiasis anaesthetics‘ says Dr. Erasmus Wilson, “when the integument is insensible, there are deep-seated burning pains, sometimes of a bone or joint, and sometimes of the vertebral column. These pains are greatest at night; they prevent sleep, and give rise to restless,less and frightful dreams”. And my sinews take no rest; rather, my gnawings, or my gnawing pains (see the Revised Version; and comp. Job 30:3, where the same word is properly rendered by “gnawing [the wilderness]”).
Job 30:18
By the great force of my disease is my garment changed; or, disfigured. The purulent discharge from his ulcers disfigured and made filthy his garment, which stiffened as the discharge dried, and clung to his frame. It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. The whole garment clung to his body as closely as it is usual for a mall’s collar, or “neck-hole” (Professor Lee), to cling about his throat.
Job 30:19
He (i.e. God) hath cast me into the mire. “The mire” here is the lowest depth of misery and degradation (comp. Psa 40:2; Psa 69:2, Psa 69:14). Job feels himself cast into it by God, but nevertheless does not forsake him nor cease to call upon him (verses 20-23). And I am become like dust and ashes; i.e. unclean, impure, offensive to my fellow-men, an object of dislike and disdain.
Job 30:20
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me. It is the worst of all calamities to be God-forsaken, as Job believed himself to be, because he had no immediate answer to his prayers. The bitterest cry upon the cross was “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” But no good man is ever really God-forsaken, and no rightful and earnest prayers are ever really unheard. Job “had need of patience” (Heb 10:36), patient as he was (Jas 5:11). He should have trusted God more, and complained less. I stand up, and thou regardest me not; rather, I stand up, as the manner of the Jews usually was in prayer (Luk 18:11), and thou lookest at me (see the Revised Version). Job’s complaint is that, when he stands up and stretches out his hands to God in prayer, God simply looks on, does nothing, gives him no help.
Job 30:21
Thou art become cruel to me; literally, thou art turned to be cruel to me. In other words, “Thou art changed to me, and art become cruel to me.” Job never forgets that for long years God was gracious and kind to him, “made him and fashioned him together round about,” “clothed him with skin and flesh, and fenced him with bones and sinews,” “granted him life and favour, and by his visitation preserved his spirit” (Job 10:9-12); but the recollection brings, perhaps, as much of pain. as of pleasure with it. One of our poets says
“Joy’s recollection is no longer joy;
But sorrow’s memory is a sorrow still.”
At any rate, the contrast between past joy and present suffering adds a pang to tile latter. With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me; literally, with the might of thy hand dost thou persecute me (see the Revised Version). “Haec noster irreverentius” (Schultens); comp. Job 19:6-13.
Job 30:22
Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou tensest me to ride upon it; i.e. thou makest me to be storm-tossed. I am as it were a straw caught up by a whirlwind, and borne hither and thither in the wide regions of space, unknowing whither I go. I am treated as I have described the wicked man to be treated (Job 27:20, Job 27:21). And dissolvest my substance. “Dissolvest me entirely“ (Professor Lee); dissolvest me in the storms (Revised Version).
Job 30:23
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death. Job has all along expressed his conviction that he has nothing to look for but death. He feels within himself the seeds of a mortal malady; for such, practically, was elephantiasis in Job’s time. He is devoid of any expectation of recovery. Death must come upon him, he thinks, ere long; and then God will bring him to the house appointed for all living. This, as he has already explained (Job 10:21, Job 10:22), is “the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.” It is a melancholy prospect; but we must regard it as cheered by the hope of an ultimate resurrection, such as seems indicated, if not absolutely proclaimed, in Job 19:25-27 (see the comment on that passage).
Job 30:24
Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. This is one of the most obscure passages in the entire Book of Job, and scarcely any two independent commentators understand it alike. To give all the different renderings, and discuss them, would be an almost endless task, and one over-wearisome to the reader. It will, per-Imps, suffice to select the one which to the present writer appears the most satisfactory. This is the rendering of Professor Stanley Leathes, who suggests the following: “Howbeit God will not put forth his hand to bring a man to death and the grave, when there is earnest prayer for them, not even when he himself hath caused the calamity.” The same writer further explains the passage as follows: “I know that thou wilt dissolve and destroy me, and bring me to the grave (verse 23), though thou wilt not do so when I pray to thee to release me by death from my sufferings. Thou wilt surely do so [some time or other], but not in my time, or according to my will, but only in thine own appointed time, and as thou seest fit.”
Job 30:25
Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? i.e. do I claim a sympathy which I do not deserve? When men wept and entreated me, did not I do my best to give them the aid which they requested? Did not I weep for them, and intercede with God for them? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? (comp. Job 29:12-17; Job 31:16-22).
Job 30:26
When I looked for flood, then evil came unto me. Job was “looking for good,” expecting fully the continuance of his great wealth and prosperity, when the sudden shock of calamity fell upon him It was wholly unexpected, and therefore the harder to bear. And when I waited for light, there came darkness. This may refer to periods, after his calamities began, when he had hopes that his prayers would be answered, and a rest or pause, an interval of repose, be granted him (Job 9:34; Job 10:20), but when his hopes were disappointed, and the darkness closed in upon him thicker and murkier than ever.
Job 30:27
My bowels boiled, and rested not; rather, boil and rest not (see the Revised Version). It is his present condition of which Job speaks from verse 27 to verse 31. His “entrails,” i.e. his whole innermost nature, is disturbed, tormented, thrown into confusion. The days of affliction prevented me; rather, are come upon me (comp. verse 16).
Job 30:28, Job 30:29
I went mourning without the sun; rather, I go about blackened, but not by the sun. Grief and suffering, according to Oriental notions, blackened the face (see Lam 4:8; Lam 5:10; Psa 119:83; and below, Psa 119:30). I stood up, and I cried in the congregation; rather, I stand up in the assembly‘ and cry for help (see the Revised Version). Job feels this as the most pitiable feature in his ease. He is broken down; he can no longer endure. At first he could sit in silence for seven days (Job 2:13); now he is reduced to uttering complaints and lamentations. He is a brother, not to dragons, but to jackals. His laments are like the long melancholy cries that those animals emit during the silence of the night, so well known to Eastern travellers. He adds further that he is a companion, not to owls, but to ostriches; which, like jackals, have a melancholy cry.
Job 30:30
My skin is black upon me (see the comment on Job 30:28, Job 30:29, ad init.), and my bones are burned with heat. The “burning pains” in the bones, which characterize at least one form of elephantiasis, have been already mentioned (see the comment on Job 30:17). In ordinary elephantiasis there is often “intense pain in the lumbar region and groin,” which the patient might think to be in his bones.
Job 30:31
My harp also is turned to mourning. The result of all is that Job’s harp is laid aside, either literally or figuratively. Its music is replaced by the sound of mourning (see verses 28, 29). And my organ (or rather, my pipe) into the voice of them that weep. The pipe also is no longer sounded in his presence; he hears only the voice of weeping and lamentation. Thus appropriately ends the long dirge in which he has bewailed his miserable fare.
HOMILETICS
Job 30:1-15
Job’s second parable: 2. A lamentation over fallen greatness.
I. THE CHARACTER OF JOB‘S DERIDERS.
1. Juniors in respect of age. (Verse 1.) These were not the young princes of the city (Job 29:8), by whom he had formerly been held in reverential regard, but “the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men” (Delitzsch) dwelling in the neighbourhood. Job’s inferiors in point of years, they should have treated him with honour and respect (Le 19:32), especially when they beheld his intense wretchedness and misery. That they failed to accord him such veneration as was due to seniority in age, and much more that they made him the butt of their contemptuous derision, was not only an express violation of the dictates of nature and religion, but a special mark of depravity in themselves, as well as a certain index to the social and moral degradation of the race to which they belonged. The good qualities of an advancing and the bad qualities of a retrograding people, infallibly discover themselves in the moral characteristics of the youthful portion of the community.
2. Base in respect of ancestry. (Verses 1, 8.) The foregoing inference from the ribald behaviour of the younger men Job confirms by describing them as “children of fools, yea, children of base men,” literally, “of men without a name,” and as men “whose sires” he “would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock.” It is doubtful if Job does not in this and other expressions of this passage (verses 1-8) repay the contempt of his scornful assailants with fourfold liberality, thereby failing to evince that meekness in resenting injuries which good men should study to display, and perpetrating the same offence which he imputes to others, as well as talking about his fellow-men (God’s creatures and God’s children no less than himself) in a way that was scarcely excusable even in a patriarchal sage. Nevertheless, what he purposes to convey through the medium of his heated, if also poetic, language is that his revilers were the offspring of a vile, worthless, degraded, brutalized race, who had well-nigh sunk to the level of the beasts that perish.
3. Worthless in respect of service. (Verse 2.) Like their fathers whom Job would have disdained to rank with the dogs of his flock, i.e. whom he regarded as not worthy of being compared to these wise and faithful animals who watched his sheep, they (i.e. these younger vagabonds) were idle and effeminate triflers, lazy, worthless rascals, as little able to work as willing, the ethnic deterioration they were undergoing revealing itself in enervated physical constitutions no less than in depraved moral dispositions. The truth here enunciated with regard to nations and communities is also true of individuals, that sin, vice, immorality, has a tendency to impair the bodily strength, mental vigour, and moral power of such as yield to its fatal fascinations.
4. Furnished in respect of food. (Verses 3, 4.) Strangely blending pity with scorn, Job informs us that in great part the feebleness of those wretched creatures, who “could bring nothing to perfection” (Cox), and were not worth employing to do the work of a shepherd’s dog, was due to the difficulty they had in finding nourishment. Lean and haggard, benumbed from want and hunger, they literally gnawed the desert, picking up such scanty sustenance as the barren steppe afforded, plucking mallows in the thicket, i.e. “the salt-wort from off the stalk” (Fry), the salt-wort, or sea-purslain,- being a tall shrubby, plant which thrives in the desert as well as on the coast, “the buds and young leaves of which” also “are gathered and eaten by the poor” (Delitzsch); and taking the roots of broom for their bread, the broom abounding in the deserts and sandy places of Egypt and Arabia, and growing to a height sufficient to afford shelter to a person sitting down. A melancholy picture of destitution, which has its counterpart not only among expiring races, effete desert tribes, and wretched Troglodytes, but also in many a centre of modern civilization. It is hardly questionable that in the lower strata of society in our large cities there are thousands for whom the physical conditions of life are as severe as those just depicted by the Poet.
5. Outcasts in respect of society. (Verse 5.) In consequence of their pilfering and marauding habits, they were banished forth from the pale of the organized community Nay, when it happened that they ventured near the precincts of civilized life, they at once became the objects of a hue and cry, men hallooing after them as they did after a thief, and chasing them away to their own miserable haunts of poverty and vice. It is clear they were the criminal classes of patriarchal times, and were regarded with much the same abhorrence as the pariahs of modern society, who wage war against all constituted authority, prey upon the industry of the virtuous and law-abiding, and as a consequence live in a perpetual state of social ostracism.
6. Troglodytes in respect of habitation. (Verse 6.) Driven beyond the pale of civilized society, they were compelled “to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys,” literally, “in the horror of glens,” i.e. in dismal and gloomy gorges, like the Horites (or cave-men) of Mount Seir (Gen 14:6), betaking themselves for shelter to the caves of the earth and the holes in the rocks. According to modern scientific theory, they would exemplify man in the earliest or lowest stage of his development; according to the testimony of revelation, the Troglodytes would attest man’s degeneracy from a primeval standard of perfection. And so persistent is this downward tendency in man apart from Divine grace, that almost every civilized community has its social and moral Troglodytes, who dwell in dismal valleysits wretched outcasts, children of sin and shame, whose lurking-places are dens of infamy and haunts of vice.
7. Dehumanized in respect of nature. (Verse 7.) Having previously (Job 24:5) described these evicted aborigines as leading a gregarious life, like wild asses roaming the desert under the guidance of a leader (Job 39:5), Job recurs to the comparison to indicate, not the eager ferocity with which they scour the steppe for fodder, but how near to the brutes they have been brought by their misery, representing them as huddling themselves together under the bushes, and croaking out, in unintelligible jargon like the brayings of an ass, a doleful lamentation over their miserable condition. Herodotus compares the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians to the screeching of bats. The speech of savage races is mostly composed of “growling gutturals and sharp clicks” (Cox). As a nation advances in civilization its tongue purifies and refines. Like the cave-men of Western Asia and Ethiopia, the moral Troglodytes of society have a jargon of their own; e.g. the language of thieves.
II. THE BEHAVIOUR OF JOB‘S DERIDERS.
1. Mockery and contempt. (Verses 1, 9, 10.) Physically and morally degraded, this worthless rabble of marauders, half men and half beasts, having fallen in with Job in their wanderings, were so little touched by sympathy for his misfortunes, that they turned his miseries into merry jests, and made bywords of his groans. It is a special mark of depravity when youth mocks at age (2Ki 2:3) and laughs at affliction. The experience of Job was reproduced in the eases of David (Psa 35:15; Psa 69:12), Jeremiah (Lam 3:14, Lam 3:63), and Christ (Mat 27:43; Luk 23:35).
2. Insult and outrage. (Verse 10.) They gave open and undisguised expression to the abhorrence with which they regarded him, by fleeing far from him, or standing at a distance, and making their remarks upon him. If they ventured to come near him it was either to spit in his presence, “the greatest insult to an Oriental” (Carey), or perhaps to spit in his face (cf. Num 12:14; Deu 25:9), thus carrying their contempt and scorn to the lowest depth of indignity. Job had fallen low indeed to be thus outraged by the vilest dregs of society; but not lower than did Christ, who was similarly treated by the rabble of Judaea (Mat 26:67; Mat 27:30), as long before it bad been predicted that he should be (Isa 1:6). No doubt in all this Job’s sufferings were typical of Christ’s.
3. Hostility and violence. (Verses 12-15.) Not content with words and gestures, the young vagabonds proceeded to acts of open violence. Having found the poor fallen prince groaning in wretchedness and misery upon the ash-heap outside his house, they abstained not from direct hostility. Like a crowd of witnesses starting up on his right hand, they overwhelmed him with accusations; like an army of assailants thrusting his feet away, they disputed with him every inch of ground, compelling him to retire ever further and further back; pressing on like a tumultuous besieging host, they cast up their ways of destruction, i.e. their military causeways, against him, tearing down his path so as to render escape impossible, breaking in upon him as through a wide breach, and causing him to flee in terror before their irresistible approach, so that his nobility was dispersed like the wind, and his prosperity swept away like a cloud.
III. THE MOTIVE JOB‘S DERIDERS.
1. Not Job‘s unkindness. It was true that these insolent vagabonds, with their fathers, had been summarily evicted from their pristine settlementshad been compelled, not without cruel oppression and intolerable hardship, to retire before the superior race who had dislodged them; it may also be that of that conquering Arab tribe Job was a conspicuous member, and might on that account be held responsible for the indignities and wrongs that had been heaped upon the wretched aborigines; but, in point of fact, Job disclaims having taken part in those ruthless acts of tyranny which caused the poor of the land to slink away and hide themselves, naked and shivering, in the dens and caves of the earth, in the holes and crevices of the rocks (Job 24:4-8), and rather indicates that he regarded their sorrowful lot with compassion, even while, with disgust and aversion, he shrank from any contact with themselves. But:
2. Their own wickedness. They simply saw that he, whom they once knew as a powerful prince, was overtaken by evil fortune, and they turned upon him accordingly. That they traced Job’s calamities, as Job himself did, to the hand of God (verse 11), was unlikely. Yet the result was the same. God, according to Jobaccording to them, fatehad unloosed iris bow and sent a shaft through the heart of this imperious autocrat, or had loosened the cord which upheld the tent of his hitherto vigorous body, and had laid him prostrate beneath a loathsome and painful disease; and so they, casting off restraint, assailed him with unbridled arrogance, acting out, in these early times, the familiar story of the kicking ass and the dead lion,
“But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.”
(‘Julius Caesar,’ act 3. sc. 2.)
Learn:
1. The certainty that man may decade himself beneath the level of the beasts.
2. The right of society to protect itself against the lawless and depraved.
3. The tendency of all wickedness to lead to misery even on earth.
4. The infallibility with which moral depravity perpetuates itself.
5. The instability which attends all human greatness.
6. The length to which wicked men will go in persecuting and oppressing others when God grants permission.
7. The inevitable approach of a nation’s doom when its youth has become corrupt and depraved.
Job 30:16-31
Job’s second parable: 3. A sorrowful survey of present misery.
I. JOB‘S BODILY AFFLICTION.
1. Overpowering. It was no trifling ailment that wrung from the heart of this fallen great man the exquisitely plaintive lament of the present section. The malady which had struck its fangs into his vitals was one that made his bowels boil, and rest not (verse 27); that caused his heart to melt like wax in the midst of his bowels (Psa 22:14); yea, that dissolved his soul in tears (verse 16). Most men have reason to be thankful that the afflictions they are called to endure are not absolutely intolerable; for which the praise is due to God’s mercy alone. Yet not unless the soul is suitably affected by the ills that assail the body do these latter bring forth their designed results, the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The case of Job suggests that through the union and sympathy of soul and body man possesses an almost infinite capacity for suffering pain; while the fact that pain may minister to man’s improvement is a testimony to man’s superiority over the creatures.
2. Sudden. This was one of the circumstances that rendered Job’s affliction so unmanning. It had sprung upon him unawares, apprehending him, and holding him fast as a detective might do a criminal (verse 16), at the very moment when he had been saying to himself, “I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand” ( Job 29:18), and offering congratulations to himself on the apparently permanent as well as inexhaustible sources of his wealth, and on the palpably stable and unfading character of his glory.
3. Wasting. A second circumstance which tended to dissolve the soul of Job as he reflected on his physical trouble was the revolting character of the disease by which he had been overtaken. According to one view, Job by a strong poetic figure personifies the night (verse 17; cf. Job 3:2) as a wild beast, which had leapt upon him in the darkness, and rent him limb from limbthe allusion being to the terrible nature of the Lepra Arabica, which “feeds on the bones and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached” (Delitzsch). To this, also, the wasting character of the disease (verse 18) is believed by the just-named commentator to refer.
4. Unsightly. An additional source of grief to the patriarch in thinking over his malady was the disfigurement of his person which it had occasioned. “By its great strength the garment (of his skin) was changed” (Gesenius), probably through frequent purulent discharge, or through the foul incrustations which covered his body; his skin also had become black, and was peeling off from his emaciated skeleton, while his bones within him were being consumed by a parching heat (verse 30). It is a special cross when God, through disease, readers a man of displeasing aspect to his fellows.
5. Incessant. The pain which Job suffered was seemingly continuous and without interruption. Already frequently insisted on in previous discourses (Job 3:24; Job 7:3, Job 7:4, Job 7:13, Job 7:15; Job 10:20, etc.), it is here presented in a fresh series of images, Job describing his sinews as taking no rest (verse 17), literally, “my gnawers,” meaning either his tormenting pains (Gesenius), or the gnawing worms formed in his ulcers (Delitzsch), “rest not,” and speaking of his disease as binding him fast, and sticking closely to him like the collar of his coat (verse 18), and finally adding that his bowels, as the seat of pain, boiled and rested not (verse 27).
6. Manifold. In this his last lament Job confines not his attention to the one point of his bodily ailment, but makes a survey of the whole course of his afflictionfrom the day when, bereft of his family and possessions, he went about the streets as a mourner, arrayed in sackcloth, without the sun (verse 28), i.e. in such a state of grief and dejection that even the gladdening sunshine failed to give him pleasure, to that moment when he had become as “a brother to dragons and a companion to owls” (verse 29).
7. Degrading. By reason of this terrible disease he had been cast into the mire, and had become like dust and ashes (cf. Job 16:15, Job 16:16); nay, lower even than that, he had been reduced to the level of jackals and ostriches, creatures whose dolorous howlings fill men with shuddering and dejection.
II. JOB‘S MENTAL ANGUISH. The thought which most keenly lacerated Job’s bosom was the fixed and immovable idea which had fastened on his soul, that the God whom he had loved and served had become to him a changed God, who treated him with unsparing cruelty (verse 21). Of this the proof to Job’s mind lay in several considerations.
1. That God was the real Author of Job‘s sufferings. It was he and no other who had cast Job into the mire (verse 19). In a very real sense this was true, since Job’s malignant and unsleeping adversary could have had no power over him, except it had been given him from above; but in the sense which Job meant it was a hideous misconception, Satan and not God having been the enemy who had touched his bones and his flesh. Saints should be careful not to impute to God the blame of what he only permits.
2. That God remained deaf to Job‘s entreaties. “I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me;” i.e. lookest fixedly at me (verse 20), meeting my earnest reverential upward glance with a stare of stony indifference, if not of hostile intent (cf. verse 24). A fearful perversion of the truth which Job’s prolonged misery cannot justify. God is the enemy of no man who does not first make himself an enemy of God. “The face of God is set against them that do evil;” but “God’s eyes are ever towards the righteous” with looks of love and benignant compassion. Even when he forbears to help, and seems to be deaf to the good man’s supplications, he hears and pities. If God answers not, it is in love rather than in hate. Whatever befalls a saint he should hold fast by the unchanging and unfaltering love of the Divine Father. Believers under the gospel should find this easier to do than Job did.
3. That God was insensible to Job‘s feebleness. With the strength of his omnipotent arm he Appeared to be making war upon one who was insignificant and frail, heedless of the agonies he inflicted or the terrors he inspired, lifting up his victim upon the fierce hurricane of tribulation, causing him to drive along before its howling blasts and to vanish in the crashing of the storm, as a thin cloud is caught by the whirling tempest, “blown with restless violence found about the pendent world,” and finally dispersed by the violent agitation it endures (verses 21, 22).
4. That God had fixedly resolved on Job‘s destruction. In Job’s anguish-laden mind it was a foregone conclusion that God had determined to pursue him to the grave, to bring him down to the dust of death; to shut him up in the house of assembly for all living (verse 23). Job’s conception of the grave was sublimely true. It was and is “the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.” Job’s belief that God would eventually conduct him thither was likewise correct. “It is appointed unto all men once to die.” Job’s apprehension that his immediate dissolution was decreed was wrong. The times of all are in the hand of God; and it is not given to any to anticipate with certainty the day and the hour of departure from this sublunary scene. So also was Job’s inference erroneous that prayer was unavailing when God had determined on a creature’s destruction (verse 24). It was not so in the case of Hezekiah, to whom God, in answer to his fervent supplication, added fifteen years (2Ki 20:1-7; Isa 38:1-5). But even should God decline to move the shadow on the dial backward, it is still not in vain for dying men to call aloud to him in prayer, inasmuch as he can help them by his grace to meet that which by his hand he will not avert.
5. That God took no account of Job‘s philanthropies. Job had wept for him that was in trouble or whose day was hard, and his soul had been grieved for the needy (Job 29:12, Job 29:13). Yet God was to all appearance indifferent. This, however, was only another misconception on the part of Job. The Almighty notes with loving eye every kind deed performed by his servants on earth, and will reward even a ernst of bread or a cup of cold water given in his name to a poor one. Only the time of recompense will be hereafter. Hence no one is entitled to expect, like Job, that his good actions shall be rewarded here. “Do good, hoping for nothing again,” is the maxim prescribed to Christ’s followers. Acted upon, it will save them from the disappointment which almost crushed the soul of Job (verse 26).
Learn:
1. The absolute impossibility of avoiding days of suffering.
2. The ease with which God can remove happiness from the lot of man.
3. The inability of any one to sustain the burden of affliction without Divine help.
4. The foolishness of glorying in either strength or beauty, since both can at a word be transformed into dust and ashes.
5. The extreme danger of allowing affliction to pervert the mind’s views of God.
6. The error of supposing that God can regard any creature, much less any child of his own, with hate.
7. The propriety of frequently considering where life’s journey terminates.
8. The certainty that death cannot be turned aside by either piety or prayers.
9. The evil case of him who can find no enjoyment in Heaven’s mercies.
10. The sinfulness of giving free course to one’s complaint, especially against God, in the time of affliction.
11. The inevitable tendency of trouble to deteriorate and debase those whom it does not exalt and refine.
12. The possibility of one who thinks himself a brother of jackals and companion of ostriches becoming a son of God and fellow of the angels.
13. The certainty that for all saints mourning will yet be turned into joy.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Job 30:1-31
The troubles of the present.
In contrast to the happy past of honour and respect on which he has been so wistfully dwelling in the previous chapter, Job sees himself now exposed to the scorn and contempt of the meanest of mankind; while a flood of miseries from the hand of God passes over him. From this last chapter we have learned the honour and authority with which it sometimes pleases God to crown the pious and the faithful. From the present we see how at other times he crucifies and puts them to the proof. They must be tried on “the right hand and on the left” (2Co 6:7; comp. Php 4:12). We are reminded, too, of the transiency of all worldly good. The heavens and the earth shall perish; how much more the glory, power, and happiness of the flesh (Isa 40:1-31.)!
I. THE CONTEMPT OF MEN. (Verses 1-10.) The young men, who were wont to rise in his presence, laugh him to scorn; youths whose fathers, the lowest of mankindthievish, faithless, and worthier, awere of leas value than the watch-dogs of his flock (verse 1). Themselves, the young men had been of no service to him; they had failed of the full strength of manhood; dried up with want and hunger, they had derived their scanty subsistence from the desolate and barren steppe (verses 2, 3); plucking up the salt herbs and bushes and juniper roots for food (verse 4). These wretches led the life of pariahs; driven forth from the society of men, the hunt-cry was raised after them as after thieves. Their place of dwelling was in horrid ravines and caves and rocks (verses 5, 6). Their wild shouts were heard in the bush; they lay and formed their plots of robbery among the nettles (verse 7). Sons of fools and base men, they were scourged out of the land (verse 8). A fearful picture of the dregs of human life! Perhaps those Troglodytes (comp. Job 24:4 🙂 were the Horites, the original inhabitants of the mountainous country of Seir, conquered by the Edomites (Gen 36:6-8; Deu 2:12, Deu 2:22). Of these degraded beings Job has now become the scoffing-song, the derisive byword (verse 9). They show towards him every mark of abhorrence, retreating from him, or only drawing near to spit in his face with the silent coarse language of contumely and disgust (verse 10; comp. Mat 26:67; Mat 27:30). Had Job in any way brought this treatment upon himself from the vilest of mankind? Certainly there is nothing in the story which leads us to cast the blame of haughty or heartless conduct upon the hero. Still, it is ever true that we reap as we sow; but the sower and the reaper may be different persons. The cruel measure meted out to these unfortunates is now measured to the innocent Job. It is not in human nature to requite love with hatred or to give loathing in return for kindness. The responsibility of society for its outcasts is a deep lesson which we have only begun in modern times to learn. All men, however fallen and low, must be treated as the creatures of God. If we treat them as wild beasts, we can but expect the wild-beast return. Said Rabbi Ben Azar, “Despise not any man, and spurn not anything. For there is no man that hath not his hour, nor is there anything that hath not its place.” Says our own Wordsworth
“He who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
That he hath never used, and thought with him
Is in its infancy.”
And again
“Be assured That least of all can aught that ever owned
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to, sink, howe’er depressed,
So low as to be scorned without a sin,
Without offence to God, cast out of view.”
“Condescend to men of low estate.” Gentleness and compassion to our inferiors is one of the chief lessons of our holy religion.
II. ABANDONMENT TO MISERY BY GOD. (Verses 11-15.) Health and happiness are ours when God holds us by his hand; sickness, languor, and mental misery when he loosens his grasp. Job’s nerves are relaxed. The war-bands of the Almighty have loosed the bridle; angels and messengers of ill, diseases and plagues, hunt the unhappy sufferer down (verse 11). This dark throng seems to rise up at his right handthe place of the accuser (Psa 109:6)and to push away his feet, driving him into a narrow space, laying open before him their ways of destruction, heaping up against him besieging ramparts, thus tearing down his own path, his formerly undisputed way of life. They help forward his ruin, needing no assistance from others in the pernicious work (verses 12, 13). On comes this terrible besieging host, as through a wide breach in the wall of liferolls on with loud roar, while the defences fall into ruin (verse 14). Terrors turn against him, sudden horrors of death (comp. Job 18:11, Job 18:14; Job 27:20) hunting after his honourthe honour depicted in Job 29:20, seq. His happiness, in consequence of these violent assaults, passes away suddenly and tracklessly as a cloud from the face of heaven (Job 29:15; comp. Job 7:9; Isa 44:22). If God lays his hand upon the body or outward happiness of his children, there will seldom be release without inward conflict, anguish, fear, and terror. It is with such persons as with St. Paul; without is conflict, and within is fear (2Co 7:5).
III. INCONCEIVABLE INWARD DISTRESS. (Job 29:16-23.) His soul is melted and poured out within him; his frame is dissolved in tears. Days of pain hold him in their grip, refuse to depart and leave him in peace (Job 29:16). The night racks and pierces his bones, and allows his sinews no rest (Job 29:17). By the fearful power of God he is so withered up that his garment hangs loose about him, wraps him like the collar of a coat, nowhere fitting his body (Job 29:18). God has cast him upon the ash-heapa sign of the deepest humiliation (Job 16:15)till his skin resembles dust and ashes in its hue (Job 29:19). In this nerveless condition prayer itself seems unable to stir its loftiest, most hopeful energies. He can but cry, grievously and in supplication, but without the hope of being heard. “I stand, and thou lookest fixedly at me”no sign of attention in thy glance, of favour in thine eye (Job 29:20). The aspect of the almighty Father, seen through the medium of intense suffering, becomes one of cruelty and horror (Job 29:21). Lifting him upon the storm-wind as upon a chariot, God causes him to be carried away, and dissolved as it were in the yeasty surging of the storm (Job 29:22). He knows that God is carrying him to death, the place of assembly for all the living (Job 29:23).
IV. FAILURE OF ALL HIS HOPES. (Job 29:24 -31.) According to human calculation, he must despair of life. But can the unhappy man be blamed if he stretches out his hand for help amidst the ruin of his fall, and sends forth his cry as he passes into destruction? Is not this a law for all living creatures (Job 29:24)? Did not Job show compassion in all the misfortunes of others, and has he not, therefore, a right to complain, and expect compassion in his own (verse 25)? All the suffering of Job is condemned in the thought that, after the happiness of former days had bred hopes of the like future, he was visited by the deepest misery, and cast into the lowest distress (verses 26-31). The light of former days glances upon him again, and so his address reverts to its beginning (Job 29:1-25.). Hoping for good, there ensued evil (Isa 59:9; Jer 14:19); waiting for the light, deeper darkness came on. There is an inward seething of the mind. Days of affliction have fallen upon him. He goes darkened, without the glow of the sun; his swarthy appearance is due to another causehe is smeared with dust and ashes. He stands in the assembly, giving loud vent to his lamentation amidst the mourning company who surround him. A “brother to the jackals, a comrade of the ostriches,” these desert creatures of the loud and plaintive cry, is be. His black skin parts and falls from him; his bones are parched by a consuming heat. And then, in one beautiful poetic touch, the whole description of his woe is summed up, “My harp became mourning, and my shalm mournful tones.” But he will yet learn to tune his harp again to gladness and praise. Now, however, his melancholy haunts him; and not one kindly glance pierces the gloom of his dark thoughts to give him comfort. But despair of self has never led Job to despair of God. There is still, therefore, a glimmering spark of hope amidst this wild storm. He carries in his hand a bud which will yet unfold into a flower. This is no example of the fatal sorrow of the world, but of the life-giving power of the sorrow that is after God (compare Robertson’s sermon on the ‘Power of Sorrow,’ vol. 2.).J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Job 30:1-31
A sorrowful contrast.
Job’s condition has become one of sorrowfulness, the humiliation of which stands in direct contrast to his former state. He graphically expresses it in a few words: “But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.” The picture of sorrowful humiliation, standing in contrast, to previous honour, wealth, and power, is very striking. It is a typical example, showing to what depths the loftiest may be reduced. The details are as follows.
I. THE CONTEMPTUOUS TREATMENT OF MEAN AND UNWORTHY MEN. “They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. And now am i their song, yes, I am their byword. They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my race.’ It requires the utmost strength of righteous principle, and the most complete self-command and self-restraint, to endure such treatment without violent outbreaks of passion.
II. GREAT MENTAL AFFLICTION. “Terrors are turned upon me;” “My soul is poured out in me.”
III. GREAT BODILY PAIN. a My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.”
IV. APPARENT INDIFFERENCE OF GOD TO HIS PRAYER. Saddest hour of all the sad hours of the human life is that when the one unfailing Helper closes his ear. The lowest depth of sorrow reached by the Man of sorrows found expression in “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
V. To this is added THE FEAR THAT GOD HIMSELF TURNS HIS HAND AGAINST HIM. “Thou art become cruel to me.’ His afflictions appear to him as Divine judgments; yet he knoweth not why he is afflicted.
VI. THE GLOOMY APPREHENSION THAT ALL WILL END IN DEATH. “Thou wilt bring me to death.” No brightness in the afar-off cheers the sufferer. There is no prospect of light at eventide.
VII. To all is added THE SITTER PAINFULNESS OF EXCLUSION. He is an outcast. There is no help for him in man. “I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.” Bitter, indeed, is the cup mixed of such ingredients. Strong the heart that can thus suffer and not break.R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Job 30:1-10
The fall from honour to contempt.
I. MISFORTUNE BRINGS CONTEMPT, Job has just been reciting the honours of his happier days. With the loss of prosperity has come the loss of those honours. He who was slavishly flattered in wealth and success is cruelly scorned in the time of adversity. This is monstrously unjust, and Job feels it to be so. Nevertheless, it is only true to life. Men do judge by the outward appearance. Therefore any who experience in some proportion what Job experienced need not be taken by surprise. The judgment of the world is of little worth. The good opinion of men may shift like a weathercock. We need to look for a higher, more sure and true and lasting glory than that of man’s honour.
II. PRIDE PREPARES FOR CONTEMPT. There is a note of pride in verse 1, “Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.” A relic of aristocratic hauteur creeps out in this utterance of the humiliated patriarch. If we treat men like dogs, we may expect that, when they get the chalice to do so, they will turn on us like dogs. They may cower and cringe when we are strong, but they waft be eager to snap at us when our time of weakness comes.
III. MEAN NATURES JUDGE SUPERFICIALLY. As Job describes them, the miserable creatures who turned upon him were the very dregs of the populace. They were outlaws and thieves and worthless people who had been driven to mountain-cavesidlers and degraded beings who grubbed up weeds to live on. Plainly these men are to be distinguished from the poor whose only defect is their want of means. Yet among them may have been some of those who in his more prosperous days blessed Job for helping them when they were ready to perish (see Job 29:13). Ingratitude is only too common among all men, and we cannot be surprised at finding it in persons of low and brutal habits.
IV. IT IS PAINFUL TO SUFFER FROM CONTEMPT. In his prosperity Job would have despised the opinion of those who now vex him with their insults. Yet he could never have been complacent under contempt. It has been well said that the greatest man in the world would receive some discomfort if he came to know that the meanest creature on earth despised him from the bottom of his heart. The pride that is quite indifferent to the good or ill opinion of others is not a virtue. Humility will set some value on the favour of the lowest. If we have a spirit of brotherliness we cannot but desire to live on good terms with all our neighbours.
V. IT IS POSSIBLE TO TURN FROM THE CONTEMPT OF MAN TO THE APPROVAL OF GOD. The Christian should learn to bear contempt, since Christ bore it. He was “despised and rejected of men” (Isa 53:3). Like Job, he was insulted and spat upon. Yet we feel that all the insults with which he was loaded did not really humiliate him. On the contrary, he never appears to us so dignified as when “he opened not his mouth” in the midst of contumely and outrage. In that awful scene of the night before the crucifixion, it is the enemies of Christ who appear to us as lowered and degraded. Now we know that the cross was the ground of Christ’s highest glory. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him” (Php 2:9). The Church crowned the memories of her martyrs with honour. Despised, suffering Christians may learn to possess their souls in patience if they are walking in the light of God’s countenance.W.F.A.
Job 30:16
The thraldom of affliction.
Job is not only passing through the waters of affliction; he feels that he is laid hold of and overpowered by his troubles. Let us see what this condition involvesthe stale of thraldom and its effects.
I. THE STATE OF THRALDOM. This simply results from the fact that the affliction has mounted to such a height that it has overpowered the sufferer.
1. The trouble cannot be thrown off. There are troubles from which we can escape. Often we can beat down our adverse circumstances. We can face our enemy and defeat him. But other troubles cannot be driven back. When the enemy comes in like a flood, no human effort can stem the torrent.
2. The distress cannot be calmly endured. Milder troubles may be simply borne in patience. We cannot drive them away, but we can learn to treat them as inevitable. There is a strength that is born of adversity. The oak grows sturdy in contending with the storm. The muscles of the wrestler are strong as iron. But distress may reach a point beyond which it cannot be mastered. Patience is broken down.
3. The affliction absorbs the whole life. The pain rises to such a height that it dominates consciousness and excludes all other thoughts. The man is simply possessed by his agony. Huge waves of anguish roll over his whole being and drown every other feeling. The sufferer is then nothing but a victim, Action is lost in fearful pain. The martyr is stretched on the rack. His torturer has deprived him of all energy and freedom.
II. THE EFFECTS OF THIS CONDITION. Such a state of thraldom must be an evil. It is destructive of personal effort. It excludes all service of love and submission of patience. And yet it may be a means to a good end.
1. It should be a wholesome chastisement. For the time being it is grievous. In its acutest stage it may not allow us to learn its less,ms. But when it begins to abate its fury, and we have some calmness with which to look back upon it, we may see that the storm has cleared the air and swept away a mass of unwholesome rubbish.
2. It should be a motive to drive us to God. Such a tremendous affliction requires the only perfect refuge for the distressed. So long as we can bear our troubles we are tempted to trust to our own strength; but the miserable collapse, the utter break-down, the humiliating thraldom, prove our helplessness and our need of One who is mightier than we are. Now, the very possibility of such overwhelming troubles is a reason why we should seek the refuge of God’s grace. It is hard to find the haven when the tempest is raving around us. We need to be fortified beforehand by the indwelling strength of God.
3. It should make us sympathetic with others. If we have escaped from the thraldom, it is our part to help those who are in it. We know its terrors and its despair.
4. It should lead us to make the best use of prosperous times. Then we can learn the way of Divine strength. Martyrs have triumphed where weaker men have been in bondage. The life of unselfish service, loyalty, and faith is a life of freedom. God will not permit such a life to be utterly enthralled by affliction. That awful late is the doom of the lost.W.F.A.
Job 30:21
Charging God with cruelty.
At the first onset of his afflictions it could be said of the patriarch, “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly” (Job 1:22). But the aggravation of his troubles, followed by the vexatious advice of his friends, has since then more than once forced unwise words from his lips, and now he is directly charging God with becoming cruel to him.
I. GOD‘S ACTION MAY APPEAR CRUEL TO MAN. God permits or inflicts pain. When man cries for relief, relief does not comeat least in the way expected. It is not easy to see why the suffering is sent. To us it seems unnecessary. We think we could have done our duty better without it. There appears to be an iron fate bearing down upon us regardless of our needs, or deserts, or helplessness. This is brought home to us with peculiar poignancy, under the most trying circumstances.
1. An accumulation of troubles. One man has more than his share of them. Blow follows blow. The fallen is crushed. Tender wounds are chafed. This was Job’s experience.
2. The suffering of the innocent. Bad men are seen to be flourishing while good men are in distress. This looks like indifference to moral claims.
3. The overthrow of the useful. Job had been a most helpful man in his time; his downfall meant the cessation of his kind services for many people in trouble. We see valuable lives cut off or made useless, while mischievous people thrive and grow fat.
4. The refusal to deliver. Job had not been proud, unbelieving, self-contained. He had prayed. But God appeared not to hear or regard him (verse 20).
II. GOD IS NEVER CRUEL TO MAN. Job was now charging God foolishly. We have to judge of a man’s character by his deeds till we know him. Then, if we become fully assured that he is good, we reverse the process, and estimate any dubious-looking conduct by the clear character of the man In the same way, after we have come to know that God is a true Father, that his nature is love, our wisest course is not to fling off our faith, and charge God with cruelty when he deals with us in what looks to us like a harsh manner. He cannot be false to his nature. But our eyes are dim; our sight is short; our self-centred experience perverts our judgment. We have to learn to trust the constant character of God when we cannot understand his present conduct.
III. NARROW RELIGIOUS VIEWS LEAD TO UNJUST CHARGES AGAINST GOD. Job’s three friends were to a large extent responsible for the patriarch’s condition of mind, in which he was driven to charge God with cruelty. They had set up an impossible rule, and the evident falsehood of it had driven Job to desperation. A harsh orthodoxy is responsible for very much unbelief. Self-elected advocates of God have thus a good deal of mischief to answer for. In attempting to defend the Divine government some of these people have presented it in a very ugly light. Whilst they have been dinning their formal precepts into men’s ears on what they regard as the authority of revelation, they have been rousing a spirit of revolt, till what is most Divine in man, his conscience, has risen up and protested against their dogmas. From the days of Job till our own time theology has too often darkened the world’s idea of God. If we turn from man to God himself, we shall discover that he is better than his advocates represent him to be. When it is our duty to speak of religion, let us be careful not to fall into the error of Job’s friends, and generate hard thoughts of God by narrow, un-Christ-like teachings.W.F.A.
Job 30:23
The house of death.
Job expects nothing better than death, which he regards as “the house appointed for all living,” or rather as the house for the meeting of all living.
I. THE JOURNEY OF LIFE ENDS IS THE HOUSE OF DEATH. The living are marching to death. In a striking passage of ‘The City of God,’ St. Augustine, following Seneca, describes how we are always dying, because from the first moment of life we are drawing nearer to death. We cannot stay our chariot-wheels. The river will not cease to flow, and it is bearing us on to the ocean of death. It is difficult for the young and strong to take in the idea that they will not live for ever, and we come upon the thought of death with something of a shock. But this only means that we cannot see the end of the road while it winds through pleasant scenery that distracts our attention from the more distant prospect.
II. THE HOUSE OF DEATH IS IN DARK CONTRAST WITH THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. It is the living who are destined to enter this dreadful house. Here is one of the greatest possible contrastslife and death; here is one of the most tremendous transitionsfrom life to death. All our revolutions on earth are as nothing compared with this tremendous change. Death is only the end and cessation of life, while all other experiences, even the greatest and most upsetting, are but modifications of the life which we still retain. It is not wonderful, then, that this dark house of death has strongly affected the imagination of men. The surprising thing is that so many should be indifferent to it.
III. THE HOUSE OF DEATH IS FOR EVERY LIVING MAN. No truism is more hackneyed than the assertion that all men are mortal. Here is a commonplace which cannot be gainsayed, yet its very evident character should emphasize its significance. Death is the great leveller. In life we go many ways; at last we all go the same way. Now some pass through palace gates and others through dungeon-portals; at the end all must go through the same narrow door. Should not this commonness of destiny help to bring all mortals nearer together in life?
IV. THE HOUSE OF DEATH IS A PLACE OF MEETING. It is described by Job as a house of assemblage. Multitudes are gathered there. They who depart thither go to “join the majority.” There dwell many whom we have known on earth, some whom we have loved. Much mystery surrounds the house of death; but it cannot be an utterly strange place if so many who have been near to us on earth are awaiting us there. The joy of reunion should scatter the darkness of death. Every dear one lost to earth makes for us more of a home in the Unseen.
V. THE HOUSE OF DEATH LEADS TO THE REALM OF LIFE FOR ALL WHO SLEEP IN CHRIST. It is no gloomy prison. It is but a dark ante-chamber to a realm of light and blessedness. Indeed, death is not an abode, but a passage. We have no reason for thinking that death is a lasting condition in the case of those whose souls do not die in sin; for the impenitent, indeed, it is a fearful doom of darkness. But for such as have the new life of Christ in them death may be but the momentary act of dying. Certainly it is not their eternal condition. We talk of the blessed dead; we should think of the glorified living, born into the deathless state of heavenly bliss.W.F.A.
Job 30:26
Disappointment.
Job was disappointed in meeting with fearful evils when he was looking for good. Disappointment such as his is rare; yet in some form it is the frequent experience of all of us. Let us consider the significance of disappointment.
I. DISAPPOINTMENT IS ONE OF THE INEVITABLE TRIALS OF LIFE. We should not be overwhelmed with despair when we meet with it. It is part of the common lot of man, part of the common fate of nature. How many blossoms of spring fall to the ground frost-bitten and fruitless! How many hopes of men are but “castles in Spain”! If all we had dreamed of attaining bad become ours, earth would not be the world we know, but some rare paradise.
II. DISAPPOINTMENT AGGRAVATES TROUBLE. Its inevitability does not draw its sting. To be expecting good and yet to meet with ill is doubly distressing. It gives a shock like that which is experienced in coming upon a descending step where one was preparing to take an ascending step. All sense of security is lost, and a painful surprise is felt. Feeling is just experienced in the transition from one condition to another, and the violence of the transition intensifies the sensation. When the eye is adjusted to see a bright light, the gloom of a dark place is all the deeper. The sanguine suffer from pangs of distress which duller natures are not prepared to experience.
III. DISAPPOINTMENT SPRINGS FROM IGNORANCE. There must have been an error somewhere. Either we judged by mere appearances, or we trusted too much to the desires of our own hearts. God can never be disappointed, for God knows all and sees the end from the beginning. Hence his patience and long-suffering. It is well to see that God who thus knows everything is supremely blessed. No disillusions can dispel his perfect joy. Therefore not evil and pain, but good and gladness, must be ultimately supreme in the universe.
IV. DISAPPOINTMENT IS A WHOLESOME DISCIPLINE. God suffers us to be disappointed that we may profit by the painful experience. Sometimes we have been trusting to an unworthy hope; then it is best that the idol should be shattered. If any earthly hope has been idolized, the loss of it may be good, driving us to our true God. It is possible, however, to be the worse for disappointment, which may embitter the soul and lead to misanthropy and despair. We need a stout faith to stand up against the blows of unexpected trouble.
V. DISAPPOINTMENT WILL NEVER DESTROY THE TRUE CHRISTIAN HOPE. Earthly hopes may vanish in smoke, but the hope in Christ is sure. Even this may be lost sight of as the beacon-light is obscured by the driving storm; but it is not extinguished. For our Christian hope rests on the eternal constancy of God, and it concerns not fading and fragile earthly things, but the everlasting verities of heaven. Browning describes the man whose heart and life are strong against disappointment
“One who never turned his back,
but marched breast forward;
Never doubted clouds would break;
Never dreamed, though right were worsted,
wrong would triumph
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.”
W.F.A.
Job 30:31
The harp turned to mourning.
This is disappointing and incongruous. The harp is not like the pipes used at Oriental funerals for lamentation. It is an instrument for joyous music. Yet Job’s harp is turned to mourning.
I. MAN HAS A NATURAL FACULTY OF JOY. Job had his harp, or that in him of which the harp was symbolical. Some people are of a more melancholy disposition than others, but nobody is so constituted as to be incapable of experiencing gladness. We rightly regard settled melancholy as a form of insanity. Joy is not only our heritage; it is a needful thing. The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh 8:10).
II. THE SAD WERE ONCE JOYOUS. Job’s harp is tuned to mourning. Then its use had to be perverted before it could be thought of as an instrument of lamentation. It was then put to a new, unwonted employment. This implies that it had been familiarly known as a joyous instrument. In sorrow we do not sufficiently consider how much gladness we have had in life, or, if we look back on the brighter scenes of the past, too often this is simply in order to contrast them with the present, and so to deepen our feeling of distress. But it would be more fair and grateful for us to view our lives in their entirety, and to recognize how much gladness they have contained as a ground for thankfulness to God.
III. LIFE IS MARKED BY ALTERNATIVE EXPERIENCES. Few lives are without a gleam of sunshine, and no lives are without some shadow of sorrow. The one form of experience passes over to the otheroften with a shock of surprise. We are all too easily accustomed to settle down in the present form of experience, as though it were destined to be permanent. But the wisest course is to take the vicissitudes of life, not as unnatural convulsions, as revolutions against the order of nature; but, like the changing seasons, as occurring i, the ordered and regular course of events.
IV. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE MUSIC IN SADNESS. Job does not describe himself as like those captives of Babylon who hung their harps upon the willows (Psa 137:2). His harp is sounding still, but the music must agree with the feelings of the time, and gaiety must give place to plaintive notes. Therefore the tune is in a minor key. Still there is melody. The Book of Job, which deals largely with sorrow, is a poemit is composed in musical language. Sorrow is a great inspiration of poetry. How much music would be lost if all the harmonies that have come from sad subjects were struck out! If, then, sorrow can inspire song and music, it is natural to conclude chat suitable song and music should console sorrow. Feeble souls wail in discordant despair, but strong souls harmonize their griefs with their whole nature; and though they may not perceive it at the time, when they reflect in after-days they hear the echo of a solemn music in the memory of their painful experience. When the angel of sorrow takes up the harp and sweeps the strings, strange, awful, thrilling notes sound forth, far richer and deeper than any that leap and dance at the touch of gladness. The Divine mystery of sorrow that gathers about the cross of Christ is not harsh, but musical with the sweetness of eternal love.W.F.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. XXX.
Job goes on to lament the change of his former condition, and sets forth the contempt into which his adversity had brought him.
Before Christ 1645.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
SECOND CHIEF DIVISION OF THE POEM
DISENTANGLEMENT OF THE MYSTERY THROUGH THE DISCOURSES OF JOB, ELIHU AND JEHOVAH
Job 29:1 to Job 42:6
First Stage of the Disentanglement
Job 29-31
Jobs Soliloquy, setting forth the truth that his suffering was not due to his moral conduct, that it must have therefore a deeper cause. [The negative side of the solution of the problem.]
1. Yearning retrospect at the fair prosperity of his former life
Job 29
a. Describing the outward appearance of this former prosperity
Job 29:1-10
1Moreover, Job continued his parable, and said:
2O that I were as in months past,
as in the days when God preserved me;
3when His candle shined upon my head,
and when by His light I walked through darkness;
4as I was in the days of my youth.
when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
5when the Almighty was yet with me,
when my children were about me;
6when I washed my steps with butter,
and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
7when I went out to the gate through the city,
when I prepared my seat in the street!
8The young men saw me, and hid themselves;
and the aged arose, and stood up.
9The princes refrained talking,
and laid their hand on their mouth.
10The nobles held their peace,
and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
b. Pointing out the inward cause of this prosperityhis benevolence and integrity
Job 29:11-17
11When the ear heard me, then it blessed me;
and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:
12because I delivered the poor that cried;
and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.
13The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me:
and I caused the widows heart to sing for joy.
14I put on righteousness, and it clothed me:
my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
15I was eyes to the blind,
and feet was I to the lame.
16I was a father to the poor;
and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
17And I brake the jaws of the wicked,
and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
c. Describing that feature of his former prosperity which he now most painfully misses, viz., the universal honor shown to him, and his far-reaching influence: Job 29:18-25
18Then I said, I shall die in my nest,
and I shall multiply my days as the sand.
19My root was spread out by the waters,
and the dew lay all night upon my branch.
20My glory was fresh in me,
and my bow was renewed in my hand.
21Unto me men gave ear, and waited,
and kept silence at my counsel.
22After my words they spake not again;
and my speech dropped upon them.
23And they waited for me as for the rain;
and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.
24If I laughed on them, they believed it not;
and the light of my countenance they cast not down.
25I chose out their way, and sat chief,
and dwelt as a king in the army,
as one that comforteth the mourners.
2. Sorrowful description of his present sad estate
Job 30
a. The ignominy and contempt he receives from men: Job 30:1-15
1But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,
whose fathers I would have disdained
to have set with the dogs of my flock.
2Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me,
in whom old age was perished?
3For want and famine they were solitary;
fleeing into the wilderness
in former time desolate and waste.
4Who cut up mallows by the bushes,
and juniper roots for their meat.
5They were driven forth from among men,
(they cried after them as after a thief);
6To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys,
in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.
7Among the bushes they brayed;
under the nettles they were gathered together.
8They were children of fools, yea, children of base men;
they were viler than the earth.
9And now am I their song,
yea, I am their byword.
10They abhor me, they flee far from me,
and spare not to spit in my face.
11Because He hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me,
they have also let loose the bridle before me.
12Upon my right hand rise the youth;
they push away my feet,
and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.
13They mar my path,
they set forward my calamity,
they have no helper.
14They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters;
in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.
15Terrors are turned upon me:
they pursue my soul as the wind:
and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.
b. The unspeakable misery which everywhere oppresses him: Job 30:16-23
16And now my soul is poured out upon me;
the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
17My bones are pierced in me in the night season;
and my sinews take no rest.
18By the great force of my disease is my garment changed:
it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
19He hath cast me into the mire,
and I am become like dust and ashes.
20I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me:
I stand up, and Thou regardest me not.
21Thou art become cruel to me;
with Thy strong hand Thou opposest Thyself against me.
22Thou liftest me up to the wind;
Thou causest me to ride upon it,
and dissolvest my substance.
23For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death,
and to the house appointed for all living.
c. The disappointment of all his hopes: Job 30:24-31
24Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave,
though they cry in his destruction.
25Did not I weep for him that was in trouble?
was not my soul grieved for the poor?
26When I looked for good, then evil came unto me;
and when I waited for light, there came darkness.
27My bowels boiled, and rested not:
the days of affliction prevented me.
28I went mourning without the sun:
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.
29I am a brother to dragons,
and a companion to owls.
30My skin is black upon me,
and my bones are burned with heat.
31My harp also is turned to mourning,
and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
3. Solemn asseveration of his innocence in respect to all open and secret sins
Job 31
a. He has abandoned himself to no wicked lust: Job 31:1-8
1I made a covenant with mine eyes;
why then should I think upon a maid?
2For what portion of God is there from above?
and what inheritance of the Almighty from on high?
3Is not destruction to the wicked?
and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?
4Doth not He see my ways,
and count all my steps?
5If I have walked with vanity,
or if my foot hath hasted to deceit;
6let me be weighed in an even balance,
that God may know mine integrity.
7If my step hath turned out of the way,
and mine heart walked after mine eyes,
and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands;
8then let me sow, and let another eat;
yea, let my offspring be rooted out.
b. He has acted uprightly in all his domestic life: Job 31:9-13
9If mine heart have been deceived by a woman,
or if I have laid wait at my neighbors door;
10then let my wife grind unto another,
and let others bow down upon her.
11For this is a heinous crime;
yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges.
12For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction,
and would root out all mine increase.
13If I did despise the cause of my man-servant, or of my maid-servant,
when they contended with me;
14what then shall I do when God riseth up?
and when He visiteth, what shall I answer Him?
15Did not He that made me in the womb make him?
and did not One fashion us in the womb?
c. He has constantly practised neighborly kindness and Justice in civil life: Job 31:16-23
16If I have withheld the poor from their desire,
or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail;
17or have eaten my morsel myself alone,
and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof:
18(for from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father,
and I have guided her from my mothers womb;)
19if I have seen any perish for want of clothing,
or any poor without covering;
20if his loins have not blessed me,
and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
21if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless,
when I saw my help in the gate;
22then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade,
and mine arm be broken from the bone!
23For destruction from God was a terror to me,
and by reason of His highness I could not endure.
d. He has not violated his more secret obligations to God and his neighbor: Job 31:24-32
24If I have made gold my hope,
or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence;
25if I rejoiced because my wealth was great,
and because mine hand had gotten much;
26if I beheld the sun when it shined,
or the moon walking in brightness;
27and my heart hath been secretly enticed,
or my mouth hath kissed my hand:
28this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge;
for I should have denied the God that is above.
29If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me,
or lifted up myself when evil found him:
30(neither have I suffered my mouth to sin
by wishing a curse to his soul:)
31if the men of my tabernacle said not,
O that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied.
32The stranger did not lodge in the street:
but I opened my doors to the traveller.
e. He has been guilty furthermore of no hypocrisy, or mere semblance of holiness, of no secret violence, or avaricious oppression of his neighbor: Job 31:33-40
33If I covered my transgressions as Adam,
by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom:
34did I fear a great multitude,
or did the contempt of families terrify me,
that I kept silence, and went not out of the door?
35O that one would hear me!
behold, my desire is that the Almighty would answer me,
and that mine adversary had written a book.
36Surely I would take it upon my shoulder,
and bind it as a crown to me.
37I would declare unto Him the number of my steps;
as a prince would I go near unto Him.
38If my land cry against me,
or that the furrows likewise thereof complain;
39If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money,
or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life;
40Let thistles grow instead of wheat,
and cockle instead of barley.
The words of Job are ended.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Although introduced by the same formula as the discourse immediately preceding (comp. Job 29:1 with Job 27:1), this last long series of Jobs utterances exhibits decidedly a , a form and method esssentially new in comparison with the former controversial and argumentative discourses of the colloquy. They are not once addressed to the friends, who since Job 25. have been entirely silenced, and have not been provoked to further reply even by the elaborate instructions, which he imparts to them in Job 27-28. Instead of this they frequently appeal to God, and present, especially in the last section, a long series of solemn asseverations or adjurations uttered before God. They thus appear, in contrast with the interlocutory character of the discourses hitherto, as a genuine soliloquy by Job, which both by its contents and by its conspicuous length, forms a suitable transition to the following discourses, or groups of discourses by Elihu and Jehovah, which are in like manner of considerable length. The three principal sections are a yearning retrospect to the happy past (Job 29), a description of the sorrowful present (Job 30), and solemn asseverations of innocence in presence of the divine judge, or God of the Future (Job 31). These divisions are very obvious, and justify the divisions into chapters founded on them as corresponding strictly to that intended by the poet himself. Neither can there be much doubt in regard to the more special sub-division of these chief divisions. The first and the second contain respectively three long sub-divisions or strophes, of 89 verses each (once only, Job 30:1 seq. of 15 verses, which long strophe indeed may also be divided into two shorter ones of 8 and 7 verses. In the third part there appear quite distinctly five groups of thought of 78 (once of 9) verses each.
2. First Division: The prosperity of the past: Job 29. [It is very thoughtfully planned by the poet that Job, by this description of his former prosperity, unintentionally refutes the accusations of his friends, inasmuch as it furnishes a picture of his former life very different from that which they had ventured to assume. We have here the picture of a rich and highly distinguished chief of a tribe [or patriarch], who was happy only in spreading abroad happiness and blessing. Schlottmann].
First Strophe: Job 29:2-10 : The outward appearance of this former prosperity.
Job 29:2. Oh that it were to me [Oh that I were] as in months of yore! lit. who gives (makes) me like the months of the past, who puts me back in the happy condition of that time (so Rosenm., Welte, Vaih, etc.). Or, with the dative rendering of the suffix in (as in Isa 27:4; Jer 9:1), who gives to me like the months of the past, i. e. who makes me to live over such! (so usually). On the construction in b (the constr. state before the relative clause), comp. Gesenius, 116, [ 114], 3. [Green, 255, 2].
Job 29:3. When it (viz.) His lamp shone above my head., Inf. Kal of with the vowel a weakened to i (Ewald, 255, a) [Green, 139, 2], not Inf. Hiph. as Bttcher would render it, when after the Targ. he translates: when He caused His lamp to shine. This Hiphil rendering could only be justified if (with Ewald in his comm.) we should read (). [Probably alluding to the custom of suspending lamps in rooms or tents over the head. The language of this ver. is of course figurative, and implies prosperity and the divine favor. Carey]. On the anticipation of the subject by the suffix, comp. Ew., 309, c. Delitzsch quite too artificially refers the suffix in to God, and takes as a self-corrective, explanatory permutative: when He, His lamp shone, etc.
Job 29:4. As I was in the days of my harvest., as, according as, resumes the simple in and , Job 29:2. The days of the harvest are, as Job 29:5 b shows, a figurative expression for ripe manhood [the days of my prime Carey], the tas virilis suis fructibus fta et exuberans (Schultens): comp. Ovid Metam. XV. 200. [The rendering of E. V. in the days of my youth (after Symmach. and the Vulg.) is less correct, as is shown by the reference above to Job 29:5 b, the time referred to being that when he had his children about him, as well as by the word itself, which means the time when the ripe fruit is gathered]. When Eloahs friendship was over my tent;i. e. dispensed protection and blessing above my habitation. here meaning familiarity, confidential intercourse, (as in Job 19:19; Psa 25:14; Psa 55:15 [14]; Pro 3:22), not the celestial council of God, as in Job 15:8 (against Hirzel). [ either by ellipsis for or having the force of an active [verbal] noun, His being familiar. Dillm.Careys explanation, though pushing the literal rendering a little too far, is striking: lit. in the seat or cushion of God being at my tent; i. e., when God was on such terms of familiar intercourse with me that he had, as it were, his accustomed seat at my tent].
Job 29:5. On children as a most highly valued blessing, placed here next to God Himself, comp. Psa 127:3 seq.; Psa 128:3. Concerning ): in this sense (not in that of servants,) see above Job 1:19; Job 24:5.
Job 29:6. When my steps were bathed in cream (comp. Job 20:17, where however we have the full form ), and the rock beside me poured out streams of oil; that which elsewhere was barren poured out costly blessings, and that close by his side, so that he was not compelled to go far; comp. Deu 32:13.
Job 29:7-10. The honor and dignity which he then enjoyed. When I went forth to the gate up to the city. is equivalent to , towards the gate (comp. Job 28:11; Gen 27:3), not: out at the gate (as below, Job 31:34), for Jobs residence was in the country, not in the city with . For this same reason he speaks here of his going up , up to the city; for the city adjoining to him, was on an eminence, as was usually the case with ancient cities. [Comp. Abrahams relations to Hebron, as indicated in Genesis 23.]. In respect to the use of the space directly inside the gates of these cities as a place for assemblies of the people, comp. above, Job 5:4; also Job 31:4; Pro 1:21; Pro 8:3, and often. When I prepared my seat in the market. the open space at the gate, as in Neh 8:1; Neh 8:3; Neh 8:16, etc. On the construction (the change from the Infin. to the finite verb), comp. Job 29:3; Job 28:25.
Job 29:8. Then the young men saw me, and hid themselves;i. e. as soon as they came in sight of me, from reverential awe. And the gray-headed rose up, remained standinguntil I myself had sat. [A most elegant description, and exhibits most correctly the great reverence and respect which was paid, even by the old and decrepit, to the holy man in passing along the streets, or when he sat in public. They not only rose, which in men so old and infirm was a great mark of distinction, but they stood, they continued to do it, though the attempt was so difficult. Lowth]. On the construction, comp. Ewald, 285, b.
Job 29:9. Princes restrained themselves from speaking ( , as in Job 4:2; Job 12:15), and laid the hand on their mouth, imposed on themselves reverential silence; comp. Job 21:5. [What is meant is not that those who were in the act of speaking stopped at Jobs entrance, but that when he wished to speak, even princes, i. e. rulers of great bodies of men, or those occupying the highest offices, refrained from speech. Dillmann].
Job 29:10. The voice of nobles hid itself, lit. hid themselves, for the verb is put in agreement with the plur. dependent on as the principal term, as in the similar cases in Job 15:20; Job 21:21; Job 22:12. [Comp. Green, 277]. lit. those who are visible (from ) i. e. conspicuous, noble [nobiles]. On b comp. passages like Psa 137:6; Eze 3:26.
Continuation. Second Strophe: Job 29:11-17. Jobs active benevolence and strict integrity as the inward cause of his former prosperity.
Job 29:11. For if an ear heardit called me happylit. for an ear heard, and then called me happy; and similarly in the second member. The object of the hearing, as afterwards of the seeing, is neither Jobs speeches in the assembly of the people [if this ver. were a continuation of the description of the proceedings in the assembly, it would not be introduced by Dillm.], nor his prosperity (Hahn, Delitzsch), but as Job 29:12 seq. shows, his whole public and private activity. [For the reason mentioned by Dillmann is better translated for than when (E. V.)]. In regard to to pronounce happy, comp. Pro 31:28; Son 6:9. In regard to , to bear favorable testimony to any one, comp. Luk 4:22; Act 15:8.
Job 29:12. For I delivered the poor, that cried, and the orphan, who had no helper ( a circumstantial clause, comp. Ew., 331). [The clause is either a third new object (so E. V.)], or a close definition of what precedes: the orphan and (in this state of orphanhood) helpless one. The latter is more probable both here and in the Salomonic primary passage Psa 72:12; in the other case might be expected. Delitz.]. The Imperfects describing that which is wont to be, as also in Job 29:13; Job 29:16. As to the sentiment, comp. Psa 72:12.
Job 29:13. The blessing of the lost (lit. of one lost, perishing; as in Job 31:19; Pro 31:6) came upon me;i. e., as b shows, the grateful wish that he might be blessed from such miserable ones as had been rescued by him, hardly the actual blessing which God bestowed on him in answer to the prayer of such (comp. Hernias, Past. Simil. 2).
Job 29:14. I had clothed myself with righteousness, and it with me;i. e., in proportion as I exerted myself to exercise righteousness () toward my neighbor, the same [righteousness] took form, filled me inwardly in truth [it put me on as a garment, i. e., it made me so its own, that my whole appearance was the representation of itself, as in Jdg 6:34, and twice in the Chron., of the Spirit of Jehovah it is said that He puts on any one, induit, when He makes any one the organ of His own manifestation, Delitzsch. Righteousness was as a robe to me, and I was as a robe to it. I put it on, and it put me on; it identified itself with me. Words.] Not: and it clothed me, as Rosenmller, Arnh., Umbr. [E. V., Schlottm., Carey, Renan, Rod., Elz., etc.], arbitrarily render the second , thereby producing only a flat tautology. [Ewald also: it adorned me.The other rendering is adopted, or approved by Gesen., Frst, Delitzsch, Dillmann, Wordsworth, Noyes in his Notes]. The figure of being clothed with a moral quality or way of living to represent one as equipped, or adorned therewith, (comp. Isa 11:5; Isa 51:9; Isa 59:17; Psa 132:9), is continued in the second member, where Jobs strict righteousness and spotless integrity (this is what means; comp. Mic 3:8) are represented as a mantle and a tiara (turban); comp. Isa 61:10.
Job 29:15. Comp. Num 10:31. To be anybodys eye, ear, foot (here feet), etc., is of course to supply these organs by the loving ministration of help, and to make it possible as it were to dispense with them.
Job 29:16. On a comp. Isa 9:5; Isa 22:21. and seem to form a paronomasia here.And the cause of the unknown [the strangers, the friendless] I searched out, i. e., in order to help them as their advocate, provided they were in the right. , attributive clause, as in Job 18:21; Isa 41:3; Isa 55:5, and often. [E. V., the cause which I knew not is admissible, and gives essentially the same sense; but the other rendering is to be preferred, as furnishing a better parallel to the blind, lame, poor, preceding.The man whom nobody knew, or cared for, Job would willingly take for his client.E.].
Job 29:17. I broke the teeth of the wicked (the cohortative, , as in Job 1:15; Job 19:20), and out of his teeth I plucked the prey.For the description of hardhearted oppressors and tyrants (or unrighteous judges, of whom we are to think particularly here), under the figure of ravaging wild beasts, from which the prey is rescued, comp. Psa 3:8 [Psa 3:7]; Psa 58:7 [Psa 58:6], etc.
4. Conclusion: Third Strophe: Job 29:18-25. The honor and the influence which Job once enjoyed, and the loss of which he mourns with especial sorrow.
Job 29:18. And so then I thought [said]: With my neat [together with my nest, as implying a wish that he and his nest might perish together, would be unnatural, and diametrically opposed to the character of an Arab, who in the presence of death cherishes the twofold wish that he may continue to live in his children, and that he may die in the midst of his family, Delitzsch] (or also: in my nest) shall I die;i. e., without having left or lost my home, together with my family, and property (comp. Psa 84:4 [3]), hence in an advanced, happy old age.And like the phenix have many days: lit., make many, multiply my days. The language also would admit of our rendering sand, understanding the expression to refer to the multiplication of days like grains of sand; comp. as the sand of the sea in 1Ki 5:9 [1Ki 4:29 applying to Solomons wisdom] and often; also Ovid, Metam. XIV. 136 seq.: quot haberet corpora pulvis, tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi. But against this interpretation, which is adopted by the Targ., Pesh., Saad., Luther, Umbreit, Gesenius, Stickel, Vaih., Hahn, [E. V., Con., Noy., Ber., Carey, Words., Renan, Rodwell, Merx], and in favor of understanding of the phenix, that long-lived bird of the well-known oriental legend (so most moderns since Rosenmller) may be urged: (1) The oldest exegetical tradition in the Talmud, in the Midrashim, among the Masoretes and Rabbis (especially Kimchi); (2) the versionsmanifestly proceeding out of a misconception of this phenix traditionof the LXX.: ; of the Itala: sicut arbor palm, and of the Vulg.: sicut palma; (3) and finally even the etymology of the word (or , as the Rabbis of Nahardearead, according to Kimchi) which it would seem must be derived (with Bochart) from torquere, volvere, and be explained circulation, periodic return, and even in its Egyptian form Koli (Copt.; alloe) is to be traced back to this Shemitic radical signification (among the ancient Egyptians indeed the chief name of the phenix was bni, hierogl. bano, benno, which at the same time signifies palm). The phraseto live as long as the phenix is found also among other people of antiquity besides the Egyptians, e. g., among the Greeks ( , Lucian, Hermot., p. 53); and the whole legend concerning the phenix living for five hundred years, then burning itself together with its nest, and again living glorified, is in general as ancient as it is widely spread, especially in the East. Therefore it can neither seem strange, nor in any way objectionable, if a poetical book of the Holy Scripture should make reference to this myth (comp. the allusions to astronomical and other myths in Job 3:9; 26:28). Touching the proposition that the Egyptian nationality of the poet, or the Egyptian origin of his ideas does not follow from this passage, see above, Introd., 7, b (where may also be found the most important literary sources of information respecting the legend of the phenix).
Job 29:19-20 continue the expression, begun in Job 29:18, of that which Job thought and hoped for. [According to E. V., Job 29:19 resumes the description of Jobs former condition: My root was spread out, etc. But these two verses are so different from the passage preceding, (Job 29:11-25), in which Job speaks of his deeds of beneficence, and from the passage following (Job 29:21-25) in which he describes his influence in the public assembly, and so much in harmony with Job 29:18, in which he speaks of his prospects, as they seemed to his hopes, that the connection adopted by Zckler, and most recent expositors, is decidedly to be preferred.E.].
Job 29:19. My root will be open towards the water:i. e., my life will flourish, like a tree plentifully watered (comp. Job 14:7 seq.; Job 18:16), and the dew will lie all night in my branches (comp. the same passages; also Gen 27:39; Pro 19:12; Psa 133:3, etc.)
Job 29:20. Mine honor will remain (ever) fresh with me ( = , consideration, dignity, honor with God and mennot soul as Hahn explains [to which is not appropriate as predicate, Del.], and my bow is renewed in my handthe bow as a symbol of robust manliness, and strength for action, comp. 1Sa 2:4; Psa 46:10 [Psa 46:9]; Psa 76:4 [Psa 76:3]; Jer 49:35; Jer 51:56, etc., to make progress, to sprout forth (Job 14:7); here to renew oneself, to grow young again. It is not necessary to supply, e.g., , as Hirzel and Schlottmann do, on the basis of Isa 40:31.
Job 29:21. seq., exhibit in connection with the joyful hopes of Job, just described, which flowed forth directly out of the fulness of his prosperity, and in particular of the honor which he enjoyed, a full description of this honor, the narrative style of the discourse by , Job 29:18, being resumed. Job 29:21-23 have for their subject others than Job himself, the members of his tribe, not specially those who took part in the assemblies described in Job 29:7-10; for which reason it is unnecessary to assume a transposition, of the passage after Job 29:10.
Job 29:21. They hearkened to me, and waited (, pausal form, with Dagh. euphonic for , comp. Gesen. 20, 2 c), and listened silently to my counsel (lit. and were silent for or at my counsel).
Job 29:22. After my words they spoke not againlit. they did not repeat (, non iterabant). On b comp. Deu 32:2; Son 4:11; Pro 5:3.
Job 29:23. Further expansion of the figure last used of the refreshing [rain-like] dropping of his discourse. They opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.The , or latter rain in March or April, is, on account of the approaching harvest, which it helps to ripen, longed for with particular urgency in Palestine and the adjacent countries; comp. Deu 11:14; Jer 3:3; Jer 5:24; Joe 2:23; Hos 6:3, etc. On = , to gape, pant, comp. Psa 119:131.
Job 29:24. I laughed upon them when they despairedlit. when they did not have confidence (, absol. as in Isa 7:9; comp. Psa 116:10; and a circumstantial clause without this lacking , however, being supplied in many MSS. and Eds.). The meaning can be only: even when they were despondent, I knew how to cheer them up by my friendly smiles. This is the only meaning with which the second member agrees which cannot harmonize with the usual explanation: I smiled at them, they believed it not (LXX., Vulg., Saad., Luther [E. V., Noy., Rod., Ren., Merx], and most moderns). [The reverence in which I was held was so great, that if I laid aside my gravity, and was familiar with them, they could scarcely believe that they were so highly honored; my very smiles were received with awe Noyes]. And the light of my countenance (i. e., my cheerful visage, comp. Pro 16:15) they could not darken; lit. they could not cause to fall, cast down, comp. Gen 4:5-6 Jer 3:12.[However despondent their position appeared, the cheerfulness of my countenance they could not cause to pass away. Del.]
Job 29:25. I would gladly take the way to them (comp. Job 28:23); i. e., I took pleasure in sitting in the midst of them, and in taking part in affairs. This is the only meaning that is favored by what follows;the rendering of Hahn and Delitzsch: I chose out for them the way they should go [I made the way plain which they should take in order to get out of their hopeless and miserable state. Del This is the meaning also suggested by E. V.] is opposed by the consideration that , to choose, never means to prescribe, determine, enjoin. In the passage which follows, sitting as chief () is immediately defined more in the concrete by the clause, , like a king in the midst of the army; but then the I altogether too military aspect of this figure (comp. Job 15:24; Job 19:12) is again softened by making the business of the king surrounded by his armies to be not leading them to battle, but comforting the mourners. Whether in this expression there is intended a thrust at the friends on account of their unskilful way of comforting (as Ewald and Dillmann think), may very much be doubted.
Second Division: The wretchedness of the present. Chap. 30. First Strophe (or Double Strophe). Job 30:1-15. The ignominy and contempt which he receives from men, put in glaring contrast with the high honor just described. The contrast is heightened all the more by the fact that the men now introduced as insulting and mocking him are of the very lowest and most contemptible sort; being the same class of men whose restless, vagabond life has already been described in Job 24:4-8, only more briefly than here.
Job 30:1. And now they laugh at me who are younger than I in daysthe good-for-nothing rabble of children belonging to that abandoned class. What a humiliation for him before whom the aged stood up! [The first line of the verse which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach is intentionally so disproportionately long to form a deep and long-breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun. Del.] They whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock ( , to make like, to put on a level with, not to set over, , prficere, as Schultens, Rosemn., Schlottm. explain). From this strong expression of contempt it does not follow that Job was now indulging in haughty or tyrannical inhuman thoughts [the considerate sympathy expressed by Job in Job 24:4-8 regarding this same class of men should be borne in mind in judging of Jobs spirit here also; yet it cannot be denied that the pride of the grand dignified old Emir does flash through the words.E.], but only that that rabble was immeasureably destitute, and moreover morally abandoned, thievish, false, improvident, and generally useless.
Job 30:2. Even the strength of their handswhat should it be to me?i. e. and even (LXX. ) as regards themselves, those youngsters, of what use could the strength of their hands be to me? Why this was of no use to him is explained in b:for them full ripeness is lost, i. e., enervated, miserable creatures that they are, they do not once reach ripe manly vigor ( as in Job 5:26). [Hence not old age, as in E. V., which is both less correct and less expressive.] Why they do not, the verses immediately following show.
Job 30:3. Through want and hunger (they are) starved; lit. they are a hard stiff rock , as in Job 15:34); they, who gnaw the dry steppe;i. e., gnaw away ( as in Job 30:17) what grows there; comp. Job 24:5; which have long been a wild and a wilderness.According to the parallel passages Job 38:27; and Zep 1:15 unquestionably signifies waste and devastation, or wild and wilderness (comp. , Gen 1:2; , Nah 2:11; and similar examples of assonance). The preceding however is difficult. Elsewhere it is an adverb of time: the past night, last evening [and so, yesterday], but here evidently a substantive, and in the constr. state. It is explained to mean either: the yesterday of wasteness and desolation, i. e., that which has long been wasteness, etc. (Hirzel, Ewald) [Schlott., Renan, to whom may be added Good, Lee, Carey, Elzas, who connect with the participle, translating who yesterday were gnawers, etc.], or: the night, the darkness of the wilderness (Targ., Rabbis, Gesen., Del.) [Noyes, Words., Barnes, Bernard, Rodwell, the last two taking ,and as three independent nouns,gloom, waste, desolation]. Of these constructions the former is to be preferred, since darkness appears nowhere else (not even in Jer 2:6; Jer 2:31) as a characteristic predicate of the wilderness, and since especially the gnawing of the darkness of the wilderness produces a thought singularly harsh. Dillmanns explanation: already yesterday a pure wilderness (where therefore there is nothing to be found to-day), is linguistically harsh; and Olshausens emendation arbitrary. [E. V. following the LXX. Targ., and most of the old expositors, translates fleeing, a rendering which besides being far less vivid and forcible, is less suitable, the desert being evipently their proper habitation. in the sense of gnawing reminds of , Job 24:5. It will be seen also that E. V. follows the adverbial construction of but the wilderness in former time desolate and waste suggests no very definite or consistent meaning. If a verbial, the force of must be to enhance the misery and hopelessness of their condition. They lived in what was not only now, but what had long been a deserta fact which made the prospect of getting their support from it all the more cheerless.E.].
Job 30:4. They who pluck the salt-wort by the bushesin the place therefore where such small plants could first live, despite the scorching heat of the desert sun; in the shadow, that is, of larger bushes, especially of that perennial, branchy bush which is found in the Syrian desert under the name sh, of which Wetzstein treats in Delitzsch. is the orach, salt-wort (also sea-purslain, atriplex halimus L. comp. LXX.: ), a plant which in its younger and more tender leaves furnishes some nourishment, although of a miserable sort; comp. Athenus, Deipnos. IV., 161, where it is said of poor Pythagoreans: .And broom-roots are their bread.That the root of the broom (genista monosperma) is edible, is indeed asserted only here; still we need not doubt it, nor read e. g., , in order to warm themselves (Gesenius), as though here as in Psa 120:4, or the use of the broom as fuel was spoken of, Comp. Michaelis. Neue orient. Bibl. V, 45, and Wetzstein in Del. [II., 143.And see Smiths Bib. Dic., Juniper, Mallows].
Job 30:5. Out of the midst (of men) they are hunted, e medio pelluntur. , lit. that which is within, i. e., here the circle of human social life, human society.They cry after them as (after) a thief. , as though they were a thief; comp. , Job 29:23.
Job 30:6. In the most horrid gorges they must dwelllit. in the horror of the gorges (in horridissima vallium regione; comp. Job 41:22; Ewald, 313, c) it is for them to dwell; comp. Gesen., 132 ( 129], Rem. 1.In holes of the earth and of the rocks. Hence they were genuine troglodytes; see below after Job 30:8. Concerning , earth, ground, see on Job 28:2.
Job 30:7. Among the bushes they cry out. above in Job 6:5 of the cry of the wild ass, here of the wild tones of the savage inhabitants of the steppes seeking food,not their sermo barbarus; Pineda, Schlottmann [who refers to Herodotus comparison of the language of the Ethiopian troglodytes to the screech of the night-owl. According to Delitzsch the word refers to their cries of lamentation and discontent over their desperate condition. There can be but little doubt that the word is intended to remind us of the comparison of these people to wild asses in Job 24:5, and so far the rendering of E. V. bray, is not amiss]. Under nettles (brambles) they herd together; lit. they must mix together, gather themselves. Most of the modern expositors render the Pual as a strict Passive, with the meaning, they are poured [or stretched] out, which would be equivalent tothey lie down [or are prostrate]; comp. Amo 6:4; Amo 6:7. But both the use of in such passages as 1Sa 26:19; Isa 14:1, and the testimony of the most ancient Versions (Vulg., Targ., and indeed the LXX. also: ) favor rather the meaning of herding, or associating together. [But neither the fut. nor the Pual (instead of which one would expect the Niph., or Hithpa.) is favorable to the latter interpretation: wherefore we decide in favor of the former, and find sufficient support for a Heb.-Arabic in the signification effundere from a comparison of Job 14:19 and the present passage. Del.].
Job 30:8. Sons of fools, yea, sons of base men,both expressions in opposition to the subject of the preceding verse. is used as a collective, and means the ungodly, as in Psa 14:1., equivalent to ignobiles, infames, a construction similar to that in Job 26:2 [lit. sons of no-name]; comp. 286, g.They are -whipped out of the land; lit. indeed an attributive clausewho are whipped, etc.; hence exiles, those who are driven forth out of their own home. [The rendering of E. V., they were viler than the earth was doubtless suggested by the use of the adjective in the sense of afflicted, dejected]. In view of the palpable identity of those pictured in these verses with those described in Job 24:4-8, it is natural to assume the existence of a particular class of men in the country inhabited by Job as having furnished the historical occasion and theme of both descriptions. Since now in both passages a troglodyte way of living (dwelling in clefts of the rock and in obscure places, comp. above Job 24:4; Job 24:8) and the condition of having been driven out of their former habitations (comp. Job 24:4) are mentioned as prominent characteristics of these wretched ones, it be comes particularly probable that the people intended are the Choreans, or Chorites (Luther: Horites) [E. V.: Horims] who dwelt in holes, the aborigines of the mountain region of Seir, who were in part subjugated by the Edomites, in part exterminated, in part expelled (comp. Gen 36:5; Deu 2:12; Deu 2:22). Even if Jobs home is to be looked for at some distance from Edomitis, e. g. in Hauran (comp. on. Job 1:1) a considerable number of such Chorites (, i. e. dweller in holes, or caves) might have been living in his neighborhood; for driven out by the Edomites they would have fled more particularly into the neighboring regions of Seir-Edom, and here indeed again they would have betaken themselves to the mountains with their caves, gorges, where they would have lived the same wretched life as their ancestors, who had been left behind in Edom. It is less likely that a cave-dwelling people in Hauran, different from these remnant of the Horites, are intended, e. g. the Itureans, who were notorious for their poverty, and waylaying mode of life (Del. and Wetzst.).
Job 30:9. In the second half of the Long Strophe, which also begins with Job turns his attention away from the wretches whom he has been elaborately describing back to himself. And now I am become their song of derision, I am become to them for a byword., elsewhere a stringed instrument, means here a song of derision, (comp. Lam 3:14; Psa 69:13 [12], , malicious, defamatory speech, referring to the subject of the same (LXX.: ).
Job 30:10. Abhorring me, they remove far from me (to wit, from very abhorrence), yea, they have not spared my face with spitting;i. e. when at any time they come near me, it is never without testifying their deepest contempt by spitting in my face (Mat 26:67; Mat 27:30). An unsuitable softening of the meaning is attempted by those expositors, who find expressed here merely a spitting in his presence (Hirzel, Umbreit, Schlottmann); this meaning would require rather than . Comp. also above Job 17:6, where Job calls himself a for the people.
Job 30:11 seq. show why Job had been in such a way given over to be mocked at by the most wretched, because namely God and the divine powers which cause calamity had delivered him, over to the same. For these are the principal subject in Job 30:11-14, not those miserable outcasts of human society just spoken of (as Rosenm., Umbreit, Hirzel, Stickel, Schlottm., Del. [Noy Car., Rod. and appy. E. V.] explain). The correct view is given by LXX. and Vulg., and among the moderns by Ewald, Arnh., Hahn, Dillm., etc.For He hath loosed my cord. So according to the Kri , on the basis of which we may also explain: For He hath loosed, slackened my string, which would be an antithetic reference to Job 29:20 b, even as by the translation cord there would be a retrospective reference to Job 4:21; Job 27:8. If following the Kthibh we read , the explanation would be: He has loosed His cord, or rein, with which he held the powers of adversity chained, with which however the following clause: and bowed me would not agree remarkably well [not a conclusive objection, for might very appropriately and forcibly describe the way in which his nameless persecutor, God doubtless, would overpower, trample him down, by letting loose His horde of calamities upon Job. Comp. Psa 78:8 [7]. Conant not very differently: because he has let loose his rein and humbled me; i. e. with unchecked violence has humbled me. Ewald, less naturally: He hath opened (i. e. taken off the covering of) His string (his bow). Elizabeth Smith better: He hath let go His bow-string, and afflicted me. in the sense of letting loose a bow, or bow-string however, is not used elsewhere, and would hardly be a suitable description of the effect of shooting with the bow.E.]. And the rein have they let loose before me;i.e., have let go before me (persecuting me). The subject of this, as of the following verses, is indisputably Gods hosts let loose against Job, the same which in the similar former description in Job 19:12 were designated his (comp. also Job 16:9; Job 16:12-14). The fearful, violent, and even irresistible character of their attacks on Job, especially as described in Job 30:13-14, is not suited to the miserable class described in Job 30:1-8. They are either angels of calamity, or at least diseases and other evils, or, generally speaking, the personified agencies of the Divine wrath, that Job has nere in mind.
Job 30:12. On the right there rises up a brood, or troop. , or according to another reading , lit. a sprouting, a luxuriant flourishing plant. [E. V., after the Targ. Rabbis, the youth, which is both etymologically and exegetically to be rejected.E.] This calamitous brood (of diseases, etc.) rises on the right, in the sense that they appear against Job as his accusers (comp. Job 16:8); for the accusers before a tribunal took their place at the right of the accused; comp. Zec 3:1; Psa 109:6.They push away my feet, i. e., they drive me ever further and further into straits, they would leave me no place to stand on. (Ewalds emendation they let loose then-feet, set them quickly in motionis unnecessary)And cast up against me their destructive ways, in that they heap up their siege-walls against me, the object of their blockade and hostile assaults. , as in Job 19:12, a passage which agrees almost verbally with the one before us, and so confirms our interpretation of the latter as referring to the Divine persecutions as an army beleaguering him. [Not only is this view favored by such a use of the same language as has been used elsewhere (Job 19) of the Divine persecutions, but also by the language itself. It is scarcely conceivable that Job should dignify the spiteful gibes and jeers of that rabble of young outcasts by comparing them to the solemn accusations of a judicial prosecution, or the regular siege of an army.E.]
Job 30:13. They tear down my path;i. e., by heaping up their ways of destruction they destroy my own heretofore undisturbed way of life.They help to my destruction (comp. Zec 1:15)they to whom there is no helper:i. e., who need no other help for their work of destruction, who can accomplish it alone. So correctly Stickel, Hahn, while most modern expositors find in c the idea of helplessness, or that of being despised or forsaken by all the world, to be expressed. Ewald however [so Con.] explains: there is no helper against them (appealing to Psa 68:21); and Dillmann doubts whether there can be a satisfactory explanation of the text, which he holds to be corrupt.
Job 30:14. As through a wide breach ( an elliptical comparison, like Job 30:5) they draw nigh [come on]; under the crash they roll onwards, i, e., of course to storm completely the fortress; comp. Job 16:14. The crash, , is that of the falling ruins of the walls [breached by the assault] not that, e. g., of a roaring torrent, as Hitzig explains (Zeitschr. der D.M. G., IX. 741), who at the same time attempts to give to the unheard of signification, forest stream. [Targ. also; like the force of the far-extending waves of the sea, after which probably E. V., as a wide breaking-in of waters. But the fig. is evidently that of an inrushing army.E.]
Job 30:15. Terrors are turned against me;i. e., sudden death-terrors; comp. Job 18:11; Job 18:14; Job 27:20; they pursue like the storm, (like an all-devastating hurricane) my dignity () [not soul, E. V., probably after the analogy of frequently in Psalms] that, viz., which was described in Job 29:20 seq. The 3d sing. fem. referring to the plur. as in Job 14:19; Job 27:20, and often.And (in consequence of all that) like a cloud my prosperity is gone;i. e., it has vanished as quickly and completelyleaving no traceas a cloud vanishes on the face of heaven. Comp. Job 7:9; Isa 44:22. [Paronomasia between and : my prosperity like a vapor has vanished].
6. Continuation. Second Strophe: The unspeakable misery of the sufferer: Job 30:10-23.And now (the third , comp. Job 30:1; Job 30:8) my soul is poured out within me, dissolving in anguish and complaint, flowing forth in tears [since the outward man is, as it were, dissolved in the gently flowing tears (Isa 15:3) his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestations and results of an inward action. Del.] On , with me, in me, comp. Job 10:1; Psa 42:5 [E. V., too literallyupon me].Days of suffering hold me fast, i. e., in their power, they will not depart from me with their evil effects [ with its verb, and the rest of its derivatives is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah. Del.]
Job 30:17. The night pierces my bones.[The night has been personified already, Job 3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night, (the restless night, Job 7:3 seq., in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it increases) pierces his bones from him. Del.] Or a translation which is equally possible, by night my bones are pierced [E. V., etc.], inasmuch as can be Niph. as well as Piel. , lit. away from me, i. e., so that they are detached from me.And my gnawers sleep not;i. e., either my gnawing pains, or my worms, the maggots in my ulcers; comp. . Job 7:5 [and which in the extra biblical tradition of Jobs disease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Jobs monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposed petrified worms of Job. Del.] In any case is to be explained after Job 30:3. The signification veins (Blumenth), or nerves, sinews (LXX., , Parchon, Kimchi) [E. V.] is without support.
Job 30:18. By omnipotence my garment is distorted;i. e., by Gods fearful power I am so emaciated that my garment hangs about me loose and flapping, no longer looking like an article of clothing (comp. Job 19:20). This is the only interpretation (Ewald, Delitzsch, Dillm., Kamphausen, [E. V., Con., Words., Ren.] etc.), that agrees with the contents of the second member, not that of the LXX., who read instead of , and understood God to be the subject: ; nor that of Hirzel: by omnipotence my garment is exchanged, i. e., for a sack; nor that of Schult. and Schlott.: it (i. e., the suffering, the pain) is changed into [become] my garment, etc. [with the idea of disguise, disfigurement].It girds me round like the collar of my [closely-fitting] coat;i. e., my garment, which nowhere fits me at all, clings to my body as closely and tightly as a shirt-collar fastens around the neck. [, cingit me, is not merely the falling together of the outer garment, which was formerly filled out by the members of the body, but its appearance when the sick man wraps himself in it; then it girds him, fits close to him like his shirt-collar. Del.] The LXX. already translate correctly: (Vulg. quasi capitium tunic) [E. V.].To render as, or in proportion to yields no rational sense (comp. also Exo 28:32).
Job 30:19. He (God) hath cast me into the mire (a sign of the deepest humiliation, comp. Job 16:15) so that I am become like dust and ashes (in consequence of the earth-like, dirty appearance of my skin, comp. Job 7:5, a theme to which he recurs again at the close of the chapter, Job 30:30)
Job 30:20-23. A plaintive appeal to God, entreating help, but entreating it without a hope of being heard by God.I stand there (praying) and Thou lookest fixedly at me, viz., without hearing me. This is the only interpretation of the second member which agrees well with the first, not that of Ewald: if I remain standing, then Thou turnest Thy attention to me, in order to oppose. [Ewald preferring the reading ]. It is absolutely impossible with the Vulg., Saad., Gesen., Umbreit, Welte, [E. V., Ber.] to carry over the of the first member to I stand up, and Thou regardest me not. [The effect of cannot be repeated in the second member, after a change of subject, and in a clause which is dependent on the action of that subject. Con.]
Job 30:21. Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me.svus, comp. Job 41:2 [10], also the softened in the derivative passage, Isa 63:10.On in b, [with the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me], comp. Job 16:9.
Job 30:22, Raising me upon a stormy wind (as on a chariot, comp. 2Ki 2:11) [not exactly to the wind (E. V., Con., Words., etc.), as though Job were made the sport of the wind, ludibrium ventis, but flung upon it, and whirled by it down from the heights of his prosperity.E.]. Thou causest me to be borne away (comp. Job 27:21), and makest me to dissolve in the crash of the storm.The last word is to be read after the Kthibh, with Ewald, Olsh., Del., etc., , and to be regarded as an alternate form of , or (comp. Job 36:29), and hence as being essentially synonymous with , Pro 1:27, tempest, and as to its construction an accus. of motion, like in the following verse. [Ges., Umbr., Noyes, Carey, read , Thou terrifiest me, a verb unknown in Heb., and even in Chaldee used only in Ithpeal. See Delitzsch.] The Kri (of which the LXX. have made ) would give a meaning less in harmony with a: Thou causest well-being to dissolve for me [E. V.: Thou dissolvest my substance. But the other rendering is a far more suitable close to the whole description, which is fearfully magnificent, besides being entitled to the ordinary preference for the Kthibh].
Job 30:23. I know that Thou wilt bring me to death (or bring me back in the sense of , Job 1:21) [death being represented as essentially one with the dust of death, or even with non-existence, Delitzsch, who, however, denies that always and inexorably includes an again], into the house of assembly for all living.The latter expression, which is to be understood in the sense of Job 3:17 seq., is in apposition to , and this is used here as a synonym of , as in Job 28:22.
Conclusion: Third Strophe: Job 30:24-31 : The diappointment of all his hopes.
Job 30:24. But still doth not one stretch out the hand in falling? here an adversative particle, as in Job 16:7; , however, interrogative for , comp. Job 2:10 b. The view that is compounded of and , ruin, fall, destruction (comp. Mic 1:6, also the more frequent plur., , ruins), is favored by the parallel expression in the second member. finally, in the sense of stretching out the hands in supplication, prayer, is at least indirectly supported by Exo 17:11 seq., and similar passages (such as Exo 9:29; 1Ki 8:38; Isa 1:15; Isa 65:2, etc.).Or in his overthrow (will one not lift up) a cry on that account?The interrogative = extends its influence still over the second member. The suffix in refers back to the indefinite subject in , and belongs therefore to the same one overtaken by the fall, and threatened with destruction ( as in Job 12:5). Respecting on that account, therefore, see Ewald, 217, d; and on = , a cry, comp. Job 36:19 a.It is possible that instead of the harsh expression we should read something like (according to Dillmanns conjecture). On the whole the explanation here propounded of this verse, which was variously misunderstood by the ancient versions and expositors, gives the only meaning suited to the context, for which reason the leading modern commentators (Ewald, Hirzel, Delitzsch, Dillmann, and on the whole Hahn, etc.) adhere to it. [Delitzsch thus explains the connection: He knows that he is being hurried forth to meet death; he knows it, and has also already made himself so familiar with this thought, that the sooner he sees an end put to this his sorrowful life, the betternevertheless does one not stretch out ones hand when one is falling? or in his downfall raise a cry for help? As Dillmann remarks, this meaning is striking in itself (besides being simple and natural), and is in admirable harmony with the context. The E. V., after some of the Rabbis, takes in the sense of grave, although the meaning of its rendering is obscure. It would seem to be that God will not stretch out His hand, in the way of deliverance, to the grave, although when He begins to destroy, men cry out for mercy. Wordsworth translates: But only will He (God) not stretch out His hand (to help, see Pro 31:20; Hab 3:10) upon me, who am like a desolation or a ruin? And will not crying therefore (reach Him) in His destruction of me?Others (Ges., Con., Noyes, Carey, take (from ) to mean prayer: Yea, there is no prayer, when He stretches out the hand; nor when He destroys can they cry for help, which is not so well suited to the connection, and is against the parallelism which makes it probable that before is a preposition as before .E.]
Job 30:25. Or did I not weep for him that was in trouble? lit. for the hard of day, for him that is afflicted by a day (a day of calamity). On b comp. Job 19:12; Job 19:15 seq. The . . , to be troubled, grieved, is not different in sense from , Isa 19:10.
Job 30:26. For I hoped for good, and there came evil, etc.For the thought comp. Isa 59:9; Jer 14:19. Respecting (Imperf. cons. Piel), comp. Ewald, 232, h; the strengthening in the final vowel as in Job 1:15.
Job 30:27. In regard to the boiling ( as in Job 41:23 [31]) of the bowels, comp. Lam 1:20; Lam 2:11; Isa 16:11; Jer 31:20, etc. [My bowels boiled, E. V., does not quite express the Pual , are made to boil, the result of an external cause.] On , to encounter any one, to fall upon him [E. V. prevent obsolete], comp. Psa 18:6 [6].
Job 30:28. I go along blackened, without the heat of the sun, i. e. not by the heat of the sun, not as one that is burnt by the heat of the sun. Since (comp. Son 6:10; Isa 30:26) denotes the sun as regards its heat, (instead of which the Pesh. and Vulg. read ) is not to be explained without the sun-light=in inconsolable darkness (so Hahn, Delitzsch, Kamp.) [and probably E. V.: I went mourning without the sun]; which is all the less probable in that can scarcely denote anything else than the dirty appearance of a mourner, covered with dust and ashes (comp. Job 7:5), such a blackening of the skin accordingly as would present an obvious contrast with that produced by the heat of the sun. On comp. Job 24:10.I stand up in the assembly, complaining aloud, giving free expression to my pain on account of my sufferings. here indeed not of the popular assembly in the gatesfor the time was long since passed, when he, the leper, might take his place there (comp. Job 29:7 seq.)but the assembly of mourners, who surrounded him in, or near his house, and who, we are to understand, were by no means limited to the three friends. The opinion of Hirzel and Dillmann, that means publice, is without support; , Pro 26:26 argues against this signification, rather than for it, for there in fact the language does refer to an assembly of the people, not to any other gathering.
Job 30:29. I am become a brother to jackals [Vulg., E. V.: dragons], a companion of ostriches [E. V. here as elsewhere incorrectly owls], i. e. in respect to the loud, mournful howling of these animals of the desert (see Mic 1:8). The reference is not so well taken to their solitariness, although this also may be taken into the account; for the life of a leper, shut off from all intercourse with the public, and put out of the city, must at all times be comparatively deserted, notwithstanding all the groups of sympathizing visitors, who might occasionally gather about him. [See note in Delitzsch 2:171; also Smiths Bib. Diet. Dragon, Ostrich.]
Job 30:30. My skin, being black, peels off from me: lit. is become black from me. as in Job 30:17; the blackness of the skin (produced by the heat of the disease) as in Job 30:19 [where, however, it is referred rather to the dirt adhering to it]; comp. Job 7:5.Respecting from , to glow, to be hot, comp. Eze 24:11; Isa 24:6.
Job 30:31 forms a comprehensive close to the whole preceding description: And so my harp (comp. Job 21:12) was turned to mourning, and my pipe (comp. the same passage) to tones of lamentation; lit. to the voice of the weeping. Jobs former cheerfulness and joyousness (comp. Job 29:24) appears here under the striking emblem of the tones of musical instruments sounding forth clearly and joyously, but now become mute. Similar descriptions in Psa 30:12 [11]; Lam 5:15; Amo 8:10, etc. [Thus the second part of the monologue closes. It is Jobs last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job 30:31, die away so melodiously. One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto flebile. Delitzsch].
Third Division: Jobs asseveration of his innocence in presence of the God of the future: Job 31.
First Strophe: Job 31:1-8. The avoidance of all sinful lust, which he had constantly practiced.A covenant have I made with mine eyes, and how should I fix my gaze on a maiden?i. e., with adulterous intent (comp. , Mat 5:28; comp. Sir 9:6). The whole verse affirms that Job had not once violated the marriage covenant in which he lived (and which, Job 2:9comp. Job 19:17shows to have been monogamous) by adulterous inclinations, to say nothing of unchaste actions. In respect to the significance of this utterance of a godly man in the patriarchal age, in connection with the history of morals and civilization, comp. below Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks. The words ( instead of or ) are literally rendered: to prescribe, to dictate a covenant to the eyes. Job appears accordingly as the superior, prescribing to his organ of vision its conduct, dictating to it all the conditions of the agreement. It is unnecessary, and even erroneous, to translate the verbs as pluperfects (I had made a covenant how should I have looked upon, etc.so e.g., Umbreit, Hahn, Vaih.), for Job would by no means describe these principles of chastity, which he observed, as something belonging merely to the earlier past.
Job 31:2-4 continue the reflections, beginning with Job 31:1 b, which had restrained him from unchaste lusts, and this in the form of three questions, of which the first (Job 31:2) is answered by the second and third (Job 31:3-4).And (thus did I think) what would be the dispensation of Eloah from above? is the portion assigned by God, the dispensation of His just retribution; comp. Job 20:29; Job 27:13, where also may be found the parallel , inheritance. On , from above, comp. Job 16:19; Job 25:2; and in particular such New Testament passages as Rom 1:18 ( ), Jam 1:17 (), etc.
Job 31:3 seq. The answer to that question itself given in the form of a question. On comp. above on Job 30:12; on , Job 18:21; on calamity, Oba 1:12.
Job 31:4. Doth not He (, referring back to , Job 31:2) [and emphatic: Hedoth He not see, etc.] see my ways, and doth He not count all my steps?Comp. Psa 139:2 seq. It was accordingly the thought of God as the omniscient heavenly Judge, which influenced Job to avoid most rigidly even such sinful desires and thoughts as were merely internal!
Job 31:5-8. The first in the series of the many adjurations, beginning with , in which Job continues the assertion of his innocence to the close of the discourse.If I have walked [had intercourse] with falsehood ( here as a synonym of the following , not simply vanity [E. V.] but falsehood, a false nature, lying) and my foot hath hastened to deceit. from a verb , not found elsewhere; and signifying not to be silent, but to hasten (like ) is an alternate form of the more common (comp. , 1Sa 15:19, from a root , synonymous with ).
Job 31:6. Parenthetic demand upon God, that He should be willing to prove the truth of Jobs utterances (not the consequent of the hypothetic antecedent in the preceding verse, as Delitzsch [E. V.], would make it).Let Him (God) weigh me in a just balance; or in the balance of justice, the same emblem of the decisive Divine judgment to which the inscription in the case of Belshazzar refers (Dan 5:25), and which appears in the proverbial language of the Arabs as the balance of works; in like manner among the Greeks as an attribute, of Themis, or Dike, etc.
Job 31:7. Continuation of the asseveratory antecedent in Job 31:5, introduced by an Imperf. of the Pastexpressing the continuousness of the actions describedinterchanging with the Perf. (as again below in Job 31:13; Job 31:16-20, etc.)If my steps turned aside from the way, i. e., from the right way, prescribed by God (comp. Job 23:11), which is forsaken when, as the thought is expressed in b, one walks after his own eyes, i. e., allows himself to be swayed by the lusts of the eye (comp. Jer 18:12;. 1Jn 2:16).And a spot cleaved to my hands, to wit, a spot of immoral actions, especially such as are avaricious. Comp. Psa 7:4 [3] seq.; Deu 13:17, etc. instead of the usual form (comp. Job 11:15), found also Dan 1:4.
Job 31:8. Consequent: then shall I sow and another eat;i. e., the fruits of my labor shall be enjoyed by another, instead of myself (because I have stained it by the fraudulent, appropriation of the property of others); the same thought as above in oh. Job 27:16 seq.; comp. Lev 26:16; Deu 28:33; Amo 5:11, etc.And may my products be rooted out! used here not of children, offspring [E. V.] (as in Job 5:25; Job 21:8; Job 27:14), but according to a of the growth of the soil as planted by the owner, which so far as it shall not fall into the hands of others shall be destroyed (comp. Isa 34:1; Isa 42:5).
9. Continuation. Second Strophe: Job 31:9-15. The righteousness which he had exercised in all the affairs of his domestic life.If my heart has been befooled on account of [or enticed towards] a woman;i. e., a married woman,for the sins of which Job here acquits his conscience are those of the more flagrant sort, like Davids transgression with Bathsheba, cot simple acts of unchastity, such as were described above in Job 31:1.As to b, comp. Job 24:15, and particularly Pro 7:7 seq.
Job 31:10. Consequent: Then let my wife grind for another;i. e., not simply grind with the hand-mill for him as his slave (Exo 11:5; Isa 47:2; Mat 24:41), but according to the testimony of the Ancient Versions (LXX., Vulg., Targ.) and the Jewish expositorsit refers to sexual intercourse in concubinagethis obscene sense being still more distinctly expressed in b., Aram. plur. as in Job 4:2; Job 24:22.
Job 31:11-12. Energetic expression of detestation for the sin of adultery just mentioned.For such a thing () [this] would be an infamous act, and that () a sin [crime to be brought] before the judges.So according to the Kthibh, which with points back to that which is mentioned in Job 31:9, but with points back to , transgression, deed of infamy [the usual Thora-word for the shameless, subtle encroachments of sensual desires, Del.], while the Kri unnecessarily reads in both instances would be, so written (with in the absol. state) = crimen, et crimen quidem judicum (comp. Gesen., 116 [ 114]. Rem.). Still the conjecture is natural that, we are to read either, as in Job 31:28 cr. judiciale, or, , cr. judicum. The meaning of the expression is furthermore similar to , Mat 5:21 seq.
Job 31:12. For it would be a fire which would devour even to the abyss, i. e., which would not rest before it had brought me, consumed by a wicked adulterous passion, to merited punishment in the abyss of hell; comp. Pro 6:27 seq.; Psa 7:26 seq.; Sir 9:8; Jam 3:6, and in respect to see above Job 26:6; Job 28:22,and which would root out all my increase, i. e., burn out the roots beneath it. The before may be expressed by the translation: and which should undertake the act of outrooting upon my whole produce, (Delitzsch) [Beth objecti, corresponding to the Greek genitive expressing not an entire full coincidence, hut an action about and upon the object. See Ewald, 217].
Job 31:13 seq. A new adjuration touching the humane friendliness of Jobs conduct toward his house-slaves. If I despised the right of my servant, of my maidif those who were often treated as absolutely without any rights, certainly not on the basis of the Mosaic law (comp. Exo 21:1 seq., 20 seq.). Job, the patriarchal saint, appears accordingly in this respect also as a fore-runner of the theocratic spirit; comp. Abrahams relations to Eliezer, Gen 15:2; Gen 24:2 seq.
Job 31:14. What should I do when God arose?etc. Umbreit, Stickel, Vaih., Welte, Delitzsch [E. V. Con., Carey, Noy., Words., Merx], correctly construe this verse as the apodosis of the preceding, here exceptionally introduced by , not as a parenthetic clause, which would then have no consequent after it (Ewald, Hirzel, Dillmann), [Schlottmann, Renan, Rod., Elz.]. In respect to the rising up of God, to wit, for judgment, comp. Job 19:25; on to inquire into, comp. Psa 17:3; on , to reply, Job 13:22.
Job 31:15. In the womb did not my Maker make him (also), and did not One (, one and the same God) fashion us in the belly?, syncopated Pilel-form, with suffix of the 1st pers. plur., for (Ewald, 81, a; comp. 250, a). For the thought comp. on the one side, Job 10:8-12; on the other side the use made of the identity of creation and community of origin on the part of masters and servants as a motive for the humane treatment of the latter by the former in Eph 6:9 (also Mal 2:10). [The position of gives some emphasis to the thought that the womb is the common source of our earthly life, or as Delitzsch expresses it, that God has fashioned us in the womb in an equally animal way, a thought which smites down all pride.E.].
Continuation. Third Strophe; Job 31:16-23 : His righteous and merciful conduct toward his neighbors, or in the sphere of civil life (comp. above Job 29:12-17). After the first hypothetic antecedent, in Job 31:16, follows immediately the parenthesis, in Job 31:18, then three new antecedent passages, beginning with (or ), until finally, in Job 31:22, the common consequent of these four antecedents is stated. If I refused to the poor their desire [or, if I held back the poor from their desire] ( construed otherwise than in Job 22:7; comp. Ecc 2:10; Num 24:11); and caused the widows eyes to failfrom looking out with yearning for help; comp. Job 11:20; Job 17:5; and in particular on comp. Lev 26:16; 1Sa 2:33.
Job 31:18. Parenthesis, repudiating the thought that he could have treated widows or orphans so cruelly as he had just describedintroduced by in the significationnay, rather comp. Psa 130:4; Mic 6:4, and often). Nay indeed from my youth he grew up to me as to a father, viz., the orphan; the position of the subjects in respect to those of Job 31:16 and Job 31:17 is chiastic [inverted]. The suffix in has the force of a dative (Ewald, 315, b), and is an elliptical comparison for . The conjecture of Olshausen, who would read he honored [magnified] me, is unnecessary. And from the womb I was her guide.Occasioned by the parallel expression in a, the meaning of which it is intended to intensify, the phrase , from my mothers womb, i. e. from my birth, presents itself as a strong hyperbole, designed to show that Jobs humane and friendly treatment of widows and orphans began with his earliest youth; he had drank it in so to speak with his mothers milk. [So far back as he can remember, he was wont to behave like a father to the orphan, and like a child to the widow. Del.].
Job 31:19. If I saw the forsaken one [or: one perishing] without clothing, etc. as in Job 29:13; , as in Job 24:7. The second member forms a second object to , lit. and (saw) the not-being of the poor with covering.
Job 31:20. In respect to the blessing pronounced by the grateful poor (the blessing described as proceeding from his warmed hips and loins, which in a truly poetic manner are named instead of himself) comp. Job 29:13.
Job 31:21. If I shook my hand over the orphan (with intent of doing violence, comp. Isa 11:15; Isa 19:16) [as a preparation for a crushing stroke], because I saw my help in the gate (i. e. before the tribunal, comp. Job 29:7)a reference to the bribery which he had practiced upon the judges, or to any other abuse of his great influence for the perversion of justice.
Job 31:22. Consequent, corresponding immediately to Job 31:21, but having a wider reference to all the antecedents from Job 31:16 on, even though the sins described in the former ones of the number were not specially committed by the hand, or arm. Then let my shoulder fall from its shoulder-blade. signifies shoulder, or upper arm, even as in b designates the arm. is the nape, which supports the upper arm, or shoulder (together with the shoulder-blades); a pipe, but used to denote the shoulder-joint to which the arm is attached; less probably the hollow bone of the arm itself (against Delitzsch). Concerning the raphatum in the suffixes and , comp. Ewald, 21, f; 247, d.
Job 31:23. Assigning the reason for what precedes, sustaining the same relation to Job 31:22, as Job 31:11 seq. to Job 31:10. For the destruction of God (comp. Job 31:3) is a terror for me ( meaning in mine eyes, comp. Ecc 9:13), and before His majesty ( compar.; as in Job 13:11) I am powerlessI can do nothing, I possess no power of resistance. Job emphasizes thus strongly his fear and entire impotence before God, in order to show that it would be morally impossible for him to be guilty of such practices, as those last described. The hypothetic rendering of the verse: for terror might [or ought to] come upon me, the destruction of God (Del., Kamph.) is impossible.
11. Continuation. Fourth Strophe: Job 31:24-32. Jobs conscientiousness in the discharge of his more secret obligations to God and his neighbor. Within this strophe, Job 31:24-28 constitute first of all one adjuration by itself, consisting of three antecedents with , to which Job 31:28 is related as a common consequent. (According to the assumption of Ewald, Dillmann, Hahn, etc., that Job 31:28 is only a parenthesis, and that a consequent does not follow within the present strophe, the discourse would be too clumsy). Job here expresses his detestation of two new species of sins: avarice (Job 31:24-25), and the idolatry of the Sabian astrology, which are here closely united together as the worship of the glittering metal, and that of the glittering stars; comp. Col 3:6.
Job 31:24. If I set up gold for my confidence, etc. On gold and fine gold comp. Job 28:16; on and , Job 8:14. Respecting the masc. used as a neuter in Job 31:25 b, of that which is great, considerable in number or amount, comp. Ew., 172, b.
Job 31:26. If I saw the sunlight (, the light simply, or the light of this world, Joh 11:9; used also of the sun in Job 37:21; Hab 3:4; comp. the Greek , Odyss. III. 355, and often), how it shines ( as in Job 22:12), and the moon walking in splendor. a prefixed accus. of nearer specification to hence used as an adverb, splendide (Ewald, 279, a). [ is the moon as a wanderer (from = ) i.e., night-wanderer, noctivaga. The two words describe with exceeding beauty the solemn majestic wandering of the moon. Del.]
Job 31:28. And my heart was secretly beguiled, so that I threw to them (to these stars, having reference to the heathen divinities represented by them; hence the , Deu 4:19) a kiss by the hand (lit. so that I touchedwith a kissmy hand to my mouth; respecting this sign of adoratio, or , comp. 1Ki 19:18; Hos 13:2; also Plin. H. N. XXVIII., 2, Job 5 : Inter adorandum dexteram ad osculum referimus et totum corpus circumagimus; and Lucian , who represents the worshippers of the rising sun in Western Asia and Greece as performing their devotion by kissing the hand ( ). In the case of Job it was the worship of the stars as practiced by the Aramans and Arabians (the Himjarites in particular among the latter worshipping the sun and moon [Urotal and Alilat] as their chief divinities) which might from time to time present itself to him in the form of a temptation to apostatize from one invisible God; comp. L. Krehl, Die Religion der vorislamitischen Araber, 1863; L. Diestel, Der monotheismus des ltesten Heidenthums, Jahrbcher fr deutsche Theologie, 1860, p. 709 seq. Against Ewalds assumption that there is here an allusion to the Parsee worship of the sun, and that for that reason our book could not have been written before the 7th Cent. B. C, it may be said, that the kissing of the hand does not appear in the Zoroastrian ritual of prayer, and also that the sun and moon are represented in the Avesta as genii created by Ahuramazda, and consequently not as being themselves gods to be worshipped. Equally arbitrary with this derivation of the passage from the Zend religion by Ewald, is Dillmanns assertion, that it was only from the time of King Ahaz, and still more under Manasseh, that the adoration of the host of heaven began properly to exercise a seductive influence on the people of Israel, and that it was only from that point on that it could be regarded as a sign of particular religious purity that one had never, not even in secret, yielded to this temptation. As though our poet did not know perfectly well what traits he ought to introduce into the picture of his hero, who is consistently represented as belonging to the patriarchal age! Comp. against this unnecessary assumption of an anachronism, of which the poet had been guilty, in the history of civilization or religion, the Introduction, 6, II., f.
Job 31:28. Consequent, (see above): This also were a crime to be punished; lit. a judicial crime, one belonging to the judge; comp. on Job 31:11; and respecting the thought, Exo 17:2 seq.Because I should have denied the God above (Job 31:2); lit. I should have denied [acted falsely] in respect to the God above; means here the same with elsewhere (Job 8:18; Isa 59:13).
Job 31:29-30. A new asseveration with an oath repudiating the suspicion that he had exhibited toward his enemies any hate or malice. For this hypothetic antecedent, as well as for all those which follow, beginning with down to Job 31:38, the special consequent is wanting; not until Job 31:38 seq. does this series of antapodota [antecedents or protases] reach its end. The consequent in Job 31:40, however, is, in respect of its contents, suited only to the antecedent passage immediately preceding, in Job 31:38-39, and not also to the verses preceding those.
Job 31:30; Job 31:32; Job 31:35-37 are accordingly mere parentheses.If I rejoiced over [or in] the destruction ( as in Job 30:24) of him that hated me.That the love of our enemies was already required as a duty under the Old Dispensation is shown by Exo 23:4; Lev 19:18 (the latter passage not without a characteristic limitation), but still more particularly by the Chokmah-literature, e. g.Pro 20:22; Pro 24:17 seq.; Pro 25:21 seq.
Job 31:31. Yet I did not ( with an adversative meaning for the copula) allow my palate (which is introduced here as the instrument of speech, as in Job 6:30 [where, however, it is rather the instrument of tasting, and so is used for the faculty of moral discrimination]) to sin, by a curse to ask for his life;i. e. by cursing to wish for his death.
Job 31:31 seq. He has also continually shown himself generous and hospitable towards his neighbor.If the people of my tent (i. e. my household associates, my domestics) were not obliged to say: where would there be one who has not been satisfied with his flesh? lit. who gives one not satisfied with his flesh? as in Job 14:4; , Partic. Niph. in the accus. depending on (comp. also Job 31:35, and above Job 29:2). here means the same with , 1Sa 25:11, the flesh of his slaughtered cattle. The figurative expression: to eat any bodys flesh in the sense of backbiting, calumniating (Job 19:22) is not to be found here.
Job 31:32. The stranger did not pass the night without; I opened my doors to the traveller. might of itself signifytowards the street (Stickel, Delitzsch). But since this qualification would be superfluous, is rather to be taken as = or . As to the thought, comp. the accounts of the hospitality of Abraham at Mamre, of Lot at Sodom, of the old man at Gibeah (Gen 18:19; comp. Heb 13:2; Jdg 19:15 seq.); also the many popular anecdotes among the Arabs of divine punishments inflicted on the inhospitable (to open a guest-chamber is in Arabic the same as to establish ones own household), and the eulogies of the hospitality of the departed in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Comp. Wetzstein in Delitzsch [2:193], Brugsch, Die egypt. Grberwelt, 1868, p. 32 seq.; L. Stern, Das egypt. Todtengericht, in Ausland, 1870, p. 1081 seq.
12. Conclusion: Fifth Strophe: Job 31:33-40Job is not consciously guilty even of the hypocritical concealment of his sins, nor of secret misdeedsa final series of asseverations, which is not only related to the preceding enumeration (as though the same were incomplete, and might be supposed to have been silent in regard to some of Jobs transgressions), but which simply links itself to all the preceding assertions of his innocence, and concludes the same.
Job 31:33. If I covered after the manner of men my wickedness;, after the way of the world, as people generally do; comp. Psa 82:7 and Hos 6:7; for even in the latter passage this explanation is more natural than that which implies a reference to Gen 3:8 : as Adam (Targum, Schult., Rosenm., Hitzig, Umbr., v. Hofm., Del.) [E. V., Good, Lee, Con., Schlott., Words., Carey, etc.; and comp. Pusey on Hos 6:7. Conant observes of the rendering ut homo that there is little force in this. On the contrary there is pertinency and point in the reference to a striking and well-known example of this offense, as a notable illustration of its guilt. Such a reference to primeval history in a book that belongs to the literature of the Chokmah is, as Delitzsch remarks, not at all surprising. And certainly the extra-Israelitish cast of the book is no objection to the recognition of so widely prevalent a tradition as that of the Fall in the monotheistic East.]Hiding (, Ew. 280, d) in my bosom my iniquity. is a poetic equivalent of , found only here (but much more common in Aram.).
Job 31:34, closely connected with the preceding verse, declares the motive which might hare influenced Job to hide his sins, viz. the fear of men.Because I feared the great multitude. here as fem., comp. Ew. 174, b; here (otherwise than in Job 13:25) intransitive to be afraid, with accus. of the thing feared. On b and c comp. Job 24:16. The tribes [] whose contempt he fears ( as in Job 12:5; Job 12:21) are the nobler families, his own peers in rank, to be excluded from social intercourse with whom because of infamous crimes would cause him apprehension. With his holding his peace, and not going forth at his door (in c)signs betraying an evil conscience, Brentius strikingly compares the example of Demosthenes, who (according to Plutarch, Demosth, 25) on one occasion made a sore throat a pretext for not speaking, whereas in truth he had been bribed, and who was put to the blush by an exclamation from one of the people: He is not suffering from a sore throat, but from a sore purse ( ). [E. V. renders the verse interrogatively: did I fear? etc.; i. e. if I covered my transgression, etc., was it because I feared the multitude? The objection to this rendering, however, is that it is less in harmony with the adjuratory tone of the context. Not a few commentators render this verse as the imprecation corresponding to Job 31:22 : Then let me dread the great assembly, etc. So Schultens, Con., Noyes, Wemyss, Carey, Good, Lee, Barnes, Elzas.(Patrick makes 34c the apodosis: Then let me hold my peace, and go not forth, etc.). It seems more natural however to regard the dread of the great assembly, and the contempt of the great families of the land, as causes of the cowardly hypocrisy of Job 31:33, rather than as its consequences.Moreover, what the discourse loses as regards completeness of structure, it gains in impressiveness and energy by the frequent parentheses and breaks, which characterize this final strophe according to the view taken in the comm., and adopted by Ewald, Dillmann, Delitzsch, Schlottm., Rodwell, Wordsworth, Renan.E.]
Job 31:35-37. The longest of the parentheses which interrupt the asseverations of our chapter, a shorter parenthesis being again incorporated even with this (Job 31:35 b).O that I had one who would hear me! to wit, in this assertion of my innocence. In this exclamation, as also in the following Job has God in view, for whose judicial interposition in his behalf he accordingly longs here again (as previously, Job 13:16. seq.)Behold my signature (lit. my sign)let the Almighty answer me.The meaning of this exclamation which finds its way into this tumult of feeling can only be this: There is the document of my defense, with my signature! Here I present my written vindicationlet the Almighty examine it (comp. Job 31:6), and deliver His sentence! means lit. my mark, my signature [not my desire, (E. V., after Targ. and Vulg.), as though it were connected with ]; comp. the commentators on Eze 9:4.The cross-form of this sign ( = ), which has there a typical significance, would have no significance in this passage. Rather is it the case that Tav here, in accordance with a conventional, proverbial way of speaking (as tiwa among the Arabs signifies any branded sign, whether or not it be precisely in the form of a cross), has acquired by synedoche the meaninga written document with signature attached, a writing subscribed, and for that reason legally valid; and that Job means by this writing all that he has hitherto said in his own justification, the sum total of his foregoing asseverations of innocence, that it is therefore an apologetic document, a judicial vindication, to which he refers by this little word this appears from the contrast with the accusation or indictment of his opponent, which is immediately mentioned in c. The supposition that Job was ignorant of writing, and for that reason was compelled to put a simple for his signature can be inferred from the passage only by an inappropriate perversion of the proverbial and figurative meaning of the language. Moreover Job 19:23 seq. can be made to lend only an apparent support to this supposition.And (that I had) the writing which mine adversary has written!Grammatically this third member is connected with the first as a second accus. to ; but according to its logical import, it is conditioned by the second member; or, which is the same thing, b is simply a grammatical parenthesis, but at the same time it serves to advance the thought. The writing of the adversary can only be the written charge, in which Jobs adversary, i. e., God (not the three friends, as Delitzsch explains, against the context) has laid down and fixed upon against him. This charge of Gods he wishes to see over against his written defense, for which he is at once ready, or rather which he has already actually prepared. Most earnestly does he yearn to know what God, whom he must otherwise hold for a persecutor of innocence, really has against him. It is only from this interpretation of the words (adopted by Ew., Hirz., Heiligst., Vaih., Dillm.) [Schlott., Noy., Car., Con., Rodw., Bar., Lee, all agreeing as to sense, but with slight variations as to construction] that any available sense is obtained,not from taking the third member as dependent on in the second, in which case must denote either the witness of God to Jobs innocence written in his consciousness (Hahn, and similarly Arnh., Stickel), or the charge preferred against Job by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Del.) neither of which explanations is suitable, for the following verses show that Job is here speaking of something which he does not yet have, but only wishes for.In respect to the use of writing, which is here again presupposed in judicial proceedings, comp. on Job 13:26.
Job 31:36-37 declare what Job would do with that charge of his divine adversary, for which he here longs; he would wear it as a trophy, or as a distinguishing badge of honor on his shoulders (comp. Isa 9:5; Isa 22:22), and bind it around as an ornament for his head, lit., as crowns, i. e., as a crown consisting of diadems rising each out of the other (comp. Rev 19:12);comp. on the one side Job 29:14; Isa 61:10; on the other side Col 2:14 (the handwriting which was blotted out by Christ through His being lifted up on the cross).And further: The number of my steps would I declare to Him;i. e., before Him, the Divine Adversary (who however is at the same time conceived of as Judge, as in Job 16:21) would I conceal none of my actions, but rather would I courageously confess all to Him ( as in Psa 38:19; respecting the construction with a double accus., comp. above Job 26:4).Like a prince would I draw near to Him;i. e., draw nigh to Him with a firm stately step ( intens. of Kal, comp. Eze 36:8), as becomes a prince, not an accused person conscious of guilt; hence with a princely free and proud consciousness, not with that of a poor sinner.
Job 31:38-40 follow up the general assertion, that his conscience was not burdened with secret sins, with a more particular example of his freedom from covert blood-guiltiness. He knows himself to be innocent in particular of the wickedness of removing boundaries by violence, and of the heaven-crying guilt of secret murder, such as he might possibly have committed (after Ahabs example, 1Ki 21:1 seq.; comp. above Job 24:2; Isa 5:8) in order to acquire a piece of land belonging to a weaker neighbor. That Job should close this series of asseverations of innocence with the mention of so heinous a crime will appear strange only so long as we do not realize just how his opponents thus far had judged in respect to the nature and occasion of his suffering in consequence of their narrow-minded, external theory of retribution. Their judgment indisputably wasand Eliphaz had once, at least, expressed it very openly and decidedly (see Job 22:6-9):Because Job has to endure such extraordinary suffering, it must be that he is burdened with some grievous sin, some old secret bloody deed of murder, rapine, etc.! It is into this way of thinking of theirs that Job enters when he concludes his answer with the mention of just such a case, one which might seem sufficiently probable according to a human estimate of the circumstances, and so intentionally reserves to the end the solemn repudiation of that suspicion, which might very easily cleave to him, and which, if well-founded, must have affected him most destructively. The whole discoursewhich indeed in its last division (Job 31) is essentially a self-vindication of the harshly and grievously accused suffererthus acquires an emphatic ending, which by the significant assonances that occur in the closing imprecation, Job 31:40, reaches a very high degree of impressiveness, and produces a thrilling effect on those who heard and read it. This rhetorical artistic design in the close of the discourse is ignored, whether (with Hirzel and Heiligst.) we assume that it was the poets purpose, that Jobs discourse, which with Job 31:38 seq., had taken a new start in further continuation of the series of asseverations touching his innocence, should seem to be interrupted by the sudden appearance of Jehovah (Job 38.), which takes place with striking effect (comp. Introd., 10, No. 1, and ad. 1); or assume a transposition of Job 31:38-40 out of their original connection, as was done by the Capuchin Bolducius (1637), who would remove the three verses back so as to follow Job 31:8; by Kennicott and Eichhorn, who would place them after Job 31:25; by Stuhlmann, who assigned their position before Job 31:35, and latterly by Delitzsch, who leaves undetermined the place, where they originally belonged.
Job 31:38. If my field cries out concerning me (for vengeance, on account of the wicked treatment of its owner; comp. Job 16:18; Hab 2:11), and all together its furrows weep (a striking poetic representation of the figure of crying out against one).
Job 31:39. If I have eaten its strength (i. e. its fruit, its products, comp. Gen 4:12) without payment, and have blown out the soul of its owner, i. e. by any kind of violence, by direct or indirect murder, have caused him to expire; comp. Job 11:20; and the proverbial saying: to snuff out the candle of ones life.
Job 31:40. Consequent, and emphatic close: Briars must (then) spring up (for me) instead of wheat, and stinking weeds instead of barley (the strong word only here, odious weeds, darnel). As to meaning, Job 31:8 is similar; but the present formula of imprecation is incomparably harsher and stronger than that former one, as is shown by the doubled assonance, first the alliteration and , and then the rhyme and .The short clause: the words of Job are ended, which the Masoretes have inappropriately drawn into the network of the poetic accentuation, could scarcely have proceeded from the poet himself (as Carey and Hahn think, of whom the former is inclined even to regard them as Jobs own final dixi), but stand on the same plane of critical value, and even of antiquity with the inscription at the end of the second book of Psalms (Ps. 72:64), or with the closing words of Jer 51:64. The LXX. have changed the words to , in order to bring them into connection with the historical introductory verses in prose which follow (Job 32.). But according to their Hebrew construction they do not seem to incline at all to such a connection. Jerome already recognized their character as an annotation of later origin; they found their way into his translation only by subsequent interpolation.All Heb. MSS. indeed, as well as the ancient oriental versions (Targ., Pesh., etc.), exhibit the addition, which must be accordingly of very high antiquity.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Measured by the Old Testament standard, the height of the moral consciousness which Job occupies in this splendid final monologue deserves our wonder, and is even incomparable. He says much, and says it boldly, in behalf of the purity of his heart and life. He affirms this with such ardor and fulness of expression, that at times he seems to forget himself, and to contradict his former confessions touching his participation in the universal depravity of the race, as found in ch.Job 13:26; Job 14:4 (see e. g. ch Job 29:14; Job 31:5-7; Job 31:35 seq.). He even relapses at one time into that tone of presumptuous accusation of God as the merciless persecutor of innocence, and seems to find the only divine motive for his grievous lot to be a supposed pleasure by God in the infliction of torture, a one-sided exercise of His activity as a God of power, without any co-operation from His righteousness and love (Job 30, especially Job 30:11 seq., Job 30:18; Job 30:20 seq.). But if in this there is to be recognized a remainder of the unsubdued presumption of the natural man in him, and a lack of proper depth, sharpness and clearness in his consciousness of sin, such as is possible only under the New Dispensation, he occupies a high place notwithstanding in the roll of Old Testament saints. He appears still, and that even in the protestation of innocence which he makes in his own behalf in this his last discourse, as a genuine prince in the midst of the heroes of faith and spiritual worthies of the time before Christ, as one who, when he suffered, had the right to be regarded as an innocent sufferer, and to meet with indignation every suspicion which implied that he was making expiation for secret sins, as the wicked must do.
2. This moral exaltation of Job is seen already in the way in which in Job 29. he describes his former prosperity. Among all the good things of the past which he longs to have back, he gives the pre-eminence to the fellowship and blessing of God, the fountain of all other good (Job 29:2 seq.). In describing the distinguished estimation in which he was then held among men, it is not the external honor as such which he makes most prominent, but the beneficent influence, which, by virtue of that distinction he was able to exert, the works of love, of righteousness and of mercy, in which he was then able to seek and to find his happiness, as the father and guide of many (Job 29:12-17). In the midst of his bitterest complaints on account of the greatness of his losses and the depth of his misery, there come groanings that he can no more do as he was wont to doweep with the distressed, and mourn with the needy, in order to bring them comfort, counsel and help (Job 30:25). And what a noble horror of the sins of falsehood, of lying and deception, of adulterous unchastity, of cruelty towards servants and all those needing help in any way, sounds forth through the asseverations of his innocence in the 31st chapter! With what penetrative truth and beauty does he grasp the two forms of idolatry, the worship of gold on the part of the avaricious, and the worship of the stars by the superstitious heathen, as two waysonly in appearance far removed from each other, but in truth most closely united togetherof denying the one true and living God (Job 30:24-28)! How decidedly he maintains the necessity of showing love even to ones enemies, to say nothing of ones fellow-men in general, known or unknown, neighbors or foreigners (Job 30:29 seq.)! With what indignation does he repel the suspicion of secret, hypocritically concealed sins and deeds of violence, again solemnly appealing in the same connection to God to be a witness to the purity of his conscience and to be a judge of the innocence of his heart (Job 30:33 seq.)! The man who could thus bear witness to his innocence could be a virtuous man of no ordinary sort. He was far from being one of the common class of righteous men known in ancient times. Such an one, far from being subject to the curse of wicked slander and calumny, could not be reckoned among ordinary sinners, or as a crafty hypocrite.
3. That, however, which exalts Job higher than all this is that which is said by him in the beginning of Job 31. (Job 31:1 seq.; comp. Job 31:7) in respect to his avoidance on principle even of all sins of thought, and impure lusts of the heart. A covenant have I made for my eyes, and how should I fix my gaze on a maiden? He who shows such earnestness as this in obeying the law of chastity, in avoiding all sinful lust, in extirpating even the slightest germs of sin in the play of thought, and in the look of the eyeshe strives after a holiness which is in fact better and more complete than the law of the Old Dispensation, with its prohibitions of coveting that which belongs to another (Exo 20:17; Deu 5:21), could teach. He shows himself to be on the way which leads directly to that pure as well as complete righteousness and godlikeness, which has for its final aim purity of heart as the foundation and condition of one day beholding God, and which, in its activity towards men, takes the form of that perfect love which seeks nothing but good and blessing even for enemies, and devotes itself wholly and unreservedly to the kingdom of Godon the way, in short, to that holiness and purity of heart which Christ teaches and prescribes in the Sermon on the Mount. The fact that Job gives utterance to such high and clear conceptions of rectitude, virtue and holiness, is of especial interest for the reason that not one of the fundamental principles recognized by him is referred expressly to the Sinaitic law; but, on the contrary, the extra-Israelitish pre-Mosaic patriarchal character of his religious and ethical consciousness and activity is preserved throughout, and with conscious consistency by the poet in the description before us (comp. above on Job 31:24-27). In the strict accuracy with which this representation mirrors the characteristic features of the inner, as well as of the outer life of the patriarchal age, and in the fidelity with which the East cherishes and preserves the traditions of the primeval world in general, these utterances of a man who survived in the recollections of posterity as a moral pattern of the tas patriar-charum, acquire indirectly even an apologetic importance which is not insignificant, in so far as it proves the impossibility of conceiving historically of the moral civilization of the patriarchs otherwise than as resting on the foundation of positive revelation. Comp. Delitzsch [II. 172 seq.]: Job is not an Israelite, he is without the pale of the positive, Sinaitic revelation; his religion is the old patriarchal religion, which even in the present day is called din Ibrahim (the religion of Abraham, or din el–bedu (the religion of the steppe) as the religion of those Arabs who are not Moslem, or at least influenced by the penetrating Islamism, and is called by Mejnsh el hanfje, as the patriarchally orthodox religion. As little as this religion, even in the present day, is acquainted with the specific Mohammedan commandments, so little knew Job of the specifically Israelitish. On the contrary, his confession, which he lays down in this third monologue, coincides remarkably with the ten commandments of piety (el–felh) peculiar to the dn Ibrahm, although it differs in this respect, that it does not give the prominence to submission to the dispensations of God, that teslm which, as the whole of this didactic poem teaches by its issue, is the study of the perfectly pious; also bravery in defense of holy property and rights is wanting, which among the wandering tribes is accounted as an essential part of the hebbet er–rh (inspiration of the Divine Being) i.e. active piety, and to which it is similarly related, as to the binding notion of honor which was coined by the western chivalry of the middle ages. Job begins with the duty of chastity. Consistently with the prologue, which the drama itself nowhere belies, he is living in monogamy, as at the present day the orthodox Arabs, averse to Islamism, are not addicted to Moslem polygamy. With the confession of having maintained this marriage (although, to infer from the prologue, it was not an over-happy, deeply sympathetic one) sacred, and restrained himself not only from every adulterous act, but also from adulterous desires, his confessions begin. Here, in the middle of the Old Testament, without the pale of the Old Testament , we meet just that moral strictness and depth, with which the Preacher on the Mount (Mat 5:27 seq.) opposes the spirit to the letter of the seventh commandment. As Biblical parallels to the strict observance of the law of monogamic chastity in the patriarchal age, as the passage before us affirms it of Job, may be mentioned Isaac and Joseph, as also Moses and Aaron.
4. The fact that Job towards the end of his monologue (not quite at the end of itsee above on Job 31:38 seq.) repeats his previously uttered wish for a judicial interposition of God in his behalf is significant in so far as in this demand the triumph of his consciousness of innocence, by virtue of which he knows that he is secured against all dangers of defeat, expresses itself most strongly and clearly; and in this same connection the practical goal of his apologetic testimony hitherto is evident in his pressing on to the conclusion of the entire action. This conclusion of the action does not indeed follow immediately, inasmuch as a human teacher of wisdom next makes his appearance as the harbinger of Jehovahs appearance,preparing the way for it. This however takes place exactly in the way, and with the result which Job himself has wished and hoped forthe trial to which God finally condescends at Jobs repeated request, being such as yields for its result not a clean victory for Job, but rather a thorough humiliation of the pride and presumption, hitherto unknown to himself. But even this incongruity between Jobs desire and the way in which God grants it, corresponds perfectly to the poets plan, and is a most brilliant evidence of the purity and loftiness of his religious and moral way of thinking, in which a conscience so wonderfully delicate and enlightened as that which Job had disclosed in these his closing discourses nevertheless appears as in need of repentance, and unable to secure from God a verdict of unconditional justification. In like manner as Christ declared to that young man who boasted that he had kept all the commandments of the law from his youth up, that one thing was lacking, even to give up all his earthly possessions, and to secure an imperishable treasure in heaven (Mar 10:17, and the parallel passages), our poet first introduces Elihu, as a representative of the highest that human wisdom can teach and accomplish apart from a divine revelation, and then the revealing voice of God Himself, crying out to his hero a humiliatingOne thing thou lackest! This one thing which Job yet lacked in order to be acknowledged by God as His well-beloved servant, and to be received again into His favor, is to humble himself beneath Gods mighty hand, willingly to accept all His dispensations as wise, gracious, and just, to be thoroughly delivered from that sinful self-exaltation, in which he had dared to find fault with God, and to be enraged against His alleged severity. This was the last thing belonging to him which he must give up, the last remnant of earthly impure dross, from which the gold of his heart must be set free, in order that he might become partaker of the divine grace of justification. In order really and completely to comprehend the divine wisdom, which in Job 28. he had so strikingly described as a precious treasure in heaven transcending all earthly jewels, in order actually to travel the hidden way to her, with that accurate knowledge of it which he had there portrayed, this one thing was still lacking to him:the humble acknowledgment that even in his case God had acted altogether justly, altogether lovingly, altogether as a Father. To the possession of this one precious pearl he was led forward by Elihu and Jehovah through the two remaining stages in the solution of the problem.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
In unfolding the rich contents of the three preceding chapters according to their connection with the entire structure of the poem, and in assigning to these contents their true position in the inner progress of the action, it will be well to bestow special attention on the parallel just now indicated (Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 4) between Job and the rich young man. Job, earnestly and honestly striving after the kingdom of God, after an eternal fellowship of the life with God, with this in view receiving and enumerating all the moral treasures of his spirit and of his life, who notwithstanding his wealth in such treasures is discovered to be not yet just before God;or, more briefly: Job, the Old Testament seeker after happiness, contemplating himself in the mirror of the law (Job, the prototype of that rich man, to whose perfection one thing was yet lacking);such might be the statement of the theme of a comprehensive meditation on the material before us, according to its relations to that which precedes, and to that which follows. The length of the discourse indeed would necessitate a division into several parts, of which any one could not very well exceed the limits of one of the three chapters. The practical expositor will find the richest yield of fruitful hortatory motives in the two bright pictures which constitute the opening and the close of the long soliloquy (Job 29, 31), whereas the gloomy night-piece which they enclose (Job 30) seems in this respect relatively poor, and when compared with the similar descriptive lamentations in Jobs previous discourses, exhibits scarcely anything that is essentially new.
Particular Passages
Job 29:2 seq. Cocceius: Job indeed in this place seems not so much to desire his former happiness, as to contrast the pleasure of a good conscience and of a friendship with God formed in youth, with his present fearful sufferings He wishes for his former condition, adorned as it was with tokens of divine favor, not for the sake of those tokens, to wit, plenteousness and sweetness of life, but for the sake of that of which they were the seal He distinguishes between his own chief good, and the things connected with it. He brings forward his riches as a testimony of the past, not as a necessity of the present. For he knew that even a beggar can delight in God.V. Gerlach: That which constitutes the kernel of the description here again is the constant nearness of God, the consciousness of His approbation, the certainty of His guidance; this is accompanied by the happy recollection that he had employed the honor which God had granted to him, the riches which He had bestowed on him, only to bless others: in short his position was that of a princely, royal representative of God on earth.
Job 29:18 seq. Cramer: On earth there is nothing that endures; if it goes well with any one, let him suspect that it may go ill with him (Sir. 2:26).V. Gerlach: In Jobs allusion to the ancient legend of the phnix, there lies a certain irony: I had hoped in respect to the permanence of my happiness that which was most incredible, most impossible, etc.
Job 30:1 seq. Brentius: From all these things (enumerated in the preceding chapter), Jobs authority is eulogized, that we may learn with what honor God sometimes distinguishes the pious. But in this chapter we are taught with what a cross He afflicts them that they may be tried; for it behooves the godly to be proved on the right hand and on the left, as Paul says 2Co 6:7 (comp. Php 4:12). But this is written for our instruction, that we may learn that nothing in the whole world, however excellent, endures, but that all things go to ruin; for both the heavens and the earth will perish, how much more carnal glory, authority and happiness (Isaiah 40).Idem (on Job 30:12): Temptation is two-fold, on the right hand, and on the left. We are tempted on the right when fleshly joys, health, riches, majesty, glory abounda temptation which, as it is most agreeable to the flesh, so also is it most dangerous. We are tempted on the left by crosses, afflictions and evils of whatever sort, more safely, however, and with less danger, for we are more readily taught by the cross than destroyed by it.Zeyss: To be the objects of extreme contempt and ridicule from the world is to pious believers a great tribulation, and inflicts deep wounds on their hearts, but even in this they must become like Christ their head (Heb 12:3)!Idem (on Job 30:15): When God afflicts His children in the body, or by some other grievous outward calamity, this is seldom unaccompanied by inward trials, anguish, fear and terror; it. is with them, as with the Apostlewithout fightings, within fears (2Co 7:5).
Job 31:1 seq. Oecolampadius: He sets before our eyes one who is absolutely righteous in every particular; for a man will not escape the wrath of God, if he is merciful to the wretched, while at the same time he pollutes himself with various lusts and crimes. He accordingly indulges in holy boasting that he had been blameless in the law, that he had kept his members from abominable sins, and devoted himself to the service of righteousness, keeping his eyes from lusting after a woman, his tongue from guile and falsehood, his hands and feet from cruelty, violence, revenge and rapacity. For he who puts such a watch upon his senses, he will easily be perfected in all things.Starke: Forasmuch as it is through the eyes, for the most part, that whatsoever excites the lust finds its way into the heart, Job naturally begins with his watchfulness over this sense; from which it may be seen that he understood the divine law far better than the Pharisees in the time of Christ (Mat 5:27 seq.).
Job 31:16 seq. Starke: He who does good to the poor will not remain unblessed (Psa 41:2 [1] seq.). Clothing the naked is a deed of mercy (Isa 58:7 seq.) which Christ will hereafter praise on the last day (Mat 25:36).
Job 31:24 seq. Oecolampadius: See what a chain of virtues he links together, and what innocence he preserves through all things! It is not those only who acquire riches by plunder and lawlessness who incur Gods wrath, but those even who trust in riches honestly acquired, and who prefer them to God, so that they become their idol and their mammon. The pious and grateful man would say: I have received from God; but they whose God is gold, have no God.Starke: It was a proof of great constancy on the part of Job to serve the true God faithfully in the midst of idolaters, and to be most solicitous to show the more subtle idolatry of avarice as well as the more gross idolatry of sun and stars.
Job 31:35 seq. Osiander: Even godly people have flesh and blood, and often say things of which they must afterwards repent, and which they themselves cannot praise.Wohlfarth: I will, I can render an account before the Lordthus speaks Job in the consciousness that he has never committed a gross sinnay, has even shunned most carefully the minor and more secret offenses. Was he, however, quite so sure of this? Was he in truth so absolutely blameless before God, to whom we must confess: Lord, when I have done all things, I am still an unprofitable servant! Who can mark the number of his transgressions? etc. There belongs in truth more to this than a man generally believes when he calls God as a witness.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
Job is still prosecuting his discourse in this chapter. Having in the former, pointed out-the day of his prosperity, he here draws a melancholy contrast, in a view of the state of adversity to which He is now brought.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. (2) Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished? (3) For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. (4) Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. (5) They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) (6) To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. (7) Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together. (8) They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. (9) And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword. (10) They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face. (11) Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me. (12) Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. (13) They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. (14) They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me. (15) Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud. (16) And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. (17) My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest. (18) By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
I include the complaint of Job through all these verses in one point of view, not only for shortness sake, but also because general observations upon them will equally suit the whole. In this lamentation, the patriarch is reasoning with his three friends. Having taken a view, in the preceding chapter, of his high exaltation, what he once was, he now directs them to behold, what he now is. And from both, the Patriarch desired to make an appeal to their feelings and compassion. But I hope that the reader hath not failed, while perusing those verses, to look beyond Job, and to have had his mind led out, in contemplating an infinitely greater than Job, concerning whom many of the expressions here made use of can hardly, I should think, be read, without beholding him in them. Indeed so strikingly do they set forth the LORD JESUS, in several parts of his humiliation in the days of his flesh, that one might be led to think, even if not found in the word of GOD, that the several expressions were intended principally to point to him. Was not JESUS, when he had left the realms of glory, and condescended to tabernacle in our flesh, for the redemption of our nature, was he not held in derision, and made the drunkard’s song? Doth Job complain of want and famine, and solitary places; and can the believer overlook Him, who in the very moment he had been baptized with the fulness of the SPIRIT, was led up into the wilderness, to dwell with wild beasts, and to be tempted of the devil? Did Job complain of being spit upon, of being abhorred and forsaken; and can we forget how JESUS was buffeted, and thus treated, and how all his disciples forsook him, and fled? Was Job’s soul pursued, terrors turned upon him; his soul poured out, and his bones pierced; and can anyone omit to call to mind, how the LAMB of GOD was overwhelmed with terrors in the garden, and on the cross, when he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; his hands and his side pierced; and, as was said of him by the spirit of prophecy, he was poured out like water, and all his bones were out of joint; his heart, like wax, melted in the midst of his bowels? Oh, thou bleeding, dying, reviled Saviour! never may my soul forget thy sufferings, nor lose sight of thee, and thine unequalled sorrows, while reading the sorrows of thy people. Thou hast thyself, dearest JESUS, marked the vast difference: when speaking of the afflictions of thine afflicted, thou pointedst to their deliverance in GOD. Our fathers trusted in GOD; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them: But I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people. Psa 22:4-6 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 30:15-16
This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death, and he saw the grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say, his recovery was supernatural. And then, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Abury Hatch in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant infirmity vapours from the spleen hastened him into so visible a consumption, that his beholders might say of him, as St. Paul of himself, ‘I die daily,’ and he might say with Job, ‘My welfare passeth away as a cloud, the days of my affliction have taken hold of me’.
Izaak Walton, Life of Dr. Donne
Job 30:21-22
‘The blasphemy of great natures,’ said Renan once, ‘is more acceptable to God than the interested prayer of the common person; for, while the blasphemy denotes an imperfect view of things, it includes an element of just protest, whereas egoism has not a particle of truth at all.
References. XXX. 23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No. 1922. XXX. 25. Ibid. vol. viii. No. 479.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Changes of Fortune
Job 30
Job has been comparing his past and his present from a personal and social point of view. Hear his words in the twenty-ninth chapter, “The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth” ( Job 30:8-10 ). That was the past condition of affairs in Job’s social circle. He was chief, king, dominant at all times and under all circumstances. Job was the towering and overshadowing figure wherever he went. He remembered all that perhaps too vividly. Compare what you find in the thirtieth chapter “But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock” ( Job 30:1 ). That is the present report.
Verily Job is a man who has seen the extremes of life. One of two things must be the result of this double experience: either he will be soured, and come out of the whole process with a bitter nature, an unkind, unresponsive heart, he will shake off the very kind of people to whom he once responded benevolently and liberally; or this other thing will happen: he will be a richer man, riper, larger; he will understand human speech more perfectly, see into the condition of human life more vividly; if he shall survive this storm, he will be a man worth talking to: a new tone will come into his voice, mellow, rich, tender, a tone with history in it, charged with the music of sympathy. Here we ought to learn a lesson. How many of us come out of our sufferings embittered, soured, resentful! We say we will bide our time, and then draw the bow and let the arrow fly where it may: we are going to be even with men; we are going to take thunder-bolts into our own hand, and sit down upon the throne of judgment. Then is affliction lost upon us. God himself let us say it with reverence has sown seed upon the wind or in stony places, and nothing has come of it; or the tares sown by the enemy put out the wheat sown in the providence of God, and at the last nothing is seen in all the field but poisonous weeds. We may be the better for our losses; we may be the tenderer for our afflictions; we may come out of the furnace saving, We went in the larger part of us dross, but by God’s grace and wisdom and loving discipline we have come up out of the furnace all gold, meet for the master’s use: “He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” Here we have an opportunity of working miracles; here the dumb man can speak eloquently for God: gift of argument he may have none; his speech may be marked by the utmost poverty of expression; he may fail for want of words; but his character may be so eloquent, graphic, expressive, that people will take knowledge of him that he has been with the master, that he has come home from the sanctuary to tell good news, and vindicate by solidity of life, by completeness of patience, by tenderness of sympathy, a great verbal argument for God, and providence, and redemption. We want advocates of that kind. The Church has never lacked eloquence; her trumpets have always been a thousand in number, and her trumpeters have always been strong enough to use the instruments: but her sufferers who have conquered in the strife, her brave hearts that have carried heavy burdens mile after mile, and never complained impiously, these must come to the front, and say with simplicity but great emphasis and strength, One thing I know: nothing but the grave could have created for me a light in the valley, nothing but the almightiness of love could have protected me in the wildness of the storm.
Let us look at Job’s comparison of his past and present. He speaks of the very same men, sometimes directly and definitely, and always by implication, and he says, Circumstances have developed them: I did not know them in the day of my prosperity; I thought they were all good and true, and right valiant, but now what Hounds they are! What base men! I should never have known these men but for my afflictions. So it is all through society. We never know ourselves but by our afflictions: how, then, can we know other people except by the same severe infallible test? Let a man succeed: “Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself;” they will say, He must be good or great, ingenious, inventive, have wonderful forcefulness and energy of character; there is more in him than we at first supposed or suspected: verily he is a chosen child of God, and will go forward to enthronement and coronation. Vain babblers! They read nothing but the vulgarist print of circumstances and events; they have not that keen inward vision that reads character, purpose, moral quality. Let the same man fail, then what will the same people say? That they always prognosticated the failure: what else could be expected? Anybody whose eyes were open could see how things would eventuate, and thus they assume prophetic dignity, as if they had known it all the time.
Circumstances develop men, reveal character, and show us the real quality of things all round. It is thus with religion itself. Any religion that is sustained by flattery or custom will come down, no matter how elaborate the creed, or how profound the claim to immediate attention. Any religion or religious institution living by patronage, fashion, custom, the spirit of the hour, will come down to ruin and to shame. So will any orthodoxy that lives upon majorities. We cannot tell righteousness by numbers. Were the test numerical, at how many points in human history would righteousness have gone down and virtue have been sent a-begging! Let us remember, then, that there is an inner quality of things, and that not until we have pierced to that innermost quality, do we know any man, faith, church, family, or institution. We must count our friends in the storm; we shall know what they are worth when we need them. What do you know about the man you praise so much? Let us hear all you know. Do you answer, He is so pleasant, so agreeable, so friendly, so social, so condescending; there are no airs about him or sign of superior claims? Have you ever been in real distress and invoked his aid? Have you ever attempted, honourably, to borrow money of him? Have you ever sent for him when all the winds of heaven had seized the tower of your life and shaken it? Have you ever been in a position to say to him I am no longer popular, or esteemed by my fellow-men: you now find me solitary and wobegone, and if you can put your hand in mine and let me feel a friend’s strong grip I shall be glad? If in that hour he answered bravely, with an affirmative generosity, with a self-surrendering liberality, then grapple him to thyself with hooks of steel: he is a child of truth and of God. Men are tested by opposition. The man you find so agreeable has a piety exactly skin-deep. Refuse him his requests, oppose him in his notions, separate yourself from him in his most ardent thinking, forget to answer his letter, and the revelation will surprise you. If otherwise, then esteem him highly; write him down in the record you prize most, and which you will read in your latter days as a kind of second Bible, chronicling things that were good amongst men and helpful along all the school-road of life. The preacher must count his congregation on wet days. It is nothing to gather a crowd when the crowd can go nowhere else. It is a pitiable thing to take Sunday statistics of church-going. We must go to church or not go anywhere. Nothing else is open on Sundays. Count your flock mid-week; count them when the attractions round about are many and strenuous. Poor creature! and yet so kind he is and fond of setting down on private papers whole catalogues of friends. He says, They will support me when I am old; they will remember me when I was in my prime, when they waited for me and welcomed me with the fervour of enthusiastic love. Do not spoil his monologue: it is a generous self-deception. Love him when he is old? Need we reply to the suggestion? Remember him when, he was young, radiant, tuneful, strong, leaping into the breach, leading the host? What is forgotten so soon and so completely as the preacher’s influence and benediction? Here, again, we must put the other side, for blessed be God there is another side. There are people who grow old along with the preacher, and they remember all the yesterdays, and to the last are as faithful as at the first; yea, if they cannot be more faithful they are more tender, and tenderness added to faithfulness makes a great virtue.
Job now began to know his friends and what they were worth. But let us be just in our judgment, and being so we cannot acquit Job altogether. He who takes notice of praise will miss it. We thought Job was taking no notice of anybody who had for him adulation, obeisance, and every expression of almost servility; we thought his chin was so high in the air that he did not see who rose, who bowed down, who passed by: it turns out now that he saw all the trick. What if we, too, see something of the whole game of life, and yet apparently in a kind of religious haughtiness walk about as though we saw nothing of it? He who notices praise, we repeat, will miss it; he will say, The papers are not so cordial, the applause was not so enthusiastic. What! then you read the columns of adulation and listened to the boisterous roar of welcome which you always expected in the crowded house? We thought you so absorbed in your work that you did not hear a single note or blast of it, and now you sit and whimper as though you had valued it supremely. He who lives upon approval will wither under neglect. What, then, are we to do? We are to serve the Lord with faithfulness; we are not to be men-pleasers; we are not to work as with eye-service, calculating upon reward and applause and abiding human friendship. Who is sufficient for these things? None. Nevertheless we must hold up the ideal. We must pray great prayers even whilst we are living unworthy lives. The prayer is the life we would live; the actual experience is the life we are able now to live. We ought not to care for human applause, otherwise we shall be setting our course accordingly. We shall say, Will this please? Will this be accounted orthodox? Will this suffice the congregation? Will this propitiate the critics? There is but one critic, and that is God. Could we live in his sight, and for his glory, and in all the inspiration of his love, whilst not defying men we should be independent of them, and whilst most pleasing God we should in the long run most satisfy all the men who are worth satisfying. Poor Job, then, was but human at the best. He reveals his own quality in thus deploring his own change of social fortune and social esteem. With all due respect for Job, it must be admitted that he did not conceal his sufferings. A wonderful gift of rhetoric was bestowed upon him. He may have been a very silent man in the days of his prosperity, but affliction made him right eloquent in words of woe, in threnodies solemn and awful; he became the poet of grief, the very seer and sage of the school of sorrow, so that we all go to Job when we want to utter complaint or sadness or write some epitaph on departed worth and loveliness. All that grief ever needs in the way of language can be found in the book of Job. Out of that book the biggest cemetery on earth could be filled with epitaphs, with suitable monumental inscriptions and passages. He did not, then, hide his woe; he uttered it.
He brought charges against God; he says that God had forsaken him
“I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not. Thou art become cruel to me” ( Job 30:20-21 ).
This is true, and not true. When Job said that God answered not his cry, Job spoke the truth; when he inferred that God would not answer his cry or could not, he did injustice to God. It may be perfectly true that God has not answered a single prayer that we have ever offered to him, and yet what if the blame be in the prayer and not in the hearer? Who thinks of fastening the controversy upon the prayer? In all the argument against the uses of prayer, who has fixed himself with deadly criticism upon the prayer? Who has not rather knocked at the door of heaven, and said, It is fastened on the inner side, and all the bleeding hands that ever knocked upon it in earnest entreaty spent their strength in vain? A truer voice says, “Ye have not because ye ask not, or because ye ask amiss.” Let the criticism begin at the right point, and spend itself upon the right centre, then we have no fear of the issue. Judge the earth by winter, and you will say, Thou rebel earth, thou sinning clod, thou guilty star, thy sun hath forsaken thee; he would never allow this snow and ice to lie upon thee and cover thee with this white pall if he cared for thee: thou art a sinful earth. Judge the earth by summer, and how different! a flower blooming at every corner, every pore of the earth an outlet of life and beauty. Which is the right standard of judgment? Neither, How then are we to judge? By taking both into account. God moves in circles; he sitteth upon the circle of the earth; his eternity is a circle, significant of completeness, inclusiveness, incapability of amendment. What then must we do with all these unanswered prayers to which Job calls attention? Better blame the prayer than blame the Lord to whose mercy-seat it was addressed. We have a thousand unanswered prayers. Are there not men who can bless God that some prayers were never answered? Do we not live to correct our own supplications, so that if we had life to live over again there are some prayers we would never repeat? There is but one prayer; we find our way to that by many different roads: but the real prayer is the Lord’s prayer, not as commonly understood, but that final prayer, that Gethsemane cry “Not my will, but thine, be done.” That prayer is always answered. What know we as to the petty supplications Job may have addressed to the throne of grace? What if we turn the complaint back upon the suppliant and say, Thou didst not pray aright, thy heart was wrong; thou wast embittered, ungenerous, resentful, narrow-minded; thou didst not see the whole outspread purpose of love: fix thine eyes upon thyself, thou critic of God, nor charge the Almighty foolishly. There have not been wanting men of greatness and repute who have contended that God cannot be almighty or he would not allow certain evils to exist. Some of the greatest philosophers of our time have made that their creed Speaking even reverently of God, they have said, Nothing can be clearer than whatever attributes he may possess he cannot be omnipotent, or he would destroy evil, disease, and every form of vice and mischief. The argument does not commend itself to me as sound or good in any sense. There is more than almightiness in the providence that rules us. Who could worship sheer power, naked strength? who could live if there were nought but omnipotence? “Power belongeth unto God: also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy.” God is not only all-mighty, he is all-wise; he is not only all-wise, he is all-patient; not only all-patient, but all-loving. We must not fix, therefore, the attention upon a single attribute, and argue from its singularity; we must not tear one attribute of the Almighty from another, and reason about it in its separateness. We ought to resent with some measure of indignation anything like a vivisection of God, a cruel and impious analysis, though done not irreverently; at the same time we must remember that God is all-mighty, all-wise, all-loving, according to the Christian conception of him. This being the case, he does not hurl his almightiness against his universe, or universe there would soon be none, for the heavens are not clean in his sight and his angels are charged with folly. Along with almightiness not above it, but concurrently with it, giving it atmosphere, attempering it, we find wisdom, love, patience, grace, compassion, and viewing God thus in the completeness of his personality, we must give him time to work out his designs. In proportion to our littleness we are impatient. Ignorance cannot wait. There are men amongst us who display the very vice to which this argument is directly pointing; they want to have everything done in one little hour, because whatever they do is done upon the surface and done for the moment; it does not take in the whole purview; it does not balance all influences, ministries, and issues of things; their action is crude, partial, and often self-defeating. God moves by a long line. He takes a long time in the development of his purpose. He sitteth in eternity, and with him a thousand years are but as one day, one day is as a thousand years. We have made a clock, but he never looks at it; we have cut up duration into moments, but the trick is ours, the philosophy of it is not in God. The All-Being can know but one time, and that is eternity; but one continuance, and that is infinity. We have ourselves, in a largely secondary degree, constructed time, and made false calculations by the very chronometers we have invented.
There are Jobs in the world; there are down-trodden righteous men; there are misunderstood children of virtue; there are saints who have apparently incurred the frown of God; there are unanswered prayers; there is a devil; there is a bottomless pit: all these things would seem to throw into doubt the almightiness of God; thus are we who accept the revelation of his word in the holy Bible, constrained to say, Wait for the end; let God take what period of duration he pleases for the accomplishment of his purposes; it is ours, children of yesterday, to wait and believe, to live in holy, loving confidence. One thing is certain, if Job lived in social opinions, social criticisms and estimations; if Job trusted to uncertain riches; if Job thought to die in a nest because it was large and warm, he has taught us by his experience not to put our trust in these things, but to look otherwhere for security and rest. But where shall rest be found? Here we are brought by all human history, by all personal experience, by everything we see of the dicipline of life, to cry great cries after the Everlasting, the Complete, the All-Blessed and All-Blessing. We are forced into our greatest prayers. We, who would palter with words and manufacture syllables and make a plaything of supplication, are made to pray, are scourged into penitential crying, are compelled to say, Can this be all, this measurable, empty thing, call it earth or time, or load of the flesh, can it be all? Then verily its pain is greater than itself; death is greater than life. In that mood there may come sweet gospels to us saying, Hope thou in God, for thou shalt yet praise him: hold fast to the skirts of the Almighty and the Eternal, for even yet he may turn his kind face upon thee: wait in reverent love and patience, and thou shalt see that this little time-world is but a gate into the infinite spaces and the eternal liberties: wait thou at the gate, saying to thyself, It will soon be opened. It is always right to wait until the gate is opened from the inside; it must not be forced violently; at any moment it may open, and when it opens we shall see the explanation of every mystery, the meaning of every pain that has tortured and tried our groaning life.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).
VIII
JOB’S RESTATEMENT OF HIS CASE
Job 27-31.
INTRODUCTION: A PBELIMINARY INTERVIEW WITH THE HIGHER CRITICS
1. That all that part of this statement from Job 27:8 to the end of Job 28 is not the words of Job, i.e., when you read to Job 27:7 you should skip to Job 29:1 where Job resumes.
2. That Job 27:8-23 is the missing third speech of Zophar, here misplaced.
3. That Job 28 is a choral interlude by the author of the book.
The reasons for these contentions, they say, are that Job 27:8-23 is wholly at war with Job’s previous and subsequent statements concerning the wicked and that a third speech from Zophar is needed to complete the symmetry of the debate. They further say that Job 28 does not fit into Job’s line of thought nor into the arguments of the three friends, and that interludes by the author recited by the choir are customary in dramas.
The mediating critics say that there is a real difficulty here in applying Job 27:8-23 to Job, but that it may be explained by assuming that in a calm restatement of the case Job is led to see that he had, in the heat of the discussion, gone somewhat too far in his statement concerning the wicked and takes this opportunity of modifying former expressions. Dr. Sampey’s explanation in his syllabus is this: Job 27 and Job 28 are difficult to understand, because Job seems to take issue with his own position concerning the fate of the wicked. Possibly he began to see that, in the heat of argument, he had placed too much stress on the prosperity of the wicked.
Dr. Tanner’s statement is much better. He says:
There seems no ground to question the integrity of the book. The portions refused by some part of Job’s restatement and the whole of Elihu’s discourse are thoroughly homogeneous and essential to the unity of the book.
The author’s reply to these contentions is as follows:
1. That Zophar made no third speech because he had nothing more to say. Even Bildad in his third speech petered out with a repetition of a platitude. In a word) the whole prosecution broke down when Eliphaz in his last speech left the safety of generalities and came down to specifications and proofs of Job’s guilt.
2. There is not a particle of historical proof or probability that a copyist left out the usual heading introducing a speaker and mixed up Zophar’s speech with Job’s.
3. Fairly interpreted, the section (Job 27:8-23 ) harmonizes completely with Job’s previous contentions, neither retracts nor modifies them, and is essential to the completeness of his restatement of the case. He has denied that in this life even and exact justice is meted out to the wicked; he has not denied the ultimate justice of God in dealing with the wicked. The great emphasis in this section, which really extends from Job 27:7 to the end of the chapter, is placed on the outcome of the wicked, “When God taketh away his soul,” as in our Lord’s parable of the rich fool. Then though he prospered in life (Job 27:9 ), “He openeth his eyes and he is not,” like our Lord’s other parable, the rich man who in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torment (Luk 16 ). Then, “he would fain flee out of God’s hand” (Job 27:22 ) and then the lost spirits of men who preceded him “shall clap their hands and hiss” (Job 27:23 ) as the lost souls greeted the King of Babylon on his entrance into Sheol (Isa 14:9-10 ; Isa 14:15-16 ).
Job 28 also is an essential part of Job’s restatement harmonizing perfectly with all his other contentions, namely, that God’s government of the universe is beyond the comprehension of man. It is this very hiding of wisdom that constituted his problem. He is willing enough to fear God and depart from evil, but wants to understand why the undeserved afflictions of the righteous, and the undeserved prosperity of the wicked in time.
The idea of Job 28 being a choral interlude by the author of the book (see Watson in “Expositor’s Bible”) is sheer fancy without a particle of proof and wholly against all probability. While the book is a drama it is not a drama for the stage. The author of the book nowhere allows even his shadow to fall on a single page. In succeeding acts and scenes God, the devil, and man, each speaks for himself, without the artificial mechanism and connections of stage accessories.
Job takes an oath in restating his case which relates to his integrity (Job 27:1-6 ). The items of this oath are (1) the oath itself in due and ancient form, (2) that his lips should speak righteousness, (3) that he would not justify them (the three friends), (4) that he would hold his integrity till death, (5) that he would hold to his righteousness and would maintain a clear conscience as long as he lived. Then follows Job’s imprecation, thus:
Let mine enemy be as the wicked, And let him that riseth up against me be as the unrighteous. For what is the hope of the godless, though he get him gain, When God taketh away his soul? Job 27:7-8 .
Then comes his description of the portion of the wicked after death (Job 27:9-23 ) : God will not hear his cry when trouble comes and I tell you the whole truth just as you ought to know it already. Now this is the portion of the wicked: His children are for the sword, his silver and raiment are for the just and innocent, his house shall not endure, his death shall be as other people and his destiny will be eternally fixed.
In Job 28:1-11 he shows that man’s reason is superior to the instincts of the lower animals, since by skill and labor in mining and refining he can discover, possess, and utilize the hidden ores and precious stones, the way to which no fowl and no beast ever knew.
But there is a limitation placed on man for he can never discover nor purchase the higher wisdom of comprehending God’s plan and order of the universe, and of his complex providence, because this wisdom resides not in any place to which he has access, neither in the earth, sea, sky, nor Sheol, and he neither knows how to price it nor has the means to purchase it (Job 28:12-22 ). God alone has this wisdom (Job 28:23-27 ).
The highest wisdom attainable by man comes by God’s revelation: And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding. Job 28:28 .
All this leaves Job’s case without explanation, but in Job 29-31 we have it, thus:
Job 30 shows what his case was then, as he was derided was watched over by God, when his children were about him, when his prosperity abounded, when he was recognized and honored by all classes of men, when he was helping the needy and when he was sought after for counsel by all men.
Job 30 shows what his case was then, as he was derided by the young whose fathers were beneath the dogs, as he was a byword for the rabble who spat in his face and added insult to injury, as his sufferings became so intense that he could find no rest nor relief for his weary soul and body, as he was a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches, as his skin was black and his bones burned with heat, as mourning and weeping were the only fitting expressions of his forlorn condition.
Job 31 gives a fine view of his character and conduct. Job’s protests in this chapter are a complete knockout. “He protests that he is innocent of impure thoughts (Job 31:1-4 ) ; of false seeming (Job 31:5-8 ); of adultery (Job 31:9-12 ); of injustice toward dependents (Job 31:13-15 ); of hardness toward the poor and needy (Job 31:16-23 ); of covetousness (Job 31:24-25 ); of idolatry (Job 31:26-28 ); of malevolence (Job 31:29-30 ); of want of hospitality (Job 31:31-32 ); of hiding his transgressions (Job 31:33-34 ); and of injustice as a land-lord (Job 31:38-40 ).” Rawlinson in “Pulpit Commentary.” It will be observed:
1. That this chapter answers in detail every specification of Eliphaz in his last speech (Job 22:5-20 ).
2. That Job correctly recognized both the intelligence and malice and irresistible power of the successive blows dealt against him and was not deceived by the human and natural agencies employed. But failing to see that since man fell this world is accursed and that the devil is its prince, he was shut up to the conviction that the Almighty was his adversary. If Adam in Paradise and before the fall had fallen upon Job’s experience, the argument of Job, applied to such a case, would be conclusive in fixing all the responsibility on God. No human philosophy, leaving out the fall of man and the kingdom of Satan, can explain the ills of life in harmony with divine justice, goodness, and mercy.
Job’s extraordinary experience leads him, step by step, to suggest all the needs of future revelations and thus to reveal the real object of the book. His affliction led him to feel:
1. The need of a revelation of a book which would clearly set forth God’s law and man’s duties.
2. The need of a revelation of man’s state after death.
3. The need of a revelation of man’s resurrection.
4. The need of a revelation of a future and final judgment.
5. The need of a revelation of the Father in an incarnation, visible, palpable, audible, approachable, and human.
6. The need of one to act as a daysman, mediator, umpire, between God and man.
7. The need of one to act as redeemer for man from the power of sin and Satan and as an advocate with God in heaven.
8. The need of a revelation of an interpreter abiding on earth as man’s advocate.
This is the great object of this first book of the Bible) to show the need of all its other books, until the Coming One should become “The Burning Desire of All the Nations.”
That object being granted, the chronological place of this book in the Bible is that it is the first book of the Bible written.
QUESTIONS
1. What Bays the radical wing of the higher critics about this section?
2. What say the mediating critics of this section, and what the explanations by Sampey and Tanner, respectively?
3. What the author’s reply to these contentions?
4. What was Job’s oath in restating his case?
5. What was Job’s imprecation?
6. What his description of the portion of the wicked after death?
7. How does he show that man’s reason is superior to the instincts of the lower animals?
8. What limitation placed on man, and what Job’s philosophy of it?
9. With whom resides wisdom and how is this fact set forth?
10. What the highest wisdom attainable by man?
11. What is implied in all this?
12. What was his case in the past?
13. What was his case then?
14. What his character?
15. What does Jobs extraordinary experience lead him to feel the need of?
16. That object being granted, where is the chronological place of this book in the Bible.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Job 30:1 But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.
Ver. 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision ] Id quod ei morbo suo longe gravius fuerit, sicut et Hebraei testantur, saith Mercer. This troubled him much more than all his sores and sicknesses; that every young shackrag slighted him, and laughed him to scorn. In this case especially,
– Faciles motus mens generosa capit (Ovid).
You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it; but to be despised or belied they cannot brook; but least of all by base persons: Quilibet ab aquila quam corvo discerpi mavult. Job was now grown ancient, and had been honourable, as he had set forth, Job 29:1-25 . Old age and honour, in the Greek tongue, are near akin, Cognata sunt, et , ut et ; and,
Summa fuit quondam capitis reverentia cani:
Inque sue precio ruga senilis erat.
But it is a sign of gasping devotion, and that things are far out of order, when the child behaveth himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable, Isa 3:5
Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job Chapter 30
Well, now, in the next chapter (Job 30 ) we have a totally different story. Job now says, “But now they that are younger than I have me in derision.” You can suppose how very painful that was to a man that had been living a good deal upon the witness of these grand deeds and the high opinions of him, and the humbler classes, for once in a way, being entirely along with the grandees. For at times they do truly love to differ. “Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.” Ah! Job, you can be cutting; you can strike deep if you are so disposed. He would not have set their fathers with the dogs of his flock! Just think of it. And he gives his reason. He says, “Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me?” Job was a wise man, and if he had servants he had servants that could do their duty. But as very often happens with the most miserable of the world, they are weak, and unable to do a good day’s work, nor a good hour’s work. Whatever they do, they do in a manner that is enough to provoke any person to look at them. And so he says, “For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. They were driven forth from among men (they cried after them as after a thief)” – they were most disreputable, and Job would not have had one of them on any account to serve him. He would be very willing to give them food if they were hungry; and if they had no clothing he would surely have abounded even then. But he felt it very much that these men should mock him, and should do everything to deride his sufferings, and not only that with these men in general, but that the young men tried to trip up his tottering steps! For you know the soles of his feet were intolerable – from head to foot not only was every nerve, as it were, active, but the very worms were beginning to prey upon him while he was alive, through all the sores that were open. It was a most awful case.
Yet what is that compared with moral suffering? Do you suppose the apostle Paul did not suffer much more severely than with any bodily trouble? He suffered from false brethren a great deal. And I think he must have suffered from true brethren very often – perhaps even more, but in a different way. “To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. Among the bushes they brayed.” He will not allow that they talked – they brayed. “Under the nettles they were gathered together. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men” – i.e. of fathers that had not a name themselves – “they were viler than the earth. And now am I their song; yea, I am their byword. They abhor me.” Think of that – these words were all true. “They flee far from me.” They could not bear to look at him – at the agony, and the terrible effect of all these sores on his body. They could not go near him. “And spare not to spit in my face. Because he hath loosed my cord.” There was after all what grieved the heart of poor Job more than anything. It was God. He does not mean the devil; it was not the devil. “Because He hath loosed my cord and afflicted me” (and so to end of verse 16).
You see there is no reference to his three friends now. He is looking really at this tremendous trial that afflicted his body, and that exposed him to all this disrespect and contempt of the very lowest creatures on the face of the earth. “My bones are pierced in me in the night season; and my sinews take no rest. By the great force of my disease is my garment changed; it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.” Look at the pain all that would occasion. “He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes. I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear me.” But God did hear him. There was a reason why He did not answer; but God did hear. “I stand up, and thou regardest me not. Thou art become cruel to me.” There he was quite wrong. “With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me. Thou liftest me up to the wind: thou causest me to ride upon it and dissolvest my substance. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death” – there he was wrong again. God had good things in store for Job. “And to the house appointed for all living. Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?” – he goes back to that. “My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.”
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
I. Note the “I” of adversity in Job 30. See note on Job 29:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 30
But now, chapter 30, he tells of the present condition. And just as glorious as was the past, so depressing is the present.
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished? For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste: Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) To dwell in the cliffs in the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks ( Job 30:1-6 ).
These people are just the off-scouring of the earth.
Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. And now I am their song, yea, I am their byword. [They’re looking down on me.] They abhor me, they flee far from me, they spare not to spit in my face ( Job 30:7-10 ).
Spitting, of course, is an insult in the Orient. It’s an insult any place to spit in a guy’s face, I suppose. But in the Orient it is a sign of great disdain. Many times, walking in Israel, through the old city, you can see hatred in the eyes of some of the Arabs there. And as you go by, they’ll spit. Sometimes they’ll spit on you. But it is just a sign of utter contempt and disdain. It’s about the worst insult that the Oriental can heap upon you, is to spit on you.
We have a friend who went to Okinawa as a missionary and there was a lot of anti-American feeling on Okinawa after the war. And his little boy, who was in first grade, had to go to an all-Oriental school. And every day when his little boy would come home from school, they’d have to bathe him because he was covered with spit all over his body as the children were showing their hatred and disdain of the ugly American. And the dad was so torn up and upset over it he was thinking about just leaving the mission field and his little boy said, “No, Daddy.” He said, “I’m doing it for Jesus and it’s alright with me.” And he said, “I’m just praying that the Lord will help them to know His love and maybe I can show it to them.” But he said it was sickening, as the poor little kid would get home from school just covered head to toe. Kids would spit on him.
And so Job speaks of this horrible thing. And, of course, it wasn’t just the mouth saliva, it would be the (clears throat)’ing kind. (Sorry about that, honey, I just… facts are facts.) My wife doesn’t like me to say things like that, but you know, you might as well know the truth, even though it’s ugly.
Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me ( Job 30:11 ),
Talking about God. “Because God has afflicted me.”
they have also let loose the bridle before me. Upon my right hand rise the youth ( Job 30:11-12 );
Now here’s what these kids were doing. Rotten little kids.
they push away my feet ( Job 30:12 ),
In other words, they trip me as I’m walking along.
and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me. Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passes away as a cloud. And now my soul is poured out upon me; and the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest. By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it binds me about as the collar of my coat. He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes. I cry unto thee, and you do not hear me: I stand up, and you don’t regard me. You have become cruel to me: with your strong hand you’ve opposed yourself against me. You lift me up to the wind; and you cause me to ride upon it, and dissolve my substance. For I know that you will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my soul grieved for the poor? When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me. I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation. I am a brother to the dragons, a companion to owls. My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat. My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep ( Job 30:12-31 ).
Oh, what a sad, tragic condition this Job was in. From this position of honor, esteem and all, to the bottom. Just absolutely to the bottom.
In chapter 38, light finally comes. So cheer up, we’re going to get out of this hole. But oh, how long? Many times we go through bitter experiences that we cannot understand. And while we are in those experiences, it always seems forever. They say that time is relative, and I’m convinced of that. If you’re having an extremely pleasurable experience, an hour can go by so quickly. But if you’re hurting, an hour seems like eternity. The relativity of time.
Job, going through these experiences, it seemed like forever. Even as sometimes as you are going through trials and testings, it seems like forever. “Oh, God, why?” And if we did not have, as Job, basic foundational truths undergirding us, surely we would fall. So one thing the book of Job really brings out and enforces in our minds is the necessity of the foundational truths being established within our lives: God is good, God is righteous, God loves me. I know that. What I don’t know is why, when He loves me, He allows certain things to happen to me. He allows me to experience sorrows, griefs, pain. But I must just be satisfied with the fact that I know He does love me and nothing comes to me but what it isn’t filtered through His love. God knows the way that I take and when I am tried, I am going to come out like gold.
Father, we thank you for Your love and for Your goodness. Be patient with us, Father, as we seek to understand that which cannot be understood by us: Your ways, Your purposes, Your dealings. And Lord, may we walk in Your love and may Your Spirit increase our faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Job 30:1-9
Introduction
Job 30
JOB’S PRESENT DISTRESS –
THE SECOND MEMBER OF THE TRILOGY: JOB’S SUFFERINGS
In this chapter, Job’s period of suffering and distress is vividly contrasted with the glory and honor of the days of his exaltation. “This chapter is perhaps the most pathetic of all Job’s poems of grief and a fitting finish to all the earlier ones.”
“The repetition of `But now … and now … and now’ in Job 30:1; Job 30:9; Job 30:16 effectively accents the themes in which Job contrasts the bleak, turbulent present with the peaceful past. The king of counselors has become the byword of fools (Job 30:1-15). The friendly favor of God has `turned into cruelty.”
This beautiful paragraph just quoted from Meredith G. Kline concludes with a sentence which we must reject, because God is not cruel, unmerciful, unfeeling or, in any manner whatever, disinterested in the trials and struggles of men. In the epilogue (Job 42) the Bible flatly declares that Job spoke the truth about God; and the interpreters, including many others besides Kline, are wrong in attributing sentiments and even sayings to Job that contradict the universal description of God, throughout every page of the Bible, as even Jonah stated it, “I knew that thou art a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and repentest thee of the evil” (Jon 4:2). We shall cite other scholarly opinions in this chapter which are erroneous in this vital particular.
Job 30:1-9
THE KING OF COUNSELORS NOW THE BYWORD OF FOOLS
“But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,
Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me?
Men in whom ripe age is perished.
They are gaunt with want and famine;
They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.
They pluck salt-wort by the bushes;
And the roots of the broom are their food.
They are driven forth from the midst of men;
They cry after them as after a thief;
So that they dwell in frightful valleys,
In holes of the earth and of the rocks.
Under the bushes they bray;
Under the nettles they are gathered together.
They are children of fools, yea, children of base men;
They were scourged out of the land.
And now I am become their song,
Yea, I am a byword unto them.”
This section describes the rejected refuse of humanity, the malcontents, the idle, the indolent, the off-scouring of the social order, which some would call the scum of the earth, the point being that even the bottom of the totem pole in their culture considered Job as inferior to themselves; and they derided and mocked him in songs and verbal taunts.
Job has been criticized by some for his low-evaluation of these people; but, in fairness, it should be observed that the evaluation here was not Job’s; it was the evaluation and judgment of the whole society in which he lived.
Watson summarized these verses as follows: “These people were gaunt with hunger and vice, herded in the wilderness where alone they were allowed to exist, eating salt-wort and broom-roots for food. The appearance of one of them prompted cries of `thieves and robbers.’ They lived in caves, and among the rocks; like wild asses they brayed in the scrub and gathered among the nettles. Base men, children of fools, having dishonored humanity, they had been whipped out of the land. Even these abhorred Job, mocking him in song and byword, even spitting in his face.”
Blair pointed out that, “These people refused to work, and were too proud to beg.” This left them the option of stealing and/or scrounging for whatever they might find in the wilderness. In neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament, can there be found any acceptance of people who will not work. In the Decalogue, the word from heaven is, “Six days shalt thou labor.” And in the New Testament, the Divine Commandment stands: “He that will not work, don’t let him eat”! (2Th 3:10).
“Under the bushes they bray” (Job 30:7). Rawlinson interpreted this to mean that, “The speech of those people sounded to Job more like the braying of asses than articulate speech.” For reasons which are by no means clear to this writer, Driver and Peake gave the meaning here as, “They bray like donkeys under the influence of lust, and copulate with no better bed than a patch of nettles.” Pope insisted that, “There is no sexual connotation here, as Peake suggested.” This writer is familiar with the behavior of donkeys; and their braying is closely related to hunger, not sex. Rowley was also aware of this connection between hunger and the braying of donkeys.
“And now I am become their song; yea, I am a byword unto them” (Job 30:9). This verse belongs both to the preceding verses and to those afterward. “Job continues his lament over his changed condition; but, whereas in the preceding verses he has concentrated on the character of his tormentors, here he begins to dwell upon the effect of their torments upon him.”
The eloquent words of Kline catch the spirit of these verses perfectly: “Even the juveniles of this rabble (Job 30:1) regard Job as the fitting butt of their derisive ditties (Job 30:9). No show of contempt is too mean for them (Job 30:10), as with unbridled spite (Job 30:11 b) they devise torments (Job 30:12 ff) against this ruined bourgeois, now a helpless outcast upon their dunghill domain.”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 30:1. The preceding chapter closed with statements showing the honorable standing Job had with leading citizens. That was when he was prosperous and in good health. All of that changed when he became poor and otherwise unfortunate. The picture of his fallen standing is graphically drawn here. He had owned some dogs to protect his sheep. Some men were not considered good enough to associate with these dogs, and now their sons were snubbing Job.
Job 30:2-8. This paragraph describes the people to whom reference was made in the first verse. Old age was perished means their fathers were dead and they had been driven to desperate resources for their support. They had to dig up mallows, a kind of herb used for pottage, and use them for food.
Job 30:9. Men who had come to the shameful state of dependency as the preceding paragraph describes were considering themselves as too good to respect Job. He was their song and byword which means he was the subject of their jokes.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Immediately Job passed to the description of his present condition, which is all the more startling as it stands in contrast with what he had said concerning the past. He first described the base who now held him in contempt. In the old days the highest reverenced him. Now the very lowest and basest held him in derision,
Now I am become their song.
They chase mine honour as the wind.
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence.
So Shakespeare makes Mark Antony speak over the dead body of Cesar.
In the case of Job the experience was more bitter, for not only did the poor refuse to reverence him, the base despised him, and he had not found refuge in the silence of death. In the midst of this reviling of the crowd, his actual physical pain is graphically described, and the supreme sorrow of all was that when he cried to God there was no answer, but continuity of diction. He claimed that his sufferings were justification for his complaint. All this precedes the oath of innocence. Before passing to that, it may be well briefly to review the process of these final addresses. Job first protested his innocence (27:1-6). Then he poured out his wrath on his enemies (27:7-23). Following this, he declared man’s inability to find wisdom (28). Finally, he contrasted his past (29) with his present (30).
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 30
1. His present humiliation and shame (Job 30:1-19)
2. No answer from God: completely forsaken (Job 30:20-31)
Job 30:1-19. He had spoken of his past greatness and now he describes his present misery. Ah! the bitterness if it–those younger than I have me in derision! Alas! through it all we hear nothing but pride. He scorns those who were so much beneath him. And those who were scourged out of the land, these children of fools and base men, mock him, the former prince among men. I am become their song; I am a byword to them; they abhor me; they spit in my face. Then he describes his affliction. Days of affliction have taken hold upon me–the pains that gnaw me take no rest. He is in the mire and has become like dust and ashes.
Job 30:20-31. He brings in God again. Thou dost not answer me! Heaven had been silent to all his pleas. What a dreadful charge: Thou art turned to be cruel to me; with the might of Thy hand Thou persecutest me! He thinks himself completely forsaken, not knowing that Gods thoughts towards him were thoughts of love and peace. His skin is black, he says, his bones are burned with heat. No joy for him, nothing but weeping.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
they that are: Job 19:13-19, Job 29:8-10, 2Ki 2:23, Isa 3:5
younger than I: Heb. of fewer days than I
whose: Psa 35:15, Psa 35:16, Psa 69:12, Mar 14:65, Mar 15:17-20, Luk 23:14, Luk 23:18, Luk 23:35, Luk 23:39, Act 17:5, Tit 1:12
Reciprocal: Gen 21:9 – mocking Jdg 11:3 – vain men Neh 2:19 – they Job 12:4 – one mocked Job 19:9 – stripped Job 19:18 – Yea Psa 42:4 – When Psa 59:15 – wander Lam 1:7 – remembered Lam 3:14 – General Lam 5:14 – elders Eze 36:3 – and are Phm 1:11 – unprofitable Heb 2:8 – but
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 30:1. But now, &c. Job having, in the foregoing chapter, described the honour of his former condition, goes on here, by way of contrast, to describe the vileness of his present state. They that are younger than I Whom both universal custom and the light of nature taught to reverence their elders and betters; have me in derision Make me the object of their contempt and scoffs: thus my glory is turned into shame. Whose fathers I would have disdained Or, rather, might have disdained; that is, whose condition was so mean and vile, that in the opinion, and according to the custom of the world, they were unworthy to be my shepherds, and the companions of my dogs, which watch my flocks. This and the seven following verses are an exaggerated description of the vileness of those to whom he was now become a derision, notwithstanding all his former authority.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 30:1. The dogs of my flock. Job does not say this through pride, for he owns that the slave and himself were formed by the same hand: Job 31:15. He says it rather with a view to describe the sin and the folly of the untutored race.
Job 30:4. Who cut up mallowsand juniper-roots for their meat. The rabbins are irrelevant here. Calmet is silent, and Schultens with all his Arabic is uncertain. But the monkeys in South Africa, when the leaves are decayed, will often guide the hungry Hottentot where to find roots. Vaillants Travels.
Job 30:7. They brayed under the nettles. The LXX, they sighed; growled out their noisy and revolting speeches under the bushes.
Job 30:8. They were children of fools. Of all the versions the English seems the least successful; better, flagitious children, children of men without a name, vile beyond comparison with earth.
Job 30:18. Force of my disease. These words are deficient in the Hebrew, but copied in the Latin from some authorized reading. The LXX read, He has with great strength taken hold of my robe, and bound me by the collar of my coat, as wrestlers do to throw their antagonists to the ground. The text is obscure, which occasions variations in all the versions. The French reads, The colour of my vestment is changed; and it would seem, by the soporation of his sores; a reading altogether at issue with the LXX.
Job 30:29. A brother to dragons. Job sat in solitude, hearing the hissings and wailings of serpents in the night. See note on Deu 32:33.
REFLECTIONS.
Job was truly a philanthropic character. His camp, his city, and his heart were open, to give the wretched wanderers work and bread. They found a home and an asylum under his wings. It is the character of a happy man to make others happy too. But how mortifying when those Arabian wanderers found Job, as they supposed, overthrown and lost, that they should turn their tongues against the afflicted, and make him the scornful subject of their songs. Nay, not only the poor, but God himself seemed to fight against a worm. Thou holdest me with thy strong hand. I cry to thee, and thou dost not hear. When I looked for good, behold evil came.
Jobs anguish was made the more grievous by contrast with former times. My harp is turned to mourning. In the ancient church, music was always joined with devotion, but the least so in christian assemblies. It guides and enlivens psalmody. But alas, alas, our choirs, through vanity and pride, put the people to silence by a superabundance of new tunes, which have little merit, except novelty. It grieves and wounds the church, who love the old melodies: assuredly these singers must give up their account with shame.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 30. Jobs Present Misery.As the text stands at present, Job begins by complaining that the very abjects of society now despise him. Many scholars, however, detach Job 30:2-8 as a misplaced section of the description of the outcasts, which we have already met in Job 24:5 f. When we look at the passage apart from Job 30:1, the impression it makes is not one of contempt for their abject condition, but of pity for their misery. Hence the greater part would have been better suited to one of Jobs delineations of human wretchedness than to the picture he is painting of his own distress, from which he is diverted at a surprisingly early point (Peake). Duhm, followed by Strahan, treats Job 30:1 as an insertion intended to connect Job 30:2-8 with its present context. Peake allows it to stand as part of Jobs speech, which is perhaps better, as Job 30:9 seems to require some introduction.
Job 30:1. Job complains of the mockery of his inferiors.
Job 30:2-8. Misery of the outcast.
Job 30:2 a works the passage into the context by making them into erewhile servants of Job. Duhm reads, Yea, the strength of their hands fails, vigour (so mg.) is perished in them.
Job 30:3 b needs emendation; Duhm reads, They grope in wasteness and desolation. In Job 30:7 their uncouth speech is called braying (cf. Job 24:5). In Job 30:8 base men is literally men of no name.
Job 30:9-15. Here we join on to Job 30:1, reading instead of and now, but now. Job describes how his enemies insult him. In Job 30:10 translate spit before me. In Job 30:11 read as mg. my cord. God has loosed Jobs bowstring (cf. Job 29:20), and afflicted him; his persecutors therefore cast off all restraint. In Job 30:12 f. the text is corrupt. For Job 30:12 Peake and Strahan read against me rise the rabble; they have cast up their ways of destruction. For Job 30:13-14 a Duhm, with help of LXX, reads, They break up my path, they destroy my way. His helpers surround me, and through a wide breach they come.
Job 30:14 b, Job 30:15 a go together. The fortress is stormed, and terrors let loose upon the vanquished (Strahan). In Job 30:15 read for they chased is chased or else follow mg.
Job 30:16-31 describes Jobs affliction, Gods cruelty to him, and ends upon a note of the most poignant lamentation. In Job 30:17 a mg. gives the right sense, in Job 30:17 b the text.
Job 30:18 is obscure. Duhm reads for Job 30:18 a, By-reason of my great wasting my garment is crumpled together.
Job 30:18 b means, It clings to me like a vest. It is not clear whether this line also refers to his emaciation. But the garment would surely hang loosely on his shrunken body, so that we should perhaps suppose that here the reference is to the abnormal swelling of other parts of the body which makes his garment fit tight to these (Peake).
Job 30:20-23 describe Gods cruelty. In Job 30:20, as the text stands thou lookest must mean lookest maliciously. Some read thou lookest not. Syr., however, intensifies meaning of present text by reading, Thou standest.
Job 30:24 is obscure. Either follow mg. or read with Dillmann, Howbeit doth not a sinking man stretch forth his hand? Or doth he not in his calamity cry for help? Job had wept for others (Job 30:25), why not for himself? With Job 30:26, therefore, his complaint begins anew.
Job 30:27 a describes the ceaseless turmoil of his inner emotions. Compare Goethes lines:
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiss was ich leide.
Es schwindelt mir: es brennt
Mein Eingeweide.
In Job 30:28 a follow mg.
Job 30:28 b is strange; what assembly is meant? Duhm emends, I stand up in the assembly of jackals.
Job 30:28 a as translated in mg. and Job 30:30 describe the symptoms of Jobs disease.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
MOCKED BY HIS INFERIORS
(vv.1-8)
What a contrast was Job’s condition now! Prominent men of dignity had once shown Job every respect, but now young men of what might be considered the lowest class, were making Job the subject of their mockery, – men whose fathers Job would have disdained to employ to work with the dogs that cared for his flocks (v.1). This reveals. another side of Job’s character. He spoke before of his delivering the poor and the fatherless and those who had no helpers (ch.29:12). Was it love for them that really moved him? If so, where was his love for this class of people whom apparently he had looked at with contempt? Now they are treating him with contempt, and he feels deeply insulted. Again this shows the pride that Job needed to have broken down, and which was indeed broken down later.
He goes on to describe the sorry condition of these mockers. “Their vigour has perished. They are gaunt from want and famine” (vv.23). Job does not consider that some such people may not be to blame for their condition, but seems to think that, because they are reduced to a state of having to scrounge their food from unhealthy sources (v.4), being driven from men to live in caves or clefts in the valleys (vv.5-6), therefore then were not worth considering. For he says, “they were sons of fools, yes, son of vile men.” Can God not save sons of vile men? Indeed he can, and often does. Ought not Job to have been concerned for others who were so reduced, specially when he himself had been reduced from his previous state?
JOB FEELS THEIR SCORN
(vv.9-15)
“They abhor me, they keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face” (v.10). This was true of men’s treatment of the Lord Jesus too, but it did not shake His confidence in the living God. Job considered that, because God had afflicted him, therefore “the rabble” had cast off restraint (v.11) to see in Job an opportunity of venting their evil tempers against him. In fact, this was similar to the Lord Jesus, whose words in Psa 69:26 surely speak to us, “They persecute Him whom thou hast smitten.” How different however was His case from that of Job; for God smote the Lord Jesus on account of our sins. Men, ignorant of such grace, only used the occasion to heap further abuse on the Son of God. If Job at that time had had the example of the Lord Jesus to consider, he might have thought rather differently. But Job allowed himself to be so affected by men’s treatment of him that he became virtually unable to look up.
“They break up my path, they promote my calamity.” He is evidently thinking of these scorners as intent on throwing him into confusion as to his normal path, and promoting (or increasing) the calamity the Lord had brought upon him. The crushing of this seemed to him like breakers of the sea rolling over him, as swept by a violent storm (vv.13-14). Under such persecution he became terror-stricken, and what prosperity he knew was as a passing cloud (v.15).
JOB’S SOUL POURED OUT
(vv.16-19)
In these verses Job describes the agony of his suffering with his soul poured out, his very bones seeming to pierce him in the night, with unabated pain (vv.16-17). His garment, rather than being a becoming adornment, had become disfigured because his body was emaciated, so that the collar of his coat was ill-fitting.
But he no longer talks now of the persecution of callous men: rather, he attributes his sufferings to God, saying, “He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes” (v.19). It is good that he recognises that whatever suffering he may have and from whatever source, yet God is the One who has allowed it. But Job ought to have realised that God would not allow it if it was not going to be of pure blessing to Job in the end. Later he did realise the truth of Rom 8:28, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” But at the moment he was so overwhelmed by his calamity that he would not give God credit for being who He is.
JOB FINDS NO HELP FROM GOD
(vv.20-23)
What seems the most devastating misery for Job is that he considers God is against him. He cries to God but is not heard (v.20). Of course God heard him, but God answers only at the right time and in the right way. Had God become cruel to him? He thought so, but it was the love of God that delayed an answer. What he considered God’s hand strong against him was really the strength of God’s love for him.
“You lift me up to the wind”(v.22), that is, God was exposing Job to the cruel winds of circumstances, and had therefore thwarted any possibility of success for the poor sufferer. All he could look for now was the pain of death (v.23) which he speaks of as “the house appointed for all living.” This fact itself ought to have calmed him to realise that his case was not absolutely unique: others were appointed to the same end.
COMPLETE MISERY
(vv.23-31)
Would God deal harshly with a heap of ruins? Job hardly thought this would be the case, yet he felt himself to be only that (v.24). Why should he continue to be troubled? Did he deserve such treatment as this? Why, he had “wept for him who was in trouble, and his soul had been grieved for the poor” (v.25). It is sad that Job was virtually claiming to have been more considerate than God was! Why did he allow such words to fall from his lips?
He looked for good as a result of his apparent goodness, but evil came to him (v.26), and darkness came rather than light. But we can never enjoy the light of God’s presence when we maintain our own self-righteousness. No wonder then his heart was in turmoil, unable to rest (v.27), and he had no expectation of anything but “days of affliction.” He felt he had sunk as low as the animals, jackals and ostriches (v.29), but he was still speaking as a man! What music he had enjoyed was now turned into mourning and weeping.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
30:1 But now [they that are] younger than I {a} have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the {b} dogs of my flock.
(a) That is, my estate is changed and while before the ancient men were glad to revere me, the young men now contemn me.
(b) Meaning to be my shepherds or to keep my dogs.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Job’s present misery ch. 30
"Chapter 29 speaks of what the Lord gave to Job and chapter 30 speaks of what the Lord took away (cf. Job 1:21)." [Note: Zuck, Job, p. 129.]
Job was presently without respect (Job 30:1-15), disregarded (Job 30:16-23), and despondent (Job 30:24-31). He had formerly enjoyed the respect of the most respectable, but now he experienced the contempt of the most contemptible (Job 30:1-15; cf. Job 29:8; cf. Job 29:21-25). [Note: Andersen, p. 235.]
"The lengthy description of these good-for-nothing fathers is a special brand of rhetoric. The modern Western mind prefers understatement, so when Semitic literature indulges in overstatement, such hyperbole becomes a mystery to the average Western reader. To define every facet of their debauchery, to state it in six different ways, is not meant to glory in it but to heighten the pathetic nature of his dishonor." [Note: Smick, "Architectonics, Structured . . .," p. 93.]
God loosed His bowstring against Job (Job 30:11 a) by shooting an arrow at him (i.e., by afflicting him). Job’s enemies cast off the figurative bridle that had previously restrained them in their contacts with him (Job 30:11 b). Job described his soul as poured out within him (Job 30:16) in the sense that he felt drained of all zest for life. [Note: Pope, p. 222.] Job 30:18 probably means he felt that God was grabbing him by the lapels, so to speak, or perhaps that his sickness had discolored, rather than disheveled, his clothing. Job 30:28 evidently refers to Job’s emotional state, whereas Job 30:30 refers to his physical condition, even though the Hebrew words translated "mourning" and "black" are similar in meaning. The Hebrew words translated "comfort" and "fever" are also very close together in meaning. Job’s mental anguish exceeded his physical agony.
"Job is desperately seeking to arouse God’s sympathy for him." [Note: Hartley, p. 400.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
XXIV.
AS A PRINCE BEFORE THE KING
Job 29:1-25; Job 30:1-31; Job 31:1-40
Job SPEAKS
FROM the pain and desolation to which he has become inured as a pitiable second state of existence, Job looks back to the years of prosperity and health which in long succession he once enjoyed. This parable or review of the past ends his contention. Honour and blessedness are apparently denied him forever. With what has been he compares his present misery and proceeds to a bold and noble vindication of his character alike from secret and from flagrant sins.
In the whole circle of Jobs lamentations this chant is perhaps the most affecting. The language is very beautiful, in the finest style of the poet, and the minor cadences of the music are such as many of us can sympathise with. When the years of youth go by and strength wanes, the Eden we once dwelt in seems passing fair. Of those beyond middle life there are few who do not set their early memories in sharp contrast to the ways they now travel, looking back to a happy valley and long bright summers that are left behind. And even in opening manhood and womanhood the troubles of life often fall, as we may think, prematurely, coming between the mind and the remembered joy of burdenless existence.
How changed are they!-how changed am I!
The early spring of life is gone, Gone is each youthful vanity, –
But what with years, oh what is won?
I know not-but while standing now
Where opened first the heart of youth,
I recollect how high would glow
Its thoughts of Glory, Faith, and Truth-
“How full it was of good and great,
How true to heaven, how warm to men.
Alas! I scarce forbear to hate
The colder breast I bring again.”
First in the years past Job sees by the light of memory the blessedness he had when the Almighty was felt to be his preserver and his strength. Though now God appears to have become an enemy he will not deny that once he had a very different experience. Then nature was friendly, no harm came to him; he was not afraid of the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor the destruction that wasteth at noon day, for the Almighty was his refuge and fortress. To refuse this tribute of gratitude is far from the mind of Job, and the expression of it is a sign that now at length he is come to a better mind. He seems on the way fully to recover his trust.
The elements of his former happiness are recounted in detail. God watched over him with constant care, the lamp of Divine love shone on high and lighted up the darkness, so that even in the night he could travel by a way he knew not and feel secure. Days of strength and pleasure were those when the secret of God, the sense of intimate fellowship with God, was on his tent, when his children were about him, that beautiful band of sons and daughters who were his pride. Then his steps were bathed in abundance, butter provided by innumerable kine, rivers of oil which seemed to flow from the rock, where terrace above terrace the olives grew luxuriantly and yielded their fruit without fail.
Chiefly Job remembers with gratitude to God the esteem in which he was held by all about him. Nature was friendly and not less friendly were men. When he went into the city and took his seat in the “broad place” within the gate, he was acknowledged chief of the council and court of judgment. The young men withdrew and stood aside, yea the elders, already seated in the place of assembly, stood up to receive him as their superior in position and wisdom. Discussion was suspended that he might hear and decide. And the reasons for this respect are given. In the society thus with idyllic touches represented, two qualities were highly esteemed-regard for the poor and wisdom in counsel. Then, as now, the problem of poverty caused great concern to the elders of cities. Though the population of an Arabian town could not be great, there were many widows and fatherless children, families reduced to beggary by disease or the failure of their poor means of livelihood, blind and lame persons utterly dependent on charity, besides wandering strangers and the vagrants of the desert. By his princely munificence to these Job had earned the gratitude of the whole region. Need was met poverty relieved, justice done in every case. He recounts what he did, not in boastfulness, but as one who rejoiced in the ability God had given him to aid suffering fellow creatures. Those were indeed royal times for the generous-hearted man. Full of public spirit, his ear and hand always open, giving freely out of his abundance, he commended himself to the affectionate regard of the whole valley. The ready way of almsgiving was that alone by which relief was provided for the destitute, and Job was never appealed to in vain.
“The ear that heard me blessed me,
The eye that saw bare witness to me,
Because I delivered the poor that cried,
And the fatherless who had no helper.
The blessing of him that was ready to die came upon me,
And I caused the widows heart to sing with joy.”
So far Job rejoices in the recollection of what he had been able to do for the distressed and needy in those days when the lamp of God shone over him. He proceeds to speak of his service as magistrate or judge.
“I put on righteousness and it indued itself with me,
My justice was as a robe and a diadem;
I was eyes to the blind
And feet was I to the lame.”
With righteousness in his heart so that all he said and did revealed it and wearing judgment as a turban, he sat and administered justice among the people. Those who had lost their sight and were unable to find the men that had wronged them came to him and he was as eyes to them, following up every clue to the crime that had been committed. The lame who could not pursue their enemies appealed to him and he took up their cause. The poor, suffering under oppression, found him a protector, father. Yea, “the cause of him that I knew not I searched out.” On behalf of total strangers as well as of neighbours he set in motion the machinery of justice.
“And I brake the jaws of the wicked
And plucked the spoil from his teeth.”
None were so formidable, so daring and lion-like, but he faced them, brought them to judgment, and compelled them to give up what they had taken by fraud and violence.
In those days, Job confesses, he had the dream that as he was prosperous, powerful, helpful to others by the grace of God, so he would continue. Why should any trouble fall on one who used power conscientiously for his neighbours? Would not Eloah sustain the man who was as a god to others?
“Then I said, I shall die in my nest,
And I shall multiply my days as the Phoenix;
My root shall spread out by the waters,
And the dew shall be all night on my branch:
My glory shall be fresh in me,
And my bow shall be renewed in my hand.”
A fine touch of the dream life which ran on from year to year, bright and blessed as if it would flow forever. Death and disaster were far away. He would renew his life like the Phoenix, attain to the age of the antediluvian fathers, and have his glory or life strong in him for uncounted years. So illusion flattered him, the very image he uses pointing to the futility of the hope.
The closing strophe of the chapter proceeds with even stronger touch and more abundant colour to represent his dignity. Men listened to him and waited. Like a refreshing rain upon thirsty ground-and how thirsty the desert could be!-his counsel fell on their ears. He smiled upon them when they had no confidence, laughed away their trouble, the light of his countenance never dimmed by their apprehensions. Even when all about him were in dismay his hearty hopeful outlook was unclouded. Trusting God, he knew his own strength and gave freely of it.
“I chose out their way, and sat as a chief,
And dwelt as a king in the crowd,
As one that comforteth the mourners.”
Looked up to with this great esteem, acknowledged leader in virtue of his overflowing goodness and cheerfulness, he seemed to make sunshine for the whole community. Such was the past. All that had been is gone, apparently forever.
How inexpressibly strange that power so splendid, mental, physical, and moral strength used in the service of less favoured men should be destroyed by Eloah! It is like blotting out the sun from heaven and leaving a world in darkness. And most strange of all is the way in which low men assist the ruin that has been wrought.
The thirtieth chapter begins with this. Job is derided by the miserable and base whose fathers he would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock. He paints these people, gaunt with hunger and vice, herding in the wilderness where alone they are suffered to exist, plucking mallows or salt wort among the bushes and digging up the roots of broom for food. Men hunted them into the desert, crying after them as thieves, and they dwelt in the clefts of the wadies, in caves and amongst rocks. Like wild asses they brayed in the scrub and flung themselves down among the nettles. Children they were of fools, base-born, men who had dishonoured their humanity and been whipped out of the land. Such are they whose song and by word Job is now become. These, even these abhor him and spit in his face. He makes the contrast deep and dreadful as to his own experience and the moral confusion that has followed Eloahs strange work. For good there is evil, for light and order there is darkness. Does God desire this, ordain it?
One is inclined to ask whether the abounding compassion and humaneness of the Book of Job fail at this point. These wretched creatures who make their lair like wild beasts among the nettles, outcasts, branded as thieves, a wandering base-born race, are still men. Their fathers may have fallen into the vices of abject poverty. But why should Job say that he would have disdained to set them with the dogs of his flock? In a previous speech (chapter 24) he described victims of oppression who had no covering in the cold and were drenched with the rain of the mountains, clinging to the rock for shelter; and of them he spoke gently, sympathetically. But here he seems to go beyond compassion.
Perhaps one might say the tone he takes now is pardonable, or almost pardonable, because these wretched beings, whom he may have treated kindly once, have seized the occasion of his misery and disease to insult him to his face. While the words appear hard, the uselessness of the pariah may be the mare point. Yet a little of the pride of birth clings to Job. In this respect he is not perfect; here his prosperous life needs a check. The Almighty must speak to him out of the tempest that he may feel himself and find “the blessedness of being little.”
These outcasts throw off all restraint and behave with disgraceful rudeness in his presence.
Upon my right hand rise the low brood,
They push away my feet,
And cast up against me their ways of destruction;
They mar my path,
And force on my calamity-
They who have no helper.
They come in as through a wide breach,
In the desolation they roll themselves upon me.
The various images, of a besieging army, of those who wantonly break up paths made with difficulty, of a breach in the embankment of a river, are to show that Job is now accounted one of the meanest, whom any man may treat with in dignity. He was once the idol of the populace; “now none so poor to do him reverence.” And this persecution by base men is only a sign of deeper abasement. As a horde of terrors sent by God he feels the reproaches and sorrows of his state.
“Terrors are turned upon me;
They chase away mine honour as the wind.
And my welfare passeth as a cloud.
And now my soul is poured out in me
The days of affliction have taken hold upon me.”
Thought shifts naturally to the awful disease which has caused his body to swell and to become black as with dust and ashes. And this leads him to his final vehement complaint against Eloah. How can He so abase and destroy His servant?
I cry unto Thee and Thou dost not hear me;
I stand up, and Thou lookest at me.
Thou art turned to be cruel unto me:
With the might of Thine hand Thou persecutest me.
Thou liftest me up to the wind,
Thou causest me to ride on it;
And Thou dissolvest me in the storm.
For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death,
And to the house appointed for all living.
Yet in overthrow doth not one stretch out his hand?
In destruction, doth he not because of this utter a cry?
Standing up in his wretchedness he is fully visible to the Divine eye, still no prayer moves Eloah the terrible from His purpose. It seems to be finally appointed that in dishonour Job shall die. Yet, destined to this fate, his hope a mockery, shall he not stretch out his hand, cry aloud as life falls to the grave in ruin? How differently is God treating him from the way in which he treated those who were in trouble! He is asking in vain that pity which he himself had often shown. Why should this be? How can it be, and Eloah remain the Just and Living One? Pained without and within, unable to refrain from crying out when people gather about him, a brother to jackals whose howlings are heard all night, a companion to the grieving ostrich, his bones burned by raging fever, his harp turned to wailing and his lute into the voice of them that weep, he can scarce believe himself the same man that once walked in honour and gladness in the sight of earth and heaven.
Thus the full measure of complaint is again poured out, unchecked by thought that dignity of life comes more with suffering patiently endured than with pleasure. Job does not know that out of trouble like his a man may rise more human, more noble, his harp furnished with new strings of deeper feeling, a finer light of sympathy shining in his soul. Consistently, throughout, the author keeps this thought in the background, showing hopeless sorrow, affliction, unrelieved by any sense of spiritual gain, pressing with heaviest and most weary weight upon a good mans life. The only help Job has is the consciousness of virtue, and that does not check his complaint. The antinomies of life, the past as compared with the present, Divine favour exchanged for cruel persecution, well doing followed by most grievous pain and dishonour, are to stand at the last full in view. Then He who has justice in His keeping shall appear. God Himself shall declare and claim His supremacy and His design.
This purpose of the author achieved, the last passage of Jobs address-chapter 31-rings bold and clear like the chant of a victor, not serene indeed in the presence of death, for this is not the Hebrew temper and cannot be ascribed by the writer to his hero, yet with firm ground beneath his feet, a clear conscience of truth lighting up his soul. The language is that of an innocent man before his accusers and his judge, yea of a prince in presence of the King. Out of the darkness into which he has been cast by false arguments and accusations, out of the trouble into which his own doubt has brought him, Job seems to rise with a new sense of moral strength and even of restored physical power. No more in reckless challenge of heaven and earth to do their worst, but with a fine strain of earnest desire to be clear with men and God, he takes up and denies one by one every possible charge of secret and open sin. Is the language he uses more emphatic than any man has a right to employ? If he speaks the truth, why should his words be thought too bold? The Almighty Judge desires no man falsely to accuse himself, will have no man leave an unfounded suspicion resting upon his character. It is not evangelical meekness to plead guilty to sins never committed. Job feels it part of his integrity to maintain his integrity; and here he vindicates himself not in general terms but in detail, with a decision which cannot be mistaken. Afterwards, when the Almighty has spoken, he acknowledges the ignorance and error which have entered into his judgment, making the confession we must all make even after years of faith.
I.
From the taint of lustful and base desire he first clears himself. He has been pure in life, innocent even of wandering looks which might have drawn him into uncleanness. He has made a covenant with his eyes and kept it. Sin of this kind, he knew, always brings retribution, and no indulgence of his ever caused sorrow and dishonour. Regarding the particular form of evil in question he asks:-
“For what is the portion from God above,
And the heritage of the Almighty from on high?
Is it not calamity to the unrighteous
And disaster to them that work iniquity?”
Grouped along with this “lust of the flesh” is the “lust of the eyes,” covetous desire. The itching palm to which money clings, false dealing for the sake of gain, crafty intrigues for the acquisition of a plot of ground or some animal-such things were far from him. He claims to be weighed in a strict balance, and pledges himself that as to this he will not be found wanting. So thoroughly is he occupied with this defence that he speaks as if still able to sow a crop and look for the harvest. He would expect to have the produce snatched from his hand if the vanity of greed and getting had led him astray. Returning then to the more offensive suspicion that he had laid wait treacherously at his neighbours door, he uses the most vigorous words to show at once his detestation of such offence and the result he believes it always to have. It is an enormity, a nefarious thing to be punished by the judges. More than that, it is a fire that consumes to Abaddon, wasting a mans strength and substance so that they are swallowed as by the devouring abyss. As to this, Jobs reading of life is perfectly sound. Wherever society exists at all, custom and justice are made to bear as heavily as possible on those who invade the foundation of society and the rights of other men. Yet the keenness with which immorality of the particular kind is watched fans the flame of lust. Nature appears to be engaged against itself; it may be charged with the offence, it certainly joins in bringing the punishment.
II.
Another possible imputation was that as a master or employer he had been harsh to his underlings. Common enough it was for those in power to treat their dependants with cruelty. Servants were often slaves; their rights as men and women were denied. Regarding this, the words put into the mouth of Job are finely humane, even prophetic:-
“If I despised the cause of my man-servant or maid
When they contended with me
What then shall I do when God riseth up?
And when He visiteth what shall I answer Him?
Did not He that made me in the womb make him?
And did not One fashion us in the womb?”
The rights of those who toiled for him were sacred, not as created by any human law which for so many hours service might compel so much stipulated hire, but as conferred by God. Jobs servants were men and women with an indefeasible claim to just and considerate treatment. It was accidental, so to speak, that Job was rich and they poor, that he was master and they under him. Their bodies were fashioned like his, their minds had the same capacity of thought, of emotion, of pleasure and pain. At this point there is no hardness of tone or pride of birth and place. These are well doing people to whom as head of the clan Job stands in place of a father.
And his principle, to treat them as their inheritance of the same life from the same Creator gave them a right to be dealt with, is prophetic, setting forth the duties of all who have power to those who toil for them. Men are often used like beasts of burden. No tyranny on earth is so hateful as many employers, driving on their huge concerns at the utmost speed, dare to exercise through representatives or underlings. The simple patriarchal life which brought employer and employed into direct personal relations knew little of the antagonism of class interests and the bitterness of feeling which often menaces revolution. None of this will cease till simplicity be resumed and the customs which keep men in touch with each other, even though they fail to acknowledge themselves members of the one family of God. When the servant who has done his best is, after years of exhausting labour, dismissed without a hearing by some subordinate set there to consider what are called the “interests” of the employer-is the latter free from blame? The question of Job, “What then shall I do when God riseth up, and when He visiteth what shall I answer Him?” strikes a note of equity and brotherliness many so-called Christians seem never to have heard.
III.
To the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the perishing, Job next refers. Beyond the circle of his own servants there were needy persons whom he had been charged with neglecting and even oppressing. He has already made ample defence under this head. If he has lifted his hand against the fatherless, having good reason to presume that the judges would be on his side-then may his shoulder fall from the shoulder blade and his arm from the collar bone. Calamity from God was a terror to Job, and recognising the glorious authority which enforces the law of brotherly help he could not have lived in proud enjoyment and selfish contempt.
IV.
Next he repudiates the idolatry of wealth and the sin of adoring the creature instead of the Creator. Rich as he was, he can affirm that he never thought too much of his wealth, nor secretly vaunted himself in what he had gathered. His fields brought forth plentifully, but he never said to his soul, Thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He was but a steward, holding all at the will of God. Not as if abundance of possessions could give him any real worth, but with constant gratitude to his Divine Friend, he used the world as not abusing it.
And for his religion: true to those spiritual ideas which raised him far above superstition and idolatry, even when the rising sun seemed to claim homage as a fit emblem of the unseen Creator, or when the full moon shining in a clear sky seemed a very goddess of purity and peace, he had never, as others were wont to do, carried his hand to his lips. He had seen the worship of Baal and Ishtar, and there might have come to him, as to whole nations, the impulses of wonder, of delight, of religious reverence. But he can fearlessly say that he never yielded to the temptation to adore anything in heaven or earth. It would have been to deny Eloah the Supreme. Dr. Davidson reminds us here of a legend embodied in the Koran for the purpose of impressing the lesson that worship should be paid to the Lord of all creatures, “whose shall be the kingdom on the day whereon the trumpet shall be sounded.” The Almighty says: “Thus did we show unto Abraham the kingdom of heaven and earth, that he might become of those who firmly believe. And when the night overshadowed him he saw a star, and he said, This is my Lord; but when it set he said, I like not those that set. And when he saw the moon rising he said, This is my Lord; but when he saw it set he said, Verily, if my Lord direct me not, I shall become one of the people who go astray. And when he saw the rising sun he said, This is my Lord; this is the greatest; but when it set he said, O my people, verily I am clear of that which ye associate with God; I direct my face unto Him who hath created the heavens and the earth.” Thus from very early times to that of Mohammed monotheism was in conflict with the form of idolatry that naturally allured the inhabitants of Arabia. Job confesses the attraction, denies the sin. He speaks as if the laws of his people were strongly against sun worship, whatever might be done elsewhere.
V.
He proceeds to declare that he has never rejoiced over a fallen enemy nor sought the life of any one with a curse. He distinguishes himself very sharply from those who in the common Oriental way dealt curses without great provocation, and those even who kept them for deadly enemies. So far was this rancorous spirit from him that friends and enemies alike were welcome to his hospitality and help. Job 31:31 means that his servants could boast of being unable to find a single stranger who had not sat at his table. Their business was to furnish it every day with guests. Nor will Job allow that after the manner of men he skilfully covered transgressions. “If, guilty of some base thing, I concealed it, as men often do, because I was afraid of losing caste, afraid lest the great families would despise me” Such a thought or fear never presented itself to him. He could not thus have lived a double life. All had been above board, in the clear light of day, ruled by one law. In connection with this it is that he comes with princely appeal to the King.
“Oh that I had one to hear me!-
Behold my signature-let the Almighty answer me.
And oh that I had my Opponents charge!
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, I would bind it unto me as a crown.
I would declare unto Him the number of my steps,
As a prince would I go near unto Him.”
The words are to be defended only on the ground that the Eloah to whom a challenge is here addressed is God misunderstood, God charged falsely with making unfounded accusations against His servant and punishing him as a criminal. The Almighty has not been doing so. The vicious reasoning of the friends, the mistaken creed of the age make it appear as if He had. Men say to Job, You suffer because God has found evil in you. He is requiting you according to your iniquity. They maintain that for no other reason could calamities have come upon him. So God is made to appear as the mans adversary; and Job is forced to the demonstration that he has been unjustly condemned. “Behold my signature,” he says: I state my innocence; I set to my mark; I stand by my claim: I can do nothing else. Let the Almighty prove me at fault. God, you say, has a book in which His charges against me are written out. I wish I had that book! I would fasten it upon my shoulder as a badge of honour; yea, I would wear it as a crown. I would show Eloah all I have done, every step I have taken through life by day and night. I would evade nothing. In the assurance of integrity I would go to the King; as a prince I would stand in His presence. There face to face with Him whom I know to be just and righteous I would justify myself as His servant, faithful in His house.
Is it audacity, impiety? The writer of the book does not mean it to be so understood. There is not the slightest hint that he gives up his hero. Every claim made is true. Yet there is ignorance of God, and that ignorance puts Job in fault so far. He does not know Gods action though he knows his own. He ought to reason from the misunderstanding of himself and see that he may fail to understand Eloah. When he begins to see this he will believe that his sufferings have complete justification in the purpose of the Most High.
The ignorance of Job represents the ignorance of the old world. Notwithstanding the tenor of his prologue the writer is without a theory of human affliction applicable to every case, or even to the experience of Job. He can only say and repeat, God is supremely wise and righteous, and for the glory of His wisdom and righteousness He ordains all that befalls men. The problem is not solved till we see Christ, the Captain of our salvation, made perfect by suffering, and know that our earthly affliction “which is for the moment worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”
The last verses of the chapter may seem out of place. Job speaks as a landowner who has not encroached on the fields of others but honestly acquired his estate, and as a farmer who has tilled it well. This seems a trifling matter compared with others that have been considered. Yet, as a kind of afterthought, completing the review of his life, the detail is natural.
“If my land cry out against me,
And the furrows thereof weep together,
If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money,
Or have caused the owners to lose their life:
Let thistles grow instead of wheat
And cockle instead of barley.
The words of Job are ended.”
A farmer of the right kind would have great shame if poor crops or wet furrows cried against him, or if he could otherwise be accused of treating the land ill. The touch is realistic and forcible.
Still it is plain at the close that the character of Job is idealised. Much may he received as matter of veritable history; but on the whole the life is too fine, pure, saintly for even an extraordinary man. The picture is clearly typical. And it is so for the best reason. An actual life would not have set the problem fully in view. The writers aim is to rouse thought by throwing the contradictions of human experience so vividly upon a prepared canvas that all may see. Why do the righteous suffer? What does the Almighty mean? The urgent questions of the race are made as insistent as art and passion, ideal truth and sincerity, can make them. Job lying in the grime of misery, yet claiming his innocence as a prince before the Eternal King, demands on behalf of humanity the vindication of providence, the meaning of the world scheme.