Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 13:1
Lo, mine eye hath seen all [this], mine ear hath heard and understood it.
1 2. Looking back to his delineation of the Divine wisdom and might as they dominate among men and in the world (ch. Job 12:7-25), Job says that his knowledge of them is not inferior to that of the friends a final answer to Zophar, ch. Job 11:6; cf. as to Job 13 : 2Ch 12:3.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Lo, mine eye hath seen all this – I have seen illustrations of all that I have said, or that you have said about the methods of divine providence.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XIII
Job defends himself against the accusations of his friends,
and accuses them of endeavouring to pervert truth, 1-8.
Threatens them with God’s judgments, 9-12.
Begs some respite, and expresses strong confidence in God,
13-19.
He pleads with God, and deplores his severe trials and
sufferings, 20-28.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIII
Verse 1. Lo, mine eye hath seen all this] Ye have brought nothing new to me; I know those maxims as well as you: nor have you any knowledge of which I am not possessed.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
All this which either you or I have discoursed concerning the infinite power and wisdom of God, I know, both by seeing it, i.e. by my own observation and experience, and by hearing it from my ancestors; so that I did not need your tedious and impertinent discourses concerning those matters.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. all thisas to the dealingsof Providence (Job 12:3).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Lo, mine eye hath seen all [this],…. Or “all those things” h he had been discoursing of, concerning the wisdom and power of God, and his friends also; some of these he had seen instances of, he had been an eyewitness of them, and could give an ocular testimony to them; and others he had discerned with the eyes of his understanding, being opened and enlightened, and had a clear and distinct view of them, so that he had seen and knew as much of these things as any of them had. Some i interpret it “all” other things, pertaining to the same subject; by what he had said, it might be concluded he knew more; this was but a sample or specimen of his knowledge, which, when observed, it might be perceived what an understanding he had in such divine things: the words are indeed absolute, “my eye hath seen all things” k, which must not be taken in the largest and comprehensive sense of all things to be seen, heard, and understood; for though Job’s knowledge was very great, yet it did not take so great a compass as this; many things in nature his eye had not seen, others in providence he could not discern, and but a small portion of God, of his nature, perfections, ways, and works, was known by him, as he himself confesses elsewhere, Job 26:14; this therefore must be limited and restrained to the subject matter in hand, and to what he and his friends had been treating of:
mine ear hath heard; some things he had knowledge of by the report of others, from his forefathers, his ancestors, men of capacity and probity, that could be credited, and safely depended on, and even some things by revelation from God; for if Eliphaz his friend had an heavenly vision, and a divine revelation, which his ear received a little of, why may it not be thought that Job also was sometimes favoured with visions and revelations from God, whereby he became more intimately acquainted with divine and spiritual things?
and understood it; that is, what he had seen and heard; some things may be seen, and yet not known what they are; and other things may be heard, and not understood; but Job had an understanding of what he had seen with his own eyes, or had received by revelation, human or divine: and all this is introduced with a “lo” or “behold”; not as a note of admiration at his knowledge, though the things known by him were wonderful, but as a note of attention to them, and to his remark on them, and as expressive of the certainty of his sight, hearing, and understanding of these things.
h “omnia haec”, V. L. Tigurine version, Beza, Michaelis; so Vatablus, Mercerus, Piscator, Codurcus. i “Alia omnia”, Schmidt. k “Omnia”, Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Bolducius, Cocceius, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 Lo, mine eye hath seen all,
Mine ear hath heard and marked it.
2 What ye know do I know also,
I do not stand back behind you.
Job has brought forward proof of what he has stated at the commencement of this speech (Job 12:3), that he is not inferior to them in the knowledge of God and divine things, and therefore he can now repeat as proved what he maintains. The plain , which in other passages, with the force of , signifies omnes (Gen 16:12; Isa 30:5; Jer 44:12) and omnia (Job 42:2; Psa 8:7; Isa 44:24), has the definite sense of haec omnia here. (v. 1 b) is not after the Aramaic manner dat. pro acc. objecti: my ear has heard and comprehended it ( id); but dat. commodi, or perhaps only dat. ethicus: and has made it intelligible to itself ( sibi ); of the apprehension accompanying perception. He has a knowledge of the exalted and glorious majesty of God, acquired partly from his own observation and partly from the teachings of others. He also knows equal to ( instar ) their knowledge, i.e., he has a knowledge ( as the idea implied in it, e.g., like Psa 82:5) which will bear comparison with theirs. But he will no longer contend with them.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Job’s Reply to Zophar. | B. C. 1520. |
1 Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. 2 What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you. 3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. 4 But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. 5 O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom. 6 Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. 7 Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? 8 Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? 9 Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? 10 He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. 11 Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? 12 Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
Job here warmly expresses his resentment of the unkindness of his friends.
I. He comes up with them as one that understood the matter in dispute as well as they, and did not need to be taught by them, Job 13:1; Job 13:2. They compelled him, as the Corinthians did Paul, to commend himself and his own knowledge, yet not in a way of self-applause, but of self-justification. All he had before said his eye had seen confirmed by many instances, and his ear had heard seconded by many authorities, and he well understood it and what use to make of it. Happy are those who not only see and hear, but understand, the greatness, glory, and sovereignty of God. This, he thought, would justify what he had said before (ch. xii. 3), which he repeats here (v. 2): “What you know, the same do I know also, so that I need not come to you to be taught; I am not inferior unto you in wisdom.” Note, Those who enter into disputation enter into temptation to magnify themselves and vilify their brethren more than is fit, and therefore ought to watch and pray against the workings of pride.
II. He turns from them to God (v. 3): Surely I would speak to the Almighty; as if he had said, “I can promise myself no satisfaction in talking to you. O that I might have liberty to reason with God! He would not be so hard upon me as you are.” The prince himself will perhaps give audience to a poor petitioner with more mildness, patience, and condescension, than the servants will. Job would rather argue with God himself than with his friends. See here, 1. What confidence those have towards God whose hearts condemn them not of reigning hypocrisy: they can, with humble boldness, appear before him and appeal to him. 2. What comfort those have in God whose neighbours unjustly condemn them: if they may not speak to them with any hopes of a fair hearing, yet they may speak to the Almighty; they have easy access to him and shall find acceptance with him.
III. He condemns them for their unjust and uncharitable treatment of him, v. 4. 1. They falsely accused him, and that was unjust: You are forgers of lies. They framed a wrong hypothesis concerning the divine Providence, and misrepresented it, as if it did never remarkably afflict any but wicked men in this world, and thence they drew a false judgment concerning Job, that he was certainly a hypocrite. For this gross mistake, both in doctrine and application, he thinks an indictment of forgery lies against them. To speak lies is bad enough, though but at second hand, but to forge them with contrivance and deliberation is much worse; yet against this wrong neither innocency nor excellency will be a fence. 2. They basely deceived him, and that was unkind. They undertook his cure, and pretended to be his physicians; but they were all physicians of no value, “idol-physicians, who can do me no more good than an idol can.” They were worthless physicians, who neither understood his case nor knew how to prescribe to him–mere empirics, who pretended to great things, but in conference added nothing to him: he was never the wiser for all they said. Thus to broken hearts and wounded consciences all creatures, without Christ, are physicians of no value, on which one may spend all and be never the better, but rather grow worse, Mark v. 26.
IV. He begs they would be silent and give him a patient hearing, Job 13:5; Job 13:6. 1. He thinks it would be a credit to them if they would say no more, having said too much already: “Hold your peace, and it shall be your wisdom, for thereby you will conceal your ignorance and ill-nature, which now appear in all you say.” They pleaded that they could not forbear speaking (Job 4:2; Job 11:2; Job 11:3); but he tells them that they would better have consulted their own reputation if they had enjoined themselves silence. Better say nothing than nothing to the purpose or that which tends to the dishonour of God and the grief of our brethren. Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is accounted wise, because nothing appears to the contrary, Prov. xvii. 28. And, as silence is an evidence of wisdom, so it is a means of it, as it gives time to think and hear. 2. He thinks it would be a piece of justice to him to hear what he had to say: Hear now my reasoning. Perhaps, though they did not interrupt him in his discourse, yet they seemed careless, and did not much heed what he said. He therefore begged that they would not only hear, but hearken. Note, We should be very willing and glad to hear what those have to say for themselves whom, upon any account, we are tempted to have hard thoughts of. Many a man, if he could but be fairly heard, would be fairly acquitted, even in the consciences of those that run him down.
V. He endeavours to convince them of the wrong they did to God’s honour, while they pretended to plead for him, Job 13:7; Job 13:8. They valued themselves upon it that they spoke for God, were advocates for him, and had undertaken to justify him and his proceedings against Job; and, being (as they thought) of counsel for the sovereign, they expected not only the ear of the court and the last word, but judgment on their side. But Job tells them plainly, 1. That God and his cause did not need such advocates: “Will you think to contend for God, as if his justice were clouded and wanted to be cleared up, or as if he were at a loss what to say and wanted you to speak for him? Will you, who are so weak and passionate, put in for the honour of pleading God’s cause?” Good work ought not to be put into bad hands. Will you accept his person? If those who have not right on their side carry their cause, it is by the partiality of the judge in favour of their persons; but God’s cause is so just that it needs no such methods for the support of it. He is a God, and can plead for himself (Judg. vi. 31); and, if you were for ever silent, the heavens would declare his righteousness. 2. That God’s cause suffered by such management. Under pretence of justifying God in afflicting Job they magisterially condemned him as a hypocrite and a bad man. “This” (says he) “is speaking wickedly” (for uncharitableness and censoriousness are wickedness, great wickedness; it is an offence to God to wrong our brethren); “it is talking deceitfully, for you condemn one whom yet perhaps your own consciences, at the same time, cannot but acquit. Your principles are false and your arguings fallacious, and will it excuse you to say, It is for God?” No, for a good intention will not justify, much less will it sanctify, a bad word or action. God’s truth needs not our lie, nor God’s cause either our sinful policies or our sinful passions. The wrath of man works not the righteousness of God, nor may we do evil that good may come,Rom 3:7; Rom 3:8. Pious frauds (as they call them) are impious cheats; and devout persecutions are horrid profanations of the name of God, as theirs who hated their brethren, and cast them out, saying, Let the Lord be glorified,Isa 66:5; Joh 16:2.
VI. He endeavours to possess them with a fear of God’s judgment, and so to bring them to a better temper. Let them not think to impose upon God as they might upon a man like themselves, nor expect to gain his countenance in their bad practices by pretending a zeal for him and his honour. “As one man mocks another by flattering him, do you think so to mock him and deceive him?” Assuredly those who think to put a cheat upon God will prove to have put a cheat upon themselves. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. That they might not think thus to jest with God, and affront him, Job would have them to consider both God and themselves, and then they would find themselves unable to enter into judgment with him.
1. Let them consider what a God he is into whose service they had thus thrust themselves, and to whom they really did so much disservice, and enquire whether they could give him a good account of what they did. Consider, (1.) The strictness of his scrutiny and enquiries concerning them (v. 9) “Is it good that he should search you out? Can you bear to have the principles looked into which you go upon in your censures, and to have the bottom of the matter found out?” Note, It concerns us all seriously to consider whether it will be to our advantage or no that God searches the heart. It is good to an upright man who means honestly that God should search him; therefore he prays for it: Search me, O God! and know my heart. God’s omniscience is a witness of his sincerity. But it is bad to him who looks one way and rows another that God should search him out, and lay him open to his confusion. (2.) The severity of his rebukes and displeasure against them (v. 10): “If you do accept persons, though but secretly and in heart, he will surely reprove you; he will be so far from being pleased with your censures of me, though under colour of vindicating him, that he will resent them as a great provocation, as any prince or great man would if a base action were done under the sanction of his name and under the colour of advancing his interest.” Note, What we do amiss we shall certainly be reproved for, one way or other, one time or other, though it be done ever so secretly. (3.) The terror of his majesty, which if they would duly stand in awe of they would not do that which would make them obnoxious to his wrath (v. 11): “Shall not his excellency make you afraid? You that have great knowledge of God, and profess religion and a fear of him, how dare you talk at this rate and give yourselves so great a liberty of speech? Ought you not to walk and talk in the fear of God? Neh. v. 9. Should not his dread fall upon you, and give a check to your passions?” Methinks Job speaks this as one that did himself know the terror of the Lord, and lived in a holy fear of him, whatever his friends suggested to the contrary. Note, [1.] There is in God a dreadful excellency. He is the most excellent Being, has all excellencies in himself and in each infinitely excels any creature. His excellencies in themselves are amiable and lovely. He is the most beautiful Being; but considering man’s distance from God by nature, and his defection and degeneracy by sin, his excellencies are dreadful. His power, holiness, justice, yea, and his goodness too, are dreadful excellencies. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. [2.] A holy awe of this dreadful excellency should fall upon us and make us afraid. This would awaken impenitent sinners and bring them to repentance, and would influence all to be careful to please him and afraid of offending him.
2. Let them consider themselves, and what an unequal match they were for this great God (v. 12): “Your remembrances (all that in you for which you hope to be remembered when you are gone) are like unto ashes, worthless and weak, and easily trampled on and blown away. Your bodies are like bodies of clay, mouldering and coming to nothing. Your memories, you think, will survive your bodies, but, alas! they are like ashes which will be shovelled up with your dust.” Note, the consideration of our own meanness and mortality should make us afraid of offending God, and furnishes a good reason why we should not despise and trample upon our brethren. Bishop Patrick gives another sense of this verse: “Your remonstrances on God’s behalf are no better than dust, and the arguments you accumulate but like so many heaps of dirt.”
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JOB – CHAPTER 13
JOB’S ANSWER TO THE THREE CONTINUED
Verses 1-28:
Verses 1, 2 related Job’s declaration that his eyes had seen and ears understood these acts of providence, that had been recounted by the platitudes of traditional wisdom of the aged, on which these three pious friends from afar had based charges of wicked guilt and covered sin in his life. Job told them, in no uncertain terms, that what they knew he knew about Divine providence, and that he was in no way inferior in knowledge to them, Job 12:3; Paul took a similar attitude when unjustly assailed, 2Co 11:4-6; 2Co 11:21-24; 2Co 12:6-11.
Verses 3-5 contrast the attitude of Job and his three advising friends from another land. V. 3 asserts that he would desire to communicate with the Almighty God, rather than with them, reasoning with Him directly regarding his afflictions.
But v. 4 charges, “ye are forgers of lies …physicians of no value,” charlatans, hypocrites, deceivers, and false prophets, like that of the woman recounted Mr 5:26. He then advised them that the highest order of wisdom they could show would be to “shut up,” “hold their peace,” or “be silent!” Rather than plead, He had rather confer with the Almighty God than with them, Job 9:34-35; He was convinced that they were characters of no value, formalist traditionalists with empty words at the best, Job 16:2. Blessed is he who keeps his mouth shut, when he has nothing to say, as repeatedly expressed, Pro 17:28; Ecc 5:3; Amo 5:13; Jas 1:19.
Verses 6-8 are an appeal of Job to his three accusers, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to just listen for a moment for the scolding reproof he had to lay on them from his liPs He chided them for speaking wickedly and deceitfully, claiming that what they said was from God and that God had judged him to be a very wicked man, else his sufferings and afflictions would not be so great, Job 17:5; Joh 16:2; 2Co 4:2.
Verse eight inquires if they will accept the person of the Lord God and contend for him, with partiality, fallacies, and preconceived opinions of guilt against him, Exo 23:23; Pro 24:23; Job 32:21; Job 34:19; Mal 2:9; Jdg 6:31. They knew not that God had turned him to Satan to inflict afflictions on him to demonstrate what a perfect or (mature) child of God could endure without turning away from Him, Job 2:6-10; 1Co 10:13.
Verse 9 inquires of these three advisors whether or not they will be found pure and disinterested in motives when God searches them out, tries them for their idle accusations of guilt against him. Can they deceive God, as they deceive men, or mock God in bringing false accusations against Job, Mat 12:36; Gal 6:7.
Verses 10,11 recount Job’s direct assertion to his three accusers that God would surely judge them for impractical judgment, even if they did it secretly, away from the general public, as they had v. 8; Psa 82:1-2. God can do His own judgment without invalid and fallacious arguments of men, Job assures them. Rhetorically he inquires if God’s excellency or majesty is not enough to cause them to fear and dread having claimed to speak for Him, when what they said was false, a spouting of sophistry, Jer 10:7; Jer 10:10.
Verse 12 asserts that the memorized platitudes they had quoted to indict Job of guilt would come to be like ashes of no value, Isa 44:20. They would one day be judged for their false and unjust accusations against Job, in the hour of judgment, and fall like bodies of clay, in contrast to bodies of stone, Ecc 12:13-14.
Verse 13 is a direct appeal from Job to his three recently come foreign friends to silence their abuse charges of sinful guilt against him, to increase his anguish; He desired rather to endure his afflictions alone, before God, and let come what would, 1Co 10:13; Heb 13:5.
Verse 14 adds that Job had rather take his flesh in his own teeth, a picture of a wild beast that carries its young to safety in its mouth, in times of storm and floods. He would prefer to put his life in his own hand rather than entrust it to the judgment of these “do-gooders,” who had come like buzzards to their roost, to advise him on how to prolong his life and be free from afflictions, Jdg 12:3; 1Sa 19:5; 1Sa 28:21; Psa 119:109. He did not fear to ask God to intervene, Exo 33:20.
Verse 15 is an outcry of Job’s trust; fidelity to God, that though God should slay him, or permit him to be slain, he would keep on trusting in Him, hoping in God, rather than deny Him, as Satan said he would, or curse God and die, as his wife advised him to do, Job 2:5-6; Job 2:9; Job 1 Kg 8:35; 17:1; Psa 23:4; Pro 3:5; Pro 14:32. He held faithfully to his integrity, Pro 27:5.
Verse 16 witnesses Job’s testimony that God would be, become his salvation (deliverance) from his vile and afflicted state. For an hypocrite would not wish or could not stand before Him as he would, Psa 1:4-6; Rom 14:11-12; Isa 12:1-2.
Verses 17, 18 appeal to these three accusers to listen earnestly to what Job has to say to them. He is not afraid to justify himself immediately, in the very presence of God, against what he considers blasphemously false charges of guilt of sin that had caused his afflictions, as asserted by these three praters of platitudes against his character. He states that he had “ordered” his cause, chosen moral and ethical conduct, and knew he would be vindicated as innocent of their charges, when face to face with God; Like Paul, he “knew whom he had believed” and had fixed faith in His Divine care over him, 2Ti 1:12.
Verse 19 is Job’s challenge just who would contend with him and provide sustaining evidence that he was false, a lying hypocrite, a concealer of grave sins in his own life. He said, prove it and I will have no more to say, fight no more to live, but quietly lay down and die, Job 19:5; Job 33:6; Isa 50:8; Rom 8:33.
Verses 2022 recount Job’s request that God do not two things to him: 1) first, that He not hide Himself or hold back from removing his stroke of affliction or disease any longer, Psa 39:10; Psa 39:2) second, that God will not overwhelm him with His very presence, causing him to shrink in fear. In verse 22 he calls on God to lay any charges he has against him and simply let him be free to answer them. He was willing to give account to the Lord, face to face, even as Paul was, 2Co 4:7-8.
Verse 23 is a plea from Job for the Lord to disclose how many sins, iniquities, and transgressions, were held against him, to cause such afflictions as he endured, as charged ignorantly by his three accusers, Joh 9:2-3; Joh 11:4.
Verse 24 is an inquiry of Job to the Lord, just why God hid His face from him, put a cloud between him and the Lord, as if he were an enemy of the Lord, to be robbed of his power as it appeared to men, Lev 26:36; Psa 1:4, as also expressed at length Deu 30:20; Job 10:2; Job 20:2-3; Psa 10:1; Psa 13:1; Psa 77:6-9; Psa 88:14; 1Sa 28:16; Job 16:9; Job 19:11; Job 30:21; La 2:5.
Verse 25 inquires whether or not the Lord will break him like a fallen leaf, blown about in a storm; Would the Lord continue to cause him to shake and tremble with terror? Even the Lord did not break a bruised reed, Isa 42:3; Mat 12:18-21; 1Sa 21:14; Lev 26:36; Psa 1:4.
Verse 26 recounts Job’s bitter complaint that, in the eyes of his so-called friends, God had legally recorded guilt charges against him, sins he had committed from his youth, for which he was now suffering. And it is later recounted in the law that men may suffer for such, but it was not so with Job, Exo 20:4-5; Psa 25:7. His suffering was for the glory of God, an example for us, Joh 9:2-3; Joh 11:4; 1Co 10:11-13.
Verse 27 adds that the Lord had put Job’s feet in stocks, like a criminal, taking away his freedom among men, until the time of his execution, Jer 20:2; Job 3:23; Job 19:8. He. was held and watched, fenced in by his afflictions, so that men judged him to be an unclean rebel against God, Job 23:11.
Verse 28 concluded that “he” (Job), third person, the one in such a condition, as a rotten, putrefied thing, or a moth-eaten garment, continually consumed away toward death, to which all men must one day come, Ecc 9:5. But he pleas for a justified relief from his disease, Job 14:1; Psa 39:11; Hos 5:12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
JOBS BRILLIANT REBUTTAL
Job 12-14.
THAT Job is an eager spokesman, this debate makes evident. He has it hard to abide his time. In fact, the text would indicate that he breaks in before his opponent has fully finished, and after we read the arguments of his opponents, we cannot seriously blame him.
Eliphaz, the old man, was, of the three, the most reasonable. Time teaches lessons not otherwise to be learned. Holding, as he does, to false philosophy of the time, and of all time, that God is the author of affliction, he yet urges Job to trust God through it all, committing his cause to Him, and by an elaborate argument of forty-eight verses, he attempts to prove that if Job be righteous, God will bring him out beautifully in the end.
Job doesnt wait for the speech of the other two, but immediately answers Eliphaz. It is interesting to measure the length of the arguments on the part of these two old men. Job requires fifty-one verses for his reply. Bildad, the second spokesman, and somewhat younger than Eliphaz, speaks more briefly (twenty-two verses), in defense of Gods sovereignty, and strongly intimates that only the hypocrite experiences the deepest chastisement. When he leaves off with the statement, They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to naught, Job can keep silence no longer and in the torrent of words (fifty-seven verses) he defends himself. Then Zophar, the youngest and altogether the shallowest and least respectful, makes his speech, and Job shortly shows his impatience with the prattle of the new theologian and at the end of twenty verses, a short chapter, breaks in upon him with an answer covering the whole case! He introduces his remarks with stinging sarcasm, as he sweeps with his aged yet keen eye, the three, and finally spits out the statement, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you!
It is easy to imagine this outstanding figure of the centuries who had once walked the earth, tall, erect, stately, honorable, commanding, consciously superior, as he now sits in ashes, covered with boils from head to foot, sick in body, bewildered in spirit, irritated by false arguments to the point where impatience and disease combine to make the false prattle of these men an unmeasured exasperation, and when he can endure no more, he answers in a justifiable heat, I have understanding as well as you. I am not inferior to you. In spite of outward appearances, physical suffering, disgusting boils, recent and terrific misfortunes, I am just as good as any one of you. You may mock and laugh if you like; you may in your physical comfort hold my condition to scorn; treat it with as much contempt as the man who at ease in his home treats the travelers limp. You seem to forget that the world is full of evidences that your philosophy is wrong. The tabernacles of robbers prosper; and they that provoke God are secure; they are blessed with the worlds abundance. Even the beasts would teach you a better philosophy if you went to them. The fowls of the air will tell you they have never sinned, but they sicken and die. The fishes of the sea will affirm the same fact, and everybody knows that God hath wrought this with them, God in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind Your ear is made to try words and your mouth to taste meat. You should not forget also that age tests wisdom and length of days understanding.
The old man has some sense. His counsel is worth attention and his understanding worthy of regard. He knows that God breaks down and it cannot be built, and shuts up and there can be no opening. He tries the heavens at His pleasure, or scourges it with a flood at His will. He holds all in His handsthe good and the bad, the great and small. He knows all things, and He doeth according to His own pleasure. Now, he says, I have seen all this and I know what I am talking about, and I know as much as you do, and am no more sinful than you are, and I wish you would keep silence while I have a chance to talk with God, for you make me tired.
Once more, Zophar might charge him justly with a torrent of words and we can readily imagine all three of them sitting in silence, in open-mouthed wonder, that a man so sick and afflicted should speak after such a manner.
Out of all this argument of Jobs, we find three distinct lines of defense; they relate not to himself, but to God.
GODS WISDOM
Wisdom of the highest sort is not with men. That is the meaning of Jobs sarcasm, No doubt but ye are the people and wisdom shall die with you. I have as much understanding as you have. These things that you speak I knew before you said them.
Everybody knows them. What is the use then of making me a mockery and laughing me to scorn when your knowledge is in no sense superior? You are simply playing the part of men who, being in physical comfort, forget the needs of the sufferer and who are speaking a philosophy that is false, namely, that my affliction is the proof of my iniquity, the evidence of hypocrisy!
As before he met their charge of sinfulness by confessing it and including them with him in the just condemnation that rests upon all men, so again he meets their air of superiority by confessing his own ignorance and insisting that their vision is not superior. This was both a true and a Scriptural reply, and when a man has the truth backed by the Book, who shall answer? He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace (Pro 11:12).
Wisdom, in the truest sense, belongs alone with God. With Him is wisdom and strength, He hath counsel and understanding (Job 12:13). He is to wisdom what the sun is to our planetary system, the source of all light. The match makes a light, but it must receive the powfcr to do so from the sun. The electric bulb makes a light, but it originated with the sun. Burning wood makes a light, but that is only the stored up rays of the sun. The moon and stars reflect light, but they also first receive the same from the sun.
So with wisdom; God is its original and only source. The wisest man only has his wisdom because God gives it to him, and the man who lacks wisdom is deficient through faithlessness, for He has promised, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him (Jas 1:5).
The world is full of folly because men have no faith. I have seen the man poorly endowed so truly trust God as to make his whole course and conduct a brilliant success as compared with the wretched course and ignoble end of another man who, though talented by nature, was a fool to grace.
Wisdom, Divine, is not destroyed by inscrutable ways. Job practically admits that he cannot understand many of the ways of God, but in spite of that he trusts. It is very easy for a sophomore to say, I wouldnt do so! We will believe nothing we cannot explain. Then the realm of faith is frightfully limited! Shall the minnow refuse to believe in the sea because he cannot understand its extent or in the passing whale because he cannot explain his size?
With Him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are His.
He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
He leadeth princes away spoiled and overthroweth the mighty.
He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged (Job 12:16-20).
But while all of this seems to involve contradictions in His conduct, one may be assured of the fact that through it all, God remains God and His conduct is forever consistent with righteous character, and in the end He will recompense the afflicted, enrich the poor, give health to the sick, liberate the enslaved, and show himself the friend of the faithful. All of which leads to the point of
GODS JUSTICE
In the judgment of Job, three things are certain:
Gods child can afford to order his cause before Him. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God (Job 13:3). Ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom (Job 13:4-5). Who can blame Job? Some men talk so much they leave no time in which to talk to God, and they talk so falsely they leave no opportunity to get from Him the truth, and they voice so many prescriptions that you cannot get to the Great Physician; while the moment another wise good man becomes the subject of misfortune, the object of Gods pity, that very misfortune makes him the subject of mans inhumanity, his criticisms, his mockery.
If I am ever convinced of the truth of evolution, it will not be on the ground of similarity in embryos. If I am ever convinced of the truth of evolution, it will not be by the very foolish argument that though we can find no instance of one species becoming another, we cannot tell what the eternity of the past might have wrought or the eternity of the future may accomplish. That is silliness palmed off in the name of science. If I am ever convinced of the animal origin of man, it is because there is so much of the brute remaining in him. It is a well-known fact that the finest wolf of the pack, the leader of all his fellows, if he be wounded by a shot from the enemy, instantly becomes their prey, and they will turn upon him and rend him.
I do not know that I have ever known a man big enough and great enough to escape the teeth of his fellows when misfortune befell him. Job in the day of his prosperity was everywhere recognized as a prince. In his presence the noblest of men made obeisance, but now that he is poor, stripped, diseased, decrepit, they stand about him and mock him. They look him in the face and indict him with hypocrisy. They point at his boils and cry, Just judgment. What a comment on human depravity!
In that very circumstance I think we find an illustration of another thing, namely,
Gods professed friends often and grievously misrepresent Him. Throughout this whole Book of Job, these three philosophers hold tenaciously to the theory that God is the author of Jobs affliction. This is not only false to the fact of the record that the devil did this, but it is also a misrepresentation of God Himself. Our God is not in the business of sending Chaldeans and Sabeans to strip men of their wealth. They come, sharks of every sort, but not at His behest. They have their gold-brick schemes, their promotion enterprises, their oil stock, their pistols and robberies, but not by Gods will. Cyclones and earthquakes sweep the earth and destroy man and beast, and men say, How strange for God, forgetting that Satan is the god of this world at present, the prince of the power of the air. Saintly men fall on sickness, and glorious, godly women are bound in body and tortured in flesh, and men, observing, remark, How strange are the ways of God, when God is not in any of it. His friends have so long misrepresented Him and maligned Him, that there is a revolt, and when men revolt they go to an opposite extreme and indulge a foolish reaction, and Christian Science is the expression of it, a philosophy that tells you truly that God is love, and denies foolishly that sin, sickness, sorrow and death, and even the devil, have any existence. But who can blame them? So-called orthodox preaching repeats this old lie that God is back of the worlds afflictions and sufferings, and is equally responsible for the new lie that there are none such. They tell us it used to be taught that there were infants in hell not a span long, and this was done by devoted ministers who held to the eternal sovereignty of God, and to the doctrine of election, with a vengeance. It was a misrepresentation and without a single Biblical text for its base. No wonder Job says, Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for Him? (Job 13:7).
The professors who deny God altogether or who would substitute falsehoods for the heavenly faith, and Natures laws for His Divinely wise regulations, make infidels of the students who sit at their feet; but not much more than do those supposedly orthodox ministers who preach an unbiblical sentimentalism and who present God after a manner unknown to His true character, and unjustified by Biblical teaching. We sometimes say we need to be delivered from our fool friends. The Heavenly Father is not exempt from the same remark. We grow so impatient with such misrepresentations that we are tempted with Job to say, Hold your peace. Let come on me what will, I prefer affliction to the voice of such folly. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
Gods ears are never closed to the sincere appeal. Job proceeds further, Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified (Job 13:18). That is the language of the man who truly trusts. He believes that God has heard his cry and that God will consider it. It is the confidence of the man who truly prays. Christ Himself justified and encouraged such confidence. The importunate widow prayed, and was not relieved, but ceased not on that account. She repeated her petition again and again and again, until even an unjust judge acceded to her request. Men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Zions Herald says truly, The church is in danger of getting to believe nothing at all. We need not less preaching about humanity but more about God. If the church is to have no firmer foundation than moral idealism of humanitarian cults, confusion and disaster await us! The church, in its haste to save the world, may be confounded by the world. The church of today needs a Pentecostal revival of power that never comes unless the church believes something and believes it tremendously.
There is a place for doctrine in the Christian church, and of all the doctrines, the chiefest is the doctrine of GOD. Tell me what sort of a God you have, and I need know nothing else about your religion; I can measure it accurately and record it correctly, for in a religion, God is everything. You can say, God is love, and be a one-sided sentimentalist; you can say, God is justice, and be an autocratic fatalist; you can say, God is wisdom, and be a scientific fool; you can say, God is grace, and be a libertine; you can say, God is mercy, and multiply your iniquities, but the man who has a truly complete God, such as the God of the Bible, will find his whole character and life influenced by that fact, and will take on in character what he attributes to the great Being before whom he bends his knee in prayer and adoration.
But to conclude:
GODS MERCY
Man is the subject of both sin and sorrow. Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not (Job 14:1-2).
This testimony from Job has an unusual value. Had he been wretchedly born, badly bred; had he known the grind of poverty and discomfiture and defeat of ignorance; had his business enterprises been a failure and his name a hissing and a by-word, we could not blame him for talking after this manner. But for one so well born, so splendidly trained, so eminently successful, so universally honored, as Job had always been until now, to speak this way sounds strangely indeed, and yet what man is exempt?
Take Solomon, the son of the king, the favorite of the people, the elect of God, the richest of the earth, the mightiest monarch living; the man whose glory astounded other potentates and forced from their lips the speech, The half hath not been told; and yet if you read the Book of Ecclesiastes you will find that he had all the things the natural heart commonly craves; wisdom was his inheritance, wine was his custom, women were at his command, wealth with him was unmeasured; work was according to his own pleasure and appointment; personal winsomeness was his favor from the Lord, but he sums it all up and declares it is vanity and vexation of spirit.
These are lessons not learned from the grade studies nor the high school class recitations, nor the college curriculum, nor by correspondence. They are the product of experience. It is said, Experience is the best teacher. One thing is sure and that is that its lessons of sorrow are not shortly forgotten, and what day brings none? Man comes into the world with a cry and leaves it with a groan and struggle, and cries and groans and struggles mark the path from the cradle to the grave.
In ones personal life there are so many opportunities of mistake and so many pitfalls into which one can land with a single step, and so many unforeseen circumstances by which one may suffer, and so many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that may enter ones flesh; in his business life there are so many investments that return less than they promised, and so many adversities one did not anticipate and so many financial crashes by which one may be caught; in his moral and spiritual life there are so many insidious temptations, so many conscienceless enemies, so many fateful neglects, and frightful iniquities that one is compelled, reviewing it all, to say concerning life, A few days and full of trouble.
Ones grief is not limited to his own life, labor, fortune or family. The griefs of others get in on him, the sins of others sadden him, the misfortunes of others weigh him down. I confess very frankly that just at this present moment and in the midst of the battle with modernism, my greatest single burden is that of my loyal brethren who hold positions dependent upon the good will of the ecclesiastical machine, and whose refusal to sell conscience and speak the shibboleth of infidelity is the repeated occasion of their crucifixion.
If one were more Christ-like his greatest burden would be not martyred saints but unsaved sinners the thoughtless throngs that press their way to the pit, the mighty multitudes who make a mockery of life itself, live and end it in sin and go to an eternal judgment!
But who shall draw a map of the realms of sorrow; who shall lay limits upon the experience of trouble? Who shall measure mans misery? All his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity (Ecc 2:23).
His life and death involve insoluble problems.
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into judgment with Thee?
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up;
So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
Oh that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! (Job 14:2-13).
Job here admits what every man knows full well; namely, that you cant explain all of human experience. You cant explain why the greatest of all Gods creatures should be the most sorrowful. You cant explain why he should be cut down permanently, whereas the tree, when cut down, is able to reproduce itself from the stump and bring forth boughs. Even mans death involves a question about which he would never be clear if it were not for Gods revelation, namely, If a man die, shall he live again? (Job 14:14). And yet, that there is an eventual objective in all nature who can question? When the sun sets it is that it may rise again. When the stars fade out we know they will reappear. When the floods come and devastate the earth, we know they are leaving rich deposits behind. When the earthquake is past, we know that the earth will settle into new form. When the storms are over, we know the sun will shine and the rainbow itself will blaze into the heavens in fresh testimony of Gods pledge that never again shall all nature be submerged. When the trees die, we know God will enrich the earth with them and bring out of their very decomposition a greater foliage and more abundant fruit.
As to the intermediary steps between life and death, no man can explain them all; no man can understand them all; but that we journey to an objective is hardly to be questioned. Job at least held a positive conviction, All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands (Job 14:14-15).
This Scripture with what follows to the end of the 14th chapter indicates another thought
Eternity is the promise of correction for the mistakes of time. The change Job anticipated he elsewhere discusses. He believed in life after death and a life of such harmonies as to make plain the present insoluble problems, and of such victory as to justify all battles.
One cannot interpret this language aright without anticipating the more positive declaration to which Job will later give himself,
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job 19:25-26),
a translation which, if accepted at its face value, means the blessed doctrine of the resurrection of the body, a confirmation of Pauls teaching
It is sown in corruption;, it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body (1Co 15:42-44).
If, on the other hand, one prefer the revised version, Then without my flesh shall I see God, then it is an equal confirmation of the Apostles teaching and another proof of the falseness of the doctrine of soul-sleeping, and is attested by the teaching of the same Apostle, To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, an explanation of the same Apostles desire to depart and to be with Christ which he declares far better; an expression of the hope that he penned to the Hebrews, of access to the City of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general Assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect (Heb 12:22-23); so that by either translation, either interpretation, Job confidently awaited the great change that should bring him to God and holiness and Heaven with its eternal felicity. How blessed a faith!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
JOBS REPLY TO ZOPHARCONTINUED
I. Job re-asserts his knowledge of the Divine procedure as not inferior to that of his friends (Job. 13:1-2).
Lo, mine eye, &c. Right in certain circumstances to maintain ones own knowledge, but without vain glory (2Co. 11:6; Eph. 3:4). Three things suggested in the words of Job as necessary to the
Acquisition of knowledge
1. Observation. Mine eye hath seen all this. Important to make a right use of ones eyes. Gods works both of creation and providence to be carefully observed. To observe Gods works and ways is both a part of wisdom and the means of increasing it (Psa. 107:43). A mark of the ungodly and a cause of their destruction, not to regard the works of the Lord nor the operation of His hand (Psa. 28:5; Isa. 5:12). Often the best knowledge that which is obtained by careful personal observation. Come and see, a common phrase in the Jewish schools, and frequently repeated in the New Testament (John 1; Revelation 6). Better to see for ourselves than to hear from others. The eyes, as well as the ears, are the purveyors for the mind.
2. Attention to the instruction of others. Mine ear hath heard. Moral and religious instruction at that time mostly oral. Consisted mainly in the recitation of proverbial maxims or truths delivered in short sentences. Such frequently quoted by Job and his friends. Reference made here to such. Each individuals own personal observation necessarily limited. The testimony of others required to supplement our own observation. The privilege and duty of one to avail himself of the testimony and conclusions of another. Since the invention of printing, the extension of education, the employment of steam, and the removal of the taxes on knowledge,the testimony and instruction of others now addressed nearly as much to the eye as to the ear. Reading now greatly takes the place of hearing, as the means of obtaining knowledge.
3. Reflection. Hath understood (or considered) it. Reflection an appropriating and assimilating process. Turns to account what is observed, read, or heard. Reading and hearing are with a view to reflection, as food is taken into the mouth only with a view to its being digested in the stomach. Food only serves the purpose of nutrition when properly masticated and digested. The eye and the ear collect the materials for the mind to work upon. Reading, as Bacon says, makes a full man; but reflection makes an intelligent, a growing, and a sure man. The want of consideration the characteristic of the way-side hearers. The reason of the Word of God, when heard, not entering the heart, and so of its being caught away by the enemy (Mat. 13:19).
II. His desire and resolution to address himself to God (Job. 13:3).
Surely, (or however) I would (or will) speak to the Almighty; and I desire to reason (or debate the case) with God. Observe
1. Great comfort to a believer in being able to take his case to God. Many things may be poured into Gods ear which may not be uttered to mans. Our comfort that in every controversy an appeal may be made from man to God. The heart in trouble eased by pouring itself out to our Father in heaven. The best way to dispose of difficulties and perplexities is to take them at once to God. Better to take our case to God than to man, as
(1) He is better acquainted with it, and can make no mistake about it;
(2) Will give a more just decision, being neither influenced by passion nor prejudice;
(3) Will shew more tenderness and sympathy in dealing with it.
2. Gods great condescension in allowing a creature to reason with Him. His desire that we should do so (Isa. 1:18; Isa. 41:21; Isa. 43:26). Our privilege to plead with Him, not to justify ourselves as righteous, but to be justified by Him as sinners. In the Gospel, God permits us to plead with Him for justification and acceptance on the ground of a better righteousness than our own. His invitation (Isa. 1:18); Davids resolution (Psa. 71:16); Pauls triumph (Rom. 8:33-34).
III. Vehement retort from his friends (Job. 13:4).
But ye are forgers of lies (or, stitchers up of falsehood,disappointing surgeons, or framers of false arguments,), ye are all physicians of no value (or, of nothingness, or idol physicians, as Zec. 11:17). They had come professedly to bind up their friends wounds, and heal his diseased mind. In doing this they had only employed false and futile arguments. Had applied useless remedies, and misapplied good ones. Had set out on the false principle that great sufferings prove great sins, and that temporal prosperity must always accompany true piety. Had therefore concluded that Job must be both a transgressor and a hypocrite. Had consequently employed arguments to bring him to humiliation, repentance, and prayer. Among other arguments, had held out to him the promise of deliverance from trouble and restoration to prosperity. Observe
1. Much wisdom required in ministering to a mind diseased. Care to be taken to employ only solid considerations and sound arguments. Only truth will satisfy and heal a troubled spirit. Preachers to beware of daubing with untempered mortar.
2. Scripture truth, rightly applied, the only medicine for sin-sick souls. Scripture written that through patience and comfort from it we might have hope (Rom. 15:4). Pauls direction to Christian mourners: Comfort one another with these words,the truths he had just stated (1Th. 4:18).
3. The honour and corresponding responsibility of being made a physician of souls. Requires
(1) Study and knowledge of cases;
(2) Knowledge of the requisite remedies;
(3) Skill in applying them;
(4) Sympathy with the sufferer. Christ the Great Physician of souls, and an example to all others. The best thing the preacher can do is to direct the Christian mourner and the sin-sick soul to Him (1Co. 2:2).
VI. Keen remonstrance and reproof (Job. 13:5-13).
1. Begs his friends only to refrain from speaking altogether (Job. 13:5). O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.Job. 13:13. Hold your peace, and let me alone. Application of the maxim in Pro. 17:28. Silence may not only give the appearance of wisdom, but is often wisdom itself. The part of a wise man either not to speak, or to speak to the purpose. Our speech to be with grace, seasoned with salt.
2. Bespeaks their attention to his reasoning and reproof (Job. 13:6). Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. A duty owed to a brother both to prove and reproveto prove error and reprove sin in him (Lev. 19:17; Pro. 9:8).
3. Shews their sin in acting as they had done. Their sin
(1) In dissembling and using false arguments, while pretending to defend God and His procedure (Job. 13:7). Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him(speaking differently from what their consciences believed, in order to please God and uphold his cause). To make God appear just in afflicting Job, they, contrary to their convictions, wished to make him out a guilty transgressor. Observe(i.) God needs no false doctrine or unsound reasoning to defend Him or His doings.(ii.) Gods cause needs no sinful compromises or questionable measures to uphold it. Neither the wrath nor the wrong-doing of man worketh the righteousness of God.
(2) In giving partial judgment for God, and presuming to make themselves His patrons, as if he needed either their favour or defence (Job. 13:8). Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? Good men to be Gods witnesses, but not His patrons or advocates. A sin in His sight to judge, not according to the merits of the case, but the quality of the parties. Partiality in reference to men an injustice, in reference to God an insult. Gods cause to be defended not with favour and partiality, but with truth and justice. Favour and acceptance of persons in judgment so obnoxious to God that He accounts it a sin, even when in reference to Himself. Only a blind, false, and superstitious regard to religion defends it with anything but truth and honesty.
3. In condemning what they secretly believed to be right, or maintaining with their lips what they did not believe in their hearts (Job. 13:9). Is it good (or will it be for your advantage) that he search you out (examine and expose your secret motives?) Or as one man mocketh another, do ye so so mock him? He will surely reprove you, if you do secretly accept persons. Shall not His excellency make you afraid (of acting thus hypocritically), and His dread fall upon you? (or, is it not His majesty that makes you afraid [of speaking according to your convictions] and does not the dread of him overwhelm you? [so as to act hypocritically in the matter]. Their condemnation of Job not from conviction of his guilt but from fear of Gods displeasure, and the desire to appear on His side. Observe(i.) All dissimulation hateful to the God of truth. Believers so to act as willing to bear the scrutiny of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire. (ii.) Fearful mockery of God to cloak our want of charity to man with a pretended zeal for God. (iii.) Necessary in maintaining the cause of religion, to examine our motives and the means we employ in doing so. A good cause may be defended from evil motives, and a bad cause may be upheld under the appearance of piety. A sin to act from slavish fear of the Almighty, rather than from conviction and a regard to truth.
4. Declares the worthlessness of his friends authorities and maxims with reference to the case in hand (Job. 13:12). Your remembrances are like ashes (or, your memorial sayings are proverbs of ashes,worthless, and easily scattered by the wind); your bodies to bodies of clay (or, your towers, or defences,i.e., your arguments and maximsare towers of mud,as opposed to those of stone, without strength or solidity, and easily thrown down). Probably a proverbial phrase for weak and worthless arguments. The reference to the quotations from the ancients in his friends speeches. These called remembrances, or memorial sayings, as intended to be carried in the memory, and so kept ready for use. Particularly numerous among the Arabs, and taking the place of laws. Abundant in the speeches of Job and his friends, especially of the latter. Great part of Oriental wisdom and learning consisted in the knowledge and ready recitation of these traditional maxims. Their value to be decided on their respective merits. Not to be regarded as in themselves inspired productions. Probably neither their authors nor reciters inspired men. As much wisdom required in the application as in the composition of them. A parable in the mouth of fools proverbially worthless and injurious (Pro. 26:7; Pro. 26:9). In the case of Jobs friends the fault chiefly in the application. The maxims themselves generally good, according to the views prevalent at the period. Care to be taken by preachers and others
(1) That quotations, especially those from Scripture, are correctly applied;
(2) That the arguments they employ are solid onesnot defences of mud.
V. His Resolution to plead his cause with God at whatever risk (Job. 13:13).
Let me alone, that I (or I myself) may speak (viz. to God), and let come on me what will. (Job. 13:14).Wherefore do I (or, come what may,repeated from previous verse,I will) take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand. A proverbial expression for expose myself, viz., to the threatened peril of suffering for presumption in pleading his cause with God. The attempt considered by his friends as most daring and perilous. Faith and a good conscience are courageous, even in reference to God Himself (1Jn. 3:21). The righteous are bold as a lion (Pro. 28:1). Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Jobs case with God that of Esther with the king: I will go, and if I perish I perish (Est. 4:16). Abrahams case in pleading for Sodom: I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes (Gen. 18:27. Necessity and love make men courageous.Job. 13:15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (or, behold, he will slay me, or let Him slay me, I will not expect [anything else]the Hebrew words for not and in him, the same in sound); but I will maintain (or, only I will prove and argue) my ways before Him. The antithesis between the third and the first and second clauses, rather than between the second and the first. Observe
1. The boldness of Jobs faith and conscious integrity here rises to its highest pitch. Though with only death before him as the result, he will still maintain his integrity, even at the tribunal of the Almighty. THE HEAT AND TURNING POINT OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN GOD AND SATAN IN THESE WORDS. Satans charge,Job will give up all, even his religion, to save his life. Thus it will be shown that God has not a sincere disinterested servant in the world; that all religion is mere selfishness and time-serving policy. God will thus be stripped of His honour in the universe. For Job to have given up his integrity and acknowledged he was not the man he had appeared, would have given the victory into Satans hand. Job would have been condemned out of his own mouth. Fear would have made him a liar, and to save his life he would have thrown away his religion. This the aim of Satan, and the tendency of all the arguments of his friends, cunningly suggested by himself. JOB PREFERS TO DIE, and Satan is defeated. Glorious triumph of faith and a good conscience! Many a believer, like Job, the battle-field between God and Satan. As he maintains faith and a good conscience, God is honoured and Satan put to shame.
2. Job persuaded that though his during might end in death, it would ultimately prove his deliverance (Job. 13:16). He also (or, even this) shall be my salvation; for an hypocrite [as Jobs friends charged him with being] shall not come before him. The fact of his appealing to God in the face of such peril, a proof of his innocence. The foolish shall not stand in His presence (Psa. 5:5). The righteous Judge would acquit him of the charges of his friends, and of any sin as the cause of his suffering. Even should death ensue, a deliverance awaited him beyond death. His innocence would be vindicated, which with him was salvation. The day would come when this would be done before an assembled universe (ch. Job. 19:25). The believers case always safe in Gods hands (2Ti. 1:16.).
VI. Job requests his friends attention to his pleading, and predicts his success (Job. 13:17).
Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration [in reference to my innocence] with your ears. Behold now, I have ordered my cause (have already set in order my pleading as a general draws up his forces for battle); I know that I shall be justified (shall gain the cause and be pronounced righteous by my Judge). Job actually justified by God as he expected, though not till he had humbled himself and repented in dust and ashes (ch. Job. 42:6). Observe
(1) The boldness and assurance of a good conscience before a righteous tribunal.
(2) Jobs language that of Christ himself, and of the believer trusting as a sinner in Christs merits (Isa. 50:7-9; Rom. 8:32-34). Job, in the circumstances, rightly trusted to his innocence and integrity as the ground of his justification by God. Men, as sinners, have not to plead their own righteousness as the ground of their acceptance, but that of the Surety provided for them by God Himself. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again. Christs name and title, The Lord our righteousness (Jer. 23:6). This also the righteousness of Job, viewed as in common with others a sinner before God (ch. Job. 40:4; Job. 42:6). Job upright in his life as a true servant of God, and so justified by his own righteousness before men; Job a sinner in himself in the eye of the Divine law, and so justified by the righteousness of his Surety before God.
VII. Introduction to the pleading (Job. 13:19-22).
1. Challenges any opponent in the controversy (Job. 13:19). Who is he that will plead with me? Defies any to shew that he is guilty of any crime deserving such unusual treatment. Similar challenge by Gods righteous Servant (Isa. 50:8); and by the Apostle in reference to believers (Rom. 8:32).
2. Expresses his intense desire to plead his cause before God, whatever the result. For now if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost (or, for now [if he can make good his cause against me and prove me guilty] I will hold my tongue and die).
3. Begs only to be freed from restraint in pleading (Job. 13:20). Only do not two things unto me, then will I not hide myself from thee. These two things specified
(1) The removal or lightening of his present suffering; Withdraw thine hand far from me (Job. 13:21).
(2) The withholding the overwhelming terror of his majesty; and let not thy dread make me afraid. The result of this request being granted,Then call thou (as plaintiff in the case), and I will answer (as defendant); or let me speak (as plaintiff), and answer thou me [the complaints that I have to make]. His wish either that God would accuse and give him an opportunity of answering for himself; or allow him to present his complaint as suffering without any known cause. No small presumption in the eyes of the friends for Job to wish either of these. The language only to be excused in the peculiar circumstances of the case. No sinners part either to complain against God, or to answer His charges. Ultimately Job is taught to give up the place both of plaintiff and defendant. Observe
1. Jobs difficulties in pleading his cause wereGods hand upon him, and Gods dread over him. Gods hand easily made too heavy for any creature to bear. If so heavy on a saint, what must it be on a sinner? If these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If Gods dread be overwhelming to a saint in a world of mercy, what will it be to the sinner in a world of doom? Good so to realise Gods terror now, as to escape it hereafter.
2. The difficulties removed, Job would plead with God and not hide himself from Him. Natural for fallen men to seek to hide themselves from God. Adams first act after the Fall was to sew fig-leaves together to hide his own nakedness; his second, to hide himself from God among the trees. Peters language to Christ the natural expression of conscious guilt in presence of Divine majesty: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Christ the true hiding-place of a sinner provided by God himself. Hidden by faith in the clefts of that Rock, the sinner can behold the majesty of God without dread.
VIII. Job pleads with God (Job. 13:23-28).
1. Asks to be shewn his sins which are the cause of his suffering (Job. 13:23). How many are mine iniquities and my sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sin. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, &c. This not a confession of sin, but a desire to have it shown. Asked more in the spirit of self-justification than of humility. Job unconscious of such sin as to merit such suffering, yet willing to know it. First, as to the mumber of his sins, then any particular transgression that has entailed such chastisement. Three different kinds of offences indicated
(1) Iniquities, or perverse deviations from the Divine law;
(2) Sins, or failures in duty;
(3) Transgression, or the most heinous kind of sin, involving rebellion and wilful breach of the law of God. Though not the cause of his sufferings, yet Jobs offences immensely more numerous than he was aware of. Like Paul, had lived in all good conscience; yet secret unknown sins might still exist. Davids acknowledgementInnumerable evils have compassed me aboutmine iniquities are more than the hairs of my head (Psa. 40:12). Gods testimony in regard to fallen man before the Flood, Every imagination of the thought of his heart is only evil continually; after the Flood, The imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth (Gen. 6:5; Gen. 8:21). Mans natural heart a poisonous upas tree and a corrupt spring. The fruit necessarily partakes of the nature of the tree; the streams, of that of the spring. Sin, in consequence of its effects on the soul, usually not known. Like the fish that discolours the water by its own secretion, and so escapes its pursuer. Important prayer (Psa. 19:12; Psa. 26:2; Psa. 139:23). Job ultimately made to know his transgression and his sin (ch. Job. 42:6). The discovery of the Divine glory is at the same time a discovery of our own sin. The result of Jobs trouble, as of all sanctified affliction. Knowledge of sin necessary to the knowledge of salvation. The whole have no need of the physician. Sense of sin needful to sense of the blood that was shed for its remission.
2. Pleads his present condition.
(1) As forsaken by God. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? (Job. 13:24). This the most painful element in his sufferings. So with David (Psa. 13:1; Psa. 22:1), and with Davids Lord (Mat. 27:48). Implies previous enjoyment of His presence and favour (ch. Job. 29:3-5). Only those who have known the sweetness of Gods fellowship can realise the greatness of its loss. Intolerable to a child of God to be regarded and treated as an enemy.
(2) As feeble and afflicted. Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? Touching images of frailty and prostrationa leaf driven to and fro by the wind, and dry stubble, worthless and ready to take fire. Seemed unbecoming the Divine majesty to pursue so feeble a creature with so much severity. Jobs sufferings already of some continuance. Had consisted in successive blows, increasing in severity, without mitigagation or suspension.To the eye of sense Gods dealings often unnatural and unlike Himself. Hereafter seen to be all holy, and wise, and good, infinitely becoming His Divine Majesty and character. Winter with its gloom, as necessary and as much a part of natures economy, as summer with its glow. God is His own interpreter, &c. Contrast with Jobs pleading what the Saviour actually does (Psa. 42:3).
3. Complains of the Divine treatment (Job. 13:26-28).
(1) That God visited upon him the sins of his youth. Thou writest bitter things against me (decreest bitter sufferings for me as the punishment of my offences), and makest me to possess (Heb. inherit) the iniquities of my youth (to suffer the punishment of sins long passed, committed in the season of thoughtlessness, and then passed over). Job entirely in the dark in egard to Gods present dealings and the cause of his sufferings. Gods part in them was to prove Job to be his faithful servant, in opposition to Satans allegations. Believers unable to judge correctly of Gods dealings from appearances. Blind unbelief is sure to err, &c. Satans object to get Job and every child of God to think as hardly of God as possible. God might visit the sins of youth on our riper years. Such sins deserving punishment, and requiring to be repented of in order to be forgiven. David remembered them, and besought God not to do so (Psa. 25:7). Foolishness bound up in the heart of a child. The thoughts of mans heart evil from his youth. The natural effects of youthful sins sometimes experienced in maturer years. Job, conscious at least of youthful sins, supposes he must now be suffering the punishment of them. Yet Jobs youth eminently virtuous and pious (ch. Job. 31:1; Job. 31:18). The sins of youth as well as of manhood atoned for by a Saviours blood (Isa. 53:6). The bitterness of sins punishment experienced by the Divine Surety on the cross (Mat. 27:24).
(2) That he was treated ignominiously as the vilest criminal (Job. 13:27). Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks. These a kind of clog, or fetter. Often a public, always a painful and ignominious punishment, and the severest restraint on personal liberty. Inflicted on Jeremiah in the gate, or most public place of the city (Jer. 20:2); and on Paul and Silas in the dungeon at Phillippi (Act. 16:24). Jobs case appeared to him to resemble this.And lookest narrowly into all my pathseither with the view of punishing, or of preventing escape. Job appeared to be watched as by a spy, or guarded as by a sentinel. Similar thought, ch. Job. 7:12; Job. 7:20. His temptation common to believers. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense. Gods true character and dealings described by the prophet (Mic. 7:18-19).Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feeteither(a) as tracking his steps with a view to punishment; or (b) as marking him as a criminal or runaway slave with branded feet; or (c) as hemming in his path and forbidding escape. The flesh mistakes friends for foes. In the battle of Alma men fighting in the dark fired on their own countrymen. Satans doings often mistaken for Gods, and God mistaken for a foe.
(3) That his lot was to pine away and perish (Job. 13:28). And he as a rotten thing consumeth (or, and the same, viz., the same unhappy culprit, meaning himselfa poetical and tragical change of the person, as better indicating his sense of his vile condition), as a garment that is moth-eaten. The humbling comparison of himself to worm-eaten wood, or to moth-eaten clothes, suggested by his bodily condition. The latter a common poetical figure for gradual but sure destruction. Applied to the body under disease (Psa. 39:11); to men in general (Isa. 50:9). The present verse closely connected with the following chapter, and forming a point of transition to it. Jobs condition as frail and dying a plea with God for pity and forbearance. The plea remembered in regard to Israel (Psa. 78:39); in regard to men in general (Psa. 103:13-14; Isa. 57:16). Gods mercy pities mens persons while his justice punishes their sins. Hence the gracious provision of a Substitute (Isa. 53:6).
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
4. The friends are self-deceived. (Job. 13:1-12)
TEXT 13:112
Lo, mine eye hath seen all this,
Mine ear hath heard and understood it.
2 What ye know, the same do I know also:
I am not inferior unto you.
3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty,
And I desire to reason with God.
4 But ye are forgers of lies;
Ye are all physicians of no value.
5 Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace!
And it would be your wisdom.
6 Hear now my reasoning,
And hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
7 Will ye speak unrighteously for God,
And talk deceitfully for him?
8 Will ye show partiality to him?
Will ye contend for God?
9 Is it good that he should search you out?
Or as one deceiveth a man, will ye deceive him?
10 He will surely reprove you,
If ye do secretly show partiality.
11 Shall not his majesty make you afraid,
And his dread fall upon you?
12 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes,
Your defences are defences of clay.
COMMENT 13:112
Job. 13:1Job warns of defending God dishonestly: by opposing his experience to that of EliphazJob. 4:8; Job. 4:12; Job. 5:3; Job. 5:27. He turns to face God with his charges regardless of the cost.
Job. 13:2This is a repetition of Job. 12:3 b.
Job. 13:3Jobs but as for me is possibly a sarcastic response to Eliphazs use of the same phrase. He told Job but as for me, I would seek God. Job replies, but as for me, I will challenge him to defend His behavior. Job desires to reason (cf. Isa. 1:18reflective, reason together) with God. The term is a juridical word which means argue, reprove, reason in the sense of establish a case. Two emphatic words strongly set forth Jobs commitment to debate God, rather than his counselors. He denounces them.
Job. 13:4He accused his friends with forging a lie (plasterers of liesverb means to besmear Psa. 119:69) to cover up the pain and agony which God causes. They are healers of no value (elimay come from the root, not, i.e., worthless). Physicians, heal yourselves!
Job. 13:5Even a fool that is silent is counted among the wisePro. 17:28. He implies that if his friends are truly wise they would show it by their silence. It is not their lot to shatter Gods silence.
Job. 13:6Hear (emphatic in Hebrew) my reproofPro. 1:23-25. The noun is from a root to argue my case (Job. 13:3). The R. S. V. is perhaps the best translation of this verse. Now to the impeachment in Job. 13:7-9.
Job. 13:7Literally, you speak injustice (noun wrong Job. 6:29; and parallel to deceit in Job. 27:4). For God is in the emphatic position. The meaning is thatFor Godyou lie or speak deceitfully. Will you defend God by speaking proverbs of ashes?
Job. 13:8Will you present God your face as His defender? What would God think (and do) if He investigated your actions? If God is a foe of injustice, He would be your foe. Gods cause is always the cause of truth. He is not flattered by your present dishonorable behavior. Why show favoritism with God, if He is just?
Job. 13:9Sarcasm continues to flow as mighty waters from Jobs mouth. God is the sovereign creator of everything; He cannot be flattered. If God searched out the truth (same word used by Eliphaz Job. 5:27) He would condemn you too.
Job. 13:10Jobs prediction is later fulfilled, Job. 42:7 f. The paradox here is seen as Job affirms his own righteous indignation against lying deceivers, and the creator of the universe seems less concerned than he is. This thesis is shared by contemporary naturalistic humanists who build their world-live view on the assumption of the inherent worth of the individual. Yet scientific naturalisms functional view of man precludes any defense of such a universal value. There is no way to empirically justify a universal moral value.[157]
[157] For a critique of the relationship of Scientific Theories to Scientific Progress, see my analysis of the epistemological possibility of the scientific method in my doctoral thesis in process on The Kuhn-Popper Debate concerning the relationship of Presuppositions, Evidence, and the Paradigm Revolution: Two Contemporary Paradigms of Scientific Knowledge.
Job. 13:11There is a magnificent play on words here in the Hebrew text. The parallelism between Gods majesty (seetho) or lifting up and show partiality indicates that Gods face (lift up his face) will strike fear or horror not joy in the beholder.
Job. 13:12Job accuses his friends of coming to his aid with proverbs of ashes. (Zikrommaxims or memorials) Their words serve no purpose; they are already dead. Their answers (gabbim) are like crumbling clay (4:70), with biting sarcasm he becomes more aggressive. How long will you rake trifles or debris (megabbeb)? Your words and arguments are useless bits of clay.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Second division, first section JOB’S DESIRE TO TRANSFER HIS CAUSE FROM FALSE AND SYCOPHANTISH FRIENDS DIRECTLY TO GOD, Job 13:1-12.
First strophe Announcing his purpose to appeal to God, Job cannot refrain from a well-deserved castigation of his persecutors, Job 13:1-6.
2. Inferior unto you See on Job 12:2.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 13:4 But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
Job 13:4
Job 42:7, “And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right , as my servant Job hath.”
Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
Job 13:15
Job 13:26 For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
Job 13:26
David did the same in his distress (Psa 25:7).
Psa 25:7, “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD.”
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 Defends God Against the Suspicion of Arbitrariness
v. 1. Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it, v. 2. What ye know, the same do I know also; I am not inferior unto you; v. 3. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, v. 4. But ye are forgers of lies, v. 5. Oh, that ye would altogether hold your peace! v. 6. Hear now my reasoning, v. 7. Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for Him? v. 8. Will ye accept His person? v. 9. Is it good that He should search you out? v. 10. He will surely reprove you, v. 11. Shall not His excellency, v. 12. Your remembrances are like unto ashes,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Job 13:1, Job 13:2
The first two verses of Job 13:1-28. are closely connected with Job 12:1-25; forming the natural termination to the first section of Job’s argument, that all results, whether good or evil, must be referred to God. Job 13:1 is little more than a repetition of Job 12:9 and Job 13:2 of Job 12:3.
Job 13:1
Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. All the particulars mentioned concerning God’s government of the world in Job 12:6-25 are derived by Job from his own experience. His eye has seen them or his ear has heard them. He is not indebted to others for information on these simple points, which he regards as necessarily impressed by their experience on all grown men (see Job 12:9).
Job 13:2
What ye know, the same do I know also. Job’s friends have claimed to instruct him and set him right, on the ground of their age and experience (Job 4:8; Job 5:27; Job 8:8-10), He protests that, in the matters on which they have lectured him, they have no advantage over himselfhe knows all that they knowin truth, the knowledge is open to all (see Job 12:3). I am not inferior unto you. An exact repetition of the second clause of Job 12:3.
Job 13:3-13
The second section of Job’s argument is prefaced, like the first (Job 12:2-5), with a complaint with respect to the conduct of his opponents. He taxes them with the fabrication of lies (verse 4), with want of skill as physicians of souls (verse 4), with vindicating God by reasonings in which they do not themselves believe (verses 7, 8), and consequently with really mocking him (verse 9). Having warned them that they are more likely to offend God than to please him by such arguments as those that they have urged (verses 10-12), he calls on them to hold their peace, and allow him to plead his cause with God (verse 13).
Job 13:3
Surely I would speak to the Almighty. It is not Job’s wish to argue his ease with his three friends, but to reason it out with God. His friends, however, interfere with this design, check it, thwart it, prevent him from carrying it out. He must therefore first speak a few words to them. And I desire to reason with God. Compare God’s own invitation to his people, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord” (Isa 1:18), and again, “Put me in remembrance, let us plead together; declare thou, that thou mayest be justified” (Isa 43:26); which indicate God’s gracious willingness to allow men to plead on their own behalf before him, and do their best to justify themselves.
Job 13:4
But ye are forgers of lies. A harsh expression, indicating that Job was thoroughly exasperated. The lies which his friends had forged were, partly, misrepresentations of what he had said, as for example Job 11:4, but mainly statements, more or less covert, which implied that he had brought all his calamities on himself by a course of evil-doing (see Job 4:7, Job 4:8; Job 8:13, Job 8:14; Job 11:11, Job 11:14, Job 11:20). Ye are all physicians of no value. Job’s friends had come to him to “comfort” him (Job 2:11), and act as physicians of his soul. But they had entirely failed to be of the least service. They had not even understood his case.
Job 13:5
Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace! The friends had “held their peace” for seven days after their arrival (Job 2:13). Oh that they would have held it altogether! Their words had done nothing but exasperate and goad almost to madness. There is a mournful pathos in Job’s entreates to them to be silent (comp verse 13). And it should be your wisdom. “Speech,” it has been said, “is silvern, silence is golden.” No doubt” there is a time for everything a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecc 3:1, Ecc 3:7); nor is the rule of La Trappe altogether a wise one. But probably ten times as much harm is done in the world by speaking as by keeping silence. “Words for God” need especial care and caution. If they do not do good, the harm that they may do is incalculable.
Job 13:6
Hear now my reasoning. As his friends have not kept silence, but have spoken, Job claims a right to be heard in his turn. If it be thought that he is somewhat impatient, it must be remembered that his opponents are three to one, all eager to catch him in a fault, and not very mild in their reprimands. And hearken to the pleadings of my lips. Job’s “pleadings” are addressed, not to his friends, but to God, and are contained in verses 14-28 of the present, and the whole of the succeeding chapter.
Job 13:7
Will ye speak wickedly for God? We are not to suppose that Job’s friends consciously used unsound and untrue arguments in their disputations with him on God’s behalf. On the contrary, they are to be regarded as convinced of the truth of their own reasoningsas brought up in the firm belief, that temporal prosperity or wretchedness was dealt out by God, immediately, by his own will, to his subjects according to their behaviour. Holding this, they naturally thought that Job, being so greatly afflicted, must be a great sinner, and, as they could not very plausibly allege any open sins against him, they saw in his sufferings a judgment on him for secret sins. “His chosen friends, as Mr. Froude says, “wise, good, pious men, as wisdom and piety were then, without one glimpse of the true cause of his sufferings, saw in them a judgment of this character. He became to them an illustration, and even (such are the paralogisms of men of this description) a proof of their theory that ‘the prosperity of the wicked is but for a while;’ and instead of the comfort and help that they might have brought him, and which in the end they were made to bring him, he is to them no more than a text for the enunciation of solemn falsehood”, i.e. of statements which were false, though solemnly believed by them to be true. And talk deceitfully for him. “Deceitfully,” because untruly, yet so plausibly as to be likely to deceive others.
Job 13:8
Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? Job intends to accuse his opponents of leaning unduly to God’s side, and being prepared to justify him in the teeth of reason and justice. This is like the conduct of a judge who should allow his decision to be biassed by favour towards one or the other party in a suit.
Job 13:9
Is it good that he should search you out? “Are your motives in thus acting,” Job asks his opponents, “so pure that they will stand the severity of God’s judgment when he turns his scrutiny upon you‘ and searches out the grounds of your proceedings? Is not your real motive to carry favour with him because he is so great and powerful?” Or as one man mocketh another, do ye so meek him? You may impose on a man by so acting, but you will not impose on God.
Job 13:10
He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. Even though it is his own person which you accept, his own cause that you unduly favour, he, as the God of truth, and Maintainer of right, will assuredly reprove and condemn you.
Job 13:11
Shall not his excellency make you afraid! and his dread fall upon you? Will not the very excellency and perfection of God cause you all the more to fear, since they will be arrayed against you? God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, who is no respecter of persons, and hates those who are respecters of persons, will by his very purity and truth be offended at your conduct, and induced to punish it,
Job 13:12
Your remembrances are like unto ashes. The “remembrances” intended are probably the wise saws, embodiments of the ancient wisdom, on which Job’s adversaries have relied in their disputations with him (Job 4:7, Job 4:8; Job 8:8-11, etc.). These Job declares to be mere dust and ashesuseless, worthless, such as the first breath of air wilt blow away. Your bodies to bodies of clay; rather, your mounds‘ or your defences (see the Revised Version). These defences, Job saysi.e, the arguments by which his opponents support their viewsare no better than “defences of clay “easy to batter down and destroy. The ancient defences of a town were usually either of stone, as at Khorsabad, or of crude brick faced with burnt brick, as at Babylon and elsewhere. But Job seems to be speaking of something more primitive than either of thesemere earthworks, like the Roman aggera, hastily thrown up and easy to level with the ground.
Job 13:13
Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak; literally, be silent from me that I may speak; but our version gives the true meaning. Job repeats the entreaty with which he had bemoan (verses 5, 6). And let some on me what will. Job is prepared to face the worst. He feels, as he expresses it below (verse 19), that, if he holds his tongue, he must die. He must speak, and speak he will. After that, let God do as he may pleasehe will accept his punishment, if God thinks fit to punish him.
Job 13:14-28
The appeal is now to God; but Job prefaces it by excusing his boldness (verses 14-19).
Job 13:14
Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth! An obscure phrase, to be explained by the parallel in the second member of the verse. The general meaning is, “Why do I jeopardize everythingmy body, taking it as it were between my teeth; and my soul, taking it as it were in my hand?” Neither idea will bear minute analysis; but the latter, at any rate, was known to the Greeks, and is common in English. And put my life in my hand (comp. Jdg 12:3; 1Sa 19:5; 1Sa 28:21; Psa 119:109).
Job 13:15
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; rather, yet will I wait for him. The passage is one of the few in this book where there are two readings and . Those who prefer the latter commonly render it, “I have no hope;” but it is pointed out by Canon Cook that there are reasons for regarding as an archaic form for , which sometimes takes its place. If this be not allowed the reading will have to be preferred, on the double authority of the versions and of the context. Job cannot possibly have said, in one verse, “I have no hope,” and in the next, “He (God) shall be my Salvation.” But I will maintain mine own ways before him; i.e. “I will maintain that they are right and good ways, not open to the imputations that my ‘friends’ have cast upon them” (Job 4:7, Job 4:8; Job 8:6, Job 8:20; Job 11:11, Job 11:14, Job 11:20).
Job 13:16
He also shall be my Salvation. Whatever God does to him (Job 13:13), whatever burden he lays upon him, though he even “slay” him (Job 13:15), yet Job is sure that ultimately, in one way or another, God will be his Salvation. It is this determined trustfulness which at once gives Job’s character its strength, and atones in a certain sense for his over-boldness in challenging God to a controversy. His heart is right with God. Though the secrets of the unseen world have been hidden from him, and the condition of man after death is a mystery on which he can only form vague conjectures, yet he is sure that in the end God will not fail him. For an hypocrite shall not come before him. If he were a hypocrite the case would be different; he would tremble before God, instead of feeling confident. But, knowing that he is honest and true, he is not afraid; he is bold to “come before him,” and plead his cause before him.
Job 13:17
Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears. A last appeal to his opponents to give him their full attention (comp. Job 13:6),
Job 13:18
Behold now, I have ordered my cause; i.e. I have prepared my pleadings, and arranged them; I know what I am about to say. Also I know that I shall be justified. I am confident, i.e.‘ that tile cause, if it be fully heard, will be decided in my favour. It will appear that I have not brought my calamities upon myself by my own misdoings. Of justification, in the forensic sense, of imputed righteousness, with its concomitant ideas, Job, of course, knows nothing.
Job 13:19
Who is he that will plead with me? Will God himself plead? Or will he depute some one, man or angel? Job is impatient that the pleadings should begin. For now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost. Some translate, “For now shall I hold my peace and give up the ghost,” which they explain to mean, “If God does implead me, I shall take refuge in silence, and straightway expire.” But this seems an impossible conclusion, when all that Job has been aiming at and striving for since his opponents taxed him with wickedness has been that he might “speak to the Almighty, and reason with God” (verse 3). It is far simpler to keep to the translation of the Authorized Version, and understand Job to mean that things have now reached a point at which he must either speak or expire.
Job 13:20
Only do not two things unto me. Before beginning his plea, Job has two requests to make of God.
(1) That he will put an end for a time to his bodily sufferingssuspend them, at any rate, while the pleading continues;
(2) that he will during the same space abstain from terrifying him mentally, as he had done on previous occasions (Job 6:4; Job 7:14; Job 9:14; see below, Job 9:21). Then will I not hide myself from thee; literally, from thy face (comp. Job 9:34, Job 9:35, “Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me: then would I speak, and not fear him “).
Job 13:21
Withdraw thine hand far from me; i.e. “thy afflicting hand.” Job views all his physical suffering as coming directly from the hand of Godmomentarily caused by him, and therefore removable by him at any moment. He has no thought for secondary causes. And let not thy dread make me afraid. Job speaks here and elsewhere of spiritual terrorsthose vague and impalpable fears which suggest themselves inwardly to the soul, and are tar more painful, far more dreadful, than any amount of bodily anguish. Unless he is free from these, as well as from physical pains, he cannot plead his cause freely and fully.
Job 13:22
Then call thou, and I will answer. “Then”when I am free from suffering, both mental and bodilyimplead me, bring thy charges against me, and I will answer them. As Mr. Fronds observes, “Job himself had been educated in the same creed” as his comforters; “he, too, had been taught to see the hand of God in the outward dispensation”. He therefore assumes that God will have a particular charge to make against him, in connection with each of the calamities that have come on him, and he is prepared to face these changes and confute them. At the same time, he is undoubtedly much confused and perplexed, not knowing how to reconcile his traditional belief with his internal consciousness of innocence. Or let me speak, and answer thou me. “Let me,” i.e.‘ “take the initiative, if thou preferrest it solet me ask the questions, and do thou answer.”
Job 13:23
How many are mine iniquities and sins? This is scarcely, as Professor Stanley Leathes represents it, “a deep confession of personal sin”. It is more in the nature of a remonstrance. “These sins of mine, for which I. am so grievously punished, what are they? Name them. How many are there of them? Let me know exactly what they are; and then I can question my conscience concerning them.” Make me to know my transgression and my sin. These words imply that lie does not know them at present. He knows of some infirmities and lighter misdoings of his youth (Job 13:26); but he knows of no such sins as are commensurate with his sufferings.
Job 13:24
Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? What is thy reason for withdrawing from me the light of thy countenance, and behaving towards me as though thou weft mine enemy? Job does not believe God to be his enemy. He knows that God will one day be his Salvation (verse 16); but he recognizes a present alienation, and desires to be made acquainted with the cause of it.
Job 13:25
Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? Job compares himself to two of the weakest things in naturea withered leaf, and a morsel of dry stubble. He cannot believe that God will employ his almighty strength in crushing and destroying what is so slight and feeble. A deep sense of God’s goodness and compassion underlies the thought.
Job 13:26
For thou writest bitter things against me. The allusion seems to be to the ordinary practice in ancient law-courts of formulating a written acte d’accusation against supposed criminals. Keeping up the imagery of a court and pleadings, Job represents God as engaged in drawing up such a document against him. The “bitter things” are the charges which the acts contains. And makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. Job, like David, has to acknowledge “sins and offences” committed in his youth (Psa 25:6). In considering what the indictment against him can be, he can only suppose that these old and long-forsaken sins are being remembered and brought up against him, and that he is being punished for them. He does not exclaim against this as injustice; he feels probably that there is no statute of limitations respecting sins and their punishment; but it can scarcely have seemed to him consistent with God’s goodness and mercifulness that the offences of his immature age should be visited upon him so bitterly.
Job 13:27
Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks (comp. Job 33:11). The punishment is said to be still in use among the Bedouin Arabs. It was well known to the Israelites (Pro 7:22; Jer 20:2; Jer 29:26), to the Greeks (Herod; 9.87), and to the Romans (Act 16:24). And lookest narrowly unto all my paths. Not allowing me to escape thee. Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet; rather, upon the soles of my feet. The “print” intended is probably a mark which the stocks were in the habit of making.
Job 13:28
And he. The change of person is very strange, but not unknown to the Hebrew idiom. It is impossible that any one but Job himself can be meant. As a rotten thing consumeth, as a garment that is moth-eaten. An allusion to the character of the disease from which he is suffering.
HOMILETICS
Job 13:1-16
Job to Zophar: 4. A wounded soul at bay.
I. THE VOICE OF FIERCE RECRIMINATION. Transfixing on the spear-point of his remorseless logic the men who had mocked at his misery, and converted his very piety into a laughing-stock, with infinite scorn Job holds them up a spectacle to angels and to men, charging them with at least three most detestable offences.
1. Ignoring of facts. They had favoured him with their views of how God conducted the affairs of the universe, citing apothegms, quoting proverbs, and adducing similitudes carefully selected to bear out their peculiar dogmas and preconceived theories; but he too could string together wise saws extracted from the ancients, being in respect of traditionary lore not one whir behind them (verse 2), and he had done it (Job 12:6, Job 12:14-25). What is more, he had observed in the world around him exemplifications of everything he had advanced (verse 1); and, unless they had been as blind as moles and as senseless as the ass to whose offspring they had compared him, they too must have frequently perceived the same. But they had not been willing to discover anything inconsistent with their favourite dogma; or they had travelled through the world with their eyes shut and their ears closed; or they had not been at the trouble to reflect and compare. Inattention, or want of observation, inconsideration, or want of reflection, insincerity, or want of a genuine love for the truth, are three formidable barriers in the way of man’s advancement in knowledge. The first is the fault of the careless, the second of the foolish, the third of the ungodly. Eye and ear, being the soul’s best gateways for knowledge, should be kept continually open. But the testimonies and reports which enter by these gateways should be subjected to diligent inspection and careful comparison. The truth once found should never fail to secure admission into the inner chamber of the heart.
2. Forging of lies. Instead of patiently collecting and collating facts from the opened page of human history, and deducing therefrom conclusions as to the principle or principles of the Divine government, Job’s friends first invented a theory, and then looked about for musty proverbs to support it. They were not philosophers or theologians at all, but simply theorists, inventors of sophisms, stitchers together of falsehoods, and fabricators of vanities (verse 4), who had endeavoured to construct a theodicy by mingling together a little bit of fact and a large amount of fancy, or by patching together a handful of ancient platitudes. Much of modern science, philosophy, and even theology, proceeds upon the principle here so severely castigated. The true Baconian method of induction, first to ascertain with minute accuracy, not a few, but, as far as possible, all the facts of the case before pronouncing judgment as to the formula which shall explain them, is the only safe guide to be followed in philosophical discussion, scientific research, or theological investigation. A formula that does not embrace every known fact, much more that is contradicted by any known fact, cannot be correct.
3. Accepting of persons. Passing on to a more serious indictment, Job charges them with abject and contemptible sycophancy; with taking God’s side simply because they knew he was strong; with supporting his cause by means of arguments which were consciously insincere, and generally with playing the part of flatterersa course of conduct which Job declares to be:
(1) Wicked in itself. “Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?” (verse 7). To propound fallacious theories, least of all to do so knowingly and deliberately, never can be right, even though such theories are advanced in favour of God and religion. This is practically done when men attempt to buttress up Divine truth, advance the Divine cause, or vindicate the Divine character by means of sophistical arguments. But not even in this case does the end sanctify, the means.
(2) Unjust towards himself. “Will ye accept his person? will ye contend, for God?” (verse 8). To side with God in any controversy which he maintains with the creature never can be wrong considered in itself (Rom 3:4), but to do so without regard to the rights of that creature with whom God contends never can be right. Job complained that, in declining to believe his protestations of integrity, and in cruelly assuming without proof that he was guilty, his friends were practically showing partiality towards God, and behaving with unfairness towards him. But it never can be fight, in order to justify God, to perpetrate injustice against man.
(3) Displeasing to God. “Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?” (verse 9). Were God to investigate their conduct, he could not possibly extend to it his approbation. They would seem to him as persons who were attempting to jest with and deceive him, as men jest with and deceive their fellows. Their behaviour would be wholly abhorred by him whose patrons they had so presumptuous!y constituted themselves, since God never can approve of falsehoods or injustices even m support of his own cause, which stands in no need whatever of sophistries or patronage of any sort.
(4) Certain of exposure. “Shall it be well with you when he searches you out? or may you deceive him as a man is deceived?” No! verily. “He will surely reprove you, if ye secretly accept persons.” And this in two ways; by confounding their persons: “Shall not his excellency make you afraid?” and exploding their doctrines: “Your remembrances,” i.e. your memorable sayings, “are,” or shall be, “like unto ashes;” literally, “shall be proverbs of ashes;” i.e. they shall be demonstrated to be as valueless and as easily effaced as similitudes traced upon the dust; “and your ramparts,” i.e. the arguments behind which ye entrench yourselves, “shall be ramparts of clay,” as easily broken through as mud wails.
II. THE VOICE OF OUTRAGED INTEGRITY.
1. An appeal from man to God. “Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God!” (verse 3). So David, when the mouth of the wicked and the tongue of the deceitful opened against him, addressed himself to God in prayer (Psa 109:2-4). Christ also, when his enemies gaped upon him with their mouths, sought refuge against their calumnies in holy intercourse with God (Psa 22:2-21; Mat 27:39-46; Joh 11:42). The example of both is commended to saints when similarly circumstanced (Psa 55:22; Psa 91:15; Php 4:6; 1Pe 5:7), and has been frequently followed. Many who have been denied justice at the hands of their fellows have been constrained to appeal to the tribunal of the skies. It is a great mercy that such a court exists for suffering men, and that its door is never closed against the suit of a distressed saint (Psa 34:15; 1Pe 3:12; Luk 18:7, Luk 18:8). On the contrary, God’s people are invited to repair to him in every time of trouble (Psa 50:15; Psa 62:8; Rom 12:12; Heb 4:16), when burdened by affliction, when overtaken by spiritual anxiety, when misunderstood by men. If we may not maintain our sinlessness before God (Psa 69:5), we can at least uphold our integrity (Job 10:7; Joh 21:15, Joh 21:16; Rom 1:9). But whatever be our case, it will be by him both exactly appreciated and tenderly sympathized with.
2. A request for non-interference on the part of man. “Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace I and it should be your wisdom” (verse 5); “Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak” (verse 13). Job advances two reasons for desiderating silence on the part of his friends.
(1) It would greatly enhance their reputation for wisdom (cf. Pro 17:28). It is one mark of wisdom to know when to be silent; and it is better to he always silent than to utter heartless sophistries and pointless platitudes like those of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
(2) It would greatly facilitate his converse with God. In the soul’s supreme moments of spiritual distress, few things are more irksome than the well-meant but almost always irritating admonitions and advices of good people. The ordinary mind fails to see that, as there is a joy, so also there is a sorrow, with which no stranger can intermeddle (Pro 14:10). Besides, the great controversy between God and the human soul must be fought out in solitude and in silence, like the struggle at the ford of Jabbok between the angel and Jacob (Gen 32:24).
3. A determination to defend his cause with God.
(1) At all hazards. Job is prepared to go forward, “let come on him what will;” “to take his flesh in his teeth, and put his life in his hand;’ to undergo death itself if need be. “Behold! he may slay me: I entertain no hope,” i.e; of any other issue to the conflict: “yet will I maintain my ways before him.” However this verse be translated (vide Exposition), it contains a threefold testimonyto Job’s deeply seated consciousness of his own personal integrity; to Job’s clear moral honesty, since a hypocrite would never have proposed to invite the Divine inspection of himself and his ways; and to Job’s exalted heroism, which would rather brave death than dishonour, clinging to God with invincible fidelity in spite of overwhelming temporal disaster and mental anxiety; yea, in the face of death and dissolutiona sublime refutation of the Satanic calumny (Job 2:5).
(2) Yet not without hope. Job was inwardly persuaded that the ultimate result of his venture would be triumphant vindication and salvation. This conviction was grounded on the fact of his intense inward longing to stand face to face with God. His reasoning takes the form of a syllogism. It is impossible that a man conscious of hypocrisy should desire an interview with God. But such desire is the all-absorbing passion of my soul. Therefore I indulge the hope that! am not a hypocrite, and that he who now seems to be my Adversary will eventually prove my Salvation.
Learn:
1. It is the delight of a good man, the sign of a wise man, and the duty of all men, to study the ways and works of God.
2. It is no sin to vindicate one’s character when that is wrongly aspersed.
3. It requires a good cause to enable a weak man to speak with the Almighty.
4. It is not a fault in manners to reprove good men when they tell lies.
5. It is a fault in good men when they depart from the troth even by a hair’s breadth.
6. It is infinitely wiser not to talk at all than to talk like a fool.
7. It is dangerous to summon allies from the devil’s camp, even when fighting in the Lord’s battles.
8. It is an insult to God to suppose that light and darkness, truth and error, sincerity and hypocrisy, righteousness and unrighteousness, Christ and Belial, can be confederates.
9. It is better to revere God’s holiness on earth than to tremble before his glorious power in a future world.
10. It is a poor defence that even a good man finds in lies and deceptions.
11. It is preferable to part with life than with faith in God.
12. It is certain that, though a humble believer may be slam, he never can be lost.
Job 13:15, Job 13:16
Faith and assurance.
I. JOB‘S FAITH. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Mark:
1. The Object of Job’s faith. God, as the Justifier of the ungodly who believe, since Job did not claim to be sinless, and yet expected to be justified.
2. The trial of Job’s faith. The intense sufferings, both physical and mental, through which he passed. The faith of God’s people is commonly subjected to trial. Yet it is doubtful if any have ever experienced greater difficulties in the way of believing in God than Job did.
3. The intensity of Job’s faith. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Job was determined that no amount of hardship should prevent him from confiding in the God of mercy and salvation; in which respect he is well worthy of imitation by Christ’s followers.
4. The triumph of Job’s faith. It was no mere boast on the part of Job that he would cling to God at all hazards, as it has often proved on the part of over-confident believers (e.g. Peter); but the issue of his trim established the sincerity of his words. His faith was often rudely assaulted, and sometimes appeared to tremble, but it was never overthrown.
II. JOB‘S ASSURANCE. “He also shall be my Salvation” (verse 16); “I know that I shall be justified.” Assurance of salvation is clearly possible, since it was enjoyed by Abel (Heb 11:3), Enoch (Heb 11:6), Abraham (Gen 15:6), Moses (Exo 15:2), David (Psa 18:2), St. Paul (Php 1:21; 2Ti 4:8); it is also extremely desirable for the saint’s usefulness, as much as for the saint’s comfort, and in every instance in which it is possessed must be based, as Job’s was, on:
1. Belief in the Divine testimony. Job knew that he would be justified, not because he was a sinless man, but because he trusted in God; and this is the first ground of assurance to an anxious soul. The sinner that believes is sure of salvation, because “he that believeth shall be saved;” and every one who trusts in him that justifieth the ungodly may with confidence affirm, “I know that I shall be justified.”
2. Consciousness of personal sincerity. That is, if a man, after careful self examination, discovers in himself the tokens of true piety and Christian integrity, he is warranted to conclude that he has passed from death to life, and God will eventually prove his salvation. Job felt he was not a hypocrite, but a sincerely upright man; and hence he knew that God would not condemn him. St. John, in his Epistles, supplies marks by which a man may determine for himself whether or not he is a genuine Christian disciple.
Learn:
1. That without faith there can be no assurance.
2. That wherever there is faith there ought to be assurance.
Job 13:17-28
Job to God: resumption of the third controversy: 1. The pleading of a saint with Heaven.
I. PRELIMINARIES TO THE PLEADING.
1. Public audience invited. Job requests his discomfited friends to be silent spectators of the ensuing trial, and to attentively consider the defence he was about to offer (verse 17). Intended chiefly for the ear of God, it should yet contain nothing unfit for publication in the hearing of men. Conscious of sincerity, Job had nothing to conceal. Guilelessness is ever a mark of true saintship. “A man with a clear conscience can stand fearlessly before the whole world.” Undaunted courage is also characteristic of the godly (Psa 27:1; Pro 28:1; 1Jn 3:21), who, however, unlike Job, are emboldened, not by a sense of their own integrity, but by a calm reliance on the righteousness of Christ (Isa 45:24, Isa 45:25; Isa 50:7-9; Rom 8:32-34).
2. Perfect readiness expressed. Job asserts (verse 18) that he had carefully arranged the several pleas he should urge in vindication of his outraged integrity. And in this Job’s example may be followed with advantage. Neither saint nor sinner should irreverently and presumptuously intrude into God’s presence without having first composed his heart and, as far as possible, arranged his thoughts (Ecc 5:2). No man is ready for reasoning with God in prayer until he knows both what he wants and how to plead for it.
3. Hopeful confidence entertained. “I know that I shall be justified” (verse 18). This was no presumption on the part of Job, who probably based his justification before God, in the strictly forensic sense of absolution and acceptance, not upon his own righteousness, but upon the free favour of God, through the merit of his Redeemer (Job 19:25); but merely that inward consciousness of personal integrity which a good man may justly rely on as evidence of a gracious state, and by which he may encourage his fainting spirit when about to appear before God, like Hezekiah (Isa 38:3), David (Psa 26:1), St. Peter (Joh 21:17), St. Paul (Rom 9:1), and St. John (1Jn 3:21). Of course, it would be presumption were a sinful man, standing on his own righteousness, to expect that he would be justified before God (Psa 143:2; Rom 3:20). But, trusting in the great propitiatory sacrifice of him who is “the Lord our Righteousness,” the guiltiest and most unworthy sinner may draw near to God with holy boldness (Heb 4:16; Heb 10:22), and with absolute assurance of acceptance and salvation (Heb 7:25; Rom 8:1), saying, “I know that I shall be justified.”
4. Sinful impeachment challenged. “Who is he that will plead with me?” i.e. against me, contradicting and disproving what I now so fearlessly assert, viz. my personal integrity. If there is any, let him stand forth and establish his indictment. If be succeed in tarnishing my fair name, “I shall be silent, I shall give up the ghost,” feeling that, honour gone, life itself can have no further charm for me. Many a one besides Job has felt that “good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls” (‘Othello,’ act 3. sc. 3), “the immortal part” of themselves (ibid; act 2. sc. 3), and that, that being lost, nothing worthy of possessing can remain (cf.’Richard II.,’ act 1. sc. 1). Job’s language reminds us of St. Paul’s address to his accusers before Felix (Act 24:16-21); and afterwards before Festus (Act 25:11); also of the loftier challenge addressed by Christ to his countrymen (Isa 50:8; Joh 8:46). And though certainly believers cannot use the question as did Christ, and may sometimes have a difficulty in employing it in the sense of either Job or St. Paul, it is always open to them, as they keep their eyes on the cross, to exclaim, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” (Rom 8:33).
II. CONDITIONS OF THE PLEADING.
1. A cessation of his troubles. (Verse 21.) The hand of God a frequent biblical expression for affliction (1Sa 5:6, 1Sa 5:7; Psa 32:4; Psa 38:2; Isa 1:25), which is sent (Deu 8:5; 2Sa 7:14; Job 5:17; Psa 94:12; Heb 12:6, Heb 12:7), guided (Job 33:17-19; Pro 3:11, Pro 3:12; Isa 48:10; Eze 20:37), and removed (Psa 50:15; Psa 66:12; Zec 13:9; Joh 16:20; Mat 5:4) by Divine wisdom and power. The fatherly chastisements of God are directly designed to refine and purify the saintly soul (Job 36:8, Job 36:10; Isa 48:10 : Heb 12:11), and to draw it near his footstool in penitence and faith, humility and love (Hos 5:15; Heb 12:9). Yet, not unfrequently, one of the first effects of bodily affliction upon a good man, especially if it be severe, is to discompose his mind, disturb his heart, and generally unfit him for converse with God.Notwithstanding the spiritual benefits folded up in tribulation, there can be no greater blessing, even with a view to the exercises of religion, than mens sans in sano corpore. Much of the spiritual depression experienced by Christians is traceable to extreme bodily infirmity, though sometimes happy invalids can say with St. Paul,” When I am weak, then am I strong;” “Most gladly will I glory in infirmities, that the power of God may rest upon me.” Then, if pious souls, groaning beneath the pressure of physical maladies and mental anxieties, find it hard to concentrate their thoughts upon Divine things, what must be the madness of those who delay the work of repenting and pleading with God for forgiveness and salvation till they are lying on a sick-bed, racked with pain, and perhaps trembling in the grasp of death?
2. A removal of his fear. (Verse 21.) The Divine character has a terrifying, as well as an attractive, side to sinful man. The glory of the Divine purity is so effulgent (Job 4:18), of the Divine justice so incorruptible (Job 9:2), of the Divine wisdom so ineffable (Job 9:4), of the Divine strength so overwhelming (Job 9:19), that the human spirit instinctively shrinks back in alarm. Burdened with guilt, tainted with pollution, lying under condemnation, it cannot hold up its head in the presence of such awful majesty, but, falling prostrate before the footstool of heaven’s glorious King, exclaims, like Isaiah, “Woe is me; for I am undone!” (Isa 6:5); and like David,
“In judgment enter not with me, thy servant poor;
For why, this well I wet, no sinner can endure
The sight of thee, O God.”
(Psa 143:2, metrical version.)
And like St. Peter, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luk 5:8). Job felt that, unless his mind were relieved from such paralyzing views of the overwhelming grandeur of his invisible Judge, it would be utterly hopeless to expect he could even state his case aright, much less win his cause. Hence already he had craved the interposition of a daysman, who should both take away God’s rod and remove God’s fear (Job 9:34) in order to enable him to speak; and to this he apparently again recurs. Happily such a daysman has been provided for us in Christ, in whom the anxious sinner may now behold, not only the rod of Divine punishment removed, but the greatness of the Divine glory veiled, so that one who desires to speak with God may do so without a fear, “whether God himself opens the cause, or permits him to have the first word.”
III. CONTENTS OF THE PLEADING.
1. A bold interrogation. (Verse 23.)
(1) A valuable definition. Sin is ‘avon, or perverse acting, a bending, twisting, or turning aside from the Divine Law; chattah, a false step, hence a failing, an error, a sin of weakness or infirmity; and pesha’, a breaking away, hence deliberate and malignant wickedness. The first epithet describes the nature of sin” it is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the Law of God;” the second points to the source of sinhuman weakness (Jer 10:23); while the third indicates the heinousness of sinit is essentially rebellion against God (Rom 8:7). Or the three expressions may allude to different kinds of sin, palpable offences, venial imperfections, notorious crimes, of all which Job was supposed to be guilty.
(2) A candid confession. Whatever iniquities, sins, or transgressions Job had committed, God perfectly knew them, could reckon up their number and estimate their heinousness. Men often are unconscious of their faults, frequently forget their shortcomings, and can seldom realize the enormity of their wickednesses. But all these are patent to God’s omniscient mind (Psa 69:5; Psa 73:23; Luk 16:15; Heb 4:13).
(3) A passionate supplication. That God would enable Job to understand the nature and enormity of those offences of which he had been guilty, and for which his friends alleged he was suffering. The prayer is admirably suited to and urgently needed by all, though not in the sense in which it was employed by Job. No man can attain to a clear discovery, of his own sinfulness, to an adequate estimate of the number of his misdeeds, to a just appreciation of their essential wickedness, except through Divine teaching. Such teaching God imparts through his Word (Psa 94:12; Rom 7:9) and Spirit (Joh 16:8).
(4) An obvious implication. Job designed it to be understood that he himself was unconscious of any such offences, though of course he did not claim to be entirely innocent.
2. An inexplicable problem. (Verse 24.) Here is
(1) a painful experience, the sense of having lost the Divine favour, to a gracious soul the highest blessing attainable or even conceivable on earth (Psa 30:5; Psa 63:3);
(2) a common experience, realized by David (Isa 13:1; Isa 22:1), by Heman (Psa 88:14), and by Christ (Mat 27:46), as well as by many of Christ’s followers since;
(3) a mysterious experience, not that God should hide his face and seem to withdraw his favour from a sinful soul, but that, having once admitted a repenting and believing sinner to his love, he should to all appearance cast him offa course of conduct for which Job was perfectly at a loss to account; yet
(4) a needful experience, in the case of Christ to make him perfect as a Saviour, in that of Job, David, Heman, and others to make them perfect as saints.
3. A pathetic expostulation.
(1) The unworthiness of the Divine conduct in afflicting Job. Absolutely powerless and insignificant had Job become through his long-continued trouble, like a fallen leaf upon the way, agitated and tossed by every passing wind, or like the withered stubble of a corn-field, and yet the Almighty assailed him with the full force of his Divine artillery, as if he were some formidable opponent whom it required the battalions of omnipotence to crush (verse 25). To Job’s mind it seemed wholly incongruous, entirely preposterous, completely unbecoming the Divine Majesty. So God’s procedure in providence oftentimes appears to sense and reason unworthy of his greatness and glory; but faith, coming to the rescue, reminds the doubting heart that doeth all things well.
(2) The seeming injustice of God’s conduct in afflicting Job. Conscious of innocence in his riper years, Job could only offer, as the solution of that perplexing enigma by which he was confronted, that God was going back upon the sins of his youthful days, although these had long since been repented of and forgiven (verse 26). But sin once forgiven is for ever forgotten (Isa 43:25; Mic 7:18, Mic 7:19). God never reproduces for punishment the transgression he has freely pardoned. Yet the iniquities of youth which have not been cancelled by Divine mercy have a strange power of self-resuscitation in riper years; and God often makes wicked men (e.g. the drunkard, the profligate), in accordance with the established and righteous laws of retribution, to inherit, or possess, or reap the hitter fruits in old age of the excesses and indulgences of youth. Hence the necessity of cultivating moral purity in youth, and the propriety in after-years of praying, “Remember not the sins of my youth” (Psa 25:7).
(3) The extreme severity of God’s conduct in afflicting Job, who was treated like a prisoner; whose feet were thrust into the stocks, as were those of Jer 20:2; Jer 29:6, and of Paul and Silas (Act 16:24); whose steps were narrowly watched, lest he should either enjoy too much freedom or attempt to escape (cf. Job 10:14; and see homiletics on Job 7:12-21), and whose liberty was (according to one interpretation), restrained within narrow limits, by a boundary or circle drawn around the soles of his feet (Jer 29:27), and that though he, the chained, inspected, and immured prisoner, was a poor miserable creature, lying rotting on an ash-heap like a garment that the moth gnaweth (Jer 29:28).
Learn:
1. The gratitude which saints and sinners both owe to God for the throne of grace.
2. The sublime fearlessness with which the guiltiest no less than the godliest may approach that throne.
3. The liberty which all enjoy to pour out their hearts before God.
4. The propriety of seeking a more intimate acquaintance with the reality and power of indwelling sin.
5. The sinfulness of supposing that God ever treats any of his creatures as enemies.
Job 13:23
The knowledge of sin.
I. MAKE ME TO KNOW THE REALITY OF SIN, in case I should deny it and be deceived.
II. MAKE ME TO KNOW THE POWER OF SIN, lest, being taken unawares, I should become its slave.
III. MAKE ME TO KNOW THE HEINOUSNESS OF SIN, lest, making light of it, I should be led to glory in my shame.
IV. MAKE ME TO KNOW THE GUILT OF SIN, lest, being indifferent to its danger, I should, fail to seek escape.
V. MAKE ME TO KNOW THE PARDONABLENESS OF SIN, lest, doubting of God’s mercy, I should sink into despair.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Job 13:1-22
Man’s injustice and the justice of God.
Job proceeds to turn the tables upon these self-complacent friends, who are so disposed to moralize and find illustrations of their conceptions of the Divine righteousness at his expense. His friends, however, really do him a service; not, indeed, by manifesting the sympathy he craves, but by throwing him upon his own resourcesstill better, by throwing him upon his God. The tonic of opposition is sometimes far more needed in mental suffering than is the soothing draught of sympathy. The former braces, the latter enervates. It appears to be so now with Job. He rouses the forces of his soul, as the palm tree stirs up its vital energies beneath the weight attached to its branches; and he rushes upon the last cast. He will throw himself, regardless of consequences, upon the pity and justice of the Eternal.J.
Job 13:1-12
Correction of the friends.
I. TRANSITION IN JOB‘S ADDRESS. (Job 13:1-3.). He pauses for a moment before entering on a new course of thought. He asserts that his experience has not been without fruit. The eye, the ear, the mouth (Job 12:11), are the physical symbols of living and actual experience. So St. John: “That which we have heard, seen with our eyes looked upon, and our bands have handled” (1Jn 1:1). And in no particular is their knowledge, in virtue of which they presume to lake so high ground, superior to his own.
II. RESOLVE. “To speak to the Almighty, to reason with God.” It is a bold, yet a truly reverential and a believing resolve. It reminds us of Abraham pleading for the cities of the plain, It is founded on the firm apprehension of the moral attributes of God, which he cannot deny without denying himself. On this ground we may even venture safely. Boldly we may come to the throne of grace, and beseech God not to forsake the eternal throne of his holiness.
III. REJECTION OF THE INTERFERENCE OF HIS FRIENDS. (Verses 4-6.) No sooner is the resolve taken to appeal to God than new strength comes to the heart. Job rises above the cloud of misconstruction that has gathered about him, like the tall cliff towering above the clouds, and looks down with scorn on these “forgers of lies,” these “worthless physicians.” It is his turn to be the instructor, and theirs to hold their peace.
IV. DENUNCIATION. (Verses 7-9.) He proceeds severely to expose their errors, and to lay bare the root from which they proceed.
1. They seek to honour God at the expense of truth, which is a corrupt zeal; for the God of truth can only be honoured by truth in words and deeds.
2. They are moved by the instinct of flattery, and thus become partial, one-sided advocates for God. But God is not exalted by depressing man, nor honoured by injustice done to his creatures.
3. Their accusations of others show ignorance of themselves. And how would it be if scrutiny were now to be made into their lives? and would they dare to cast the load of guilt on the unhappy in his awful presence? They are reflections like these which are needed to check the uncharitable thought and bridle the censorious tongue.
V. MENACE. (Verses 10-12.) These grave faults cannot be committed with impunity. God would punish them for their partiality. His majesty, on his appearance, will confound them. They will be treated as sinners, and all their memoranda, their fine sayings, which they have got by heart rather than derived from deep experience (verse 12), will be scattered like dust and fall to the ground like crumbling structures of clay. “For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall be brought unto judgment.” Thus Job shakes himself free from his shallow counsellors before turning solemnly to God.
LESSONS.
1. In casting responsibility on others we may be incurring greater responsibility ourselves.
2. We should hesitate to apply truth to others before we have first applied it to ourselves.
3. Self-knowledge fits us for the office of counsel; blindness to self exposes us to rebuke and judgment.J.
Job 13:13-22
Job’s appeal to God.
I. DREAD OF THE RESULT OF THE APPEAL COMES UPON HIS MIND AT THE VERY MOMENT OF EXECUTING HIS RESOLVE. (Verses 13-15.) So with Moses (Exo 33:20), with Manoah and his wife (Jdg 13:22); so with Abraham pleading for the cities of the plain (Gen 18:23, et seq.). It is the consciousness of weakness in the presence of omnipotence, of sinfulness in the presence of perfect holiness, which checks the spirit on the threshold of the unseen world and the unseen Presence. Over the door of an Eastern temple (as Spenser tells the story) there was an inscription, “Be bold,” and over a second door repeated, “Be bold;” and again, “Be bold, and evermore be bold;” but last of all over the inner door was written, “Be not too bold.” So fear and reverence chasten the confidence with which the believing child of God, in the full confidence of right, draws near to him.
II. TERROR LAID ASIDE. (Verses 15, 16.) There is solace to Job in the thought that he shall be able to speak forth his most sacred convictions before he dies (verse 15). But there is another and a nobler train of thought suggested here. His innocence will at last lead to his deliverance; for no unholy man dares appear before God; but he is not conscious of an unholy mind. Compare the noble fifteenth psalm.
III. DEMAND FOR A HEARING FROM HIS ADVERSARIES. (Verses 17-19.) In this brief challenge we see all the features of the demeanour of a sincere and upright soul in the hour of trial.
1. Undaunted courage.
2. Presentiment of victory.
3. Readiness for all opponents and for all consequences.
These are the arms which innocence furnishes, and in which the weakest and most defenceless may be arrayed as in a panoply.
IV. PRELIMINARY REQUESTS. (Verses 20-22.) Before proceeding with his appeal, Job makes two requests:
(1) that his pains may be assuaged;
(2) that he may not be terrified by the sudden visitation of God (comp. Job 9:34).
These he asks as the guarantees of the freedom of his speech. There is something deeply pathetic in this vacillation between confidence and fearthe confidence derived from the sense of innocence and right, the fear which the thought of the dread presence of the Divine must ever impress.
LESSONS.
1. He who is most confident in the assurance of his innocence before man will be the most humble and timid in the presence of God.
2. Faith must finally overcome fear in every true heart.J.
Job 13:23-28
Self-defence before God: 1. The weak against the Strong.
I. THE CRY OF INJURED INNOCENCE. (Job 13:23.) He asks that he may have his sins enumerated and brought home to him, and that he may not thus ever be punished without the knowledge of the nature of his guilt.
II. SENSE OF THE SILENCE AND WITHDRAWAL OF GOD. (Job 13:24) God does not answer his challenge, and still his suffering continues, as if he were a foe to whom the Almighty deigns not to utter a word. The silence, the seeming deafness and dumbness of God before his creatures’ pitiful cries, is more awful than all his thunder. Oh that he would but speak, in whatever accents! Man can never cease to agonize, to pray, to wrestle with the Unseen, until he extorts some response to the cry and craving of his heart.
III. PLAINT OF THE WEAKNESS OF SELF IN THE PRESENCE OF OMNIPOTENCE. (Job 13:25.) He has two vivid figures to represent this weakness:
(1) that of the leaf, driven to and fro by the wind, so feeble and vanishing a thing has his life become;
(2) that of the dry and worthless stubble; and yet God is against him as if he would drive and purge away every vestige of his existence. His fan is in his hand, and he is winnowing his floor from this useless chaff!
IV. SENSE OF THE AGGRAVATION OF HIS SIN. (Job 13:26.) In addition to his natural pains, he is loaded with the memories of long-past sins, which he had thought forgiven. The record of the sins of youth still seems to stand in the Divine book. Remembrance turns the past to pain. Men look indulgently on the “sins of youth,” both in themselves and others. But here is a warning against these light views of transgression. The sowing of” wild oats” is certain, sooner or later, to be followed by a bitter harvest (comp. Psa 25:7).
V. THE SENSE OF BEING FETTERED AND WATCHED. (Job 13:27.) He is like a criminal with his feet fastened in a block of wood, which he must carry with him wherever he goes. And all this power and violence, this watching and restraint, is put forth on one who is as helpless and broken as a worm-eaten, moth-gnawed garment (Job 13:28).J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Job 13:15
Faith in God bringing resignation.
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Thus doth Job declare his unshaken affiance in God. He lifts his thoughts from the reasonings of his friends; he rises superior, at least for the time, to the oppression of his sufferings, and with a boldness that does him honour, and a confidence warranted by his belief in the Divine Name, he gives utterance to an expression of faith which has passed from lip to lip all through the ages, and has been a classical formula of faith for the saddest and most deeply afflicted amongst the children of men. How is the world indebted to them who, with a true heroism, declare their faith in the wisdom and goodness of the Lord!
I. FAITH IS NEEDED IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE MANY HEAVY TRIALS OF THE HUMAN HEART. External sources of help are often cut off. They altogether fall. There is no hand of strength, no word of power, no sufficient consolation. In bodily affliction the skill of the wisest may be set at nought. In the trials of life all help from outward sources may fail. The sorrow is too deep for an unaided heart to bear up under. Where shall the afflicted soul hide? There is help only in spiritual sources. God is the final goal of the afflicted spirit. “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” is the ultimate utterance of the soul when all resources of help are cut off. But for this faith is neededfaith that apprehends the unseen and spiritual. The soul at Such times is borne up only by faith, and the faith that is needed is a supreme, lowly, unhesitating faith. Happy he who has it.
II. FAITH IS WARRANTED BY THE CHARACTER OF GOD. This is the one unfailing refuge. This, of all, is most worthy of trust. We cannot always trust the words of human kindness, even friendship. The good resolves may fail from inability to fulfil them. We may be mistaken. Our trust may rest on a deceitful foundation. Our staff may break and pierce our hand. But we always know that the character of God is unassailable. He has an assured ground of confidence who trusts in the Name of the Lord, whose repose is in the Divine character. Absolute goodness, perfect wisdom, infinite love,these form the warrant of faith.
III. It is right and wise, therefore, THAT FAITH BE DECLARED. Let him who has learnt where the soul may find refuge and help declare it to others. Let him glorify God by his feeble tribute. It is his best, if his lowliest, offering. How great an indignity we feel if any one disputes our veracity! But he who confides in our word and character, even in times when both are aspersed, pays to us the highest tribute of friendship and of faith. So let us bring our humble offerings of trust, of thankfulness, and loveour spiritual gold, frankincense, and myrrhand lay them at the feet of the everlasting King. Though be lay the heaviest burdens upon me, I will not doubt his goodness; though he treat me as a dog, yet will I cleave to him. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”
IV. Such a faith is SURE TO RE REWARDED.
1. It has its reward in the peace of mind which it brings. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” The driven sparrow finds its house, and the swallow its nest. The dove returns to the ark. When there is no rest for the wounded spirit, it turns and finds its rest in God. Here it hides and waits in an assured hope. Job was brought to the very earth; but the Lord, who seemed to be slaying him, raised him up and gave him an abundant reward.
2. A further reward is secured in the character gained.
3. And yet a further one in the final Divine approbation of the faithful, trusting, submissive, obedient servant. Such faith shall not lose its reward.R.G.
Job 13:24
The reasons for sorrow.
It has ever been a longing of the suffering heart of man to know why afflictions are permitted. Job is a striking example of the sufferer reduced to questioning. He makes his appeal for the reasons. “Wherefore hidest thou thy face?” Others have urged this inquiry. Even the Exemplar of all patient, submissive, trustful, obedient sufferers cried aloud, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But the answer comes not to Job with the quickness he may have desired. Yet though he giveth none account of his ways, all may be assured his purposes are wise and good. In the light of later teachings we may read “the end of the Lord.” That which we “endure” we know “is for chastening.” This, then, is the answer in general to the cry, “Wherefore hidest thou thy face?” Then, as far as we can interpret the answer to the cry to which no answer is immediately given, we may say
I. A reason for sorrow may be found in ITS FITNESS TO BE A TEST OF FAITH. That faith should be tested, and so developed and perfected, is an obvious propriety. But for such testing it would be a dead, inoperative faculty. As the wing of the young eagle is strengthened by the demands made upon it when borne aloft, and then committed to its own unaided effort, so faith grows in strength by every appeal made to it. It is here experience is gained. By this men grow. The heart is made acquainted with “the ways of the Lord.” The exercised faculty becomes familiarized with its duties. It learns to bear a heavier strain. Each successful performance of duty leaves it better fitted to act in future. The strong faith is the faith that has berne the severe test.
II. A second reason may be found in THE NECESSARY DEVELOPMENT OF PATIENCE. The heroic fortitude of the soul that can endure “as seeing him who is invisible” is not gained with suddenness. By slow steps is this height reached. By slow accretions is this grace perfected. The man unaccustomed to discomfort is unwilling to leave his freedom and ease, and to undertake toilsome and painful service. Sorrow oppresses the soul, but it thereby develops that power by which the soul is upheld. The slothful, self-indulgent spirit is unfitted for hard toil; and the world needs the willing labourer. There is a schooling of the soul by self-denial, by fasting. The substitute for the self-imposed training is the divinely imposed trial. The trial of faith is very precious if it leaves the soul steadier in patient endurance. By such trained souls is the world’s great work to be done.
III. SORROW PERFECTS THE SOUL IN A LOWLY SUBMISSION TO THE DIVINE WILL. “It is the Lord: let him do as seemeth him good,” may be a defiant cry of rebellion: “Do thy worst;” or it may be a lowly, trustful, resigned committal of the life to the Divine purposes: “What he wills is best.” The school of affliction is a hard school, but its patient scholars are well taught. And though “no affliction for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby.”
IV. SORROW MAY BE THE MEANS OF EVOKING THE MOST SINCERE AND BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLES OF OBEDIENCE. The histories of human suffering present us with examples of consummate and unflinching obedience, rendered in unquestioning acquiescence in the Divine purpose and in the pure love of the heart. The highest point ever reached by the obedient spirit was that of our great Pattern, who, in the depth of darkest affliction and sorrow of soul, patiently reiterated the sublime expression of a wholly consecrated service, “Nevertheless not my will, but thy will, be done.”R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Job 13:1, Job 13:2
Trite sayings.
Job’s complaint is that there was nothing new in his friends’ pretentious harangues. All their pompous airs of superiority and authority did not deceive the patriarch, and prevent him from detecting the essentially commonplace character of their ideas.
I. MOST SAYINGS ARE TRITE. It is not often given to a man to discover a new truth. Even when a person makes a remark that is original in him, i.e. that he has not derived from any other man, the probability is that some one else has said something very like it before. Too often, when a man is pretentious of novelty, what is fresh is only the garb of his notion. The newest extravagances in religion are generally only old heresies exhumed and magnetized into a semblance of life. It is foolish to think of astounding the world with our ideal. Even in Job’s day people were weary of the little stock of notions that was in circulation among the most intelligent classes.
II. THE FUSSY REPETITION OF TRITE SAYINGS CAN DO NO GOOD. Job’s three friends only vexed the sorrowing man by repeating what he knew as well as they. The same mistake is often made in foolish attempts at administering consolation. No sayings are so trite as those that treat of suffering and its uses. The very commonness of the lot of suffering, and the very obviousness of some of its circumstances, have made the stock precepts of sorrow very familiar to all of us. It is useless to go to a person in trouble and repeat them once more. It would be better to be silent. Silence might affect him as a most original novelty.
III. TRITE SAYINGS MAY BE TRUE AND IMPORTANT.
1. True. It is not to be supposed that men are generally the victims of delusions. One reason why certain sayings have become trite is that they have been proved by experience to be true. Had they been false they would have been discarded long since. No doubt there are venerable errors. Job’s friends’ trite sayings were so one-sided that the truth of them was lost by perversion; but still most trite sayings must have a considerable amount of truth in them to stand the test of time.
2. Important. The triteness is generally a testimony to the importance; for if the sayings were of slight moment they would have been neglected. The current use of them presupposes some value attached to them. The gospel of Christ has become a trite saying to many. Yet it is as true and momentous as ever.
IV. PERSONAL APPLICATION AND SYMPATHY MAY REVIVE INTEREST IN TRITE SAYINGS.
1. Personal application. It is difficult to be in earnest with a trite saying. Such a saying tends to become a mere form of words. It wears like a coin that has lost its effigy and legend. “Truths,” says Coleridge, “of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.” But he adds, “There is one sure way of giving freshness and importance to the most commonplace maximsthat of reflecting on them in direct reference to our own state and conduct, to our own past and future being.”
2. Sympathy. The three friends applied the trite sayings to Job, but he would not take them home to himself. He justly considered that they did not apply to him in the way his friends supposed. They applied them without sympathy, and therefore without understanding Job. We may repeat very familiar words, and yet if the ring of sincerity and the tone of sympathy be in them they will still awaken interest.W.F.A.
Job 13:4
Physicians of no value.
Job’s friends were physicians of no value. They came to heal, but they only aggravated his complaint.
I. CONSIDER WHERE WE MEET WITH PHYSICIANS OF No VALUE.
1. In dealing with sorrow. How rare is a truly helpful friend in a time of great sorrow! Many wellwishers try their hand at consolation, but most of them bungle painfully. We endure their visits of condolence because we do not wish to be ungrateful and disagreeable, but we are relieved when they have left us alone with our grief.
2. In treating sin. No human being can cure sin. Men may blame sin, but they cannot cast it out. Here is a disease that no medicine of man’s can touch. But there is room for some action of ours. We ought to be able to bring the Divine remedy. Yet how often we fail to do so! How conscious we must be that our efforts are not reaching the sinner and really helping him!
3. In meeting social trouble. There are plenty of wild theorists, but none of them have been able to set right the disorganized state of society. Philanthropists too often show more zeal than judgment.
II. INQUIRE WHY THE PHYSICIANS ARK OF NO VALUE.
1. Ignorance of the state of the patient. If the doctor has not rightly diagnosed his case he is not likely to be successful in his treatment of it. We must understand those whom we would benefit.
2. Lack of skill in the use of remedies. The doctor must understand his drugs, or he will poison his patients. If we would benefit men we must first know them; then we must know the Divine medicine. They who do not apprehend the gospel of Christ themselves cannot be physicians of value to others. We must study truth as well as men; and we must go further, and be familiar ourselves with those great saving ideas which we would apply to others.
3. Absence of sympathy. Here was the secret of Job’s friends’ failure, although at first they seemed to have evinced the deepest sympathy. We can never help the miserable till we sympathize with them. The first essential to success in a mission among the poor is brotherliness. If this is wanting, the mission must fail though any amount of energy and money may be expended on it.
III. REMEMBER THAT THERE IS ONE PHYSICIAN OF INESTIMABLE VALUE. Christ fulfils all the requisite conditions. He knows us, for he is one of ourselvestempted in all respects as we are, though without sin. He is familiar with the needed remedy, for he is one with God, and is perfectly at home among those great spiritual facts from which the cure of the world’s evil must come. He, too, is full of sympathy. Of old he cured the sick because he was “moved with compassion.” The great, tender heart of Christ beats in warm sympathy for all his brother-men. Now we have to see in experience that our good Physician is able to do what the physicians of no value have failed to accomplish. Christ is the Friend to help in sorrow; he alone can cure sin. Christ in the world brings the kingdom of heaven, and so corrects the social troubles. Christ as a living Saviour, as an active Physician now in our midst, can heal, and we know this because we see he does heal wherever he is trusted to do so.W.F.A.
Job 13:7
Speaking wickedly for God.
Here was the great fault and sin of the three friends. They affected to be God’s advocates, yet they spoke wickedly. Thus they endeavoured to support their view of providence by uncharitable assumptions and theories that were not in accordance with the facts. Such conduct was culpable, displeasing to God, and most injurious to the true interests of religion.
I. THE TEMPTATION TO SPEAK WICKEDLY FOR GOD. This comes from the notion that the end justifies the means. If the object is to serve God, it is assumed that whatever process is employed must be right. Thus it has been a doctrine among the Jesuits that equivocal conduct which would be condemned in the work of the world is to be condoned when it is turned to the advancement of the Church. The apparently unselfish character of the action adds to the subtle deceptiveness of the temptation. What is said is not for our own sakes, but for the glory of God. Further, it is argued men have no right to complain, because the true servants of God will rejoice in what glorifies him; and they who are not of the Church are out of court, and can have no ground on which to plead a complaint. Yet even they might profit, it is further urged; if they were led to the Church by fraud, when once they were in, would they not bless the fraud that saved them? All this is but the sophistry of a temptation from the devil.
II. THE GREAT SIN OF SPEAKING WICKEDLY FOR GOD. This is peculiarly hateful to him, for he is a God of righteousness. Several points go to make up the exceeding badness of such conduct.
1. It destroys truth. If we may lie for God, truth itself is humiliated. The permission of mere equivocation which is intended to deceive lowers the standard of truth. This is a break-up of the rigorous moral law.
2. It is fatal to charity. The plea is that man must be sacrificed for the sake of God. But God has said, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” He will not accept the service that is rendered at the cost of cruelty to a brother.
3. It is dishonouring to God. His holy Name is dragged down to man’s low conduct, and enlisted in the service of evil. What is done for his glory is supposed to carry his sanction. Thus the God of truth and love is made to appear as the champion of lies and hatred. This is a most abominable insult to God.
4. It is a miserable cloak for sin. It would seem that men would not think of speaking wickedly for God unless there were wickedness in their own hearts. It is true they may be foolish enough to imagine that their conduct will really minister to the Divine glory, and it is only fair to admit that people who are deluded by Jesuitical casuistry will do for the Church what they would not dream of doing for themselves. Thus these people are not really so bad as their conduct suggests. Still, unless they are utterly duped by their system, unless their consciences have been warped into a kind of moral insanity by their trainingand it must be allowed that this is possiblewe cannot but say that their action must spring from a low tone of morality. At all events, it must tend to produce this, must be distinctly degrading and demoralizing.
5. It is doomed to failure. Nothing more injures the cause of Christ than the unworthy conduct of his followers, especially when this pleads his glory as its excuse. Nothing so favours unbelief as the suspicion of want of candour in defenders of the faith. It is fatal to cling to a bad argument because of its tendency to support the right. We can only please and serve God when we follow truth and love. This is the method of Christ, who scorned all subterfuges, and chose the apparent failure of the cross rather than the triumphs of safe diplomatic policy.W.F.A.
Job 13:23
Sin revealed by God.
Job is in a sad perplexity. His friends accuse him of great sin as the cause of his great trouble, but his conscience does not echo their accusation. Can it be that he has sinned unconsciously, that God is really angry with him for some offence which he has not recognized?
I. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO SIN UNCONSCIOUSLY. It is not to be supposed that a man could be as guilty as Job’s friends assumed the patriarch to be, and yet possess the clean conscience that was the one mitigating condition in his terrible distresses. The glaring contradiction proved the error of the comforters. Moreover, nobody can sin unconsciously, because the evil deed that is done apart from consciousness possesses no moral character. A hypnotized person who killed another would not be a murderer, nor would one who did so in the delirium of a fever. To sin in ignorance is not really to sin at all. All sin lies in the motive, and the motive must be evil for the deed to be sinful. But we cannot have an evil motive without knowing it.
II. IT IS POSSIBLE NOT TO BE FULLY CONSCIOUS OF ONE‘S SIN.
1. The guilt of it may be minimized. A man knows that he has done wrong, and this very knowledge sets him to work on the ingenious search for excuses. He puts his conduct in the best light, hides its more ugly features, hunts up extenuating circumstances, pleads weakness, necessity, custom, ulterior good, etc.
2. The fact may be ignored. We keep the door locked on the skeleton in the cupboard. We do not care to rake up ugly memories. We tread lightly over the weak places in our life’s story. When this careful ignoring of sin has gone on for some time, conscience itself is soothed and charmed into peace.
III. IT IS MOST DESIRABLE THAT OUR SIN SHOULD BE REVEALED TO US. The revelation has many good results.
1. It leads to repentance. We never know how odious our sin is till we look at it in God’s light. Hidden and forgotten sin is not repented of. Pride grows on the graves of buried sins. The sins must be exhumed and Scattered to the winds, if we are to take the humble ground of penitents.
2. It helps us to conquer tin. The sin that lives within us is not recognized in its deadly character till God reveals it to us. Thus our excuses for sin encourage the reign of sin. To destroy it we must see it in its true character.
IV. IT IS WELL TO PRAY THAT GOD WOULD REVEAL OUR SINS TO US.
1. He can, For he knows the sin better than we know it, and he is in close contact with our consciences. The awakened conscience perceives sin with a shock of horror, and it is the Spirit of God that awakens conscience.
2. He will at last. Sin cannot remain hidden for ever. The secrets of all hearts must be dragged to the light in God’s great day of judgment. If we will not have our sin revealed to us now, it will be revealed to all then.
3. We should seek a revelation. Thus we may anticipate and prevent the future revelation. For the sin that is repented of and forgiven will never Be revived. Meanwhile the longer our sin is hidden the worse it is for us. It is a viper in the breast, poison in the blood, death in the heart. Sin itself, not its consequences, is our worst enemy. Therefore let us pray, not in the perplexity of Job’s cruelly misjudged situation, but in the simple contrition of the psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psa 139:23, Psa 139:24).W.F.A.
Job 13:24
The hiding of God’s face.
I. THE SORROWFUL EXPERIENCE. The thought that God’s face is hidden is most distressing to Job. Let us see what he is thinking of, and why he is distressed. The unveiled countenance is a sign of favour; the veiled, or averted face, of displeasure. Therefore Job’s word suggests an idea of God’s withdrawal of favour. He explains himself by adding, “And holdest me for thine enemy.” But Job means more than the withdrawal of manifested favours, as gifts of grace flowing from the bounty of God. God is more than his gifts. The light of God’s countenance is better than the blessings of God’s storehouse. The very smiting by God is itself a supreme source of life and gladness. As the plant blooms in the sunshine and grows pale and sickly in the dark, so the soul blooms in the light of God’s love and fades into desolation when that is hidden. To some, indeed, the hiding of God’s face is no trouble. They cannot exclaim with delight, like Hagar, “Thou God seest me.” Such words are to them only the expression of a great terror. But souls that know and love God bask in the sunshine of his presence. To lose the consciousness of God’s loving presence is to such souls the desolation of a Siberian winter, the darkness of a storm-girt night.
II. THE MYSTERIOUS CAUSE. The cause is a mystery. We may see it afterwards, or in regard to the experience of others. But, while we are passing through the great darkness, its meaning is hidden from us, and this is part of its deepest trouble. Even Christ, in the human limitations of his earthly sufferings, exclaimed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mat 27:46); and there came no reply like that which followed immediately on other words of Christ addressed to his Father in heaven (e.g. Joh 12:28). Still some hints of the cause may sometimes Be gathered up. If we are conscious of sin, this is sufficient. The only wonder is that God has not withdrawn his countenance before this. If we have lost our first love (Rev 2:4) and have wandered from God, we may well look back with regret to the happier past; but we can scarcely be surprised at our present depression. Then we can say with Cowper
“Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his Word?
“What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.”
Possibly, like the author of the Olney Hymns, we may Be suffering from morbid subjective feelings. It may be that God has not hidden his face, but that our eyes are dim with needless tears, so that we cannot see his gracious countenance.
III. THE LIGHT BEHIND. God may be hiding his face, but he has not changed it. The sun has gone behind a cloud, but it still shines. God has not turned his love into hatred when we can no longer see his kind countenance. He loves us in the dark as much as in the light. He has not withdrawn his face in hiding it. The veil does not increase the distance Between us and God; it only prevents us from seeing him, though he is really as near to us as ever. Nay, he may be most near when we cannot see him, We are warmed and vitalized by the sun even while it is hidden by the cloud. God does not cease to bless us when we cease to perceive him. Yet the greatest blessing is with the unveiled countenance. That blessing of the beatific vision is reserved for the pure in heart (Mat 5:8).W.F.A.
Job 13:26
Suffering for the sins of one’s youth.
Job is perplexed. He cannot see what he has done to merit such terrible troubles as he is now experiencing. It certainly seems to him that no recent conduct of his can be deserving the punishment from which, according to his friends, he is suffering. Can it be that long-forgotten sins of his youth are brought up against him, and that he is suffering from those old offences?
I. THE SINS OF YOUTH ARE NOT TO BE LIGHTLY IGNORED.
1. Because they were done in haste. Youth is thoughtless; still it has moral responsibility.
2. Because youth is inexperienced. Youth will not be judged by the standard of more enlightened years, but by its own light, which is sufficient to warn from sin.
3. Because of their distant past. Though they were committed long ago, if they have never been repented of, they stand in the record against us still. Time does not condone guilt.
4. Because of subsequent amendment. This is the strongest plea. Yet it will not stand. For the subsequent conduct was no better than it ought to have been. There were no “works of supererogation” in it that could serve as an atonement for past offences.
II. THE SINS OF YOUTH BEAR FRUIT IN AFTER–YEARS. They do so in this life. Disease and early decrepitude are the bitter fruits of youthful dissipation. If the golden opportunities of youth are wasted, the after-life must suffer. If opportunities of educational improvement are neglected in youth, it is impossible to make up for them in manhood. The young man who spends the best years of his life in idle pleasure-seeking instead of laying the foundation of his future work, is sure to come to a day when he will bitterly repent his folly. There is a unity in life. We cannot slice it into detached periods, having no connection with one another. The present is a product of the past, and the ultimate future will be a result of our whole life, not of the last moments of it. Future judgment deals with the deeds of the life, not with the mood of the death-bed.
III. SINS OF YOUTH MAY BE FORGIVEN. They cannot be undone. Some of their consequences are inevitable. Therefore the hope of pardon is no encouragement for folly and wickedness. Still, when a man repents and seeks the grace of God, his case is never treated in Scripture as hopeless. Though a certain loss and suffering may remain, God forgives and heals the repentant soul. Therefore it is foolish to forget or to defend a misspent youth. The only hopeful thing is to own it before God, and to show ourselves heartily ashamed of it. It is far better to give to God every hour of life; but if the early hours have been misspentmiserable as is the thought of themit is possible to mend our ways, and enter the vineyard even at the eleventh hour. The right use of reflection on the sins of youth is to make a man humble, and to had him to sympathize with young men, and to try to warn them, lest they make the sad mistake which has thrown a shadow over all his subsequent life. For who that is converted in later age would not give all he has to go back and begin again, and so avoid the ugly, unchangeable past?W.F.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. XIII.
Job reproves his friends for their prejudice: he professes his confidence in God, and entreats to know of him why he hides his face from him, and holds him for an enemy.
Before Christ 1645.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
B.Jobs Reply: Attack upon his friends, whose wisdom and justice he earnestly questions:
Job 12-14
1. Ridicule of the assumed wisdom of the friends, who can give only a very unsatisfactory de scription of the exalted power and wisdom of the Divine activity:
Job 12
1And Job answered and said,
2No doubt but ye are the people,
and wisdom shall die with you.
3But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you;
yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
4I am as one mocked of his neighbor,
who calleth upon God, and He answereth him;
the just, upright man is laughed to scorn!
5He that is ready to slip with his feet
is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
6The tabernacle of robbers prosper,
and they that provoke God are secure;
into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
7But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee,
and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
8 or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee,
and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
9Who knoweth not in all these
that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
10In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
and the breath of all mankind.
11Doth not the ear try words,
and the mouth taste his meat?
12With the ancient is wisdom;
and in length of days understanding.
13With Him is wisdom and strength,
He hath counsel and understanding.
14Behold He breaketh down, and it cannot be built again;
He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
15Behold, He withholdeth the waters, and they dry up;
also He sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth,
16With Him is strength and wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are His.
17He leadeth counsellors away spoiled,
and maketh the judges fools.
18He looseth the bond of kings,
and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
19 He leadeth princes away spoiled,
and overthroweth the mighty.
20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty,
and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
21He poureth contempt upon princes,
and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.
22He discovereth deep things out of darkness,
and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
23He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them;
He enlargeth the nations, and straighteneth them again.
24He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth,
and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
25They grope in the dark without light,
and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
2. The resolution to betake himself to God, who, in contrast with the harshness and injustice of the friends will assuredly do him justice:
Job 13:1-22
1Lo, mine eye hath seen all this,
mine ear hath heard and understood it.
2What ye know, the same do I know also;
I am not inferior unto you.
3Surely I would speak to the Almighty,
and I desire to reason with God.
4But ye are forgers of lies,
ye are all physicians of no value.
5O that ye would altogether hold your peace,
and it should be your wisdom.
6Hear now my reasoning,
and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
7Will ye speak wickedly for God,
and talk deceitfully for Him?
8Will ye accept His person?
will ye contend for God?
9Is it good that He should search you out?
or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock Him?
10He will surely reprove you,
if ye do secretly accept persons.
11Shall not His excellency make you afraid?
and His dread fall upon you?
12Your remembrances are like unto ashes,
your bodies to bodies of clay.
13Hold your peace, let me alone that I may speak,
and let come on me what will.
14Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth,
and put my life in mine hand?
15Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him:
but I will maintain mine own ways before Him.
16He also shall be my salvation:
for a hypocrite shall not come before Him.
17Hear diligently my speech,
and my declaration with your ears.
18Behold now, I have ordered my cause;
I know that I shall be justified.
19Who is he that will plead with me?
for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.
20Only do not two things unto me;
then will I not hide myself from Thee.
21Withdraw Thine hand far from me;
and let not Thy dread make me afraid.
22Then call Thou, and I will answer:
or let me speak, and answer Thou me!
3. A vindication of himself, addressed to God, beginning with the haughty asseveration of his own innocence, but relapsing into a despondent cheerless description of the brevity, helplessness, and hopelessness of mans life:
Job 13:23 to Job 14:22
23How many are mine iniquities and sins?
make me to know my transgression and my sin.
24Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face,
and holdest me for Thine enemy?
25Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?
and wilt Thou pursue the dry stubble?
26For Thou writest bitter things against me,
and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
27Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks,
and lookest narrowly unto all my paths;
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth,
as a garment that is moth-eaten.
Job 14
1Man that is born of a woman,
is of few days, and full of trouble.
2He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down;
he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
3And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such an one,
and bringest me into judgment with Thee?
4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
not one!
5Seeing his days are determined,
the number of his months are with Thee,
Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
6turn from him that he may rest,
till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.
7For there is hope of a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
8Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,
and the stock thereof die in the ground;
9yet through the scent of water it will bud,
and bring forth boughs like a plant.
10But man dieth, and wasteth away!
yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
11As the waters fail from the sea,
and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
12so man lieth down and riseth not:
till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,
nor be raised out of their sleep.
13O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave,
that thou wouldest keep me secret until Thy wrath be past,
that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14If a man die, shall he live again?
all the days of my appointed time will I wait,
till my change come.
15Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee;
Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands.
16For now Thou numberest my steps;
dost Thou not watch over my sin?
17My transgression is sealed up in a bag,
and Thou sewest up mine iniquity.
18And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought,
and the rock is removed out of his place.
19The waters wear the stones;
Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth;
and Thou destroyest the hope of man.
20Thou prevailest forever against him, and he passeth;
Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
21His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not;
and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
22But his flesh upon him shall have pain,
and his soul within him shall mourn.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Zophar in Job 11 had specially arrayed against Job the wisdom and omniscience of God, in order to convict him partly of ignorance in Divine things, partly of his sinfulness and need of repentance. Job now meets this attack by strongly doubting the wisdom of his friends, or by representing it as being at least exceedingly ordinary and commonplace, being capable neither of worthily comprehending or describing the Divine wisdom and greatness, nor of demonstrating actual sin and guilt on his part. This demonstration of their incompetency, delivered in an ironical tone, accompanied by a description of the wisdom and strength of God far transcending that of Zophar in energy and inspired elevation of thought, forms the first part of his discourse (Job 12.) This is followed by an emphatic asseveration of his innocence, clothed in the declaration of his purpose to appeal to God, the righteous Judge, and from Him, by means of a formal trial, to which he purposes summoning Him, to obtain testimony in favor of his innocence, which shall effectually dispose of the suspicions of the friends (Job 13:1-22). As though such a trial had already been instituted, he then turns to God with a solemn assertion of his innocence, but failing to meet with a favorable declaration from God in answer to his appeal, he immediately sinks back into his former discouragement and despair, to which he gives characteristic expression in a long description of the shortness of life, the impotence and helplessness of man as opposed to the Divine omnipotence (Job 13:23 to Job 14:22). [Davidson characterizes this discourse as this last and greatest effort of Job]. Each of these three parts is subdivided into sections which are distinctly separated, Parts I. and II. into two sections each of about equal length; Part III. into five strophes of 5 to 6 verses each.
2. First Division.First Section: Sarcasm on the wisdom of Zophar, and the two other speakers, as being quite ordinary and commonplace: Job 12:2-12.
First Strophe: Job 12:2-6. [Sarcasm on the friends (Job 12:2) changing into angry invective (Job 12:3), then into bitter complaint of his own lot (Job 12:4), of the way of the world (Job 12:5), and of the security of the wicked (Job 12:6)].
Job 12:2. Of a truth ye are the people. , with the logical accent on the first word, signifies not: ye are people, the right sort of people, but: ye are the people, the totality of all people, the race of men; , therefore as in Isa 40:7; Isa 42:5. The Cod. Alex. of the LXX. expresses correctly the sense; . As to , comp. the simple , Job 9:2.
Job 12:3. I also have a heart as well as you, i.e., I lack understanding no more than you. therefore as above in Job 8:10; Job 9:4; comp. Job 11:12 [he also has a heart like them, he is therefore not empty, , Del.], and as below in Job 12:24.I do not stand behind you: lit., I do not sink down beneath you, or: I do not fall away before you; the in relates to the stand-point of the friends, from which Job might seem to be a , one falling below them, meaner than themselves. [Ewald takes in the comparative sense, which however would give an unsuitable rendering, to fall more than another].And to whom are such things not known? Lit., and with whom is not the like of these things? viz., the like of your knowledge of Divine things. , lit. with, is used here in the sense of an inward indwelling, as also in Job 14:5 b, and as elsewhere is used: Job 9:35; Job 10:13, etc.
Job 12:4. A mockery (, lit., a laughing, laughter, Inf. subst., like , Job 17:6) to my own friend must I be.[Lit., a mockery to his neighbor, etc.]. Instead of one might expect to find ; an exchange of persons, however, takes place, that the expression may be made as general as possible: one who is a mockery to his own friend must I be. Comp. similar examples of the exchange of persons in Psa 91:1 seq.; Isa 2:8. [Must I become, best as exclamation, expressing Jobs sense of indignity: (1) At such treatment from friends; (2) such treatment to such as he, (Dav.) see remainder of verse].I who called to Eloah and found a hearing: lit., one calling [still in 3d person] to Eloah, and He heard him, in apposition to the subjectIin : which is the case also with , one who is just, godly (pure, blameless), comp. Pro 11:5 a, these words being placed with emphasis at the end of the whole exclamation. [Zcklers rendering of this clause being: a mockery (am I);the just, the godly man! Noyes and Wemyss render the second member: I who call upon God that He would answer me (or to listen to me). Noyes objects to the other rendering the use of the present participle. This form, however, is used to denote a continuous fact in Jobs life, and a permanent quality grounded thereon, the Vav. consec. then indicating the Divine result consequent on Jobs conduct and character.E.].
Job 12:5. For misfortune scornaccording to the opinion of the prosperous: i.e., the prosperous (lit. the secure, who lives free from care, comp. Isa 33:20) thinks, that contempt is due to the unfortunate. [It is the ordinary way of the great multitude to over-whelm the unfortunate with contempt, and to give to the tottering still another push. Dillm.] thus = contemptus, as in Job 12:21, and Job 31:34; = destruction, ruin, misfortune, as in Job 30:24; Job 31:29; Pro 24:22; and (plur. fem. st. constr. from ), or, after a form which is better authorized, , signifies an opinion, fancy, thought (from , to fashion, used of the minds fashioning its thoughts). This is the interpretation adopted by most of the moderns, since the time of Aben Ezra. The rendering of the Targ., Vulg., [E. V.], Levi b. Gerson, and other Rabbis, preferred also by Luther, De Wette, Rosenm. [Noyes, Carey, Rod.], etc., which takes in the sense of a torch, yields no tolerable sense, at least no such sense as suits the second member (a torch of contempt [Luther: a despised taper] in the opinion of the prosperous is he who is ready to totter, or to whom it is appointed that his feet slip, etc.) [Against this rendering, found in E. V., may be urged (1) The expression a despised torch is meaningless. As Con. suggests a consumed or expiring torch would be pertinent, but a torch despised is like anything else that is despised. (2) is superfluous and insipid. Why ready to waver? (3) This rendering presupposes a noun , with the meaning vacillatio, wavering, lit. ready for waverings, for which however there is no authority, and which would require here rather the vowel pointing: .(4) It destroys the rhythm of the verse. See Con., Dillm., Dav. and Delitzsch. E.]. The rendering of Hitzig (Geschichte des Volkes Israel I., 112) is peculiar; he takes to mean: a soothing bandage, a cure (from the root , to wind, or bind around, here the sing. corresponding to the plur. found in Jdg 4:4, which is not a proper name [Lapidoth], but taken in connection with the preceding signifies: a mistress of healing bandages), so that the sense would then be: Healing is a scorn [is scorned] in the opinion of the prosperous (?).Ready (is it, the contempt) for those whose foot wavers., Part. Niph. from , hence , ready, as in Exo 34:2. Comp. below Job 15:23, where may also be found the wavering of the foot as a figurative expression of falling into misfortune; Psa 38:17 (16) Ewald (Bibl. Jahrb. IX. p. 38) would instead of read , a stroke, and Schultens and Dillmann would assign this same meaning of plaga, percussio to this same form (from ,): a stroke, is due to those whose foot wavers. As if a new parallelism of thought must of necessity be found between a and b!
Job 12:6. Secure are the tents of the spoilers, lit. to the spoilers; i.e., to powerful tyrants, savage conquerors, and the like. On tents comp. Job 5:24; Job 11:14. is the aramaizing third plur. form of a verb which has for its perf. (see Job 3:26), but which derives its imperf. forms from . Moreover is not merely a pausal form, but stands here removed from the place of the tone: comp. the similar pathetic verbal forms in Psa 36:9; Psa 57:2; Psa 73:2; also Ewald, 194, a.And security, plur. et abstr. from (secure, free from care), have they who defy God [ denotes the sin of these undeservedly prosperous ones against men, (lit. those who provoke God, who insolently assail Him) their wickedness against God. Schlott.] they who carry Eloah in their hand: lit., he who carries, (….. ); from among those who rage against God and defy Him, one is selected as an example, such an one, viz., as bears God in his hand, i.e., recognizes no other God than the one he carries in his hand or fist, to whom therefore his fighting weapon is to be his God; comp. Hab 1:11; Hab 1:16; also the dextra mihi Deus of Virg. Aen. 16, 773. [Delitzsch renders a little more precisely perhaps: he who causes Eloah to enter into his hand; from which translation it is clear that not the deification of the hand, but of that which is taken into the hand is meant. That which is taken into the hand is not, however, an idol (Abenezra), but the sword; therefore he who thinks after the manner of Lamech, as he takes the iron weapon of attack and defense into his hand, that he needs no other God. The deification of the weapon which a man wields with the power of his own right hand, and the deification of the power which wields the weapon, as in Hab. l. c. and Mic 2:1, are, however, so nearly identical as descriptive of the character here referred to, that either resolves itself into the other. Conant, who adopts the rendering of E. V.: he into whose hand God bringeth (E. V. adds abundantly) i.e. whom God prospers, objects that by the other rendering the thought is expressed very coarsely, as to form, when it might be done in the Hebrew with great felicity. It is difficult to see, however, how the sentence: he who takes God in his hand could be expressed more idiomatically or forcibly than in the words of the passage before us. Wordsworth somewhat differently: who grasps God in his hand. The wicked, in his impious presumption, imagines that he can take God prisoner and lead Him as a captive by his power. But this is less natural than the above.E.]
Second Strophe: Job 12:7-12. [Return to the thought of Job 12:3the shallowness of the friends wisdom on the Divine. Such knowledge and deeper every one possessed who had eyes and ears. For (1) every creature in earth and sea and air proclaimed it (710); and (2) every man of thought and age uttered it in the general ear (11, 12). Dav.]
Job 12:7. But ask now even the beaststhey can teach thee.[, recovery from the crushing thought of Job 12:4-6, and strong antithesis to the assumption of the friends. Dav.] , as also in the second member, voluntative [or, jussive], hence not literally futurethey will teach it to theeas commonly rendered. Here the form of address is different from that adopted heretofore in this discourse, being now directed to one only of the friends, viz. to Zophar, to whose eulogy of the absolute wisdom of God (Job 11:7-9) reference is here made, with the accompanying purpose of presenting a still more copious and elaborate description of the same.
Job 12:8. Or think thoughtfully on the earth: lit. think on the earth, i.e. direct thoughtfully thy observation to the earth (which comes under consideration here, as is evident from what follows, as the place where the lower order of animals is found, the , Gen 9:2; 1Ki 5:13), and acquire the instruction which may be derived from her. The rendering of as a substantive, in the sense of shrub (comp. Job 30:4; Gen 2:5), is on several grounds untenable; for , shrub is, according to those passages, masculine; the use of the preposition instead of the genit., or instead of or before , would be singular; and the mention of plants in the midst of the animals (beasts, birds, fishes), would be out of place (against Berleb. Bib., Bttcher, Umbreit, etc.).
Job 12:9. Who would not know in all this, etc.So is to be rendered, giving to the instrumental sense, not with Hahnwho knows not concerning all this, which would yield too flat a sense, and lead us to over look the retrospective reference which is to be looked for to the various kinds of animals already cited. Neither with Ewald [Hengst., Noyes] is it to be taken in the sense of among all these, as if the passage contained a reference to a knowledge possessed by all the creatures of God as their Creator, or possibly to the groaning of the creature after the Godhead, as described in Rom 8:18 sq. This partitive rendering of (which Renan as well as Ewald adopts: qui ne sat parmi tous ces tres, etc.) is at variance with the context, as well as the position of the words ( before ).That the hand of Jehovah hath made this. refers essentially to the same object with , only that it embraces a still wider circle of contemplation than the latter expression, which refers only to the classes of animals afore-mentioned. It denotes the totality of that which surrounds us, the visible universe, the whole world ( , Heb 11:3); comp. Isa 66:2; Jer 14:22; where is used in this comprehensive signification; so also above in Job 11:8 seq., to which description of the all-embracing greatness of God there is here a manifest reference. Ewald, Dillmann [Conant, Davidson] translate: that the hand of Jehovah hath done this. By , this, Ewald understands the decreeing of suffering and pain (of which also the groaning creation would testify); Dillmann refers it to the mighty and wise administration of God among His creatures; both of which explanations are manifestly more remote than the one given above. [The meaning of the whole strophe is perverted if is, with Ewald, referred to the destiny of severe suffering and pain. Since as a glance at what follows shows, Job further on praises God as the governor of the universe, it may be expected that the reference is here to God as the creator and preserver of the world. Bildad had appealed to the sayings of the ancients, which have the long experience of the past in their favor, to support the justice of the Divine government; Job here appeals to the absoluteness of the Divine rule over creation. Delitzsch.]Apart from the Prologue (Job 1:21), the name occurs only here in the mouth of Job, for the reason doubtless that the whole expression here used, which recurs again word for word in Isa 41:20 (Isa 66:2) was one that was everywhere much used, not unfrequently also among the extra-Israelitish monotheists (and the same is true of the expression , Job 28:28).
Job 12:10. In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all the bodies of men.[Evidently these words are more naturally referred to the act of preservation than to that of creation. Schlottm.] Observe the distinction between , the lower principle of life, which fills all animals, and , the godlike personal spirit of man. Otherwise in Ecc 3:19; Ecc 3:21, where , in a wider sense, is ascribed even to the beasts.
Job 12:11-12. To the knowledge of God which rests on the observation of the external cosmos (notitia Dei naturalis externa s. acquisita), is here added the human wisdom and insight which springs from experience, especially that of the aged, as a second source from which Job might draw (which may be regarded as the equivalent of that which is sometimes called notitia Dei naturalis interna).
Job 12:11. Does not the ear prove sayings, even as [adquationis, as in Job 5:7] the palate tastes food for itself (Dat. commodi). Both comparisons illustrate the power of judicious discrimination possessed by the human spirit, by which it discerns the inner worth of things, especially as it exists in aged persons of large experience. So again later in Elihus discourse, Job 34:3. The opinion of Umbreit, Delitzsch, etc., that Job in this verse utters an admonition not to receive without proof the sayings of the ancients, to wit, those of which Bildad had previously spoken, Job 8:10 (should not the ear prove the sayings?), lacks proper support. A reference to that remote passage in the discourse of Bildad should have been more clearly indicated than by the accidental circumstance that there as here the word , sayings, utterances, is used. Moreover the aged who are here mentioned (, as in Job 15:10; Job 29:8) are by no means identical with the fathers of former generations, whom Bildad had mentioned there.
Job 12:12. Among the aged is wisdom, and a long life (works, gives) understanding [or lit. length of days is understanding]. The verse is related to the preceding as logical consequent to its antecedent: As the ear determines the value of words, or the palate the taste of food, so aged men have been able to acquire for themselves in the course of a long life a true insight into the nature of things, and a truly rational knowledge of the same,and I have been to school with such men, I have also ventured to draw from this source! This is the meaning of the passage as clearly appears from the context, and it makes it unnecessary to assume: a. with Starke, etc., that Job reckons himself among the aged, and as such sets himself in the fullness of his self-consciousness against, the three friends as being younger than himself (which is distinctly refuted by what we find in Job 5:26; Job 29:8; Job 29:18; Job 15:10); b. with Ewald, to conjecture the loss of a passage after Job 12:12, which would furnish the transition from that verse to Job 12:23; c. with Dillmann, that originally Job 12:12 stood before Job 12:9-10, thus immediately following Job 12:8; d. with Delitzsch, Hengstenberg. etc., that Job 12:23 is to be connected closely and immediately with Job 12:12, so that thus the following order of thought would be expressed: assuredly wisdom is to be found among the aged, but in reality and in full measure it is to be found only with God, etc. [i.e. with Conant, that the verse is to be rendered interrogatively, on the ground that Job would not appeal to tradition in support of his positions; to which Davidson replies that Job assails tradition only where he has found it false; and here, where he is exposing the vulgarity of the friends much-boasted insight, it is quite in place to refer to the facility any one had for coming in contact with such information; and in Job 13:2, where Job recapitulates Job 12:13-25, these two sources of information, sight and hearsay are directly alluded to.Besides Delitzsch and Hengstenberg, Schlottmann and Merx connect the verse with the preceding. On the contrary Con., Dav., Dillm., Ren., Good, Wemyss, etc., connect it with the following, and correctly so on account of the strict connection in thought, and especially the resumption of the thought in varying language in Job 12:16.In answer to the objection of abruptness in the transition if Job 12:13 be detached from the preceding, Davidson says well that it is quite in place; the whole chapter and speech is abrupt and passionate.E.].
First Division: Second Section: An animated description of the exercise of Gods wisdom and power, by way of actual proof that he is by no means wanting in the knowledge of God, which Zophar had denied to him: Job 12:13-25. [It is possible perhaps to exaggerate this idea that Job in the passage following is consciously emulating his opponents. Something there is of this no doubt, but it must not be forgotten that the description here given of the Divine wisdom and omnipotence is an important part of Jobs argument, as tending to show that these attributes so far from being employed by the ends which they had described, are exercised to produce hopeless confusion and ruin in human affairs.E.].
First double strophe: Job 12:13-18 (consisting of two strophes of 3 verses each).
a. Job 12:13-15. [The theme in its most general statement].
Job 12:13. With Him are wisdom and might, His are counsel and discernment.The suffixes in and point back to Jehovah, Job 12:9-10, to whom the whole following description to Job 12:25 in general relates. [With Him, , him, doubly, emphatic (a) in opposition to the just mentioned wisdom of men, Job 12:12; (b) with awe-ful omission of Divine name, and significant allusion and intonation in the pronoun. Dav.]. The verse before us forms as it were the theme of this description, which presents Jobs own personal confession of faith in respect to the nature and wisdom of God. It is therefore neither an expression of the doctrinal views of a hoary antiquity, or of the aged sages of Job 12:12 (Umbreit) [Ewald, Schlottm.], nor a statement of that which is alone to be esteemed as genuine Divine wisdom, in antithesis to the more imperfect wisdom of the aged (Delitzsch, Hengstenberg). There is to be sure a certain progression of thought from Job 12:11 on: the adaptation to their uses of the organs of hearing and of taste, the wisdom of men of age and experience, and the wisdom of God, transcending all else, and united with the highest power, are related to each other as positive, comparative, and superlative. But there is not the slightest intimation of the thought that the absolute wisdom of God casts into the shade those rudiments of itself which are to be found in the sphere of the creature, or would hold them up as utterly worthless. Rather is what is said of the same in our verse in some measure the fruit, or a specimen of the wisdom of the aged, which Job also claims to possess, as a pupil of such aged men. Comp. below Cocceius, in the Homiletical Remarks on Job 12:10-13. Of the four designations of the absolute Divine intelligence here given, which accord with the language of Isa 11:2, and the accumulation of which intensifies the expression to the utmost, denotes that side of Gods intelligence which perceives things in the ground of their being, and in the reality of their existence [the general word and idea comprehensive of all others, Dav.]. that which is able to carry out the plans, purposes, and decisions of this universal wisdom against all hindrance and opposition [virtus, , vir. Dav.]; , that which is never perplexed as to the best way of reaching its purpose; , that which can penetrate to the bottom of what is true and false, sound and corrupt, and distinguish between them: Delitzsch; [ actively force, passively strength, firmness: Dav.].
Job 12:14. Lo, He tears down, and it is not built up (again). This is the first example of the irresistible exercise of this absolute might and wisdom of God. Job describes it as directed above all else to the work of tearing down and destroying, because in his recent mournful experiences he had been led to know it on this side of its activity; comp. Job 9:5 seq., where in like manner the mention of the destructive activities of the Divine omnipotence precedes that of its creative and constructive operation. Whether there is a reference to Zophars expression (Job 11:10; so Dillmann) is doubtful. He shuts up a man (lit. He shuts over a man), and it cannot be opened. The expression , to shut over any one, is to be explained from the fact that use was frequently made of pits, perhaps of cisterns, as prisons, or dungeons: comp. Gen 37:24; Jer 38:6; Lam 3:53. Where this species of incarceration is not intended, is used either with the accus. or with (comp. Job 3:10; and 1Sa 1:6).
Job 12:15. Lo, He restrains the waters, and they dry up (Is. 50:38); He letteth them forth (again), and they overturn the earth. A remarkable parallel in thought to this description of the operation of the Divine omnipotence in the visible creation, now withdrawing and now giving life, but ever mighty in its agency, may be found in Psa 104:29-30. A reference to Zophars comparison of past calamity with vanished waters (Job 11:16) is scarcely to be recognized.
b. Job 12:16-18. [Resumption of the themespecially of the Divine wisdom bringing confusion and humiliation on earths mightiest].
Job 12:16. With Him are strength and true knowledge (, precisely as in Job 11:6). His are the deceived and the deceiver [the erring one, and the one who causes to err]: i.e., His intelligence is so far superior to that of man that alike he who abuses his wisdom in leading others astray, and he who uses it for their good, are in His hand, and constrained to serve His purposes. He thus makes evil, moral and intellectual, subservient to the good: Gen 50:20; Psa 18:27. [ and here are to be understood not so much in the ethical as in the intellectual sense: if a man thinks himself wise because he is superior to another, and can lead him astray, in comparison with Gods wisdom the deceiver is not greater (in understanding) than the deceived; He has them both in his hand, etc. Dillm.]
Job 12:17. He leads counsellors away stripped: or who leads counsellors, etc.for from this point on to the end of the description (Job 12:24) Job speaking of God uses the present participle. The circumstantial accus. , which here and in Job 12:19 is used in connection with , (and that in the singular, like , Job 24:7; Job 24:10), is rendered by the ancient versions captive, or chained (LXX., Targ. on Job 12:19 : ; Targ. on Job 12:17 : catenis vinctos), whereas etymologically the signification made naked (exutus), violently stripped is the only one that is authenticated. The word therefore is equivalent to the expression naked and barefoot, Isa 20:4, not to barefoot alone, as Oehler, Hitzig, Dillmann, etc., suppose from comparison with the LXX. in Mic 1:8. Naturally we are to understand the description here to be of counsellors led away stripped as captives taken in war: comp. Is. l. c. and 2Ch 28:15, as also what pertains to , counsellors in Job 3:14.And judges He makes fools. , as in Isa 44:25, to infatuate, to show to be fools. Such an infatuation of judges as would cause the military and political ruin of their country to proceed directly from them (as in the breaking out of great catastrophes over certain kingdoms, e.g. over Egypt, Isa 19:17 seq.; over Israel and Judah, 2Ki 19:26; etc.), is not necessarily to be assumed here (comp. Job 5:20), although catastrophes of that character are here especially prominent in the thought of the speaker.
Job 12:18. He looses the bond of kings; i.e., He looses the bond, or the fetters, with which kings bind their subjects, He breaks the tyrannical yoke of kings, and brings them rather into bondage and captivity, or as the second member expresses this thought more in the concrete: He binds a girdle on their loins. It seems that lit. girdle, in this second member should accord with in the first. So much the more should the latter be pointed , and be construed as stat. constr. Comp. (= , from , to bind). Of less authority, etymologically, is the interpretation required by the Masoretic punctuation regarded as st. constr. of , discipline, castigatio, although it gives a sense quite nearly related to the preceding, it being presupposed that discipline is to be understood in the sense of rule, authority (so among the moderns, Rosenm., Arnh., Vaih., Hahn, Delitzsch [Ges., Carey], etc.). But discipline is a different conception from authority, and can very well take for its object , fetters, Job 39:5; Psa 116:16, but not castigationem. So Dillmann correctly, who also however rightly rejects the interpretation of Ewald, Hirzel, Heiligst., Welte, etc., according to which denotes the fetters, with which kings are bound, so that the relation between a and b would be not that of a logical progression, but of direct antithesis, as in Job 12:15. [Hengstenberg calls attention to the paronomasia of , and ].
Second Double Strophe: Job 12:19-25 (divided into one strophe of three, and one of four verses): [The description continued: the agency of the Divine wisdom in confounding the great of earth].
a. Job 12:19-21. [Special classes of leaders brought to shame described].
Job 12:19. He leads priests away spoiled (see on Job 12:17), and those firmly established He overthrows. [ priests, not princes (E. V.) In many of the States of antiquity the priests were personages no less important, were indeed even more important and honored than the secular authorities. Dillm. The juxtaposition of priests and kings here points to the ancient form of priestly rule, as we encounter the same in the person of Jethro and in part also in Melchizedek. Schlott.].All objects are called , firmly-enduring [perpetual], which survive the changes of time. Hence the term is applied, e.g., to water which does not become dry (aqu perennes), or firmly founded rocks (Jer 49:19; Jer 50:44), or mighty, invincible nations (Jer 5:15), or, as here, distinguished and influential persons (Vulg., optimates). [, slip, in Piel, overthrow, aptly antithetic [to . Dav.].
Job 12:20. He takes away the speech of the most eloquent: lit. of the trusted, of those who have been tried as a peoples orators and counsellors; for they are the (from , to make firm, trustworthy, not from , to speak, as D. Kimchi thinks, who would explain the word diserti, as though it were punctuated ). On b comp. Hos 4:11; and as regards , taste, judgment, tact, see 1Sa 25:33.
Job 12:21. He pours contempt on nobles (exactly the same expression as in Psa 107:40), and looses the girdle of the strong, ( lit. containing of great capacity [Delitzsch: to hold together, especially to concentrate strength on anything] only here and Job 41:7; i.e., He disables them for the contest (by causing the under-garments to hang down loosely, thus proving a hindrance for conflict; comp. Isa 5:27; also below Job 38:3; Job 40:7). The translation of Delitzsch is altogether too forced, and by consequence insipid: He pours contempt on the rulers of the state, and makes loose the belt of the mighty.
b. Job 12:22-25. [The Divine energy as especially operative among nations].
Job 12:22. [This verse must naturally form the prelude to the deeper exercise of power and insight among nations, and its highest generalization, comp. 16b. Dav.].He discovereth deep things out of the darkness, and brings forth to light the shadow of death;i.e., not: He puts into execution His hidden purposes in the destiny of nations (Schlottm.), [for who would call the hidden ground of all appearances in God, ! Dilllm.], but: He brings forth into the light all the dark plans and wickedness of men which are hidden in darkness; comp. 1Co 4:5 : ( . . ., and the proverb: There is nothing spun so fine but all comes to the light; see also Job 24:13 seq.; Isa 29:15; Rom 13:12; 1Th 5:5, etc. [Deep things out of the darkness, , must mean hidden tendencies and principles, e.g., those running under national life, Job 12:23, naturally more subtle and multiplex than those governing individual manifestation on however elevated a scale) and darkness, and shadow of death, figures (Job 11:8) descriptive of the profoundest secresy. These secret tendencies in national life and thoughtnever suspected by men who are silently carried on by themHe detects and overmasters either to check or to fulfil. David. A truth which brings joy to the good, but terror to all the children of darkness (Job 24:13 seq.), and not without threatening significance even to the friends of Job. Dillmann].
Job 12:23. He makes nations great, anddestroys them; He spreads nations abroad andcauses them to be carried away (or: carries them away captive, comp. , synonymous with , abducere in servitutem; also 2Ki 18:11). [Rodwell: then straitens them: leads them, i.e., back into their former borders]. Instead of the LXX. () as well as some of the Rabbis read , who infatuates, makes fools. But the first member of the verse corresponds strictly in sense to the second, on which account the Masoretic reading is to be retained, and to be interpreted of increase in height, even as the parallel in b of increase in breadth, or territorial enlargement (not as though it meant a dispersion among other nations, as the Vulg. and Aben Ezra incorrectly interpret this ). [The in both members, says Schlottmann, is not used Aramaice with the accus., but as sign of the Dat. commodi.]
Job 12:24. He takes away the understanding ( as in Job 12:3) of the chief of the people of the land (, can certainly signify the people of the earth, mankind, [Hirzel], after Isa 42:5; for its use in the more limited sense of the people of a land, comp. below Job 15:19). [We have intentionally translated nations, people, for is the mass held together by the ties of a common origin, language, and country; , the people bound together by unity of government. Delitzsch].And makes them wander in a pathless waste: ( , synonymous with , or with , comp. Job 38:26; and Ewald, 286, 8). The whole verse, the second member of which recurs verbatim in Psa 107:40 presents an exact Hebrew equivalent for the Latin proverb: quem Deus perdere vult, prius dementat, a proverb on which the history of many a people and kingdom, from the earliest antiquity down to the present, furnishes an actual commentary that may well make the heart tremble. Concerning the catastrophes of historic nationalities in the most ancient times, which the poet here may not improbably have had before his mind, comp. Introd., 6, e.
Job 12:25. They grope in darkness without light and He makes them to wander like a drunken man. Comp. Isa 19:14, and especially above in Job 5:13-14, a similar description by Eliphaz, which Job here seems desirous of surpassing, in order to prove that he is in no wise inferior to Eliphaz in experimental knowledge of the righteous judgments of God, the infinitely Wise and Mighty One.
4. Second Division: First Section: Resolution to appeal to the judicial decision of God, before which the harsh, unloving disposition of the friends will assuredly not be able to maintain itself, but will be put to shame: Job 13:1-12.
First Strophe: Job 13:1-6. [Impatience with the friends, and the purpose to appeal to God].
Job 13:1. Behold, mine eye hath seen all (that), mine ear hath heard and perceived for itself. here equivalent to , all that has been here set forth, all that has been stated (from Job 12:13 on) in respect to the evidences of the Divine power and wisdom in the life of nature and men. [, dativus commodi, or perhaps only dat. ethicus: and has made it intelligible to itself (sibi); of the apprehension accompanying perception. Del.].On Job 13:2 comp. Job 12:3, the second member of which is here repeated word for word.
Job 13:3. But I will speak to the Almighty. , but nevertheless, puts that which now follows in emphatic antithesis to the preceding: notwithstanding that I know all this, I will still, etc. [Three feelings lie at the back of this antithesis: (1) The folly of longer speaking to the friends. (2) The irrelevancy of all such knowledge as they paraded, and which Job had in abundance. (3) Antagonism to the prayer of Zophar that God would appearJob desires nothing more nor betterbut I, to the Almighty will I speak. Dav.]. Observe also the significantly accented , I ( ), which puts the speaker in definite antithesis to those addressed (, Job 13:4, ), as one who will not follow their advice to make penitent confession of his guilt towards God; who will rather plead against God.I desire to plead with God. , Inf. absol. as obj. of the verb; comp. Job 9:18; and for the signification of , to plead, to vindicate ones cause against an accusation, comp. Amo 5:10; Isa 29:21; also below Job 13:15, Job 19:5. , to desire, to be inclined, here essentially as in Job 9:3. always for in pause]. That passage (Job 9:3) certainly stands in some measure in contradiction to this, implying as it does the impossibility of contending with God; it is however a contest of another sort from that which is intended there that he proposes here, a contest not of one arrogantly taking the offensive, but of one driven by necessity to the defensive.
Job 13:4. But ye are (only) forgers of lies. puts another antithetic sentence alongside of the first which was introduced by (Job 13:3), without however laying any special stress on ; hence: and however, but again, etc.; not: ye however (Hirzel). (from , to plaster, to smear, to paste together; comp. , plaster Eze 13:10 seq., and Talmudic grease) are lit. daubers of lies, i.e., inventors of lies, concinnatores s. inventores mendacii; not: imputers, fasteners of falsehood, assutores mendacii, as Stickel, Hirzel, Schlottmann, Delitzsch, etc., explain both against philology and the context (neither Job 14:17 nor Psa 119:69 support this definition); nor again: deceitful patchers, sarcinatores falsi, i.e., inanes, idutilis, as Hupfeld explains.Physicians of no value are ye all. are not patchers [Con. botchers] of vanity, i.e., such as patch together empty unfounded assertions (Vulg., Ew., Olsh., Dillm.), [Good, Con., Dav.], but in accordance with the universal usage of : worthless, useless physicians, medici nihili, miserable quacks, who are incapable of applying to Jobs wounds the right medicine to soothe and heal. [Job calls their false presuppositions regarding his guilt , their vain attempts at a Theodicy and Theory of Providence . Dav.].
Job 13:5. Oh that ye would be altogether silentthat would be reckoned to you for wisdom.Comp. Pro 17:28; the Latin proverb: Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses; also the honorable title, bos mutus, the mute ox, given to Thomas Aquinas during his student life at Paris, by his fellow-students, as well as by his teacher, Albertus Magnus. The jussive, , is used in a consecutive sense: then would it be, prove, pass for; comp. Ewald, 347, a, Gesen., 128, 2.
Job 13:6. Hear now my reproof, and give heed to the charges of my lips.So correctly Hirzel, Dillm., Del., etc., while several other moderns explain: Hear my defense [Con., E. V., reasoning], and attend to the arguments of my lips. As if could signify anything else than , correptio (so correctly LXX,, Vulg.Comp. in Job 6:25; Job 40:2), and as if (defectively for ) could even in one instance sink the meaning of the stern word , to strive, to quarrel! Furthermore it is a long moral reproof and animadversion of the friends which immediately follows, Job 13:7-12. His reply and vindication of himself to God first follows Job 13:13 seq., or indeed properly not before Job 13:17 seq.
Second Strophe: Job 13:7-12. [Scathing rebuke of their dishonesty and presumption in assuming to be Gods advocates (Job 13:7-9), and warning of the consequences to themselves when God shall rebuke them for their conduct].
Job 13:7. Will ye for God [ emphatic] speak that which is wrong, will ye for Him speak deceitfully?The preposition signifies here for, in favor of any one, as also in Job 13:8, Jdg 6:31. On comp. Job 5:16; Job 6:30.
Job 13:8. Will ye show partiality for Him (lit. lift up His countenance, i.e. show preference for His person), or will ye take the part of Gods advocates? (lit. contend for God, comp. , Jdg 6:31). These are the two possible ways in which they could speak in favor of God: either as clients, dependents, taking His part slavishly, for mercenary ends, or as patrons or advocates, presumptuously and naively taking Him under their protection. [There thus appears a subtle and very effective irony in these questions of Jobs. His charge of partiality is also, as Davidson says, a master-stroke of argumentation, effectually debarring the friends from any further defense of God in this direction, or almost at all.E.].
Job 13:9. Will it be well [for you] when He searches you out (goes to the bottom of you, as in Pro 28:11; Psa 139:23) or can you deceive Him as a man is deceived?viz. in regard to your real disposition and the sentiment of your heart, of which a more searching investigation must reveal to Him that it by no means corresponds to His holy nature and life., Hiph. from (in Imperf. , with a non-syncopated , for , Gesen. 53 [ 52] Rem. 7 [Green, 142, 3]), is lit. to cause to waver [to hold up anything swaying to and fro], to keep one in suspense, to make sport of any one, [E. V. to mock], hence to deceive; ensnare; comp. Gen 31:7; Jdg 16:10; Jer 9:4.) [Schlott., who renders: will ye mock him? explains by quoting from Jarchi: dicendo: in honorem tuam mendacia nos finximus].
Job 13:10. Surely He will sorely chastise you (Job 5:17) if ye are secretly partial:i.e. if ye are actuated not by love of the truth and conscientious conviction, but by selfish interest in your relations with Him, as One who is mightier. That with which Job hereby reproaches them is (as Del. rightly observes) a , Rom 10:2 (comp. Joh 16:2), an advocacy contrary to ones better knowledge and conscience, in which the end is thought to sanctify the means.
Job 13:11. Will not His majesty (, as in Job 31:23, exaltation, dignity; not a kindling of wrath, or a lifting up for contention, as Bttch. renders it after the Vulg.) confound you (Job 3:5), and the dread of Him ( the dread, the terror which He inspires) fall upon youthen, namely, when He will reveal Himself as your Judge. Job here anticipates what according to Job 42:7 seq. really happened afterwards. [It is a peculiarity of the author of our book that he drops every now and then hints of how the catastrophe is to turn out, showing unmistakably both the unity of conception and the authorship of the book. Dav.]
Job 13:12. Your maxims (become) proverbs of ashes: to wit, then when God will judge you. , memorable sayings, apothegms, memorabilia [Dav. old saws] (comp. Mal 3:16; Est 6:1): so does he name here, not without irony, the admonitions and warnings which they had addressed to him, in part as the Chokmah of the ancients, or even as divinely inspired communications. [The sarcasm in the word is cutting: comp. of Eliph. Job 4:7; and Job 8:8. Dav.] He characterizes these maxims as , i.e. as empty and unsubstantial like ashes or dust, like ashes (the emblem of nothingness and worthlessness, Isa 44:20) scattered to every wind. The second member is strictly parallel: Your bulwarks become bulwarks of clay. [While Job 13:12 a says what their speeches, with the weighty nota bene, are, Job 13:12 b says what their become; for always denotes a = , and is never the exponent of the predicate in a simple clause. Del.] , lit. back, ridge (comp. Job 15:26) here equivalent to breastwork, bulwark; so does Job call here the reasonings behind which they sought refuge, the glittering, pathetically urged arguments which they had arrayed against him. Comp. , Isa 41:21, and , 2Co 10:4. [The rendering of E. V. your bodies (are like) to bodies of clay, is evidently taken from the signification back: and the whole verse is a reminder of their mortality. But this is much less suited to the language used, less pertinent to the context, and less effective for Jobs purpose than the rendering here given.E.] For , mud, potters clay, as an emblem of what is frail, easily destroyed, incapable of resistance, comp. Job 38:14; Isa 45:9 seq.
Second Division: Second Section: Declaration of his consciousness of innocence as against God in the form of a solemn confession, in which he boldly challenges Him: Job 13:13-22.
First Strophe: Job 13:13-16. [Turning from the friends, he expresses more emphatically than before his purpose to appeal to God, cost what it may at the first, confident of ultimate acquittal. Dillmann says: It seems that the poet intentionally cut this strophe short, in order by this very brevity to emphasize more strongly the gravity of these thoughts.]
Job 13:13. In silence leave me alone: lit. be silent from me (), i.e., desist from me, cease from your injurious assaults, and let me be in peace. [According to Schlott. the preposition here is the of source or cause: be silent because of the weight of my words; acc. to the above, a constr. prgnans is assumed. Conant, etc., translate: Keep silence before me. Barnes thinks it possible that Job may have perceived in them some disposition to interrupt him in a rude manner in reply to the severe remarks which he had made. Comp. on Job 6:29. More probably, however, the verse is, like Job 13:5, an expression of his weariness with their vain platitudes, and unjust accusations, and a demand that they should stand by in silence while he should plead directly with God.E.]Then will I speak, or: in order that I may speak. [Conant: That I now may speak:. Strong double emphasis in the use of the cohortative future, and the pronoun; the latter emphasizing the first person, the former his strong determination to speak.E.]And let come upon me what will. as in Deu 24:5. here for , a condensed form of expression similar to , 2Sa 18:22; comp. Ewald, 104, d.
Job 13:14. Wherefore should I take my flesh into my teeth:i.e. be solicitous to save and to preserve my body at any price, like a beast of prey, which drags off its booty with its teeth, and so secures it against other preying animals. This proverbial saying, which does not occur elsewhere, is in itself clear (comp. Jer 38:2). The second member also signifies essentially the same thing: and (wherefore should I) put my soul in my hand:i.e. risk my life, seek to save it by means of a desperate exertion of strength (comp. the same expression in Jdg 12:3; 1Sa 19:5; 1Sa 28:21). [This, says Dillmann, is indeed scarcely the original meaning of the phrase; nor is it to be understood, as commonly explained, that what one has in the hand easily falls out and is lost. The primary meaning is rather: to commit or entrust the life to the hand in order to bear it through, i.e. to make a desperate effort to save it (see Ewald on the passage): such an attempt is indeed dangerous, because if the hand fails, the life is lost, and so the common explanation attaches itself naturally to the phrase, to expose the life to apparent danger. Here, however, the original meaning is altogether suitable, and indeed necessary, because only so do the first and second members agree: why should I make an extreme effort to save my life?] Such a desperate effort Job would make, in case he should declare himself guilty of the reproaches brought against him. while at the same time he bore no consciousness of guilt within himself. This, however, would not be of the least avail, for according to Job 13:15 a he has nothing more to hope for, he sees before him nothing but certain death from the hand of God. Hence, therefore, his question: Wherefore should I seek to save my life at any priceI who have nothing more to hope for? Compared with this interpretation, which is the only one suited to the context, and which is adopted by Umbreit, Ewald, Vaih., Dillm., etc., the many interpretations which vary from it are to be rejected, especially those according to which the second member is not to be regarded as a continuation of the question, but as an assertionaccording to Hirzel in the positive form: and even my life do I riskaccording to Hahn and Delitzsch in the negative: nay, I even put my life at stake: in like manner, that of Bttcher: wherefore should I seek to preserve my life at any price, seeing that I willingly expose it, etc.
[Wordsworth agrees in this interpretation of the meaning of each member of the verse, but differs from Zckler, etc., in the application: The question (he says) is put hypothetically. You may ask me why I am thus bold to desire to expose myself to a trial before God? The reason is because I am sure that I have a good cause; I know that in the end He will do me right. See what follows.The Vulg. renders: Quare lacero carnes meas dentibus meis, et animam meam porto in manibus meis? Hengstenberg follows this rendering, explaining the first clause of the wrong, the violence which he would do to his moral personality, if by silence he should plead guilty to the accusations of the friends. Schultens, who is followed in substance by Rosenmller, Good, Wemyss, Bernard, Barnes, Renan, Davidson, Carey, Rodwell, Elzas, regards both members as proverbially expressing the idea of risking life, and the clause not in its usual interrogative sense, but as equivalent to: in spite of every thing. (Schult., super quid, on any account.) is thus a resumption of the in 13b. This rendering gives a consistent and forcible sense throughout: Be silent now, and let me alone, and I for my part will assuredly speak, be the consequence what it may: Cost what it may, I will risk it all, I will risk my person and my life: lo, He will slay me, etc., yet in his very presence, etc, (comp. on Job 9:21-22). The objection to this is of course the unusual rendering of . On the other hand the objection to the interpretation adopted in our comm. is the unusual sense in which we are constrained to take the proverbial expressions of the verse, particularly the latterto take the life in the handwhich according to this interpretation must mean to seek to save the life, whereas in every other instance it means to risk it. It is thus at best a choice between difficulties, or unusual expressions. And it may fairly be queried whether the difficulty in regard to is not largely obviated by the close connection in which it stands with the just preceding.E.].
Job 13:15. Lo, He will slay me:viz. through my disease, which will certainly bring about my speedy dissolution (comp. Job 6:13; Job 7:6; Job 9:25; Job 10:20). I have no (more) hope; i.e., I do not direct my thoughts to the future, I am not in a state of waiting, expectation ( without an obj., prstolari, exactly as in Job 6:11; Job 14:14), and this indeed is so naturally, because for me there is nothing more to wait for, seeing that my condition is hopeless, and my fate long since decided. So, according to the Kthibh is the phrase to be explained, while the Kri, must signify in accordance with the suffix: until then, viz., until I am slain, I wait (so substantially Luther), or again: I wait for Him, that He may slay me (Delitzsch) [i.e., I wait what He may do, even to smite with death]. The context by no means yields the rendering of the Vulg., which also rests on the Kri; etiam si occiderit me, in ipso (Deo) sperabo [so also E. V., though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him]: an utterance which has acquired a certain celebrity as a favorite sentiment alike of pious Jews and Christians (comp. Delitzsch on the passage), as the funeral text of the Electoress Louise Henriette of Brandenburg, and as the poetic theme of a multitude of popular religious hymns. It scarcely expresses however the meaning here intended by Job, which is far removed from any expression of a hope reaching beyond death.Only my ways (viz., the innocence of my ways) will I prove in His presence. , referring back to the whole preceding sentence, hence the game as nevertheless, however. He has already despaired of life, but of one thing he does not despair, freely and openly to prove before God the blamelessness of his life: physically therefore he can succumb, that he concedes, but morally he cannot (Del.).
Job 13:16. Even this will be my salvation that the unholy comes not before Him:i.e., does not dare to present himself so confidently before Him. In the fact that He is filled with towards God he sees accordingly a pledge of salvation, i.e., of victory in the trial in which he is involved. For this sense of comp. 1Sa 14:45; 2Ch 20:17; Hab 3:8 (not however in Job 30:15, where it signifies rather prosperity, and that of the earthly sort). [He wavers between two contradictions: on the one side he believes according to an opinion widely prevalent in the Semitic East, that no one can see God without dying; on the other side he reassures himself with the thought that God cannot reveal Himself to the wicked. Renan]. is referred by Bttcher, Schlott., [Con., Dav., and so E. V.], etc., to God: He also ministers to my help, to my deliverance, for, etc. But this does not agree with the contents of the preceding verse. For the neuter rendering of , which we find already in the LXX., ( ) comp. Job 15:9; Job 31:28; Job 41:3. [In favor of the personal sense for , referring it to God, Schlottmann argues that it would scarcely be said of a circumstance in Hebrew that it would be anybodys salvation: and Davidson objects to the neuter rendering that it originates in a cold conception of Jobs mental agitation, and gives to a sense feeble almost to imbecility. On the other hand Dillmann argues against the masculine sense that in that case the connection between the first and second members of this verse would be imperfect, and that the contrast between what would thus be said of God in this verse and that which has been said in Job 13:15 would be too violent].
Second Strophe: Job 13:17-22. [Determination to cite God finally reached, with conditions of pleading before Him.Dav.].
Job 13:17. Hear, O hear my declaration. , a strongly emphasized appeal that they should hear him, essentially the same in signification as Isa 6:9, only that here is not intended as there a continued but an attentive hearing for the time being; comp. Job 21:2; Job 37:2., here declaration, signifies in Arabic confession, religion. Its synonym in he second member, [and let my utterance sound in your ears], formed from the Hiph. of the verb (Job 15:17; Psa 19:3) signifies here (the only place where it occurs in the O. T.) not brotherly conduct as in post-biblical Hebrew, but utterance. With it is better to supply or , let it enter, let it sound in your ears, than to repeat from a.
Job 13:18. Behold now I have made ready the cause. , causam instruere, as in Job 23:4; comp. the simple , Job 33:5. On b comp. Job 11:2.
Job 13:19. Who is he that will contend with me?i.e., attempt with success to prove that I am in the wrong. As to the thought compare the parallel passages, Isa 1:9; Rom 8:34; and as to the lively interrogative , Job 4:7.Then indeed (if any one succeeds in that, in convicting me of wrong) I would be silent and die: then, as one defeated within and without, I would without offering further resistance, let death come upon me as merited punishment. The explicitness and calmness with which he makes this declaration shows how impossible it seems to him that he should be proved guilty, how unalterably firm he stands in the consciousness of his innocence. [E. V., for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost, is less simple, and less suited to the connection].
Job 13:20. Only two things do not Thou unto me: these are the same two things which he has already deprecated in Job 9:34 in order that he may successfully achieve his vindication, and so, as it is here expressed in b, not be obliged to hide before God. In Job 13:21 we are told wherein they consist, viz., a, in heavy unremitting calamities and chastisements (Thy hand remove Thou from me), here of the hand which punishes, as previously in Job 9:34); and b, in terror, confusion, and trepidation produced by His majesty; comp. above, Job 13:11.
Job 13:22. Thenif these two alleviations are granted to mecall Thou and I will answer:i.e., summon me then to a criminal trial, or which would be eventually still more advantageous to me: allow me the first word, let me be the questioner. Obviously it is in this sense that we are to take b, where , to reply (supply ) is connected transitively with accus. of the person, as elsewhere ; comp. Job 20:2; Job 32:14; Job 40:4.
6. Third Division. The vindication of himself to God, with a complaint over the vanity and helplessness of human existence: Job 13:23Job 14:22. [That Job, lifted up by the proud consciousness of innocence, might really fancy for the moment that God would answer his challenge, is not in itself improbable in view of the present temper of his soul, and the entire plan of the poem, according to which such an intercourse of God with men as may be apprehended by the senses lies within the bounds of possibility (Job 38. seq.), and should not be described (with Schlottm.) as a fanatical thought; although indeed he could not long continue in this fancy; not only the non-appearance of God, but also every consideration of a more particular sort must convince him of the idleness of his wish. Dillmann. Hence the sudden change of his apology to a lamentation].
First Strophe: Job 13:23-28. Having repeatedly announced his purpose (Job 13:13 seq., 17 seq.), Job now at length passes directly to the demonstration of his innocence, but at once falls from a tone of confident self-justification into one of sorrowful lamentation, and faint-hearted despair, out of which he does not again emerge during this discourse.
Job 13:23. How many are (then) my iniquities and sins; my wickedness and my sin make known to me!Inasmuch as denotes sin or moral aberration in general (occasionally also indeed sins of weakness), transgression or evil-doing of a graver sort, however flagrant wickedness, open apostasy from God (comp. Hoffmann, Schriftbew. I., 483 seq.), the enumeration which is here given is on the whole neither climactic nor anti-climactic, but alike in a and b the more special and stronger expression precedes, while the more general term follows. Observe still further that the characteristic expression used to denote the smallest and slightest offenses, (Psa 19:13) is not introduced here at all. Of such failures of the most insignificant sort Job would indeed be perfectly well aware that he was guilty; comp. above Job 9:2; Job 9:14 seq.
Job 13:24. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face (a sign of the Divine displeasure, comp. Isa 54:8) and regardest me as Thine enemy?The question is an expression of impatient wonder at the non-appearance of God.
Job 13:25. A driven leaf wilt Thou terrify? with He interrog. like , Job 15:2. Comp. Gesenius 100 [ 98], 4 [E. V. wilt thou break a leaf, etc. And so Bernard: but against usage]. And pursue the dry chaff? The meaning of this troubled plaintive double question is: How canst Thou, who art Almighty and All-sufficient, find Thy pleasure in persecuting and afflicting a weak and miserable creature like me? It is not with reference to the universal frailty of mankind, of which he partook (Hahn), but with special reference to the fearful visitation which had come on him, and he destruction which had begun in his body, that he compares himself to a driven leaf, i. e. one that is tossed to and fro by the wind [comp. Lev 26:36), and to the dry chaff, which is in like manner blown about (comp. Psa 1:4, etc.).
Job 13:26. For Thou decreest for me bitter things (or also with consecutive rendering of : that Thou decreest, etc.). here is equivalent of course to bitter painful punishments; and , lit. to write, refers to a written decree announcing a judicial sentence: comp. Job 31:35; Psa 149:9; Isa 10:1.And makest me to inherit the iniquities of my youth: the sins of my earlier years, long since forgiven and forgotten, by comparison with which as being the half-conscious misbehaviour of childhood, or the manifestations of youthful thoughtlessness (Psa 25:7), so severe and fearful a penalty would seem to be needless cruelty. [He can regard his affliction only as the inheritance of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath to reproach himself with. Del.E. Ver. makest me to possess, etc., not sufficiently expressive. His old age inherited the accumulated usury and consequence of youthful sins. Dav.] To cause one to inherit anything is the same as causing him to experience the consequences of anything (here the bad consequences, the punishments); comp. Pro 14:18; Ps. 69:37 (Psa 69:36); Mar 10:17; 1Co 6:10, etc.
Job 13:27. And puttest my feet in the block:i. e. treatest me as a prisoner. , poet. for , Ewald, 443, b. [jussive in form though not in signification; used simply from the preference of poetry for a short pregnant form. Del.], comp. Job 15:33; Job 23:9; Job 23:11. here and Job 33:11 is a wooden block with a contrivance for firmly fastening the feet of a prisoner, the same with the of Jer 20:3, and the of Act 16:24, or , or the Roman instruments of torture called cippus, codex or nervus. In times still recent wooden blocks of this kind were in use among the Arabians, as Burckhardt had occasion to observe (Travels, p. 420). And watchest all my paths:i. e. does not allow me the slightest freedom of motion: comp. Job 7:12; Job 10:14.Around the roots of my feet Thou dost set bounds:i. e. around the place where I stand, where the soles of my feet are placed (the soles firmly fixed in one point being compared to the roots of a tree), Thou dost make marks, bounds, lines of demarcation, which Thou dost not permit me to cross. This is the simplest and philologically the most suitable definition of the Hithpael (from ,); found only here, in which definitions Gesenius, Ewald (1st Ed.), Schlottm., Hahn, Del, Dillm., [Con., Elz.and see below the rendering of Hirzel, Noyes, etc.], etc., essentially agree. Not essentially different as to the sense, although philologically not so well authenticated are the explanations of Rosenm., Umbreit [Hengst., Merx], etc.: Thou drawest a circle around my feet; of Ewald (2d Ed.): Thou makest sure of my feet (comp. Peshito and Vulgate: vestigia pedum meorum considerasti); of Hirzel [Frst]: Thou dost make Thyself a trench around the roots of my feet [others, e. g. Noyes, Renan, Davidson, Rdiger, take in this sense of cutting or digging a trench, but regard the Hithpael as indirectly and not directly reflexive, sibi, not se susculperedost dig a trench for thyself]; of Raschi, Mercier, etc.: Thou fastenest Thyself to the soles of my feet. [E. V., Good, Wem., Bernard, etc.: Thou brandest (settest a print upon, E. V.) the soles of my feet; evidently supposing the expression to refer to some process of branding criminals in the feet: for which, however, there is no good authority.]The three parallel figures contained in the verse all find their actual explanation in the fearful disease, with which Job was visited by God, in consequence of which he was doomed to one place, being unable to move on account of the unshapely swelling of his limbs. [Mercier has already called attention to the gradation which marks the proofs given in these verses of the Divine anger. (1) God hides His face. (2) He shows Himself an enemy. (3) He issues severe decrees against him. (4) He punishes sins long since passed. (5) He throws him into cruel and narrow imprisonment. Hengst.]
Job 13:28. Although he (the persecuted one) as rottenness wastes away, as a garment which the moth has eaten (comp. Job 4:19). This forcible description of the weakness and perishableness of his condition is given to emphasize the thought, how unacccountably severe is Gods treatment of him (comp. above Job 13:25). It is introduced by (instead of ) objectivizing the subject, and giving to the discourse a more general application, valid also for other men, and at the same time providing a transition to the following lament, referring to human misery in general. [Thou hast set this enclosure around one who does not grow like a tree, but moulders away moth-eaten like a garment. Job looks at himself ab extra; he will hardly own himself; he hardly recognizes himself, so changed is he by affliction and disease, and he speaks of himself in the third person. How natural and touching is this! Wordsworth.]
Third Division: Second and Third Strophes: The lament over mans mortality, frailty and vanity continued: Job 14:1-12.
Second Strophe: Job 14:1-6. [Mans physical frailty and moral impurity by nature made the ground of a complaint against the severity of Gods treatment, and of an appeal for forbearance.]
Job 14:1-2. Man, born of woman, of few days, and full of trouble, cometh up as a flower [and withereth, and fleeth as a shadow, and abideth not].This is the only right construction of the passage. The first verse contains only the subject, together with three appositional clauses more particularly descriptive of the same. Of these the first, (a phrase which is elsewhere exactly synonymous with man, e. g.Sir 10:18 : , and Mat 11:11 : .), belongs immediately to the notion contained in the subject, man, whom it characterizes according to his innate quality of weakness (as also in Job 15:14; Job 25:4), while the two following clauses illustrate the shortness of his life, (, constr. st. of , comp. Job 10:15), and the trouble which fills it (, as in Job 3:17; Job 3:26). It is disputed whether the second verb in Job 14:2, means to wither, or to be cut off. Etymologically both these definitions are possible, since may be taken either as Imperf. Niph. of = , succidi, or as Imperf. of a secondary Kal. (an alternate form ), synonymous with , to wither, to become dry, marcescere. The meaning to be cut off, however, is loss suitable to the flower than to fade [the latter, and not the former, being, as Dillmann points out, the natural destiny alike of the flower and of man]; comp. Isa 40:7; Psa 37:2; Psa 90:10; Psa 103:15 seq.; Mat 6:30; 1Pe 1:24; moreover, in the two parallel passages of our book, Job 18:16; and Job 24:24, it is by no means necessary to render in the sense of succidi, prcidi (against Hirzel, Gesenius, Delitzsch [Conant, Dav., E. V.], etc.). On b comp. Job 8:9; Psa 90:5; Psa 90:9-10. [Conant regards the article before as having a definite signification, that which marks the passing and declining day. This, however, would scarcely be in harmony with the verb , which describes rather the fleeting shadow of the cloud, to which the art. would be equally suitable. Merx transposes Job 14:28, of chap. 7., and inserts it here between Job 14:1-2, thus depriving it of the force and beauty which belong to it as the closing verse of that strophe, and as a transition to this, and at the same time weakening the beauty and pathos of this passage by the accumulation of figures.E.]
Job 14:3. And upon this one dost Thou keep Thine eye open?viz. in order to watch him, and to punish him for his sins, comp. Psa 34:17 [16]. , emphatically connecting something new with what has already been given, like our over and above. , upon this one, i. e. upon such an one as he is here described, upon so wretched a creature (Psa 103:14). [The pronoun here descriptive, such an one, talis, rather than demonstrative. By position the phrase is emphatic. E. V., Conant, etc., render the verb simply to open,=so much as open the eyes, so much as look upon him. The rendering given in our commy. to keep the eye open upon presupposes a double emphasis, the first and principal one on the pronoun, the second on the verb.E.]And me ([, emphatic, me] this particularly wretched example of the human race), dost thou bring into judgment before Thee?i. e., to judgment at Thy tribunal, where it is impossible to maintain ones cause.
Job 14:4. O that a pure one might come forth out of an impure:i. e., would it were only possible that one might remain free from the universal sinfulness of the human race, and from the misery accompanying the same, which is now absolutely universal and without exception, so that it has the appearance of unpitying severity when God visits those belonging to this race with punishment (comp. Job 14:5-6). , the customary optative formula (as in Job 14:13; Job 6:8), here connected with an accusative of the object, specifying the contents of the wish (so also in Job 31:31; Job 31:35; Psa 14:7; Deu 28:67). Hence not: who makes [E. V.: can bring] a pure one out of an impure? (Rosenm., Arnheim, Welte, [Renan]); nor: where can a pure one be found among the impure? as if here could have the partitive sense before the singular . [The Opt. rendering not only denies the possibility (of a morally clean coming out of a morally unclean), but gives utterance to the desire that it was otherwise. Dav.]. Not one: to wit, comes forth. [Not therefore can bring forth, as might be inferred from the literal rendering of ]. Not one pure will ever come forth in the line of development which has once been contaminated by sin; comp. Psa 51:7 [5]; also the expression Psa 14:3, which reminds us very closely of this . Ewald, with whom Dillmann agrees, punctuates instead of , and conforms the second member to the first: Oh that there were one! for the reason that a wish does not properly contemplate an answer. But a wish which is in itself incapable of realization is equivalent to a question, the answer to which is a strong negation. Moreover the passage is incomparably stronger and more emphatic according to the common rendering, than according to that of Ewald. [Moreover, why should he desire one such specimen? Plainly, the desire is nothing to the purpose, except as implying that not one such is to be found; and precisely this is asserted in the proper and usual construction of the words. Con.]. On the relation of this assertion by Job of the universality of human corruption to the earlier affirmation of Eliphaz in Job 4:17 seq., see the Doc. and Eth. Remarks.
Job 14:5-6, (the former the antecedent, the latter the consequent).If his days are determined (, lit. cut off [decisi], sharply bounded, defined ; comp. Isa 10:22; 1Ki 20:40), the number of his months with Thee (viz. is established, firmly fixed; here equivalent to , comp. Job 10:13), and Thou hast made [or set] his limit (read with the Kthibh, not the plural with the Kri, which is here less suitable, there being but one limit, one terminus to this earthly life)which he cannot pass (lit. and he passes it not) [observe that the particle in the first member of the verse extends its influence over all three members]: then look away from him, ( the opposite of Job 14:3 a; comp. Job 7:19) that he may rest ( here as in 1Sa 2:5 : to rest, to keep holiday, to be released from the of Job 14:1) that he may enjoy as a hireling his day.The last member literally reads: until that (to the degree that as in Job 8:21; 1Sa 2:5; Isa 47:7) he, like a day-laborer, find pleasure in his day, or, be satisfied with his day. This is the meaning of with the accus.(comp. Jer 14:10; Psa 102:15, and often); not to satisfy, in the sense of to discharge, to make good, [E. V. to accomplish] as Delitzsch explains it, when he translates: until he discharges [accomplishes] as a hireling his day. In favor of this latter rendering indeed, Lev 26:34; Lev 26:43, and 2Ch 36:21 may be cited; but the sense thence resulting is in each case harsh and artificial. For just why it should be said of a hireling, that he (in death) makes complete his days (comp. , Col 1:24) is not altogether apparent: the comparison of the (comp. Job 7:1) seems superfluous, inconsistent indeed, if we have to do simply with the thought: until the completion of the days of his life. [It is difficult to see why the definition adopted by the E. V. and Del. is not perfectly suitable to the connection. The objection to it is that it is not supported by usage, means everywhere to regard favorably, to take pleasure in. We are not justified in taking it in any other sense here. But the expression to enjoy as a hireling his day is variously understood. Some take here in some specific sense; e. g., the day of his discharge, his last day as a hireling (Bernard); his day of rest (Rodwell); and something similar is suggested by Jeromes optata dies. But this thought would have been more distinctly expressed.Others (Hengst., Wordsworth, Noyes, Barnes), explain it as a wish that man may enjoy his life at least as much, with the same freedom from care, as the hireling. But to this there are several objections. (1) would scarcely be used to express this idea, least of all, as here, without any qualification. (2) That Job regarded the day or service of a hireling as a term of hardship, from which deliverance was to be sought rather than as affording any measure of satisfaction to be desired, is evident from the parallel passage in Job 7:1-2. Comp. Job 3:19. (3) He has already expressed the burden of his longing in . This clause is rather to be regarded as an amplification of that thought: the rest, the enjoyment which the end of the days labor brings.It is unnatural to suppose that having reached in thought the goal of rest, he would go back to the joyless, even though painless toil preceding it. We are thus led to the explanation that the enjoyment hero spoken of is that which succeeds the labors of the day. The hirelings real enjoyment of his day comes when the shadow of evening (Job 7:2) brings with it the rest which he covets, and the wages he has earned. In like manner Job desires for man agitated by unrest ( Job 14:1) a respite, however brief, the satisfaction which the end of toil and sorrow would bring. It is not death however that he here prays may come, for that, as the following verses show, is a hopeless condition. And yet the thought of the end of toil suggests at once the thought of death and that hopeless beyond.E.].
Third Strophe: Job 14:7-12. The hopelessness of man when his earthly life is ended.
Job 14:7. For there is yet hope for the tree. , for introduces the reason for the request preferred in Job 14:6 in behalf of miserable and afflicted man: look away from him, etc. [The predication of hope made very strongly both by and the accent, the main division of the verse is at hope. Dav.].If it be cut down, It shoots up again (viz., the stump left in the ground, comp. Isa 6:13), and its sprout, the tender young shoot from the root [suckling], LXX. ; comp. h. Job 8:16) faileth not. Carey, Delitzsch, and others, correctly understand the tree of whose vitality and power of perpetual rejuvenescence Job seems more particularly to think here to be the datepalm, which on account of this very quality is called by the Greeks . It is not so probable that the oak or terebinth [E. V. teil] mentioned in the parallel passage in Isa 6:13, is intended here.
Job 14:8-9, present not properly another case, (Dillmann), but they develop the illustration already presented still further and more forcibly.If its root becometh old in the ground (, inchoative Hiph., senescere), and its trunk dieth in the dust (comp. Isa 40:24), i. e., if the tree die, not interrupted in its growth by the violent hand of man, while yet young and vigorous, but decaying with age, becoming dry and dead down to the roots.Through the scent of water (i. e., so soon as it feels the vivifying energy of water; comp. Jdg 16:9) [, may be taken either subjectively of the scenting, or inhalation of water by the tree; or, bettor, of the scent which water brings with it. When the English army landed in Egypt in 1801, Sir Sydney Smith gave the troops the sure sign that wherever date-trees grew there must be water. Vide R. WilsonsHistory of the Expedition to Egypt, page 18] it sprouts (again; comp. Psa 92:14) and puts forth boughs (comp. Job 18:16; Job 29:19), like a young plant; or also like a sapling newly planted (LXX.: ). That this description also is pre-eminently suitable to the palm appears from the fact that, as every oriental knows very well, in every place where this tree grows, water must be very near at hand, generally from the indestructible vitality and luxuriant fulness of this , (comp. Delitzsch on this passage. [Even when centuries have at last destroyed the palmsays Masius in his beautiful and thoughtful studies of naturethousands of inextricable fibres of parasites cling about the stem, and delude the traveller with an appearance of life. Del.]).
Job 14:10-12 present the contrast to the above: the hopelessness of man in death.
Job 14:10. But man dies and is brought down ( here in the intrans. sense confectum esse, to be prostrated, to be down, whence the usual signification, to be weak, is derived: [the Imperf, when transitive, is written ; when intransitive, as here, ]); man expires (, Imperf. consec., because the cheerless consequences of death are here further set forth), and where is he?where does he then go to? what becomes of him? Comp. the similar yearning question in Ecc 3:21.
Job 14:11. The waters flow away [lit. roll off] out of the sea, and a stream falls and dries up.This is the protasis of a simile, the apodosis of which is introduced, Job 14:12, by so, as below in Job 14:19, and as above in Job 5:7; Job 11:12 (in which latter passages indeed the figure follows, not precedes, the thing illustrated). Comp. the description, imitative of the present passage, in Isa 19:5, describing the drying up of the Nile ( ,) by a Divine judgmenta description which indeed the advocates of a post-Solomonic authorship of our book regard as the original of the passage before us (e.g., Volck, de summa carm. Job sent., p. 31). [ here should be taken of an inland sea or body of water, a sense which the application of the word to the lake of Tiberias, Num 34:11; the Euphrates, Isa 27:1; the Nile, see above, abundantly justifies. Such a drying up of large bodies of water is no uncommon phenomenon in the torrid regions of the East.E.]
Job 14:12. So man lies down and rises no more; till the heavens are no more, they awake not. , until the failure, i. e., the disappearance of the heavens (comp. the exactly equivalent phrase, , Psa 72:7), the same in meaning with , Psa 148:6. For according to the popular conception of the ancient Hebrews, the heavens endure forever: Psa 89:30 [29]; Jer 31:35. When in Psa 102:27; Isa 51:6; Isa 65:17 the heavens are described as waxing old and being changed, this statement does not exclude their eternal existence; for the supposition of a destruction of the universe in the sense of its annihilation is everywhere foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. The expression before us, not to awake till the heavens are no more, is accordingly in any case equivalent to not to awake for ever [or never to awake], as the third member of the verse also clearly indicates: and are never aroused out of their sleepthey sleep a , Jer 51:39; Jer 51:57, an endless sleep of death. [It is assuredly straining the language, and at variance with the connection, and with Jobs present mood, to assume in the expression an implication that when the phenomenal heavens should disappear, man would awake. How far Jobs mind does reach out towards the idea of a resuscitation of humanity will be seen presently. Amid such fluctuations of thought and feeling as characterize his utterances, we are not to look for self-consistency, much less for a careful and exact expression of the highest forms of truth, whether as revealed elsewhere, or even as at times revealed to his own mind.E.] How unchangeable the cheerless outlook on such an eternal condition of death In Sheol presents itself to Job, is shown by the vividly expressed wish which Immediately follows that God, if it were possible, would cause him again to emerge out of this condition, which, however, he immediately recognizes as a yearning which is absolutely incapable of being realized.
8. Third Division: Fourth and Fifth Strophes: Continuation and conclusion of the description of the hopelessness of man in the prospect of death: Job 14:13-22.
Fourth Strophe: Job 14:13-17 : [If God would only permit a hope of the cessation of His wrath, and of his restoration from Sheol, how joyfully he would endure] until the change should come; but now He punishes without pity his sins.]
Job 14:13. Ah that Thou wouldst hide me (Hiph. as in Exo 2:3) in the realm of the dead, wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath should change (comp. the description of such a hiding from Gods wrath in Isa 26:20; Psa 27:5; Psa 31:21 [20]), wouldst appoint me a set time (a , see on Job 14:5), and then remember meviz., for good, in order to re-establish me in the fellowship of Thy grace, and cause me to live in the same. This last expression accented with the emphasis of glowing passion, is the culmination of the yearning wish which Job here expresses, from which, however, he immediately recoils again, as from a chimerical idea which has no real foundation.
Job 14:14. If man dies, will he live?i. e., is it possible that he who has once died, will come to life again? The asyndetic introduction of this short but frequent question after the preceding verse, produces a contrast which is all the stronger. No answer to the question follows, because it is self-evident to the reader that it can be answered only in the negative. But strong as is his conviction of the impossibility of a return to life of the dead, equally sweet and gracious is the charm of the thought which dwells on the opposite possibility, which he has just expressed in the form of a wish. [If a man die, etc., finely natural interpretation of the cold reason and of doubt, striving to banish the beautiful dream and presentiment of a new bodily life with God; but in vain, the spirit tramples down the rising suspicion, and pursues more eagerly the glorious vision. Dav.] All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my discharge (lit. my exchange, comp. Job 10:17) should come.Job uses the term warfare here somewhat differently from Job 7:1 to denote not only the remainder of his toilsome and troublesome days on earth, but the whole dismal interval between the present and that longed-for goal in the future when he should be released from Hades; this release is here, in accordance with the figure of military service, designated as an exchange or discharge. [Hence the change here spoken of is not, as the old Jewish expositors, followed by some moderns, have explained it, the change produced by death. The word , however, has here a double significance, which should be appreciated to realize the full beauty of the passage. In addition to its primary and principal meaning as expressing the discharge of the soldier whose term of hard service has expired, it suggests also the sprouting anew (, Job 14:7) of the trunks and roots of the tree which has been cut down. The , in a word, which Job yearns for is a release from service which would be at the same time a springing up anew from death to life. That this double meaning is not forced, that it is a beautiful and happy stroke of genius, will not seem at all incredible to any one who will carefully trace out our authors masterly use of words in their various possibilities.E.]
Job 14:15. Thou wouldst call (to wit, in this discharge [by Ewald and others referred to the forensic call to the final trial, wherein Job confidently hoped to be acquitted; but the connection here indicates rather the call of love, yearning after its object; the voice of God returning to take His creatures to Himself (Dav.)E.], and I would answer Thee (would follow Thy call); Thou wouldst yearn after the work of Thy hands (Job 10:3); i. e., Thou, as. Creator, wouldst feel an affectionate longing after Thy creature, which Thou hadst hitherto treated harshly, and rejected. The true character of the relation of love between the Creator and His creature would again assert itself, it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa 54:8), and love the true and essential necessity of His being. Del. [Job must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past, to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future. Schlott.] Although only a phantasy of hope (Schlott.), it still furnishes an unconscious prophecy of that which was accomplished in Christs descent into Hades for the salvation of the saints of the Old Covenant.
Job 14:16. For now Thou numberest my steps, i. e., for at this time Thou watchest every step and motion, as those of a transgressor, comp. Job 13:27. , as in Job 6:21, introducing the contrast between a point of time on which the eye fixes in the future, and the sad reality of the present. [ assigns the reason for the wish which forms the contents of Job 14:13-15. It is not necessary, with Hirzel and Schlott., to supply any thing between Job 14:15-16, as, e. g., Thou dost not yearn for Thy creature now, for, etc. The construction of Umbreit, etc., which takes as an emphatic clause,=indeed now, is to be rejected.E.]And dost not hold Thyself back on account of my sins.This is the most satisfactory rendering of . It is found already in Mercier, (non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem), and is of late advocated by Delitzsch [and Wordsworth. It seems to Del. that the sense intended must be derived from , which means to keep anger, and consequently to delay the manifestation of it; Amo 1:11.] Dillmanns explanation gives the same sense: Thou dost not pass over my sins; a rendering, indeed, which rests on an emendation of the text to: , which is favored in some measure by the version of the LXX. Also the rendering advocated by Ewald, Heilig., Schlott. and Hahn: Thou givest no consideration to my sins (to ascertain, namely, whether they do in truth deserve to be punished so severely), does not differ very essentially. Other explanations lack satisfactory support: such as those of the Rabbis, which differ widely among themselves: e.g. Raschis: Thou waitest not over my sins, i. e. to punish them; Ralbags: Thou waitest not for my sins=repentance punishment; Aben-Ezras: Thou lookest not except on my sins. The same may be said of the attempt of Rosenm., Hirzel and Welte to render the sentence as an interrogative without : Dost Thou not keep watch over my sin? [So E. V., Conant, Dav., Rod., Gesen., Frst.In view of Job 13:27 b, it is not apparent why this rendering should be said to lack satisfactory support. The preposition cannot be urged against it, for it harmonizes well with the idea thus expressed; and the interrogative form gives vividness, force and variety to the passage.E.]
Job 14:17. Sealed up in a bag is my gullt. , lit. wickedness, as in Job 13:23 b, here of the aggregate of Jobs former transgressions (comp. Job 13:26 b), of the sum total, the entire mass of guilty actions committed by him, which, as he must believe, is preserved and sealed up by God with all care as a treasure, to be used against him in his own time; comp. Deu 32:34; Hos 13:12. For the figurative expression: to tie up in a bag,=to keep in remembrance, comp. Psa 56:9; 1Sa 25:29. Ewald, Hirzel, Renan, incorrectly explain the guilt sealed in a bag to be the judicial sentence of condemnation by God already issued against Job, which now only awaits execution; for of the preservation of such penal sentences in a bottle all oriental antiquity knows nothing whatever. [The figure is taken from the mode of preserving collected articles of value in a sealed bag. Del.]And Thou hast devised additions to my transgressions: lit. and Thou hast still further stitched (to wit, other, new transgressions) on my transgressions; i. e. hast made mine iniquity still greater than it is, and punished it accordingly more severely than it deserves. This accusation which Job here prefers against God is a bold one; but it is too much to affirm that it is pure blasphemy (Dillm.), because the language of Job throughout is simply tropical, and his real thought is that Gods treatment of him is as severe as if, in addition to his actual transgressions, he were burdened with a multitude of such as had been fabricated (comp. Hengstenberg on the passage). Hence the rendering of Ewald: Thou hast patched up, sewed up my transgression [E. V., Dillmann, Good, Wemyss, Bernard, Con., Barnes, Dav., Rod.], is equally unnecessary with the similar rendering of Umbreit, Vaih., Bttch.: and Thou coverest up my sins. Substantially the right interpretation is given by Rosenmller, Arnh., Hirz., Welte, Delitzsch, Hengst. [Gesen., Frst, Noyes, Renan, Words.].
[The main argument in favor of the interpretation adopted here by Zckler is that means properly not to sew up, but to sew on, patch on, and gen. to add. So Delitzsch. But (1): It looks very much like hyper-criticism to decide, from a very limited usage, that a word, the essential meaning of which is to sew, may mean to sew on, but cannot mean to sew up; or, if the essential meaning be to plaster, to patch, that it may mean to patch on to (to add a patch), but not to patch over. (2) The point becomes still weaker in a case where the word is used, as here, in a figurative, not a literal sense. (3) The parallelism favors the meaning to sew, or to patch up. It seems somewhat, incongruous, after representing God as having sealed up transgressions in a bag, to represent Him in the next clause as stitching, patching, or fabricating other sins. On the other hand, the thought of sealing sin in a bag is suitably supplemented by the thought that the bag is not only officially sealed, but carefully sewed together; or if, with Bernard, we explain: With such care dost Thou store up my iniquities in Thy bag, that if Thou seest the slightest possibility of its giving way in any part, so that some of them might slip out and be lost, Thou immediately stoppest up the hole with a patch. (4) Admitting that the apparent blasphemy of the expression may be explained away, as above by Zckler, its admitted audacity still remains. But Job is not now in one of his Titanic moods of defiance. He resembles not so much Prometheus hurling charges against the Tyrant of the skies, as Hamlet, meditating pensively on death and the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns, but with an infinitely purer pathos than is found even in the soliloquy of the melancholy Dane. It is but a moment ago (Job 14:15 b) that he recognized in a strain of inimitable beauty the yearning bent of Creative Love. He is now indeed complaining of the present severity of Gods dealings with him, but the plaintive tenderness of that sentiment still floats over his spirit and lingers in his words, softening them into the tone of a subdued reproachful moan, very different from the bitter outcry of rebellious defiance.E.]
Fifth Strophe: Job 14:18-22. Conclusion: completing the gloomy delineation of that which in reality awaited Job, in opposition therefore to the yearning desire of his heart.
Job 14:18. But in sooth a falling mountain crumbles away: observe the paronomasia in the original between the participle describing and (). [ at the beginning as elsewhere strongly adversative, introducing in opposition to the dream of a possible restoration in the preceding strophe the stern reality, the inexorable and universal law, which dooms everything to destruction. The use of this conjunction here is a strong confirmation of the position maintained in the concluding remarks on Job 14:17 that the sentiment of Job 14:15-17 lingers also around Job 14:16-17, and that accordingly Job 14:17 b cannot be a daring suggestion of the charge of fabricating iniquity against Job.E.]And a rock grows old out of its place. is rightly rendered: to grow old, to decay by the LXX., and among moderns by Hirzel, Umbreit, Vaihinger, Schlottmann. The topical meaning: to be removed is indeed admissible, and is supported by the Vulg., Rosenm, Ewald, Hahn, and generally by the majority of moderns. The more pregnant meaning of the passage, however, would be lost by the adoption of this latter rendering, which is simply prosaic in its simplicity.
Job 14:19. In this verse a and b continue the series of figures begun in Job 14:18, which are intended to illustrate the unceasing operation of the Divine penalty or process of destruction decreed for men, whereas c first introduces that which is to be illustrated by means of the adquationis (as in Job 5:7; Job 11:12; Job 12:11). Water hollows out stones (comp. the Lat. gutta cavat lapidem);its floods wash away the dust of the earth. , fem. sing., referring to the plural , according to Gesenius, 146 [ 143] 3, [Green. 275, 4. The harshness of the construction which is necessitated by taking in the sense which belongs to it elsewhere of a self-sown growth, is shown in the rendering of E. V.: Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth. Moreover, the limitationself-sownis against this rendering, which would require rather some more comprehensive term, such as . The fem. suffix in originates in the same principle which determines the fem. form of the verb, and like the latter refers to .E.].And the hope of mortal man [note the use of , bringing man into the category of destructible matter.E.]Thou destroyest:i. e. just as incessantly and irresistibly as the physical objects here mentioned yield to the gradual processes of destruction in nature, so dost Thou cause man to perish without any hope of being brought to life again, and this too at once, suddenly (, Perf, of the accomplished fact. [For the form of the verb see Green, 112, 3]). The four figures here used are not introduced to exemplify the idea of incessant change ruling in the realm of nature, whereas from man all hope of a change for the better in his lot is taken away (so Hahn, who takes the in c in the adversative sense, but they describe the processes of destruction in nature, and more especially in the lower sphere of inorganic nature, as types of the gradual ceaseless extinction to which man succumbs in death. This moreover is not to be understood as though Job contemplated those processes with a view to console himself with the thought that his destruction in death was a natural necessity, (Hirzel), but in order to exhibit as forcibly and thoroughly as possible the absolute hopelessness of his condition in prospect of the dark future which death holds up before him; see Job 14:20-22, which admit of no other than this disconsolate sentiment for Job 14:19 c. [The descending gradation in the series of objects from which the illustrations here are taken is quite noticeablemountainrockstonesdust; and suggests at least the query whether we do not have here something more than four distinct emblems of decay, whether it is not intended to show a succession of stages in the process: the mountains crumbling into rocks, the rocks breaking down from age into stones, the stones wearing away into dust, and the dust being washed by the waters into the abyss; whether accordingly all nature is not thus resolving itself into the dust to which man too at the last returns What hope is there indeed for man, whose house of clay is crushed like the moth (Job 14:19), when the doom even of the everlasting mountains isdust!E.].
Job 14:20. Thou overpowerest him foreverthen he passeth away. with accus. if the person is not: to assail (Hirzel) [Con. Del.], but as in Job 15:24; Ecc 4:12, to overpower, and is not continually, evermore, but forever; comp. Job 4:20; Job 20:7; Job 23:7.As to the emphatic , then he passeth away, Greek , , comp. Job 10:21; also in respect of form the same poet. Imperf. in Job 16:6; Job 16:22; Job 20:25.Disfiguring his countenance, so Thou sendest him away; i. e., in the struggle of death, or when decay sets in, Thou makest him unlike himself, distortest his features, etc., and so sendest him forth out of this life ( as in Lev 20:23; Jer 28:16; the consecut. very nearly as in Psa 118:27).
Job 14:21. Should his sons be in honor, he knows it not; if they are abased he perceives them not: [ after here of the direct object: in Job 13:1 however as dat. ethicus. Del.]. The same contrast between , to come to honor, and , to be insignificant, to sink into contempt, is presented in Jer 30:19; for comp. also Isa 66:5. The mention of the children of the dead man has nothing remarkable about it, since Job is here speaking in general terms of all men, not especially of himself. It is somewhat different in Job 19:17; see however on the passage. The description in the passage before us of the absolute ignorance of the man who is in Sheol of that which takes place in the world above, reminds us of Job 3:13 seq. Comp. in addition Ecc 9:5-6 (see Comm. on the passage).
Job 14:22. Only his flesh in him feels pain, and his soul in him mourns: i. e., he himself, his nature, being analyzed into its constituent parts of soul and body (comp. Job 17:16), perceives nothing more of the bright life of the upper world; he has only the experience of pain and sorrow which belongs to the joyless, gloomy existence of the inhabitants of Sheol, surrounded by eternal night. The brevity of the expression makes it impossible to decide with certainty whether Job here assumes that man carries with him to Sheol a certain corporeality (a certain residue, kernel, or some reflex of the earthly body), or whether he mentions the flesh along with the soul because (as is perhaps the case also in Isa 66:24; Jdt 16:17) he attributes to the decaying body in the grave a certain consciousness of its decay (Dillmann; comp. Delitzsch, who would cast on the departed soul at least a painful reflection of that process). The former view, however, is the more probable in view of what is said in Job 19:27 (see below, Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks on Job 19., No. 3). By means of , in him, occurring in both members, the two factors of the nature belonging to the man who has died are emphatically represented as belonging to him, as being his own; the suffixes in and are thus in like manner strengthened by this doubled as in Greek the possessive pron. by . It is not probable that only, is through a hyperbaton to be referred simply to , expressing the thought: only he himself is henceforth the object of his experiences of pain and mourning, he concerns himself no more about the things of the upper world (Hirzel, Delitzsch), [Noyes, Schlott.]. This rendering is at variance with the position of the words, and with the doubled use of . Dillmann rightly says: the limiting belongs immediately not to the subject, but to the action: he no longer knows and perceives the things of the upper world, he is henceforth only conscious of pain, etc. Hengstenberg on the contrary arbitrarily explains [and so Wordsworth]: The situation in Job 14:22 is in general not that of the dead, but of one who is on the point of death, of whose flesh (animated as yet by the soul) alone could the sense of pain be predicted (?).
[Job 14:21-22 are a description of the afterlife in two of its principal aspects. (1) As one of absolute separation from the present, and so of entire unconsciousness and independence in regard to all that belongs to life on earth (Job 14:21).(2). As one of self-absorbed misery, the self-absorption being indicated by the repeated , and the double suffixes in each member of Job 14:22. The thought of Job 14:21 leads naturally to that of Job 14:22. The departed knows nothing of the living, nothing of all that befalls those who during life were in the closest union with himself; the consciousness of his own misery fills him.
The description in Job 14:22 of his experience of that misery is more obscure.may be renderedon account of: only on his own account his flesh suffereth pain, etc. The objection to this is its non-emphatic position, and the separation between it and . In any case the suffix refers to the man, not (as Conant, Dav., Ren., Rod.) to flesh in a, and to soul in b, for in that case would require . The proper rendering of therefore is in him (in = Germ, an; i. e., his flesh and spirit as belonging to him, as that with which he is invested).But why connect the flesh here with the soul? The simplest explanation seems to be that the realm of the dead, the under-world, in its broadest extent embraces both the grave, where the body lies, and Hades where the soul goes, as may be seen in Psa 16:10, where and are conjoined; and that accordingly by poetic personification, the mouldering flesh is here represented as sharing the aching discontent, the lingering misery of the imprisoned soul. It is no uncommon thing even for us to speak of the comfort, rest, equality, etc., of the grave, as though its occupants might have some consciousness of the same. So on the other hand it would seem that Job here introduces into the resting-place of the body something of that which made the place of the departed soul an object of dread. It may be indeed, as our Comm. suggests above, that the passage reflects some peculiarity in the opinion of antiquity touching the relation of the corporeal and spiritual parts of humanity, after death, but our grounds for affirming this are too precarious.E.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
It is undeniable that Job in this reply to Zophars attack, which at the same time closes the first colloquy, shows himself decidedly superior to the three friends not only in acuteness, high poetic flight of thought, and penetrative fiery energy of expression, but also in what may be called doctrinal correctness, or purity. In the latter respect he seems to have made progress in the right direction from the stand-point which he had previously occupied. At least he exhibits in several points a perception of sin which is in some measure more profound and accurate, in so far as he, notwithstanding that he repeats the emphatic asseveration of his innocence (see especially Job 13:16; Job 13:19), makes mention of his own sins, not simply of those of his opponents. No doubt it is one of his principal aims to criticize sarcastically and severely their one-sided wisdom (Job 12:2 seq.; Job 13:1 seq.); no doubt he censures with visible satisfaction the one-sided application which they make of their narrow doctrine of retribution, and holds (Job 13:9) that if God in the exercise of rigid justice, should scrutinize them, the result would be anything but favorable to them! Now, however, more decidedly and explicitly than in his previous apologies, he includes himself also in the universal mass of those who are sinfully corrupt and guilty before God. He several times admits in the last division (Job 13:23Job 14:22) that by his sin he had furnished the inexorable Divine Judge, if not with valid and sufficient cause at least with occasion for the severe treatment which He had exercised toward him. Here belongs the prayer, addressed to God to show him how much and how grievously he had in truth sinned (Job 13:23). Here also belongs the supposition which he expresses (Job 13:26) that possibly it was the transgressions of his youth of which he was now called to make supplementary confession; and following thereupon we have his lamentationwhich reminds us of Davids penitential prayer (Psa 51:7; comp. Psa 14:3)concerning the nature of human depravity, which he represents as embracing all, and organically transmitting itself, so that no one is excepted from it (Job 14:4)an utterance which agrees in substance with the proposition previously advanced by Eliphaz (Job 4:17), but which more profoundly authenticates the truth under consideration, so that the Church tradition is perfectly justified in finding in it one of the cardinal sedes doctrin on the subject of original sin. Here finally belongs the description, involving another distinct confession of his own sinfulness, in which he shows how God unsparingly punishes his sin, lies in wait, as it were, for it, and carefully notes it in His book (a thought which is favored, by the corresponding Hebrew expression to seal transgression in a bag)nay, more, seems to interest Himself in wilfully enlarging this, His register of sins (Job 14:16-17). With these several indications of a more profound and comprehensive consciousness of sin, which are indeed still far from signifying a genuine contrite submission beneath Gods righteous discipline, that true penitence which Gods personal interposition at last works in him (Job 42:2 seq.), there stands immediately connected another evidence of progress in Jobs frame of mind, which is also contained in the closing division of this discourse, especially in the 14th chapter, which is characterized by wondrous beauty and astonishing power. Job utters here for the first time, if not the hope, at least the yearning desire for a release from the state of death (Job 14:13-17). He prays that, instead of being shut up in an eternally forlorn separation from God in the gloomy realm of shadows, he may rather be only kept there for a season, until the Divine wrath is ended, and then, when the Creator should remember His creature, to be restored to His fatherly love and compassion. This does not indeed amount to a hope that He would one day be actually released from Hades; it is simply a dream, born of the longing of this sorely tried sufferer, which imagination summons before him as a lovely picture of the future, of which, however, he himself is the next moment assured that it can never be a reality! If we should still call it a hope, we must in any case keep in view the wide interval which separates this forlorn flame of hope, flickering up for once only, and then immediately dying out, from that hope of a resurrection which with incomparably greater confidence is expressed in Job 19:25 seq. At best we can but say, with Ewald; The hope exists only in imagination, without becoming a certainty, while the speaker, whom it has surprised, only follows out the thought, how beautiful and glorious it would be, were it really so. This simple germ-hope of a resurrection, however, acquires great significance as a step in the doctrinal and ethical course of thought in our book. For it is the clear radiance of an unconscious prophecy of the future deliverance of spirits out of their prison through Christs victory over the powers of darkness (Mat 12:40 seq.; Luk 23:43; Eph 4:8 seq.; Php 2:10 seq.; Col 2:15; 1Pe 3:18 seq.; Rev 1:18; Heb 2:14), which here shines forth in the depths of a soul beclouded by the sorrows of death. On the other side Job expresses so strong a yearning after permanent reconciliation with his Creator, so pure a representation of the nature of the communion of man with God, as a relation which behooves to be of eternal duration, that this very intensity of the religious want and longing of his heart carries with it, in a measure, the pledge that his yearning was not in vain, or that his would one day be fulfilled. Comp. on the one side what is said by Schlottmann, who (on Job 14:15) rightly emphasizes the thought that Job must have had a deep experience in the past of the inwardness of the relation between the creature and his Creator, if he was able to give such an expression to it as this dreamy hope of the future;on the other side by Delitzsch, who not less strikingly and beautifully points out how totally different would have been Jobs endurance of suffering, if he had but known that there was really a release from Hades, and how at the same time in the wish of Job that it might be so, there is revealed the incipient tendency of the growing hope. For, he continues, the author of our book confirms us in what one of the old writers says, that the hope of eternal life is a flower which grows on the brink of hell. In the midst of the hell of the feeling of Gods wrath, in which Job is sunk, this flower blooms for him. In its blooming, however, it is not yet a hope, but a longing. And this longing cannot unfold itself into a hope, because no light of promise shines into the night which rules in Jobs soul, and which makes the conflict yet darker than it is in itself.
2. When we compare Jobs frame of mind, and religious and moral views of the world, as indicated in this discourse, with those expressed in his former discourses, we find these two points of superiority and progress: a more correct insight into sin, and above all, in his relation to the Divine Creator, an inward sense of fellowship blossoming into what is at least a lively longing after eternal union with God. In other respects, however, the present outpouring of his sorely tempted and afflicted heart exhibits retrogression rather than progress. The illusion of a God tyrannically tormenting and hostilely persecuting him has a stronger hold upon him than ever before (see especially Job 13:15 seq.). And this illusion is all the stronger in that, on the one hand, he finds within himself that the witness of his conscience to his innocence is more positive than ever (Job 13:16; Job 13:19), while on the other hand, he is unable to free himself from the preconceived opinion which influences him equally with the three friends, which admits no other suffering to be possible for men than that of penal retribution for sin (comp. Job 13:23; Job 13:26; Job 14:16 seq.). There arises thus a strange conflict between his conscience, which is comparatively pure, and the gloomy anxieties produced by that preconceived notion, and by the contemplation at the same time of his unspeakable wretchednessa conflict which, in proportion as he neither can nor will relinquish his own righteousness, urges him to cast suspicion on Gods righteousness, and to accuse Him of merciless severity. This unsolved antinomy produces within him a temper of agonizing gloominess, which in Job 13:13 seq. expresses itself more in presumptuous bluster and Titan-like storming against Gods omnipotence, in Job 14:1 seq. more in a tone of elegiac lamentation and mourning. Immediately connected herewith is the melancholy, deeply tragical character which attaches to his utterances from beginning to end of this discourse. For it has been truly remarked of the passage in Job 12:7 seq., in which, with a view to surpass and eclipse that which had been said in the right direction by his three predecessors, he describes the absolute majesty of God in nature and in the history of humanity, that it is a night-scene (Nachtgemlde), picturing the catastrophes which God brings to pass among the powers of the world of nature and of humanity; and that the one-sidedly abstract, negative, repelling, rather than attractive representation of Gods wisdom, is the reflection of the midnight gloom of his own feelings, which permits him to contemplate God essentially only on the side of His majesty, His isolation from the world, and His destructive activity. [For the wisdom of God, of which he speaks, is not the wisdom that orders the world in which one can confide, and in which one has the surety of seeing every mystery of life sooner or later gloriously solved; but this wisdom is something purely negative. Of the justice of God he does not speak at all, for in the narrow idea of the friends he cannot recognize its control; and of the love of God he speaks as little as the friends, for as the sight of the Divine love is removed from them by the one-sidedness of their dogma, so is it from him by the feeling of the wrath of God which at present has possession of his whole being. Hegel has called the religion of the Old Testament the religion of sublimity; and it is true that, so long as that manifestation of love, the incarnation of the God head, was not yet realized, God must have relatively transcended the religious consciousness. From the book of Job, however, this view can be brought back to its right limits; for, according to the tendency of the book, neither the idea of God presented by the friends, nor by Job, is the pure undimmed notion of God that belongs to the Old Testament: The friends conceive of God as the absolute One, who acts only according to justice; Job conceives of Him as the absolute One, who acts according to the arbitrariness of His absolute power. According to the idea of the book, the former is dogmatic one-sidedness, the latter the conception of one passing through temptation. The God of the Old Testament consequently rules neither according to justice alone nor according to a sublime whim. Delitzsch I.: 239, 240].
It has been still further truly remarked that the mournfulness of his lamentations over the hopeless disappearance of man in the eternal night of the gravein contemplating which he is led to regard the changes which take place in the vegetable kingdom as more comforting and hope-inspiring than the issue of mans life, with which he can compare only the processes of destruction and the catastrophes of inorganic nature (Job 14:7 seq., 18 seq.)has its echo in classical heathenism in such passages as the following from Horace (Od. IV. 7, 1):
Nos ubi decidimus
Quo pins neas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
Pulvis et umbrasumus.
Or like this from Homer (Il. VI. 146 seq.):
Like the race of leaves
Is that of humankind. Upon the ground
The winds strew one years leaves; the sprouting wood
Puts forth another brood, that shoot and grow
In the spring season. So it is with man;
One generation grows while one decays;
(Bryants Transl.)
Or like this meditation of Simonides (Anthol. Gr. Appendix, 83):
Nought among men unchangeable endures.
Sublime the truth which he of Chios spoke:
Mens generations are like those of leaves!
Yet few are they who, having heard the truth
Lodge it within their hearts, for hope abides
With all, and in the breasts of youth is planted.
Or like this elegy from Moschus (III. 106 seq.):
The meanest herb we trample in the field,
Or in the garden nurture, when its leaf,
At winters touch is blasted, and its place
Forgotten, soon its vernal buds renews,
And, from short slumber, wakes to life again.
Man wakes no more!man valiant, glorious, wise,
When death once chills him, sinks in sleep profound,
A long, unconscious, never-ending sleep.
(Gisborne.)
Or like that saying of the Arabian panegyrist of Muhamed, Kaabi ben-Sohair:Every one born of Woman, let his good fortune last never so long, is at last borne away on the bier, etc.: or like that still more impressive description in the Jagur Veda: While the tree that has fallen sprouts again from the root, fresher than before, from what root does mortal man spring forth when he has fallen by the hand of death?
Finally, it has been rightly shown that besides the tone of mourning and hopeless lamentation which sounds through this discourse, it is also pervaded by a tone of bitterness and grievous irritation on the part of Job. not only against the friends (this being most forcibly expressed in Job 4:7 seq.) but even in a measure against God, especially in those passages where he presumptuously undertakes to argue with Him (Job 13:13 seq.), and where he even reproaches Him with making fictitious and arbitrary additions to His list of charges, after the manner of the friends when they calumniated him and invented falsehoods against him (Job 14:17; see on the passage). A singular contrast with this tone of defiant accusations is furnished in the plaintive pleading tone with which he submits the twofold condition on which he is willing to prosecute his controversy with God, to wit, that God would allow a respite for a season from his sufferings, and that He would not terrify and confound him with His majesty (Job 13:20-22). It is everywhere the terrible idea of a God who deals with men purely according to His arbitrary caprice, not according to the motives of righteousness and a Fathers love, this phantom which the temptation has presented before his dim vision instead of the true God,it is this which drives him to these passionate outbreaks, which in several respects remind us of the attitude of a hero of Greek tragedy towards the fearful might of an inexorable Fate. [This phantom is still the real God to him, but in other respects in no way differing from the inexorable ruling fate of the Greek tragedy. As in this the hero of the drama seeks to maintain his personal freedom against the mysterious power that is crushing him with an iron arm, so Job, even at the risk of sudden destruction, maintains the steadfast conviction of his innocence in opposition to a God who has devoted him, as an evil-doer, to slow but certain destruction. It is the same battle of freedom against necessity as in the Greek tragedy. Accordingly one is obliged to regard it as an error, arising from simple ignorance, when it has been recently maintained that the boundless oriental imagination is not equal to such a truly exalted task as that of representing in art and poetry the power of the human spirit, and the maintenance of its dignity in the conflict with hostile powers, because a task that can only be accomplished by an imagination formed with a perception of the importance of recognizing ascertained phenomena. In treating this subject, the book of Job not only attains to, but rises far above, the height attained by the Greek tragedy; for on the one hand it brings this conflict before us in all the fearful earnestness of a death-struggle; on the other however it does not leave us to the cheerless delusion that an absolute caprice moulds human destiny. This tragic conflict with the Divine necessity is but the middle, not the beginning nor the end, of the book; for this god of fate is not the real God, but a delusion of Jobs temptation. Human freedom does not succumb, but it comes forth from the battle, which is a refining fire to it as conqueror. The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unexplained, is here cleared up. The book certainly presents much which, from its tragic character, suggests this idea of destiny, but it is not its final aimit goes far beyond: it does not end in the destruction of its here by fate; but the end is the destruction of the idea of this fate itself. Delitzsch I. 242 sec.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The points of light which these three chapters exhibit in a doctrinal and ethical respect, have a background of gloom, here and there of profound blackness. The homiletic expositor nevertheless finds in them in rich abundance both texts for exhortation and comfort, and themes for didactic edification. Here belongs of course the beautiful passage containing the physico-theological argument for an infinitely powerful and wise Maker and Ruler of the world (Job 12:7-12)a passage which in detail indeed exhibits no progressive development, but which does nevertheless present an occasion for such a teleologic advance of thought, in so far as it dwells first on the animal world, then on the realm of human life and its organic functions, in order to produce from both witnesses for a Supreme Wisdom ordering all things. But here still further belongs the description which follows of the Divine majesty and strength which display themselves in the catastrophes of human history (Job 12:13-25),a description which may be made the foundation of reflections in the sphere of historical theology, or ethical theology, as well as the physico-theological argument. Here belongs again the passage which follows, in which Job sharply censures the unfriendly judgment and invidious carping of his opponents (Job 13:1-12)a passage which reminds us in many respects of New Testament teachings, as e. g. of Mat 7:1-5, and of Mat 23:2 seq.Finally, we may put in this class the lamentation in the closing division, especially in Job 14, over the vanity and perishableness of the life of man on earth, which is compared now to a driven leaf, now to the process of mouldering, or being devoured by the moth, now to a fading flower, or a rock worn away and hollowed out by the waters, together with those passages which are interwoven with this lamentation, in which he glances at the beginning of life, poisoned by sin, and at its dismal outlook in the future appointed for it after death by the Divine justice, which is contemplated by itself, isolated from grace and mercy.The following extracts from the older and later practical expositors may serve to indicate how these themes may be individually treated.
Job 13:7-10 Brentius: All creatures proclaim the Creator, and cry out in speech that cannot be described: God has made meas Paul also says (Rom 1:19; comp. Psa 19:1 seq.). If any one therefore properly considers the nature of beasts, birds, fishes, he will discover the wonderful wisdom of the Creator (certain examples of the same being here brought forward, such as the instinct which the deer and the partridge exhibit, the wonderful strength of the little sucking-fish [Echines]). Thus by the natures of animals the invisible majesty of God is made visible and manifest. For not only did God create all things, but He also preserves, nourishes and sustains all things: the breath, whether of beasts or of men, is all lodged in His hand.Cocceius: What all these things severally contribute to the knowledge of the Creator, as it would be a most useful subject of thought, so it is too vast to be here set forth by us. Suffice it that Natural Theology is here established by Job. When he says this (, Job 13:9), he doubtless points out individual things. He thus confesses that every single thing was made and is governed by God, not only masses of things, and the universe as a whole, as the Jews dream. In fact individual animals, plants, etc., utter their testimony to the Divine efficiency. These opinions, either by the light of nature, or the intercourse of the fathers, were transmitted even to the gentiles.Hengstenberg: In order to make the wisdom of the friends quite contemptible, Job attributes to the animals a knowledge of the Divine omnipotence and wisdom, their existence being an eloquent proof of those attributes, so that they can become teachers of the man who should be so blind and foolish as to fail to know the divine omnipotence and wisdom. That which can be learned from brutes, that as to which we may go to school to them, Job will not be so foolish as not to know, neither will he need to learn it first from his wise friends. Just as here the animals, so in Psalms 19 the heavens are represented as declaring the glory of God, which is revealed in them. Jehovah, the most profound in significance of the Divine names, here bursts forth suddenly out of its concealment, the lower names of God being in this connection unsatisfactory. Jehovah, Jahveh, the One who Is, the absolute, pure Being, is most appropriately the name by which to designate the First Cause of all existences.
Job 12:11-13. Cocceius: If the mind judges concerning those things which are presented either by signs, such as words, or by themselves, as food to the palate, whether they are true or false, useful or injurious; if by experience (by which many things are seen, heard, examined), by the knowledge of very many things, and of things hidden, and by sagacity it is fitted to make a proper use of thingsdoes it not behoove that God, who gave these things should be omniscient without weakness, nay, with fulness of power, so that all things must obey His nod? For He beholds not, like man, that which belongs to another, but that which is His own. Nevertheless neither is judgment given to man for nought, but so that he may have some power of doing that which is useful, of refusing, or of not accepting that which is hurtful. Much less is Gods wisdom to be exercised apart from omnipotence or sovereignty over all creatures.
Job 12:16 seq. Cramer: Not only true but also false teachers are Gods property; but He uses the latter for punishment (2Th 2:10), yet in such a way that He knows how to bring forth good out of their ill beginning. The Lord is a great king over all gods; all that the earth produces is in His hand (Psa 95:3); even false religions must serve His purposes (comp. Oecolampadius, who remarks on Job 12:16 b: I refer this to , or false religions, of which the whole earth is full; he says here, that they come to be by His nod and permission). Such might and majesty He displays particularly toward the mighty kings of earth, to whom He gives lands and people, and takes them away again, as He wills (Dan 4:29).Zeyss: Rulers, and those who occupy their place, should diligently pray to God that He would keep them from foolish and destructive measures (in diets, council-chambers, in regard to wars, etc.), in order that they may not plunge themselves and their subjects into great distress (1Ki 3:9).
Job 13:14 seq. Brentius: You see from this passage that it is harder to endure the liability and dread of death than death itself. For it is not hard to die, seeing that whether disease precedes or not, death itself is sudden; but to hear in the conscience the sentence of death (soil.Thou shalt surely die!) this indeed is most hard! This voice no man can hear without despair, unless, on the other hand, the Lord should say to our soul: I am thy salvation!Wohlfarth: Earthly things lostlittle lost; honor lostmuch lost; God lostall lost! thus does Job admonish us.
Job 13:23-28. Oecolampadius: See the stages by which the calamities come, swelling one above the other. (1) To begin with, the face is hidden, and friendship is withheld; then (2) enmity is even declared; (3) persecution follows, and that without mercy, or regard for frailty; (4) reproaches and grave accusations are employed, and the memory of past delinquencies is revived; (5) guards are imposed, lest he should escape, and fetters in which he must rot. (Mercier and others, including of late Hengstenberg, have called attention to these same five stages.)Zeyss (on Job 13:24): Besides the external affliction, internal trials are generally added.(On Job 13:26): Even the sins of youth God brings to judgment in His own time (Psa 25:7). Think of that, young men and women, and flee youthful lusts!
Job 14:1 seq. Brentius: Mans misery is set forth by the simile of the flower; for bodily beauty and durability can be compared to nothing more suitably than to the flower and the shadow.Verily with what miseries man is filled, is too well known to need reciting. For nowhere is there any state or condition of men which does not have its own cross and tribulation; and thus all things everywhere are filled with crosses.The thing to be done, therefore, is not to shun the cross, but to lay hold on Christ, in whom every cross is most easily borne.Zeyss: Although no man is by nature pure and holy (Job 14:4), true believers nevertheless possess through Christ a two-fold purity: (1) in respect of their justification; (2) in respect of their sanctification and renewal: Heb 1:3; Heb 9:14; 1Jn 1:7, etc.
Job 14:7 seq. Zeyss: As a tree sprouts up again, so will men, who have been cut down by the axe of death, germinate again out of the grave on the Last Day; Joh 5:28-29.Hengstenberg: The prospect of a future life here vanishes away from Job. How indeed could it be otherwise, seeing that he has lost altogether out of his consciousness and experience the true nature of God, on which that hope rests, Gods justice and mercy? In these circumstances the belief in an endless life must of necessity perish within him, for to this faith there was not given until the latter part of the Old Dispensation any firm declaration from God to which it could cling, while before that it existed rather in the form of a longing, a yearning, a hope. Further on, however, [in Jobs history] it again recovers its power.
Job 14:13-17 : See Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 1.
Job 14:18 seq. Cramer: Nothing on earth is so firmly established, but it must perish; and they who occupy themselves with the things of earth, must perish in them (Sir 14:20 seq.; 1Jn 2:16 seq.).Zeyss: Although mountains, stones and rocks, yea, all that is in the world, are subject to change, Gods word, and the grace therein promised for believers, stand fast forever; Psa 117:2; Isa 54:10.Vict. Andre: Like an armed power the feeling of his present cheerless condition again overpowers Job, and again the feeble spark is extinguished, which had just before (Job 14:13-17), illumined his soul with so tender a gleam of hope. To his former reflections on nature (Job 14:7-12) he now opposes the fact, no less true, that even that which is most enduring in nature itself, such as mountains, rocks, and soils, must gradually decay. And so it seems to him now, in accordance with this fact, as though human life also were destined by God only to endless annihilation. Death it iswith its pale features so suddenly disfiguring the human countenancewhich again stands in all its horror, and annihilating power, before his despairing soul!
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
Job prosecutes the subject of his expostulation with his friends through the greater part of this chapter. He leaves discoursing with them, for a short space, and makes an earnest application to God.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. (2) What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you. (3) Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. (4) But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. (5) O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom. (6) Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. (7) Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? (8) Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? (9) Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? (10) He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. (11) Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? (12) Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. (13) Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will. (14) Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? (15) Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. (16) He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him. (17) Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.
In addition to the arguments Job had used before, he riseth up to another point of reasoning in those verses, and plainly tells his friends, that while they vainly supposed they were taking the part of GOD against him, they were really making the cause of GOD to suffer by their false counsel: for in so doing, and putting it down as a matter of fact, that afflictions were sure marks of displeasure, they were speaking wickedly for GOD. Hence, Job calls them, physicians of no value; and he should consider it their wisdom if the consciousness of this would make them hold their peace. Reader! let us by the way, make the same observation of all false reasoning to minds distressed; when men point not to that which can alone heal. A broken heart none can heal but JESUS: and whatever men direct to short of his blood and righteousness, are literally, like Job’s counselors, physicians of no value.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 13:5
Great talkers do not at all speak from their having anything to say, as every sentence shows, but only from their inclination to be talking. Their conversation is merely an exercise of the tongue: no other human faculty has any share in it It is strange these persons can help reflecting, that unless they have in truth a superior capacity, and are in an extraordinary manner furnished for conversation; if they are entertaining it is at their own expense. Is it possible, that it should never come into people’s thoughts to suspect, whether or no it be to their advantage to show so very much of themselves? O that you would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.
Butler.
Job 13:7
As for the conceit that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism, and that the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout dependence upon God, which is the first Cause; first, it is good to ask the question which Job asked of his friends: Will you lie for God, as one man will do for another, to gratify Him? For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes: and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were, in favour towards God; and nothing else but to offer to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie.
Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
Wise men, in their despair of accounting for the origin of evil, have been driven to deny its existence in theories too thin to cheat any heart that has been pierced yet enlightened by its sharp reality, and pious men, falling into the snare which Job’s integrity declined, have spoken lies for God and argued deceitfully for Him. Hence dreams like that of optimism, fictions, such as that of evil being but the privation of good.
Dora Greenwell.
Job 13:8
Dr. John Duncan once said that this was ‘about the boldest utterance in the Bible. Job says that his friends were partial to God that they did not judge impartially between him and God. There is a wonderful peace in a good conscience.’
Faith Tried and Triumphing
Job 13:15
Job was a master sufferer. This was not the utterance of any ordinary commonplace believer. It is the sort of word which could only come from a triumphant Job triumphant by victorious faith.
I. Faith is the habitual grace of the Christian. The common habit of the Christian is a habit of trusting. The Christian’s walk is faith, and his life is faith. It is to him all the spiritual senses, his first and his last, his highest and his lowest We trust for the pardon of our sins to our God in Jesus Christ, but in God we trust also for the purification of our spirits from all the indwelling power of sin. We trust Him believing that He always must be just, believing that God will never do anything to us but that which is full of love.
II. Those who have learned to trust in God expect their faith to be tried. The text evidently implies that faith will be tried, and tried severely, but true faith scorns trial and outlives it. The trial is greatly for our good and greatly for God’s glory. The Christian lives by faith, and he expects the faith to be tried.
III. True faith, put on trial, will certainly bear it Faith will be justified to the uttermost. We ought to trust Him also to the last, because outward providences prove nothing to us about God. We cannot read outward events correctly; they are written in hieroglyphics. The book of God is readable; it is written in human language; but the works of God are often unreadable. There is another cause why we should always trust in Him. To whom else can we go? We are shut up to this. The course of the Christian’s life is such that he feels it more necessary to trust every day he lives. And we may depend upon it God will always justify our faith if we do trust Him. The text means that we surrender all to God, even as Job did. If we say the text, it will take a good deal of saying, and if it is true, it will want the power of God Himself to make it true.
C. H. Spurgeon, Grace Triumphant, p. 300.
Faith and Character
Job 13:15
He only is strong who is strong in God, and he who is strong in God rises superior to all the ‘circumstances of human life’. In the text is locked the secret of Job’s life, a secret we much need, if it can be discovered.
I. The first lesson we may learn is that the trials of life reveal character and demonstrate the quality and value of our past training. Job was not less religious because his property had gone; not less sincere when socially overthrown; neither did he cease to pray when he ceased to be rich. We shall do well to remember in this connexion that character is not formed by one act or one effort. The discipline of years is essential to growth and strength. Men speak sometimes of “rising to the occasion,’ and some would have us believe that Job ‘rose to the occasion,’ when he declared his faith and attitude of which our text speaks. My reply is that he reached the lofty altitude of courage and faith not in a day, but by the prayer and culture of the past years.
II. The second lesson that we need to learn is that the child of God walks by faith, and not by sight Job’s trust was not in externals, but in the internal; not the seen, but the unseen. Possessions gone, children gone, friends gone, yet he says: ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord’. That was faith, not sight.
III. The value of temptation and of faith. The value of the trial is seen in its driving Job back to first principles and elementary truths. He saw the insignificance of the outward and the importance of the unseen. When he lost the material treasures, he learned the value of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, which fadeth not away. What of the value of faith? There is one word, and only one is necessary, the word deliverance. Job was delivered! It was a great storm, but he came safely through. Not lost, but saved and purified.
F. Sparrow, Christian World Pulpit, vol. LXIII. 1908, p. 372.
Job 13:15
The Calvinist would declare that if we really understood the universe of which humanity is a part, we should find scientific justification for that supreme and victorious faith which cries, ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!’ The man who has acquired such faith as this is the true freeman of the universe, clad in stoutest coat of mail against disaster and sophistry, the man whom nothing can enslave, and whose guerdon is the serene happiness that can never be taken away.
John Fiske, Through Nature to God, p. 21.
In Caroline Fox’s journals for 1841 (7 May), there is the following note of conversation with John Sterling: ‘Much discourse on special providences, a doctrine which he totally disbelieves, and views the supporters of it as in the same degree of moral development as Job’s comforters. Job, on the contrary, saw further; he did not judge of the Almighty’s aspect towards him by any worldly afflictions or consolations; he saw somewhat into the inner secret of His providence, and so could say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”. We must look for the hand of His providence alike in all dispensations, however mysterious to us.’
Why do ye complain of waters going over your soul, and that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful God do almost suffocate you and bring you to death’s brink? I know that the fault is in your eyes, not in Him. It is not the rock that fleeth and moveth, but the green sailor…. Now, give God as large a measure of charity as ye have of sorrow. Now, see faith to be faith indeed, if ye can make your grave betwixt Christ’s feet, and say, Though He should slay me, I will trust in Him.
Samuel Rutherford.
When Job said, Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him, no wealth could enrich him after that. He had reached his climax.
James Smetham.
Probably no one can make sacrifices for ‘right,’ without in some degree personifying the principle of right for which the sacrifice is made, and expecting thanks from it. Complete social unselfishness, in other words, can hardly exist; complete social suicide hardly occurs to a man’s mind. Even such texts as Job’s ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,’ or Marcus Aurelius’s ‘If gods hate me and my children, there is a reason for it,’ can least of all be cited to prove the contrary. For beyond all doubt Job revelled in the thought of Jehovah’s recognition of the worship after the slaying should have been done; and the Roman Emperor felt sure the Absolute Reason would not be all indifferent to his acquiescence in the gods’ dislike. The old test of piety, ‘are you willing to be damned for the glory of God?’ was probably never answered in the affirmative except by those who felt sure in their heart of hearts that God would ‘credit’ them with their willingness.
Prof. William James, Textbook of Psychology, p. 193.
References. XIII. 15. E. A. Askew, Sermons Preached in Greystoke Church, p. 68. J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iv. p. 117. XIII. 22. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1255.
The Knowledge of Sin
Job 13:23
How is the knowledge of sin to be attained?
I. It is the Province of the Holy Ghost And first, we must lay it down absolutely to be the province of the Holy Ghost He, and He alone, ever shows a man his sins. No natural process, no early teaching, no careful training, no preaching, no experience of human nature, no knowledge of the world, will ever do it. Therefore Christ spoke of it as the Spirit’s great first office, ‘When He is come, He will reprove the world of sin’.
II. By the Word. But under this great Illuminator of the soul, and Detector of all hidden things, what are the means? The Word. But the Word divides itself for this purpose into two parts. There is the law: ‘By the law is the knowledge of sin’. So St. Paul found the knowledge of sin. He found it in the tenth commandment. The tenth commandment relates rather to a state of mind than to a state of life. A ray of the Spirit falling upon the tenth commandment showed this to St. Paul, and led him into the line of thought, that as it was with the tenth commandment, so it must be with all the commandments of God that they are spiritual, and have reference to an inward condition of heart. And so he writes the narrative of his own discovery of sin: ‘I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet’. The law becomes the schoolmaster, which, convincing us of sin, loads, or rather drives us to Christ. But then the Word is not only law, still more, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word. The more you know of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more you will know, and the more you will be miserable in the knowledge of your own sins. With the knowledge of God’s mercy comes and goes, rises and falls, ebbs and flows, the knowledge, the abhorring knowledge of sin.
III. What Shall You Do?
( a ) Pray for more light to be thrown upon the recesses of your dark heart, till the stains stand out clear in the sunshine, which were not seen in the shadow.
( b ) Leave generalities and deal with some one particular sin that has got great power over you.
( c ) Think of the holiness of God till all that is unlike Him begins to look dark, and you yourself very dark, because very unlike God, and heaven.
( d ) Believe in the love of Jesus to you. It was in the sight of a great miracle of mercy that St. Peter cried out, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’; but it was under the very falling of the pity of Christ’s loving eye that Peter ‘went out and wept bitterly’.
References. XIII. 23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No. 336. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (6th Series), p. 9.
God’s Use of Sin
Job 13:26
One of the commonest ideas regarding sin, at the present time, is that when once done, it is also done with. Half the human race persist in viewing sin as no more than a conventional name applied by religious people to the minor slips of life’s journey, mere blunders and peccadilloes scarcely worth mentioning, which anyhow leave no trace behind them. They would stare at the suggestion that sin becomes a living bit of ourselves. If some bad habit, like cheating or vanity or drunkenness, begins to get the upper hand, and too much obtrudes its presence, they imagine that there is no more difficulty in dropping it out of the character quietly than when a train shunts a heated wagon into a siding. Only speak the word, and the power of the past is broken.
Let me speak of four ways in which God makes us to inherit our iniquities. They are closely bound up with each other, but we may consider them briefly in separation.
I. Our sins come back on us as bitter memories. These bad deeds or thoughts leave poisoned wounds; they leave stains that burn as well as soil; even if there were no God, still we should feel them a disgrace to manhood. And perhaps of all the feelings that visit the human heart none is sadder than the helplessness with which we behold time flowing on resistlessly, bearing with it into the past wrongdoing we can never now set right.
I. Our sins come back on us as disqualifying infirmities. It is common knowledge that a man may so live that he becomes unfit for certain kinds of delicate and important work; his hand shakes, his eyesight deteriorates, and he has to step down in the scale of industry, and adopt some lower form of employment. Never more in this world, perhaps, will he be fit for his old business. Now the same thing may happen in the moral and spiritual life. Sin may be pardoned, while yet punishment remains. ‘Thou wast a God that forgavest, but Thou tookest vengeance on their inventions.’ Moses, for his sin, had to lie down in a lonely grave outside the Promised Land, after one look at the country others were entering. David, because of his blood-stained hands, was refused permission to build God’s temple. So, like these men, we may shut ourselves out by sin from certain fields of usefulness or enjoyment.
III. Once more, our sins come back as guilty burdens. Time never wears out sin’s guilt. Today in the Egyptian sands they are finding manuscripts two thousand years old; and when the skilled expert pours the reagent over the papyrus surface the old writing stands out again, bold and clear; and God can do that with a human soul. He can give the startled conscience a telescopic and a microscopic power which makes past sins present and small sins great.
IV. Lastly, our sins come back as motives to seek God’s mercy. And here at last we light upon the hidden purpose operating in all the other uses God makes of our transgressions. For remember the most important thing about sin is not its power of embittering memory, or its disqualifying consequences, or even its burden of guilt; the most important thing about sin is this, that it can be forgiven. The prodigal son had been dissolute and reckless; but then the prodigal son had a father. That changed all the outlook. There are two wrong ways of regarding sin, levity and despair; the one declaring that forgiveness is unnecessary, the other protesting that forgiveness is impossible, and that we have no choice but to carry our burden to the end without hope or relief. And the one right way is just trustful penitence, just coming back to God, like the lad in the parable, and saying, ‘Father, I have sinned, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son’.
H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God’s Plan, p. 212.
Reference. XIV. 1. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 70.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. I.
Job 12-14
“And Job answered and said, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you” ( Job 12:1-2 ).
This was unkind; but very human! Perhaps it was provoked: for we think we have discovered a tone of taunting in the three eloquent speeches which have been addressed to the patriarch. Was it worthy of Job to return taunt for taunt? Was it worthy of Elijah to mock the idolatrous worshippers? We must not separate ourselves from the human race, and stand back in the dignity of untouched critics, and say what was worthy, or what was not worthy; we must rather identify ourselves with the broad currents of human experience, and take other men as very largely representing what we would have done under the same circumstances. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Criticism may be the supreme vice. Job represents ourselves in this quick and indignant introduction. He will get better as he warms to his subject. Indeed, all the speakers have done this, straight through the story, as we have clearly seen. They began snappishly, peevishly, mockingly; but somehow a mysterious influence operated upon them, and every man concluded his speech in most noble terms. Better this than the other way. Do not some men always begin well and end ill? Are not some lives like inverted pyramids? Happy is the man who, however beefly he may begin the tale of his life, grows in his subject expands, warms, radiates until all that was little and mean in the beginning is forgotten in the splendour and magnificence of the consummation. Still, Job does begin sharply. He lifts his hand, and by a circular movement strikes every man of the three in the face, and leaves them smarting under the blow for a little while.
Job accuses the three men of being guilty of narrow criticism. Narrow criticism spoils everything. It also provokes contempt That which is out of proportion always elicits a sneering criticism: it is too high, too low; it is exaggerated in one dimension, it is out of square, and out of keeping with the harmony and the fitness of things, so that a half-blind man could almost see how the whole thing is out of true geometry. Whatever is so is pointed at, and is remarked upon, either with flippancy or with contempt. When did the bowing wall ever attract to itself the respect of the passer-by? When did ever that which is onesided, obviously out of plomb, draw to itself the commendation of any sensible critic? Job said: So far as you have gone you are right enough: who knoweth not such things as these? Your criticism lacks breadth; you are like a point rather than an edge; you see one or two things most clearly, but you do not take in the whole horizon: your minds are intense rather than comprehensive. This is the fault of the world! It is peculiarly and incurably the fault of some men. They see single points with an intensity indescribable, and you cannot get them to see any other point, and complete the survey of the whole. They are men of prejudice, stubborn men; they imagine that they are faithful, when they are only obstinate; they suppose themselves to be real, when they are only incapable. It is illustrated on every hand. Narrow criticisms have driven men away from the Church who ought to have been its pillars and its luminaries. We must, therefore, take in more field. There is what may be called a sense of proportion in man. Not only has man an ear by which to try words, and a palate by which to test foods, but he has in him a sense of proportion: he seems to know without a schoolmaster when a thing is the right length, the right shape; whether there is enough, or too much of it. Ask him to define this feeling in words, or justify it by canons of art, and he cannot do so. But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. The untaught man stops before a house that is ridiculously low, and points it out. Why should he do so? What is it that moves him but that inscrutable and undefinable sense of proportion, which would seem to be in every man? So with a house that is disproportionately high. Though in haste, the man draws up to look at it, to point it out; or if he be without companion he remembers the disproportionate thing, and relates at home what he has seen on the road. Why may not men build as they please without criticism? Simply because there is a common sentiment, a common opinion, an inborn sense of proportion and right; and men cannot be exaggeratedly individual without provoking criticism for their offence against the established customs and conclusions of the world. The three friends of Job, we now begin to see, had but a very short view of life, it was a very high one, and it went in the right direction; they were all religious men, but narrowly religious. They would have been more religious if they had been more human. They would have better represented God if they had broken down in tears, hung upon Job’s neck, and said Oh, brother, the hand is hard upon thee, and to us it is a mystery that tests our faith in God. But they were too sternly and squarely theological: they knew where God began and ended, what circuit he swept; and they judged everything by a narrow and unworthy standard. It is not enough to be right in points; it is not enough to have excellent traits of character: the whole character must be moulded symmetrically, and the whole man must be taken in before any one point of him can be understood. So it is with the living God: we are not to take out individual instances and dwell upon them in their separateness: we are to take in the whole horizon, and judge of every star in the firmament by every other star that shares the great honour of lighting the universe.
Then, again, Job points out that there is always another view to be taken than the one which is represented:
“I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you” ( Job 12:3 ).
We always omit to take in the opinion of the other man. That is papal infallibility; and it lives in every country under heaven. We forget that there is another man in the house who has not yet spoken, and until he has spoken the whole truth has not been declared. There is a child crying, and until we understand through what gamut its cry passes we cannot comprehend the whole situation of things. The dying man is as essential a witness in this great evidence, concerning God and providence, as is the testimony of the most robust and energetic witness. The truth is not with any three men. No three points can represent the circle. And God always works in circles, he knows nothing about any other geometrical figure. It seem to occur here and there, no doubt; but when taken into relation with all other things, the universe is a globe, a sphere, an infinite dewdrop. Who, then, stands up and says, Behold, this is the whole truth of God, and beside it there is nothing to be said? A man who should utter such words should be excommunicated from the altar, until he has learned that he knows nothing, and is but part of an immeasurable totality. Job insists upon being heard; he says, There are not three in this company, but four; and four is an even number, and the even number must be heard. There must be no triangular constituency in the great moral universe. Each man sees something which no other man sees; and until we have got the other man’s testimony we are operating upon a broken witness. Every man in the church should pray. When the last little child has uttered his sentence, when the poorest, frailest woman has breathed her wordless sigh into the great supplication, then heaven will have before it the whole prayer of humanity. But are there not men who are instructed in theology? The worse for the world if their instruction has led them to narrowness and to finality! Theology is not a profession; it is the whole human heart, touched, kindled with a passion that seeks God. We must hear the patient as well as the doctor; we must hear the sufferer as well as the comforter; we must listen to Job as well as to his three friends.
Then Job cannot get away from what wicked men say:
“I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn” ( Job 12:4 ).
Everything seems to favour this view. Said Job, Look at me; my neighbours who were wont to consult me now mock me; they who knew that I have called upon God say, God has answered him in sore boils, and has thrown him to the dust that he may know how great is his hypocrisy: these many years I have maintained a character as a just upright man, now I am laughed to scorn: what else can I do? Look at me: what an answer I am to their sarcasm! I cannot touch myself at any point without inflicting wounds upon my flesh with my own fingers; I am a stranger to my nearest and dearest friends: how can I claim that God hears and answers prayer? When they mock, I know they can justify their taunt; when they laugh me to scorn, I know that there is reason in the malignant laughter. So Job, too, swings down to the dark point; so Job also becomes as narrow as his critics. But there is some palliation for the narrowness which Job takes to, for he is under pain, the thong has cut to the bone; he has nobody to speak to that can understand a word that he says: if he was narrow, it was most excusable in him. Job says:
“He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease” ( Job 12:5 ).
An apparently unintelligible statement. The Revised Version says “In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for misfortune.” Take the figure of the lamp. The idea would then be that of a long dark road; a man has passed through it safely, he is in the house of security, and when he hears of some poor traveller struggling along the same road, and afraid his light will be blown out, he cares nothing for him; he himself being at ease at home “despises” the man who is struggling along the dark road with a lamp that threatens to be blown out before the journey is completed. Take the other idea, which is in substance the same, namely, that ill-regulated or unsanctified prosperity leads to the contempt of other men less fortunate other men to whom prosperity is denied. A sad effect indeed, contempt for misfortune, reviling men and saying, They ought to have done better, they have themselves to blame for all this: look at me; I have no misfortune; I have lost nothing, I miss nothing, whatever I touch becomes gold, and wherever I look upon the earth a flower acknowledges the blessing of my glance. Such is the boast of impious prosperity, unsanctified and irrational success. This is the necessity of the case, unless there be a vivid realisation of the providence of God in human life. Every night when the good man adds up his book he must write at the foot of the page, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” Then the more he has the better. He will never say look at me; he will say, Look at God: how kind his bounties are, and large! His mercy endureth for ever: the Lord my God teacheth me to get wealth; I must spend my wealth to the honour and glory of him who has taught my hands their skill, and gifted my mind with its peculiar and gracious faculty. When Job came into misfortune he heard the laughter of the mocker. He understood the rough merriment but too well; he said It is always so: “he that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease”; the men who are now laughing at me are men who have shared my bounty in brighter days. Alas, poor human nature! I am now laughed to scorn by the men who once would have been made happy by the touch of my hand.
Then Job becomes his better self. He goes out, and he takes a broad and a right view of human nature a medicine always to be recommended to diseased minds. “Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?” Yes, by taking the sufferer up the mountain, down the river, across the sea; bringing him into close identity with the spirit of nature, the healing spirit, the spirit of benediction, the spirit of sleep. Job stands up like a great natural theologian, and preaches thus:
“But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee: and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” ( Job 12:7-10 ).
He who talks so will surely live again! He is very low down now, but he will come up, because the spirit of wisdom has not deserted him. He will reason upwards. He will make himself acquainted with all the nature that is accessible to him. So we say to all men, Make the most of scientific inquiry: have telescopes and microscopes, and go to day-schools and night-schools: study every little insect that lives that you can bring under your criticism: acquaint yourselves with the habits of fowls and fishes, and animals of every name, and plants of every genera: go into all departments of nature; and depend upon it you are on the stairway which if followed will bring you up into the higher air and the broader light. Never believe there are two Gods in the universe the God of nature and the God of the Bible. There is but one God, There are two aspects of his revelation. Every pebble belongs to God. You cannot lose a pebble. The thief cannot run away without running into the very arms of the God he seeks to fly from. You cannot steal a single insect out of the museum of nature. You cannot take up one little grain of sand, and escape with it. All our felonies are little vulgar larcenies; they are all on the surface; we can mete out to them adequate punishment: but no man can steal from God in the sense of losing out of the creation anything which God has put into it. And everywhere God has written his name in large letters. The microscope is one of the doors into heaven; the telescope is another a thousand doors all in one, and all falling back on their golden hinges to let the worshippers through in millions. Who ever introduced into the Church the most horrible heresy that nature is not God’s, or that contempt for nature is the only appropriate attitude in relation to it, or the only right feeling regarding it? God is the gardener. He knows all the roses. You cannot steal a rose-leaf without his eye being upon you, and without his voice saying to the conscience, That rose-leaf is mine. You cannot shake a dewdrop off a flower without God knowing that the position of the dewdrop has been changed. There is not a little creature whose heart requires a microscope of the greatest power to see it that has not been, in one way or another do not bewilder yourselves as to methods created by the power and wisdom of God. We must, too, remember that there are two classes of workers. Some of our brethren are studying, according to Job’s direction, “the beasts,” “the fowls,” “the earth,” “the fishes of the sea.” They are still our brethren; they are not to be despised. Others are studying the greater things of God, that is to say, studying somewhat of his thought, purpose, love. They are the higher students, but they are still members of the same glorious academy. When the theologian says that the naturalist is contemptible, he is guilty of falsehood; when the naturalist says that the theologian is fanatical, he is guilty of falsehood: the two should be brothers, living together in amity and charity.
Job lays down a great doctrine which seems to have been forgotten:
“Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?” ( Job 12:11 ).
What is the meaning of the inquiry? Evidently this that there is a verifying faculty in man: the ear knows when the sentence has reached the point of music; the ear knows not only words, but, figuratively, understands reasoning; and the ear, taken as the type of the understanding, being the door through which information goes, says, Yes, that is right; No, that is wrong. Doth not the mouth taste meat, has not man a palate? The palate pronounces judgment upon everything that is eaten, saying, That is sweet, that is bitter; this is good, wholesome; that is poisonous and utterly to be rejected. What is that wondrous thing called the palate? It is not merely an animal appendage, but it is a critical faculty; it is something in the mouth that says, This may be taken, but not that. Now Job argues: As certainly as the ear tries words, and the mouth tastes meat, there is a spirit in man which says, That is true, and that is false; that is right, and that is wrong: has God given man an ear and a palate for the trying of words and the tasting of foods, and left him without understanding? The appeal is to the inward witness, the individual conscience, the inextinguishable light, or a light that can only be extinguished by the destruction of everything that makes a man. Here is the great power of Christ over all his hearers. He knows there is an answering voice. Once there stood a scribe, or other man of letters and wisdom, who said, when Christ answered a question wisely, “Well, Master, thou hast said the truth.” A man knows when he hears the truth. He may not know it today, and under this light, and within a certain number of instances; but there comes a time when every man is judge, gifted with the spirit of penetration; and by so much as he exercises that spirit of penetration will he become wise unto salvation, and in proportion as he distrusts it will he either grieve the Spirit or quench the Holy Ghost.
So Job will not be satisfied with Bildad’s tradition or with the broad generalisations of Eliphaz; he will try the words, put them to the test of spiritual experience, and pronounce upon them as he may be guided by the Spirit of the living God. That is all any Christian teacher should desire. He must find his authority in his hearers. They must begin with him wherever they can. There may be times when the hearers will separate themselves from the teachers, saying, We cannot follow you there; we have not been up so high, we have not been so far afield; we know nothing about what you are now saying, but you have said a thousand things we do know, a thousand things we have tasted and felt and handled, and we will stand there altogether, hoping that by-and-by we may ascend to higher heights, and take in the wider magnitudes: then there shall be between teacher and taught a spirit of masonry, of true love, of mutual trust; the taught shall say, Teacher sent from God, pray on, go higher and higher, but remember that we cannot go so quickly, and that at present we are upon a lower level; and the teacher should say O fellow-students, let us pray together, and go a step at a time, and wait: for the very last scholar, and where there is most infirmity let there be most love, where there is truest doubt let there be largest sympathy, and in all things let there be loving communion in Christ Jesus. Men animated by that spirit can never get far wrong. They may have a thousand misconceptions, so far as mere opinions and words are concerned, but they are right in the substance of their being, right in the purpose of their nature, right in their motive and intention, and at the last they shall stand in the light, and thank the God who did not desert them when the midnight was very dark, and the winter was intolerably cold.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. II.
Job 12-14
In the latter part of the twelfth chapter Job shows that he has a fuller and grander conception of God than any of his three comforters have. He is not behind them in the instinct or in the enjoyment of divine worship. When he speaks of God he lifts up our thought to a new and sublime level: “With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding” ( Job 12:13 ). Regarded metaphysically or spiritually, God is the great mystery of all things; he covers all the range appropriate to counsel, wisdom, and understanding: he is spiritually incomprehensible. Then actively
“Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening, Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth” ( Job 12:14-15 ).
What can man do? He cannot bring a single rain-cloud into the dry sky with promise of refreshment and fertility for the barren and languishing earth; he cannot make the sun rise one moment sooner than he is appointed by law astronomical to rise. Poor man! He can but stand in presence of natural phenomena with note-book in hand, putting down what he calls memoranda, looking these very carefully and critically over, and turning them into classical utterances which the vulgar cannot understand. But he is kept outside; he is not allowed to go to the other side of the door on which is marked the word Private. And as for God’s actions amongst the great and the mighty of the earth, they are as grasshoppers before him:
“He leadeth counselors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools. He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle” ( Job 12:17-18 )
He takes off their glittering diamond band, and replaces it with a slave’s girdle. “He leadeth princes away spoiled, and over-throweth the mighty” ( Job 12:19 ). Yet the mighty boast themselves: they live in palace, and in castle, and in strong tower; they indulge in jeering and jibing at those who have no such security. What are they in the sight of God? God is no respecter of persons: God looks upon character the very substance of life, its best and enduring quality; and where he finds right character he crowns it, he makes it better still by added blessing. But are there not those who set up their own enigmas and riddles as philosophies and revelations?
“He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty” ( Job 12:20-21 ).
When did God pour contempt upon the poor, those who have no helper, and those for whom there is no man to speak? When was he hard with the afflicted and the infirm? So Job magnifies what he himself has seen of the providence and grace of God, and makes himself as it were a solitary exception to the great sovereignty of the heavens; yet now and again he says, in effect almost in words it shall not always be so: he who has bowed me down shall straighten me again, and I shall yet live to praise him. Now and again he stands up almost a poet and a prophet, for by anticipation he enjoys the deliverance and the triumph which he is sure must supervene.
Having spoken to the comforters, therefore, in their own theological language, and showed that he was a greater theologian than any of them, he gives them to understand that in their argument they have somehow missed something:
“What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God” ( Job 13:2-3 ).
He turns away from the three talkers, practically saying, Let me continue this controversy with heaven, and not with earth: you vex me, you fret me; you do not touch the reality of the case; yours are all words, clever and beautiful words, but you never come near my wound: away! Let me speak directly to the condescending heavens: though judgment has fallen upon me, yet mercy will come from the same quarter. Job, therefore, feels that the three friends have missed something. He gropes after God. He says, The answer must come whence the mystery has come: you did not afflict me, and you cannot heal me: this is a matter of original application, of direct appeal to heaven: he who began must finish; you have nothing to do with it. How happy we should often feel ourselves if we could shake our souls free from uninformed sympathisers, and from people who offer us keys which were never meant to open the lock of God’s mystery! This is what Job does. He says in effect I have listened to you, your words have passed over me, the ear has heard them, and rejected them; now give me opportunity of talking with God.
“But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value” ( Job 13:4 ).
What is it that feels this to be the case in our human education? We listen to men, and say So far, good: there is sense in what you say; you are not without mental penetration; unquestionably your appeals are marked by ability: but somehow the soul knows that there is something wanting. The soul cannot always tell what it is, but there is a spirit in man which says The statement to which you have just listened is onesided, imperfect, incomplete; it wants rounding into perfectness. Surely there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. Wise men come before us, and say, Here is the world: what more do you want? A beautiful little world, a mere speck of light no doubt, still, there is room enough in the world to live in: we may cultivate the earth and rejoice in all its productions, flower and fruit alike: what more do you want? We listen, and say, That is a good argument: certainly the world is here, and a world that gives fruits and flowers, and has in it birds of its own, birds that cannot fly beyond its atmosphere, birds made to sing in this cage, and to make the children of men glad. But we no sooner consent to the solidity of the argument than a voice within us says O fool, and slow of heart! You are bigger than any world God ever made, greater than the universe on which he seems to have lavished an infinity of wisdom and strength: in this poor little fluttering heart lies a divinity that mocks all space, and defies all time, and tramples upon all the challenges and offers of the material universe. Then men say, Be learned, be wise; science is the providence of life, submit to it; there are certain known measurable laws, accept them, and live within them: roof yourself well in with laws and proved generalisations, and be content. No sooner have we admitted that the appeal is good and strong, certainly up to a given point unquestionably so, than the same voice within us says, Have they ever told you what life is? and you live! Not what life is beyond the stars, but what your own life is? Have they ever seen it, measured it, weighed it, revealed it to your sight? Why, sir, you live! That is a mystery next to the fact that God lives. What is life? As well ask you to be content with your garments and pay no attention to your physical condition, as ask you to be content with things that are outside your mind and neglect the mind itself. So with many a criticism passed upon the Christian religion; we feel that the criticism is clever, sharp, pungent, acute; if it were a question of mere criticism we should say, It is admirably done; but when the critic has ceased, this mysterious voice, this inner self, this impalpable, invisible thing called the soul, or the spirit, says, The statement is incomplete: it is wanting in vitality; the men who have made that statement are conscious themselves that they have not touched the limit of things. So Job felt. He said, “What ye know, the same do I know also; I am not inferior unto you.” Up to a given point we go step for step, and say, The reasoning is perfectly good, but after that what remains? What after death, what after visible facts; what about will, motive, passion, love, and all the mysterious spiritual forces that throw man into tumult or gladden him with sacred joy? About these things you seem to have nothing to say.
Job therefore directs them to keep their tongues quiet, saying, “O that ye would altogether hold your peace! And it should be your wisdom” ( Job 13:5 ). That is not mere mockery; that is solid philosophy. In presence of some mysteries we must simply be silent. He who can be reverently silent in the presence of such mysteries is a great scholar in the school of God; he has courage to say, I do not know. He is along the line, he is eloquent at many a point, but he suddenly comes to points in the line which confuse him and defy him, and there he closes his lips: but his silence is prayer, his speechlessness is religion; this is not the dumbness of opposition, it is the silence of adoration.
Now Job asks a question or two, the principle of which applies to all ages: “Will ye speak wickedly for God?” ( Job 13:7 ). What an extraordinary combination of terms! If a man speak about God, can he do so “wickedly”? The answer is a melancholy Yes. Some of the things we shall have most deeply to repent of may be our sermons respecting God. We have created our sermons, and tried to force God into them, and to make him a consenting partner in our evil deed. Who will arise to speak righteously about God, and call him Father? To what evil treatment has he been subjected! How cruel have men been with God! First of all they conceive a certain theory of the Almighty, and then they bend everything into the lines which they have laid down. There are those who would overpower conscience by sovereignty. This is never to be allowed. God never comes into conflict with the human conscience. From the beginning he has been careful to keep himself, so to say, in harmony with the self which he has given to man, in the sense of being a spirit which could discern good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, partiality and impartiality. There are those who have said that God has damned some portions of the human race. Who ever said so is a liar! He “speaks wickedly for God.” Whoever says to the human conscience, Sit down: you have no right to ask about this appearance of partiality on the part of God, speaks deceitfully for the most high. “God is love”; “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” Who can challenge great speeches like that? These are the appeals that make the whole world kin. There you find no show of favour or partiality or selection. Whenever God goes beyond what we believe to be the letter of the law, it is never to exclude but always to include men whom we thought were for ever to be kept outside. He says to the Jew, What if I go after the Gentile? I made the Gentile as certainly as I made the Jew. And what said the most stubborn of Jews? At a certain time of spiritual revelation he said, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” There you have a philosophy that will stand the wear and tear of life; there you have a gospel that you can stand up and preach to the living and the dead. Alas! it is possible to have an immoral theology; in other words, it is possible to “speak wickedly for God.” We are to stand upon great principles, eternal truths, the sweet and proved realities of grace. There you are strong, with all the strength of personal experience; there you are gracious, with all the tenderness of real human sympathy. There is a God preached by some men that ought never to be believed in. Such men have no authority for their preaching in Holy Scripture. If they quote texts, they misquote them; if they point to chapter and verse, they never point to context. The providence of God must always illustrate the grace of God, and God “is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil”; “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”: “God is love.” He must be spoken of in loving language; he must be revealed in all the attributes which indicate passion, mercy, tenderness, pity, clemency, care for the infirm, the feeble, the desolate, and the lost. In doing so, do we forget the righteousness of God? Certainly not, but it is the glory of righteousness to be compassionate; it is the glory of justice to flower out into charity. There is no unrighteousness in God. But partiality would be unrighteousness. First to give man a conscience, and then to insult and dishonour it, would be unrighteous. To teach that God has chosen one man to go to heaven and another man to go to hell, is to perpetrate a direr blasphemy than was done by the hand of Iscariot. This great evangelical doctrine must be declared in all its fulness and gravity, in all its argumentative nobleness, and in all its sympathetic tenderness, if the world is to be affected profoundly and savingly. The world is never affected by an argument which it cannot understand: men are moved by passions, impulses, instincts, intuitions, by something coming to them which has a correspondence in their own nature, and to which that which is in them answers as an echo to a voice.
Now let us take our stand on these great principles, and the world will not wish us to withdraw our ministry. When we thus magnify God we unite the human race; we do not break it up and distribute it, classify it and mark it off for monopolies and primacies and selfish sovereignties: we unite the human heart in all lands and climes, in all ages and under all circumstances. Nothing may be so impious as piety. Nothing may be so irreligious as religion. “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Job having thus rebuked his friends makes what he terms a “declaration”:
“Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears” ( Job 13:17 ).
Then he begins to say that all things are done by God; he says, Whatever is, God rules, and overrules; it is therefore not to be judged by the moment, or by some limited line, or newly-invented standard. God must have time, as well as nature. You say you must give nature time; you must remember that the seasons are four in number, and that they come and go in regular march and harmony. What you accord to nature you ought not to deny to God. It has pleased him so to make the world that not only is there in it one day, but there is a Tomorrow, and there is a third day: on the third day he perfects his Son. We must await the issue, and then we shall be called upon to judge the process. Now we see so little; we know next to nothing; we spend our lives in correcting our own mistakes: by-and-by the process will be consummated, and then we shall be asked to pronounce a judgment upon it; and in heaven’s clear light, and in the long day of eternity, we shall see just what God has done in the human race, and why he has done it Oh for patience! that mysterious power of waiting which is a kind of genius; the silence that holds its tongue under the assurance that at any moment it may be called upon to break into song, and testimony, and thanksgiving. Silence is part of true religion. He is not ignorant who says, I do not know. He may be truly wise; he may be but indicating that up to a given point he feels sure and strong and clear, and he is waiting at a door fastened on the other side until those who are within open it and bid him advance. Be it ours to be close to the door, for it may open at any moment, and we may be called to advance into larger spaces and fuller liberties.
Job is not afraid to say that “the deceiver and the deceived” are both in the hands of God. Job is not afraid to say that all affliction is sent of heaven, and that no affliction springs out of the dust. Job is represented, in the English version, as saying, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” But that is not what Job did say. He said he will slay. It would be beautiful to retain the English just as we find it, but justice of a grammatical kind will not allow it Job says: He will slay me, but I will still call his attention to great principles: in the very agony of death I will hold up before him that which he himself has told me. So Job, by a gracious and happy self-contradiction, says he will be slain, and yet he will contend; he will fall, and yet from the dust he will plead. Surely in the man’s heart was hidden a promise which he dare not divulge in words, but which was all the time warning him, comforting him, inspiring him, and making his weakness the very best and purest of his power.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. III.
Job 12-14
We have often had occasion to rejoice when Bible speakers have come down to a line with which we are ourselves familiar. Upon that line we could judge them correctly, as to their wisdom and understanding of human affairs. It is the peculiar distinction of Bible speakers and writers that now and again they ascend to heights we cannot climb: what they are uttering upon these sunlit elevations we cannot always tell; the great men are out of sight, often out of sound; we hear but reports of what they are declaring, and they themselves are more echoes than voices; they cannot tell what they have seen, or heard, or spoken; they have been but instruments in the hands of God. But, ever and anon, they come down to the common earth, and talk in our mother-tongue, and look us steadfastly in the face: then we can form some true judgment of the value of their thinking, of the scope of their imagination, and of the practical energy of their understanding. An instance of that kind occurs in the fourteenth chapter. Job begins to talk about “Man.” So long as he talked about himself there was a secret behind his speech which we could not penetrate. There is, indeed, a secret of that kind behind every man’s speech. No man says all he knows; no man can say all he means: behind the most elaborate declarations there are mysteries of motive and thought and purpose, which the man himself can never represent in adequate words. But now Job will speak about man in general; that is to say, about the human race; and when he begins so to speak, we can subject his words to practical tests, and assign them their precise value in historical criticism.
What does Job say about man? Is it true that man is a creature whose existence is measurable by days? What are “days”? mere fleeting shadows of time, hardly symbols of duration, going whilst they are coming, evaporating whilst we are remarking upon their presence? How long is it between sunrise and sunset? To the busy man it is nothing. To the idle man it is, and ought to be, a long time: but to the energetic servant, busy about his Lord’s work, what is the day? A little rent in the sky, a little gleam of light shining through a great immeasurable darkness. Is it true, then, that man’s existence, as we know it, is measurable by days? Are his days but a handful at the most? Are the days of our years statable in clear numbers? Does human existence humble itself to be settled by the law of averages? Has that mysterious quantity, that awful secret, human life, been dragged to the table of the arithmetician and made to accommodate itself to some form of statistics, so that whatever A or B may do, the common man, the medial quantity, will live to forty years, or fifty, and the whole stock of the human population may be struck down at that figure? Calculate upon that: offer them prices at that: write out their policies at that figure. Is it so, that man who can dream poems and temples and creations can be scheduled as probably finishing his dream at midnight or at the crowing of the cock? Are we so frail? Is life so attenuated a thing, that at any moment it: may snap, and our best and dearest may vanish for ever from our eyes? Job was either correct or incorrect when he said that: every man can judge the patriarch at this point. Is man like a flower which cometh forth, and is cut down? Is he no stronger than that? Beautiful indeed: a child of the sun, a spot of loveliness in a desert of desolation, a comely child: but may he die in the cradle: may his cradle become his coffin? May he never learn to walk, to talk, to love? It is so, or it is not so? There is no need to expend many words about this. Job is now talking about facts, and if the facts can be produced as against him here, we may dismiss him when he takes wing and flies away to horizons that lie beyond our ken.
But Job may be right here, and if he here talk soberly, truly, with wise sadness, he may be right when he comes to discuss problems with which we are unfamiliar. Is man “full of trouble”? Does any man need to go to the lexicon to know what “trouble” means? Is that word an etymological mystery? Do people know trouble by going to school? or do they know it by feeling it? Does the heart keep school on its own account? Do men know grief at first sight, and accost it as if they were familiar with it, and had kept long companionship with it in existences not earthly? The patriarch says “full” of trouble. That is a broad statement to make, and it is open to the test of practical observation and experience. What does “full of trouble” literally mean in the language which the patriarch employed? It means, satiated with trouble; steeped, soaked in trouble; so that the tears could be wrung out of him as if he had been purposely filled with these waters of sorrow. Is that true? Is man full of trouble, in other words, may trouble come into his life by a thousand different gates? Is it impossible to calculate, on awakening in the morning, how trouble will come into the heart through the gate of business, through personal health, through family circumstances? Will the letter-carrier bring a lapful of trouble to the man’s breakfast-table? Is man full of trouble, sated with sorrow, soaked and steeped in the brine of grief? We can tell: here we need no learned annotator with ponderous books and far-reaching traces of words: the heart knoweth its own bitterness. Who has ever stumbled at the first and second verses of the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Job, saying, These verses are not true? Nay, who has not gone to them in the dark and cloudy time and the day of desperate sorrow, and said, These words express the common experience of the race? Then Job says, man “fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.” Is this true, or is the word “shadow” a rhetorical expression? Is not our life more like a stable rock? Is not our existence firm like a mountain? Can we not say positively that we shall go into such and such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, sell, and get gain? Has the Lord not allowed us to use the one little word “year” as if we had a right to it? Were we speaking about a long lifetime or an eternity then modesty might restrain our speech; but does the Lord say we are not to lay claim to one year for residence in a foreign city for commercial purposes, but that even in a promise for a year we must say, “if the Lord will”? Let this question be settled by facts. Do not be led away by words, however many and vital, but say, Has Job thus far laid his hand upon the realities of human experience? Is he but indulging in flights of imagination, and painting pictures which have no reference to the realities of life?
Assuming Job to be right, the question comes, How to account for this? Surely man, as we know him, cannot be made to be a creature of “days,” the subject of “trouble,” a “flower” for transitoriness of existence, or a “shadow” for evanescence? “Man” is the first word in the chapter, and it is a larger word than “days,” “trouble,” “fear,” “shadow”; to use the word in the old English sense, these terms do not equivocate with the word “man.” There is something more than we see: there is the argument of consciousness, an argument without words; that great terrible argument of sentiency, inward knowledge, instinct, intuition, call it what you may: there is something in “man” that will say to “fear” and “shadow,” You do but represent one little section of my existence: I am more than you are: I am not a daisy which an ox can crush; I am not a shadow which can be chased away from the wall: in some respects I am weak enough a mere child of days; my breath is in my nostrils, I know, but I know also that there is something within all the enfoldings and complications of this mysterious condition of life which says it will not die. Left to construct an argument in words, that argument might be borne down by a greater fury of words; but how to deal with the divinity that stirs within us! After all our arguing is done, that mysterious spirit says it lives still; that mysterious Galileo says, when the inquisitorial argument and the torture process are all concluded, I still live: I cannot, will not die; only one power can crush me, and that is the power that made me. Yes, there is an argument of consciousness, after all controversy in words has had its windy way.
Now Job comes to the fixed realities of life. He says, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one ” ( Job 14:4 ). There he would seem to be philosophical in the modern sense of the term: he would appear to have fixed his reasoning upon what we call the law of cause and effect. He speaks like a wise man. The proposition which he lays down here is one which is open to immediate and exhaustive scrutiny. But he proceeds: “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass” ( Job 14:5 ). Is all that true? Do we live an “appointed” time on the earth? Are our days meted out to us one by one, and is a record kept by the Divine Economist, and can we not beg just one more day, to finish the marble column, or to put one last touch to the temple whose pinnacles are already glistering in the sun? Is all settled? Have we only liberty to obey? Let facts declare themselves. Job’s appeal to heaven, based upon these supposed facts, is full of pathos. You find the appeal in the sixth verse “Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day.” In other words, Do not look at him, O God; but let him do his little day’s work, and go to his beast’s refuge in the ground. Or in other words, The discrepancy between thy look and his fate would drive man mad: spare him thy glance: if thou hast made him to be but a superior beast of burden, oh! do not look at him; he would misunderstand thy look, it would seem to touch somewhat of kinship in his soul, and thy look might give him a hope which thou hast determined to blight; Lord of mercy, do not look at the man thou hast doomed to die; let him run through his little tale of work, and bury himself in the eternal night. Job already begins to feel a movement of the soul which cannot be content with words of a negative kind. Why should man be so affected by the look of God? No beast prays to be released from the overruling observation of God. What is this masonry that understands the signs of the heavens? What is it within us that answers to an appeal made from the highest places? There we come upon the line of mystery: and my affirmment is that nowhere do we find answers direct, clear, simple, complete, and grand to all the hunger of the soul as we find in the Book of God a Book which covers the whole space, answers the inquiry, turns the question into exultation and praise.
Job reasons, and reasons wrongly. The reasoning is good, but the application is inadequate and fallacious, thus:
“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant” ( Job 14:7-9 ).
Beautiful! fact turned into poetry: the tree blossoms under the touch of Job’s reasoning. But what does he make of it? We shall see presently. Meanwhile, Job says “there is hope of a tree.” If there is hope of anything, there must be hope of man. If you can find anywhere in nature a point at which hope begins, you have seized the key of the whole situation. If anything can die, and live again, you have secured the whole revelation of God’s purpose concerning man. We only need to find it anywhere. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed: after the mustard seed has been given the rest is but a commonplace: the trunk, the branches, the singing birds, what are these but mere sequences that cannot help themselves? the miracle is in the seed itself the first thought, the first word. Given an alphabet, and you have given a literature; given one thought, and you have given companionship to God. Job admitted the whole case the moment he got so far in his reasoning as to say “there is hope of a tree.” Job did not at once see what his reasoning; led to. It was enough, however, to have a good beginning.
Now see how he drops where he ought to have risen. The contrast begins in the tenth verse “But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost.” Does Job end there? Job cannot give up the case yet; even when he is denying a thing he asks questions which call it back again for consideration; he cannot release his hand upon the great possibility: he lets it go so far, even an arm’s length, and then he asks a question, and the subject turns back, and says, You are not done with me yet; we must have larger speech than we have yet had: come, let us continue together in sweet and hopeful fellowship, for out of discussion, contemplation, and prayer light may break, morning may dawn. Therefore Job having declared that “man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost,” ends with “and where is he?” He does not say “and is nowhere,” “and is not,” “and cannot be found any more.” Sometimes the very asking of a question is like the offering of a prayer; sometimes a question may be so put as to involve its own answer. Do not scorn men who gather around the Bible and ask questions concerning it; do not wonder that men cannot get at the meaning if the whole Bible all at once, and become completed saints at one day’s sitting over the sacred oracles; Jesus Christ encouraged the asking of great questions; he believed that the very asking of great questions was itself a process of education. So Job says, “Where is he?” “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down, and riseth not” ( Job 14:11-12 ): is that a full-stop? No; Job cannot come to a period yet; he is at a colon, the very next stop to a full one, but not a full one “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Words difficult for us to understand, but still, read in the spirit of Job’s hopefulness when he put the question, they may be made to meet a secret hope that there is coming a time in which man’s resurrection shall contrast with nature’s dissolution. Who can tell? Nay, the very word “sleep” has in it somewhat of hope “They shall not awake,” are they then but slumbering? It may be. “Raised out of their sleep,” are they, then, but recruiting their energy in a night’s rest? So it may be. We believe it. Life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel; and, bringing Christ’s preaching to bear upon the Book of Job, we see that many a dark place is lighted up. This is not a post hoc ? We are not bringing back history upon history as a mere controversial resort; this is the right and philosophical method of reading life to bring the third day to bear upon the first day to explain all its mystery and illumine all its darkness. Jesus Christ thus reasoned, and we are prepared to follow him in all his argument. Job should have reasoned the other way: but who is always right? Who is always equal to the occasion? It is easier to lie down than to stand up; it is easier to go down a hill than to struggle against a steep. We cannot blame the patriarch. He might have reasoned “There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant,” and if a common vegetable can do this, how much more shall man respond to the touch divine, and abolish death, and be like the golden wheat, springing up out of corruption, sixtyfold, an hundredfold, in answer to the sower’s care! But we are not always equal to ourselves. In one man the “selves” are many. Sometimes the man is almost an angel; sometimes he is a mighty reasoner, and can hold his work clear up to the midday sun, and defy that bright critic to show a flaw in all the process, yet that selfsame man is often tired, worn down, overborne by the long-lasting fatigues of life, so that he can hardly utter his own prayers, or crown them with an energetic Amen. Do not, therefore, rush in upon a man at his weakest moment, and say, This is what he believes: see what a palpable hypocrisy, what an ill-concealed weakness of the soul. That is not the man. Meet him tomorrow, and the vitality will be back in his eye, and the thunder will have returned to his voice. Address yourself to a man at his highest point, as God does: God answers our ideal prayers, and interprets our ideal selves, and thus sees in us more than we can for the moment see in our own nature. How we sometimes miss the parable of the growing world! All nature teaches resurrection: the trees do but sleep; the earth itself does but gather around her the coverlet of snow, and say, like a tired mother, Let me sleep awhile. All nature is a Bible written with the finger of God upon the one subject of resurrection. There is a rising again; there is a return to the paths of life; there is a perpetual urgency of nature towards larger growth. Sometimes the summer is so rich, so warm, so fecundant, that it would seem as if winter could never come back, as if the earth had entered upon the days and the delights of Paradise.
One thing is certain: we have yet to die; we have yet to be, so far as the body is concerned, like water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up, we have yet to yield up the spirit into the hands of him who created it. A right beautiful thing to do when we get into the right state of mind! Then there is no dying: there is a falling asleep, there is an ascension, there is a “languishing into life,” there is a process of passing into the bosom of God. O thou bright little dewdrop, thou dost not tremble with pain when the sun comes to call thee up to set thee in the rainbow! O poor shrinking heart of man, trembling flesh, misgiving, doubtful spirit, when thy Lord comes thou shalt not know that thy feet are in the river: he will kiss thee into peace, and life, and heaven!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. IV.
Job 12-14
A very curious specimen of the black and white art of colouring is this whole speech of Job. Sometimes it appears to be all blackness, and then it is suddenly and tenderly relieved by whiteness, like the radiance of a large, soft planet. We must not, therefore, put our finger down upon any one point and say, This is the speech. The speech has a million points, and they belong to one another, and can only be understood in their relation and their unity. We have seen Job half in the grave; yea, more than half nothing out of it but his head: but, blessed be God, so long as the head is out of the tomb we hear eloquent speech about life, and death, and trouble, and hope. And was not the heart out of the grave as well as the head, that is to say, all the affectional sentiments, all the moral impulses, all that makes a man more than a mere genius? Truly so.
Job now opens a new source of consolation:
“Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands” ( Job 14:15 ).
What artist likes to throw away his own painting? Critics do not like it: they are perfectly ingenious in discovering flaws in it; but the artist himself says: I painted that picture with my heart. We have heard of the unwillingness of a preacher to throw away his own discourses. Said one to me a gentle soul, now with the gentle angels, a man whose mind was all beauty, and whose heart was all love “The critics have been hard upon my sermons, but I know what fire and life and force I spent upon them.” They represented the man’s best power; he had embodied his very soul in the living sentences of these discourses: how could he cut them up, and scatter the fragments, as if they had cost him nothing? We have heard the mother say, when the sword was in mid-air to divide the child, “O my lord, give her the living child.” It was a mother’s cry, and Solomon detected the maternal tone in the agony. What mother likes to abandon her own child? and is not a father represented as being pitiful to his children? “like as a father pitieth his children.” That would seem to be the argument of Job in this fifteenth verse “Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands:” thou wilt not let cold cruel death break up thy child, cover him up with dust, and stamp him with the seal of annihilation and oblivion. Thus God has set many teachers within us; all our affections, emotions, impulses, everything that connects us one with another in social confidence and mutual honour, all these forces and ministries are meant to teach us that he himself is the same as we are, multiplied by infinity. Why not? God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him. He is a little God, but he belongs to the divine family; he boasts not of royal blood, but of blood divine: when he stumbles, he falls like a son of God; when he breaks away from altar and sanctuary and oath, he seems to tear the heavens, so large does he become in God’s estimation, so greatly does he bulk amid the material things that are round about him and above him: what a gap, what a vacancy, what a loss! No darkness clouds the blue heaven when the beast dies, but when man dies who knows what pain quivers at the heart of things? A beautiful thought it was for Job to realise that man was the work of God’s hands. What is it that distinguishes one life from another, say, one voice from another, one hand from another? Are not all human hands alike? Cannot all men paint with equal skill? They have the same canvas, the same colours, the same brushes: now let them proceed one by one, and the signature of the one in colour will be equal to the signature of the other. But such is not the fact: the higher artist says to the younger and lower, What your picture wants is this touch. It lives! That one touch has separated the former picture from the present by the length of infinity. So all things are the work of God’s hands the beast and the angel: but who can measure the distance between the two? Thus this word “desire” yearning is the right word, a wringing of the heart, a drawing out of the soul in exquisite solicitude tenderly tender, as if God would touch without harming, lift up and set down without leaving any marks of violence upon his child. All this is helpful, not because it is ancient in history, but because it concurs with our own desire and experience. The love we bestow upon anything is the value of it: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” We measure all things by the love we assign them. Applying that same standard to God, how much must he love the world who, in any sense, died for it!
Then Job alters his tone:
“For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?” ( Job 14:16 ).
Let us take it (though there is no little difficulty about the mere grammar of the passage) that Job is arguing from providence to morals. He proceeds in his reasoning from “steps” to “sin.” He would seem to trace the same criticism “for now thou numberest my steps”: therefore, as thou art so particular and critical about my steps, dost thou let my sin go past without observation? The passage has been rendered variously, but this would seem to be a meaning which inheres in the thought, because it is certainly true to our present conception of God’s rule. Let us be strong on the point of providence first. Have no fear of the ultimate condition of any man’s mind when that mind is perfectly certain as to the reality of a superintending providence. Deism may end in Christianity. Everything will depend upon its spirit: if it is haughty, intolerant, self-idolatrous, it will end in nothing but vanity; but if it can say, reverently, Up to this point I am clear; here I can stand, and think, and pray, and hope, be sure that the issue will be right. Is there, then, a providence in life? Do not think of some other man’s life only, but think of your own life when you are called upon to reply to this inquiry. Now go back, begin at the very first page of your own life: how unconnected the sentences, how almost incoherent the style; what a singular want of relation as between one part and another! So it is.
Unquestionably it is rough reading at the first. Now turn over a page. Has no light come? You answer, Yes, a little light has begun to dawn. Go on to the next page: add one day to another: let the events settle down into proportion; and presently you will begin to see that even your life has been as it were the darling of God. You have to deny yourself before you can deny divine providence. The matter is no longer theoretical, or you could easily dismiss it; but when a man is bound first to commit suicide before he can cease to believe, then God has wrought in him a gracious and blessed miracle. Job thus reasons: My steps are watched; I am an observed man; what I thought was a belt of cloud is a belt of omnipotence, and I cannot get through it; what I considered to be but a thin mist in the air is the very throne of God: I can do nothing without leave; I live by permission. Up to this point Job might have said: I am perfectly clear. But if so, what more? Does God pay so much attention to that which is without, and no attention to that which is within? Is he careful to measure a man’s steps, and oblivious of man’s transgression? This is the great reasoning, the fearless logic, that goes forward from point to point, and forces the soul to face the consequences of facts.
That Job is sure that his sin is watched is evident from the next verse:
“My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity” ( Job 14:17 ).
Job was acquainted with Oriental customs; he knew that the judge wore a scrip or a pouch, and that in this scrip were put all the documents which related to the particular case: the judge took them out of the scrip one by one. But there was something more than the general scrip or receptacle of the documentary evidence “Thou sewest up mine iniquity”: not only had the Oriental judge or accuser an open pouch in which he kept documents needful for the establishment of his case, but he had an inward and lesser compartment, carefully sewn up, in which were the special proofs that the general impeachment was sound. In the scrip there were two compartments one in which was the general accusation against the man, and the other in which there were the special and critical proofs cited to establish the charge. This is what Job saw when he looked upon God. Said he: I see the scrip, the full pouch; I see the documents that are written against me; and behind them all are proofs I cannot deny; the case is well ordered and set forth with masterly skill; not a point will be overlooked, and where I am strongest in denial God will be strongest in evidence. Job’s conception of the divine providence in its moral relations was not that of a general oversight, or of a loose-handed indictment as against any man or number of men; Job said in effect: Men make mistakes about this matter; they confuse their documents and their references; sometimes they lose papers which are essential to their case, and sometimes they cannot read all their own hands have written; and therefore even the wicked man will escape a just judgment: but when God undertakes to be judge, there is the scrip, there is the general accusation, there are the particular proofs, day and date down to hour and moment, and locality down to a footprint, and there is no reply to omniscience.
Now the patriarch turns, as has been his recent wont, to nature
“And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man” ( Job 14:18-19 ).
Nature is terrible as well as gracious. What is so monotonous as sunshine? What is so mocking as the fixed stars? We cannot change their temper; we can work no miracle upon their image: there they shine, from century to century, from millennium to millennium. Praise the sun who may, and that he is worthy of praise who will deny, but his is a monotonous friendship. If the clouds did not come to help us we could not bear the sun’s fierce love. What if we owe as much to the clouds as to the sun? What if the attempering atmosphere has made the heavens possible as a source of enjoyment? Is there not a great principle of mediation even in nature? Does the sun shine straight upon the earth without anything between? Woe betide the earth then! The poor little handful of soil we call the earth could not live tor a moment it would stagger under the fierce blaze: but there is scattered between the sun and the earth a great intermediary ministry, a mollifying and attempering influence. And is there not a daysman between God and humanity? Is there not what answers to an atmosphere between the Essential Glory and this poor time-space and flesh-life, this mystery of body and soul chained together for one tumultuous hour? Job saw the mountain falling. Mountains do not fall in our country. True: but they do fall in volcanic regions; they fall where earthquakes are almost familiar: there “the rock is removed out of his place.” We do not learn everything in our own little land; we must go the world over to learn something of God’s method. Here the mountains are firm; yonder they are thrown up as if they were toys in the mighty hands of some player, who trifled with them and made them spin in the air. Here the rocks are emblems of solidity, but where earthquakes are known they are torn out of their places and hurled miles away. And even where there is no violent action of nature, there is a continual process of decay or ruin “the waters wear the stones.” All nature is wearing. Nature is killing, as well as making alive, every moment. The little, gentle, beautiful, soft, plashing water is wearing away the great rocks; the continual dropping of water will wear the stone. What we think gracious is often severe, and what we think severe is often gracious. But Job has fixed his mind upon this great fact that mountains cannot be relied upon, rocks cannot; be built upon, strong stones cannot be depended upon if there is water near flowing, active water. Water will get the better of any rock. That which seems to be nothing in comparison will wear the other out, and send the rock flowing down the stream. Job, therefore, gets sight of the severe aspect of nature, and he reasons upward from mountain, and rock, and stone, and things growing out of the dust to man, and says, “Thou destroyest the hope of man”: here you have volcanic action, earthquakes tearing out rocks, waters wearing stones, beautiful growths washed away, and a sudden, strange, awful blight falling in blackness upon the hope of the soul. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
What is the meaning of all this as applied to man? The meaning is perpetual overthrow “Thou prevailest for ever against him.” It is man who always goes down; it is the creature who is bowed under the hand of the Creator. O vain man, know this! What canst thou do against God? Why bruise thy poor fingers in thumping upon the eternal granite? Why dare Omnipotence to battle? “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace”; “we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God”; lay down the arms of rebellion, and cry for quarter from the heavens: thou canst not prevail. Let the tumbling mountain teach thee, and the falling rock be an analogy for thy guidance; yea, let the stones perishing under the water teach thee, and see as the roots are washed out of the earth by the very rains that might have nourished them how terrible may be the providence of God. Say It is useless to fight against heaven; heaven’s weapons are stronger than mine, so are heaven’s hands; all the resources of infinity are with God, and I am nothing but a child of dust, and my breath is in my nostrils: I will look unto the hills whence cometh my help, and I will pray to him whom I have too long defied. That would be a wise man’s speech made tender by the tears of penitence. Man is always loser when he fights against God. Even when he seems to excel he excites but curiosity. If a man live a hundred years, he is pointed out as a curiosity in nature; attention is drawn to him as one who may have been forgotten as the angels were calling up the population of earth to heaven: he is questioned by curiosity; he is looked at by curiosity; he is written about as a curiosity. Why, ought he not to be set up as one who has defied God, and succeeded? There is a spirit in man which says, This is no triumph against eternal law, this is a curious instance, a rather striking exception: look at him very quickly, for tomorrow he may be gone! There is no successful warring against heaven. “Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.” There is a displacement of the first image. We say How changed from what he was when I saw him last! Then there was fire in his eye, there was military dominance in his voice; then he had but to speak, and it was done, within the circle in which he was lord: and now look how decrepit he is: how he falters, how he apologises for every request he makes, how dependent he is upon the meanest of those who are round about him! If he stoop, he cannot raise himself up again; being raised, he cannot stoop without danger. Poor man! how withered in complexion, how deathlike in aspect, how frail altogether! And he once was strong and bright and genial! Nor is this exceptional; this is universal. Such is the lot of every man. About the strongest giant will be said some day: He will never rise again; his life is now a question of moments; the great towering man is laid low, and cannot lift himself into his original attitude. Not only is there a displacement of the first image, but the vanity of family promotion is dead within him. He cares not what becomes of any one. “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not.” He asks his own sons what their names are; he looks upon his own children with the vacancy of absent ignorance; he asks his own child where he lives now; he asks the younger if he is not the elder, and he mistakes the elder for the younger; and when he is told that his child is now high in society, he asks a question about him upside down, and inflicts upon his honour the stigma of an unconscious irony. “And they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not.” He is not even aware that their moral character has gone down; when they use profane language, he cannot discern between such language and the speech of prayer, all language has lost all meaning for him. And all dress and culture and station and name, whether high or low, he cannot tell. And this is man! No, says nature, this is not man: this is but a phase of man; this is but one chapter in the tragedy of man: the issue is not yet Even while man’s flesh has pain, “his soul within him shall mourn.” There is hope in that very word “mourn.” Why mourn? Because all the instincts say, What is to become of us? All the passions of man’s nature say, Are we to die? The marvellous power within man that prayed and sang and lived cannot die without protesting against its own murder. Read the soul of man, if you would believe in the immortality of man. Even when man longs to sleep he longs to wake again; even when he says he shall be but as one of the common lot and go down to the ground, he says, Shall I not live again? The very question is an argument; the very inquiry is part of a great process of reasoning: to be able to ask the question is to be able to answer it affirmatively.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job’s Reply to His Three Friends. V.
Job 12-14
Now that the case in some measure of completeness is before us, we may profitably consider the history on a larger scale than its merely personal aspect. We have elements enough, in these fourteen chapters, for the construction of a world. We have the good man; the spirit of evil; the whole story of affliction and loss, pain and fear; and we have three comforters, coming from various points, with hardly various messages to be addressed to a desolate heart. Now if we look upon the instance as typical rather than personal, we shall really grasp the personal view in its deepest meanings. Let us, then, enlarge the scene in all its incidents and proportions; then instead of one man, Job, we shall have the entire human race, instead of one accuser we shall have the whole spirit of evil which works so darkly and ruinously in the affairs of men, and instead of the three comforters we shall have the whole scheme of consolatory philosophy and theology, as popularly understood, and as applied without utility. So, then, we have not the one-Job, but the whole world-Job: the personal patriarch is regarded but as the typical man; behind him stand the human ranks of every age and land.
We have little to do with the merely historical letter of the Book of Genesis: we want to go further; we want to know what man was in the thought and purpose of God. The moment we come to printed letters, we are lost. No man can understand letters, except in some half-way, some dim, intermediate sense, which quite as often confuses as explains realities. Yet we cannot do without letters: they are helps little, uncertain, yet not wholly inconvenient auxiliaries. We want to know what God meant before he spoke a single word. The moment he said, “Let us make man in our image,” we lost the solemnity of the occasion, that is to say, the higher, diviner solemnity. If it had been possible for us to have seen the thought without hearing, when it was a pure thought, without even the embodiment of words, the unspoken, eternal purpose of God, then we should understand what is to be the issue of this tragedy which we call Life. It was in eternity that God created man: he only showed man in time, or gave man a chance of seeing his own little imperfect nature. Man is a child of eternity. Unless we get that view of the occasion, we shall be fretted with all kinds of details; our eyes will be pierced and divided as to their vision by ten thousand little things that are without focus or centre: we must from eternity look upon the little battlefield of time, and across that battlefield once more into the calm eternity; then we shall see things in their right proportions, distances, colours, and relations, and out of the whole will come a peace which the world never gave and which the world cannot take away. Hear the great Creator in the sanctuary of eternity; his words are these “My word shall not return unto me void.” What is his “word”? This: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Is that word not to return void to the speaker? That is certainly the decree and oath of the Bible. But how long it takes to work out this sacred issue! Certainly: because the work is great. Learn how great in the idea of God is humanity from the circumstance that it takes long ages to shape and mould and inspire a man with the image and likeness and force of God. The great process is going on; God’s word is to be verified and fulfilled; at the last there is to stand up a humanity, faultless, pure, majestic, worthy, through God, to share God’s eternity.
Now, as a matter of fact, some men are farther on in this divine line than others are. We have seen the purpose: it is to make a perfect man and an upright; a man that fears God and eschews evil and lives in God; and, as a matter of fact, let us repeat, some men are farther along that ideal line than other men are. As a simple matter of experience, we are ready to testify that there are Jobs, honestly good men, honourable persons, upright souls: men that say concerning every perplexity in life, What is the right thing to be done? what is good, true, honest, lovely, and of good report? men who ask moral questions before entering into the engagements, the conflicts, and the business of life. And, as a matter of fact, these Jobs do develop or reveal or make manifest the spirit of evil: they bring up what devil there is in the universe, and make the universe see the dark and terrible image. But for these holy men we should know nothing about the spirit of evil. Wherever the sons of God come together we see the devil most patently. We are educated by contrasts, or we are helped in our understanding of difficulties by things which contrast one another: we know the day because we know the night, and we know the night because we know the day. We are set between extremes; we look upon the one and upon the other, and wonder, and calculate, and average, and then make positive and workable conclusions. Why fight about “devil”? There is a far greater word than that about which there is no controversy. Why then fret the soul by asking speculative questions about a personality that cannot be defined and apprehended by the mortal imagination, when there lies before our sight the greater word “evil”? If there had been any reason to doubt the evil, we should have made short work of all controversy respecting the devil. It is the evil which surrounds us like a black cordon that makes the devil possible. In a world in which we ourselves have seen and experienced in many ways impureness, folly, crime, hypocrisy, selfishness, all manner of twisted and perverted motive, why should we trouble ourselves to connect all these things with a personality, speculative or revealed? There are the dark birds of night the black, the ghastly facts: so long as they press themselves eagerly upon our attention, and put us to all manner of expense, inconvenience, and suffering, surely there is ground enough to go upon, and there is ground enough to accept the existence of any number of evil spirits a number that might darken the horizon and put out the very sun by their blackness. We might discredit the mystery if we could get rid of the fact. So far, then, we have the purpose of God, the ideal man, the spirit of evil arising to counteract his purposes and test his quality; then we have the whole spirit of consolatory philosophy and theology as represented by Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar. Let us hear what that whole system has to give us:
Three things, with varieties and sub-sections; but substantially three things. First, Fate. Philosophy has not scrupled to utter that short, sharp, cruel word. Things happen because they must happen: you are high or low, bad or good, fortunate or unfortunate, because there is an operation called Fatalism severe, tyrannous, oppressive, inexorable. So one comforter comes to tell you that what you are suffering cannot be helped; you must bear it stoically: tears are useless, prayer is wasted breath; as for resignation, you may sentimentalise about it, but as a matter of fact, you must submit. One comforter talks this dark language: he points to what he calls facts; he says, Look at all history, and you will find that men have to sup sorrow, or drink wine out of golden goblets, according to the operation of a law which has not yet been apprehended or authoritatively defined: life is a complicated necessity; the grindstone is turned round, and you must lay yourselves upon it, and suffer all its will a blind, unintelligent will; a contradiction in terms if you like; a will that never gives any account of itself, but grinds on, and grinds small. That comforter makes his speech, and the suffering world says No: thou art a miserable comforter: oh that I could state my case as I feel it! continues that suffering world then all thy talk would be so much vanity, or worthless wind: thou braggart, thou stoic, thou man of the iron heart, eat thine own comfort if thou canst digest steel, and feed upon thy philosophy if thou canst crush into food the stones of the wilderness: thy comfort is a miserable condolence.
Then some other comforter says: The word “Fate” is not the right word; it is cold, lifeless, very bitter; the real word is Sovereignty intelligent, personal sovereignty. Certainly that is a great rise upon the former theory. If we have come into the region of life, we may come into the region of righteousness. Explain to me, thou Bildad, what is the meaning of Sovereignty: I am in sorrow, my eyes run away in rivers of tears, and I am overwhelmed with bitterest distress, what meanest thou by Sovereignty? I like the word because of its vitality; I rejected the other speaker who talked of Fate because I felt within me that he was wrong, although I could not answer him in words; but Sovereignty tell me about that. And the answer is: It means that there is a great Sovereign on the throne of the universe; lofty, majestic, throned above all hierarchies, princedoms, powers; an infinite Ruler; a Governor most exalted, giving to none an account of his way, always carrying out his own purposes whatever man may suffer; he moves with his head aloft; he cares not what life his feet tread upon, what existences he destroys by his onward march: his name is God, Sovereign, Ruler, Governor, King, Tyrant. And the suffering world-Job says, No: there may be a Sovereign, but that is not his character; if that were his character he would be no sovereign: the very word sovereign, when rightly interpreted, means a relation that exists by laws and operations of sympathy, trust, responsibility, stewardship, account, rewards, punishments: be he whom he may who walks from star to star, he is no tyrant: I could stop him on his course and bring him to tears by the sight of a flower; I could constrain him to marvel at his own tenderness: I have seen enough of life to know that it is not a tyrannised life, that it does not live under continual terror; often there is a dark cloud above it and around it, but every now and then it breaks into prayer and quivers into song: No! Miserable comforter art thou, preacher of sovereignty; not so miserable as the apostle of Fate, but if thou hast ventured to call God Tyrant, there is something within me, even the heartthrob, which tells me that thou hast not yet touched the reality, the mystery of this case.
Then another man Zophar he may be called says, Not “Fate,” not “Sovereignty” as just defined by Bildad, but Penalty, that is the meaning of thy suffering, O world: thou art a criminal world, thou art a thief, a liar, oft-convicted; thou hast broken every commandment of God, thou hast sinned away the morning and the midday, yea, and at eventide thou hast been far from true and good: world, thou art suffering pains at thine heart, and they are sharp pains; they are God’s testimony to thine ill-behaviour; a well-conducted world would have swung for ever and ever in cloudless sunshine; thou hast run away from God, thou art a prodigal world, thou art in a far country in the time of famine, and God has sent hunger to punish thee for thy wantonness and iniquity. And the world-Job says No: miserable comforters are ye all! There seems to be a little truth even in what the first speaker said, a good deal of truth in what the second speaker revealed to me about sovereignty, and there is an unquestionable truth in what Zophar has said about penalty: I know I have done wrong, and I feel that God has smitten me for my wrong-doing; but I also feel this, that not one of you has touched the reality of the case: I cannot tell you what the reality is yet, but you have left the ground uncovered, you are the victims of your own philosophy, and your own imperfect theology; I rise and at least convict you of half-truths: you have not touched my wound with a skilled hand.
This is the condition of the Book of Job up to this moment; that is to say, within the four corners of the first fourteen chapters Job the ideal man; Job developing the spirit of evil by his very truth and goodness; men coming from different points with little creeds and little dogmas, and imperfect philosophies and theologies, pelting him with maxims and with truisms and commonplaces; and the man says, “Miserable comforters are ye all”: I know what ye have said, I have seen all that long ago; but you have not touched the heart of the case, its innermost mystery and reality; your ladder does not reach to heaven; you are clever and well-skilled in words up to a given point, but you double back upon yourselves, and do not carry your reasoning forward to its final issue. That is so. Now we understand this book up to the fourteenth chapter. We were not surprised to find a Job in the world, a really honest, upright, good man, reputed for his integrity and trusted for his wisdom; that did not surprise us: we were not surprised that such a man should be assaulted, attacked by the spirit of evil, for even we ourselves, in our imperfect quality of goodness, know that there is a breath from beneath, a blast from hell, that hinders the ascent of our truest prayers. And we can believe well in all these comforters as realities; they are not dramatic men, they are seers and traditionalists and lovers of maxims, persons who assail the world’s sorrow with all kinds of commonplaces, and incomplete and self-contradictory nostrums and assertions: and we feel that Job is right when he says I cannot take your comfort; the meat you give me I cannot eat, the water you supply me with is poison: leave me! Oh that I could come face to face with God! He would tell me and he will yet tell me the meaning of it all. We need not pause here, because we have the larger history before us, and we know the secret of all. What is it? What was hidden from Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar? What was it these men did not see? They did not see the meaning of chastening, chastisement, purification by sorrow, trial by grief; they did not know that Love is the highest sovereignty, and that all things work together for good to them that love God; that loss is gain, poverty is wealth, that affliction is the beginning of real robustness of soul, when rightly apprehended and fearlessly and reverently applied: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby”; “Brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations”; “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” That is the real meaning of all the sorrow, allowing such portion of truth to the theory of Sovereignty and Penalty, which undoubtedly inheres in each and both of them. But God means to train us, to apply a principle and process of cultivation to us. He will try us as gold is tried: but he is the Refiner, he sits over the furnace; and as soon as God can discover his own image in us he will take us away from the fire, and make us what he in the far eternity meant to make us when he said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” How all this process of chastening becomes necessary is obvious enough, if we go back into our own hearts, and run our eye over the whole line of our own experience. If we have true light in us we shall have no doubt as to the necessity of this chastening and its meaning. Even God to reach his own ideal had himself to suffer. Is God simply a watching Sovereign, saying, These men must suffer a little more; the fire must be made hotter, the trial must be made intenser: I will watch them in perfect equanimity; my calm shall never be disturbed; the suffering shall be theirs, not mine; I will simply operate upon them mechanically and distantly? That is not the Bible conception of God. This is the Bible conception, namely, that in working out the ideal manhood, God himself suffers more than it is possible for man to suffer, because of the larger capacity the infinite capacity of woe. Now we seem to be coming into better ground. How much does God suffer for his human children? We know that he has wept over them, yearned after them, proposed to send his Son to save them, has in reality sent his Son in the fulness of time, born of a woman, born under the law; we know that the Bible declares that the Son of God did give himself up for us all, the just for the unjust, and that Christ, the God-man, is the apostle of the universe; his text is Sacrifice, his offer is Pardon. How much did God suffer? The sublimest answer to that inquiry is Behold the cross of Christ. If you would know whether God’s heart was broken over our moral condition, look at the cross of Christ; if you would understand that God is bent on some gracious and glorious purpose of man-making, behold the cross of Christ. It will not explain itself in words, but it is possible for us to wait there, to watch there, until we involuntarily exclaim, This is no man; this is no malefactor: who is he? Watch on, wait on; read yourself in the light of his agony, and at last you will say, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” What is he doing there? Redeeming the world. What is his purpose? To make man in God’s image and God’s likeness. Then is the process long-continued, stretching over the ages? Yes: he who is from everlasting to everlasting takes great breadths of time for the revelation of his fatherhood and the realisation of all the purposes of his love.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).
V
THE FIRST ROUND OF SPEECHES
Job 4-14.
This debate extends from Job 4-31 inclusive. There are three rounds of speeches by all the four except that Zophar drops out in the last round. Each round constitutes a scene in Act II of the drama.
In this chapter we will discuss Scene I and commence with the first speech of Eliphaz (Job 4-5) the points of which are as follows:
Introduction (Job 4:1-2 ). In his introduction he deprecates grieving one so afflicted but must reprove Job,
1. For weakness and inconsistency. The one who had instructed, comforted, and strengthened others in their troubles, faints when trouble comes to him (Job 4:3-5 ).
2. Because Job had neither the fear of God nor personal integrity, for the fear of God gives confidence, and integrity gives hope, but Job’s complaint implies that he had neither confidence nor hope, therefore he must be devoid of the fear of God and of integrity (Job 4:6 ).
3. Because the observation of the general trend of current events argued Job’s guilt. The innocent do not perish; those who reap trouble are those who have sowed trouble and plowed iniquity. Ravening lions, though strong and terrible, meet the hunter at last (Job 4:7-11 ).
4. Because revelation also convicts him. Eliphaz relates one of his own visions (Job 4:12-17 ), very impressively, which scouted the idea that mortal man could be more just than God, or purer than his maker. But Job’s complaint seemed to embody the idea. Eliphaz argues from his vision that a pure and just God crushes impure and unjust men and suggests the application that Job’s being crushed reproves his impurity and injustice (Job 4:18-21 ).
5. Because Job’s outcry against God was foolish and silly, and since no angels would hear such complaint, or dare to avert its punishment (Job 5:1-2 ) there can be no appeal from the supreme to the creature.
6. Because observation of a particular case illustrates Job’s guilt (Job 5:3-5 ). The circumstances of this case seen by Eliphaz, make it parallel with Job’s case; a certain foolish man took root and prospered for a while, but the curse smote him suddenly and utterly; his children perished, his harvest was eaten by the hungry, and all his substance was snatched away.
7. Because these results are not accidental, nor of earthly origin, but must be attributed to God who punishes sin. Because man is a sinner he is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward (Job 5:6-7 ).
The remedy suggested to Job by Eliphaz is as follows:
1. Take your case to God confession of sin and repentance are suggested (Job 5:8 ) who will exalt the penitent (Job 5:11 ) as certainly as he has frustrated their craftiness (Job 5:12-14 ) and so the poor may have hope after the mouth of their iniquity is stopped (Job 5:15-16 ).
2. Instead of murmuring, count yourself happy in receiving this punishment, and after penitence expect restoration of prosperity (Job 5:17-27 ).
On comparing this analysis with that given by Dr. Tanner (see his Syllabus on the speech of Eliphaz) it will be noted that the author here differs widely with Tanner in his analysis and interpretation of this speech. Tanner presents Eliphaz as assuming the position that Job was a righteous man and that God would deliver him. The author presents Eliphaz as taking the position that Job had sinned, which was the cause of his suffering and that he should confess and repent; that he should count himself happy in receiving this punishment, and thus after penitence expect the restoration of prosperity. It will be recalled here that the author, in commending the Syllabus of Dr. Tanner noted the weakness of his analysis at this point.
There are several things notable in this first speech of Eliphaz, viz:
1. The recurrence in all his speeches of “I have seen,” “I have seen,” “I saw,” showing that the experience and observation of a long life constituted the basis of his argument.
2. The good elements of his arguments are as follows: (1) He refers to the natural law of sowing and reaping (Cf. Gal 6:7 ); (2) the sinner’s way to happiness is through confession and repentance; (3) chastisement of an erring man should be recognized as a blessing, since it looks to his profit (Cf. Pro 3:11 and the use made of it as quoted in Heb 12:5 ).
3. The bad elements in his speech are as follows: (1) His induction of facts ignores many other facts, particularly that all suffering is not penal; (2) He fails in the application of his facts, since the case before him does not come in their classification; in other words, through ignorance he fails in his diagnosis of the case, and hence his otherwise good remedies fall short of a cure.
4. The exquisite simplicity and literary power of his description of his vision, makes it a classic gem of Hebrew poetry.
The following points are noted in Job’s reply (Job 6-7) :
1. The rash words of my complaint are not evidence of previous sins, but the result of immeasurable calamities from the hand of God. They cannot be weighed; they are heavier than the sandy shores which confine the ocean; they are poisoned arrows from the quiver of the Almighty which pierce my very soul and rankle there; they are terrors marshalled in armies by the Almighty (Job 6:1-4 ).
2. The braying of an ass and the lowing of an ox are to be attributed to lack of food, not meanness. Let the favorable construction put upon the discordant noise of hungry animals be applied to my braying and lowing (Job 6:5 ), for in my case also there is the hunger of starvation since the food set before me is loathsome and without savor (Job 6:6-7 ).
3. I repeat my prayer to God for instant death, because I have not the strength to endure longer, nor the wisdom to understand (Job 6:8-9 ; Job 6:11-13 ) but while exulting in the pain that slays me, my consolation still is, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One (Job 6:10 ).
4. Instead of moralizing on the causes and rebuking suspected sins, friends should extend kindness to one ready to faint, even though he forsake the fear of God (or lest he forsake, Job 6:14 ). This is like the story of the drowning boy who asked the moralizing man on the bank to help him out first and then inquire into the causes of his mishap.
5. In your treatment of me, ye are like a deceitful brook, roaring with water only while the snow on the mountains is melting, but being without springs, directly you run dry. The caravans from the desert that come to it hoping, turn aside from its dusty channels and perish. So you that seemed like a river when I was not thirsty, put me to shame by your nothingness now that I thirst. Compare “Wells without water . . . clouds without rain” in Jud 1:12-13 .
6. Is it possible that you condemn me because you apprehend that otherwise I might ask you for help? In your moralizing are you merely hedging against the expectation of being called on to help a bankrupt sufferer, by furnishing a reward or ransom for the return of my stolen flocks and herds? Do you try to make me guilty that you may evade the cost of true friendship (Job 6:21-23 )? I have asked for no financial help, but for instruction. How forcible are right words !
7. But you, instead of explaining my calamities have been content to reprove the words of my complaint, extorted by the anguish of my calamities, words that under the circumstances should have been counted as wind, being only the speeches of one that is desperate.
8. The meanness of such treatment in your case would prompt in other cases to cast lots for the orphans of the dead and make merchandise out of a stranded friend by selling him as a slave (Job 6:27 ). This is a terrible invective, but more logical than their argument, since history abundantly shows that some believers in their creed have done these very things, the argument being that thereby they are helping God to punish the wicked.
9. He begs them to turn from such injustice, look on his face and behold his sincerity, concede his ability to discern a thing which is wicked, and accept his deliberate statement that he is innocent of the things which they suspect (Job 6:28-30 ).
10. He laments his case as hopeless (Job 7:1-10 ). Here Job asks if there is not a warfare to man and his days like the days of a hireling. His waiting for relief was like a hireling waiting for his wages, during which time he is made to pass months (moons) of misery. In this hopeless condition he longs for relief and would gladly welcome death from which there is no return to the walks of this life.
11. Job now lifts his voice in complaint to God (Job 7:11-21 ). In the anguish of his spirit he could not refrain from complaining that God had set a watch over him and terrified him with dreams and visions. He was made to loathe his life and again to wish for death. Then he closes this speech by raising the question with the Almighty as to why he would not pardon him if he had sinned (as his accusers had insinuated) and take away his iniquity. Here he addresses God as a “watcher of men”; as one who had made him a target for his arrows. Now we take up the first speech of Bildad, the Shuhite (Job 8 ).
The substance of this speech is as follows:
1. He charges that Job seeks to make himself better than God, then he hints at the sins of his children and insinuates that Job does not pray, for prayer of the right sort brings relief (Job 8:1-7 ).
2. He exhorts Job to learn the lesson from the past. The wisdom of the fathers must be good. Therefore, learn the lesson of the ancients (Job 8:8-10 ).
3. He contrasts the fate of the wicked and that of the righteous, reasoning from cause to effect, thus insinuating that Job’s condition was the result of a cause, and since (to him) all suffering was the result of sin, the cause must be in Job (Job 8:11-22 ).
The substance of Job’s reply is,
1. True enough a man cannot be righteous with God, since he is unable to contend with him. He is too wise and powerful; he is invincible. Who can match him (Job 9:1-12 )?
2. Praying does not touch the case. He is unjust and proves me perverse. Individual righteousness does not avail to exempt in case of a scourge. He mocks at the trial of the innocent and the wicked prosper. Then Job says, “If it be not he, who then is it?” This is the climax of the moral tragedy (Job 9:13-24 ).
3. There is no daysman betwixt us, and I am not able to meet him in myself for Judgment (Job 9:25-35 ).
4. I will say unto God, “Why? Thou knowest I am not wicked.” Here it will be noted that a revelation is needed in view of this affliction (Job 10:1-7 ).
5. God is responsible for my condition; he framed and fashioned me as clay, yet he deals with me as milk or cheese; it is just the same whether I am wicked or righteous; changes and warfare are with me (Job 10:8-17 ).
6. Why was I born? or why did I not die at birth? Then would I have escaped this great suffering, but now I must abide the time until I go into the land of midnight darkness (Job 10:18-22 ).
The substance of Zophar’s first speech is this:
1. What you have received is not as much as you deserve; you are full of talk and boastful; you are self-righteous and need this rebuke from God (Job 11:1-6 ).
2. You cannot find out God; he is far beyond man; he is all-powerful and omniscient; man is as void of understanding as a wild ass’s colt (Job 11:7-12 ).
3. Put away your wickedness; you need to get right and then you will be blessed; you should set your heart and house in order, then all will clear up; then you will be protected from the wicked (Job 11:13-20 ).
Job’s reply to the first speech of Zophar embraces three chapters, as follows:
1. No doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you; I am not inferior to you; you mock and do not help; I, though upright, am a laughingstock and you, who are at ease, have contempt for misfortune; God brought this about (Job 12:1-6 ).
2. Learn the lessons from nature; the beasts, the birds, the earth, and the fishes can teach thee; everybody knows these things; the ear tries words and the palate tastes food, and wisdom is learned by age (Job 12:7-12 ).
3. God is the source of wisdom and power; he deals wisely with all men; he debases and he exalts (Job 12:13-25 ).
4. I understand it all as well as you; ye are forgers of lies; ye are physicians of no value; your silence would be wisdom; you speak wickedly for God, therefore your sayings are proverbs of ashes and your defenses are defenses of clay (Job 13:1-12 )
5. Why should I take my life in my hand thus? I want to be vindicated before I die; “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”; I know that I am righteous; therefore I have hope (Job 13:13-19 ).
6. He pleads his cause with God; he asks two things of God, viz: (1) that he would put an end to his bodily suffering and (2) that he would abstain from terrifying him; then he challenges God to call him; then he interrogates God relative to his sins, God’s attitude toward him and his dealings with him; and finally charges God with unjust dealings with him (Job 13:20-28 ).
7. Man that is born of woman is frail and sinful; man’s weakness should excite pity with the Almighty; that which is born of an unclean thing is unclean and since a man’s days and months are numbered, why not turn from him as an hireling and let him rest (Job 14:1-6 ).
8. The hope of a tree, though it be cut down, is that it will sprout again but man’s destiny to lie down in death and rise no more till the heavens pass away should be a cause for mercy from God (Job 14:7-12 ).
9. In despair of recovery in this life Job again prays for death; that God would hide him in the grave till his wrath be past; that he would appoint him a day, in the hope that if he should die he would live again; his destiny is in God’s hands and therefore he is hopeless for this life (Job 14:13-17 ).
10. Like the mountain falling, the rock being removed out of its place and waters wearing away the stones, the hope of man for this life is destroyed by the providences of God; man is driven by them into oblivion; his sufferings become so great that only for himself his flesh has pain and only for himself his soul mourns (Job 14:18-22 ).
In this round of speeches the three friends have followed their philosophy of cause and effect and thus reasoning that all suffering is the effect of sin, they have, by insinuations, charged Job of sin, but they do not specify what it is. Job denies the general charge and in a rather bad spirit refutes their arguments and hits back at them some terriffic blows. He is driven to the depths of despair at the climax of the moral tragedy where he attributes all the malice, cunning, and injustice he had felt in the whole transaction to God as his adversary. They exhort him to repent and seek God, but he denies that he has sinned; he says that he cannot contend with the Almighty because he is too high above him, too powerful, and that there is no umpire, or daysman, between them. Here Job is made to feel the need of a revelation from God explaining all the mysteries of his providence. In this trial of Job we have ‘Satan’s partial victory over him -where he led Job to attribute the evils that had come upon him to God. This is the downfall in Job’s wrestle with Satan. He did not get on top of Job but gave him a great deal of worry. We will see Job triumphing more and more as he goes on in the contest.
QUESTIONS 1. What the points of Eliphaz’s first speech?
2. What things are notable in this first speech of Eliphaz?
3. What the points of Job’s reply (Job 6-7)?
4. What the substance of Bildad’s first speech?
5. What the substance of Job’s reply?
6. What the substance of Zophar’s first speech?
7. What Job’s reply?
8. Give a summary of the proceedings and results of the first round.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Job 13:1 Lo, mine eye hath seen all [this], mine ear hath heard and understood it.
Ver. 1. Lo, mine eye hath seen all this ] sc. All those effects of God’s providence, declared in the former chapter. I have not discoursed about God’s powerful and wise dispensation by rote, or without book; I have not blurted out what I believe not, or am not able to prove, as you have accused me; I have spoken both that which I have seen (and what is more sure than sight?) and that which I have heard and received from our ancestors and doctors (to whom you have frequently referred me, for better information). Mine ear, that sense of discipline, by which not learning only, but life also, entereth, Isa 55:3 , hath heard it, and understood it too; which he addeth for further assurance. Job was a weighing hearer, as Mr Bradshaw was called the weighing divine (Mr Clark, in his Life). Let us learn by his example heedfully to observe God’s works, laying up experiences, and diligently to listen and learn the things that are taught us, or written for us by others, that we may grow to a right and ripe understanding of divine truths, and be able confidently to commend the same to others, as being upon sure grounds. See Mat 13:51-52 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job Chapter 13
But now he says (Job 13 ), “Lo, mine eye hath seen all this” – “you have been boasting of what the ancients had all thought” – “mine ear hath heard and understood it. What ye know, the same do I know also; I am not inferior to you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.” That is just what he was doing. But how? He did not know. There was not the New Testament yet. There was not One to stand between God and man, like Christ. So he did not know how to get at Him. If he could only find Him; if he could only be before Him! He knew very well what he would find there – a faithful God. But somehow or other there were difficulties and riddles between God and his soul that he could not understand. He says, “But ye are forgers of lies.” You see all their arguments were founded upon man and upon the world. Everything that a believer stands upon is what is in God, and what God gives and reveals. And there we find it, in all its perfection, in Christ. But they were all resting upon man’s thoughts and man’s experience, and the like. And further he says, “Ye are all physicians of no value.” You have come to heal me; you have heard of my terrible state; you came to heal and cure me in my dreadful sickness and suffering, and what have you done? Why, you have poured poison upon my wounds; you have poured no wine, no oil. No balm have you poured upon the poor sufferer.
“Oh, that ye would altogether hold your peace I and it should be your wisdom.” And it often is a man’s wisdom when he sits quiet and holds his tongue. But directly he begins to speak about what he does not understand – well, what then? That is exactly where they were. “Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?” That is what they had been doing. They pretended this to be for God. “Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? Is it good that he should search you out?” Well, that is what He did. “Or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? He will surely reprove you.” How remarkably that was fulfilled! “He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons” – and that is what they were doing. They were accepting persons falsely – according to appearance. “Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak. and let come on me what will.” Now here I am, ready to bear whatever God sends. I feel the awfulness of it, and the terrors of God are on my soul; but here I am; let him do as seemeth good in his sight “Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”
There was a far deeper faith in Job than in all the other three, or in any of them. He did not mean, ‘though I am lost.’ Oh no, he had no idea of that. “Though he slay me” – he knew that the best thing was not life on the earth; he is learning that; but the best thing is the life to come. There it would be all according to God; but here it is in confusion, and in every kind of moral anomaly. “He also shall be my salvation” – he has no doubt about that – “for an hypocrite shall not come before him.” He was very far from that. I do not say that they were hypocrites; but certainly they talked very badly, for men of piety, to Job. “Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.” That is, it was a relief to him, in the agony that he was passing through, to speak out; and all he wanted was to be put right if he was wrong. He says now, “Only do not two things unto me; then will I not hide myself from thee. Withdraw thine hand far from me” – the outward thing – “and let not thy dread” – the inward – “make me afraid: then call thou, and I will answer” – and so he did – “or let me speak, and answer thou me. How many are mine iniquities and sins? “
Did he say that there was no sin in him? He never said anything of the kind; he never had the presumption to say, “I am clean in thine eyes.” No, no, far from it. Unfortunately he had rather rested in his cleanness in his own eyes, and in the eyes of other people; but he had to learn that it was a very different thing to be clean in God’s eyes. He begins to learn that more and more deeply. “Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro?” Was that a person pretending to any strength? “And wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth” – it may be that they are coming upon me now. “Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks” – you make me an object of shame before everybody – “and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.” That might have been thought to be hidden – “the heels of my feet”; but no, everything is marked. “And he, as a rotten thing consumeth, as a garment that is moth-eaten.”
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Lo. Figure of speech Asterismos. App-6.
all this. Some codices, with Syriac and Vulgate, read “all these things”. Compare Job 33:29.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 13
Lo, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood. Now what you know, the same I also know. I am not inferior to you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I would desire to reason with God ( Job 13:1-3 ).
Tell me to stretch out my hands to God. I’d love to. I’d love to reason with God. But you guys…
You’re a bunch of forgers of lies, you are physicians of no value. Oh that you would altogether hold your peace! and it should be to your wisdom ( Job 13:4-5 ).
If you’d just keep silent, then people would think you’re smart, maybe. Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re a fool than open it and remove all their doubts.
Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleading of my lips. Will you speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? ( Job 13:6-7 )
Oh, how many times this is being done, even today. People speaking wickedly for God. In other words, they’re speaking supposedly for God, but what they are saying is off the wall. God said, “Woe unto that prophet that saith, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ when I have not spoken.” And there’s a lot of that going on today. People speaking, supposedly, in the name of God, and speaking for God, when God hasn’t spoken. In James we are told, “Be not many teachers, knowing that you will receive the greater condemnation” ( Jas 3:1 ). You see, as I stand here before you tonight, I stand here as God’s representative. As I speak of God and for God, I must be careful that I speak the truth about God lest you get a false concept of God and then I’m responsible, because you’ve got a false idea or a false concept concerning God.
Now there are some people who are supposedly representing God, but they are falsely representing God. Because if you listen to them, you’ll think that God is broke. And He’s going out of business tomorrow unless you respond immediately today. God is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. And His program is going to fail, this great plan of God is about to go under, and God can’t take care of Himself and He’s depending on you to bail Him out with your offering of $25.00, immediately. Speaking deceitfully for God.
My son wants to understand a little bit about the radio ministries because he’s in charge of the Word For Today ministry and our radio outreach ministry. He has written into a lot of the radio ministries in order to find out what literature they send out and things of this nature. And he writes in, in the name of Benny Smith and gives, of course, our address. And so we’re always getting these letters for Benny Smith. Well, that’s not so bad, except that we get letters that read like this: “Dear Benny, The Lord has laid you on my heart today and I’ve been spending time fasting and praying for you because the Lord has revealed that you are going through a special problem at this time.” Now that’s speaking deceitfully for the Lord, because Benny Smith doesn’t exist. “Now please write and tell me your problem and enclose a special offering for my ministry.”
Even these men who tell you how to be prosperous, and tell you if you only believed, you can have great prosperity, wrote Benny a letter this week. And if he’ll just respond with a $25.00 offering at this time, God’s work can be greatly expanded and this glorious truth of prosperity can be heard by many more people. It just doesn’t add up. Speaking deceitfully for God. Oh, how I would hate to be in that position.
And so Job rebukes them because they had been speaking deceitfully for God.
Will you accept his person? will you contend for God? ( Job 13:8 )
Will you fight for God? God doesn’t need you to fight for Him. God doesn’t need you to defend Him. Perfectly capable of defending Himself.
Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do you so mock him? He will surely reprove you, if you do secretly accept persons. Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? ( Job 13:9-11 )
Now a little further down the line, God finally does speak when we get to chapter 38. And when He does speak, He does exactly what Job said; He reproves these counselors. I mean God really lays one on them for all of the things that they had been saying to Job. And God finally says, “You ask Job to pray for you or you’re in big, big trouble.” And so Job says, “God’s going to reprove you, man. You’re speaking all these things for God.”
Now Job here gives some of the ancient proverbs with verse Job 13:12 :
Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let it come on me what will. Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain my own ways before him. He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him ( Job 13:12-16 ).
Oh, this is to me a depth of faith. Here is the guy, he’s in as bad a shape as anybody could ever be. I mean, you think you’ve had it bad? You think you’ve gone through some rough times? Job had it worse than any man could ever have it, and yet, in this place, he says, “Hey, even though He slays me, I’m going to serve Him.”
Now how deep is your commitment to God? A lot of people, as long as things are going well, “You bet I serve Him.” Things start to turn a bit and you get a little vacillating. Job is in the pit and he says, “Though He slay me.” That’s real commitment. And that’s the kind of commitment we need. No matter what happens I’m going to serve God. Though I be stripped, though I be emptied, I’m still going to serve God. I’m going to trust God. That’s the kind of trust that we need to have. Because when you have the kind of trust, then you have rest in your life. It’s in God’s hands and you can rest. Otherwise things are going to upset you. They’re going to get you all disturbed. But if you have that kind of confidence, that my life is in God’s hand, and even though He slays me, I’ll trust Him, then you can’t be shaken.
And then Job said, “He shall also be my salvation. He’s going to deliver me.”
Hear diligently my speech. Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified. Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I’ll die. Only do not two things unto me; then will I not hide myself from thee. Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid ( Job 13:17-21 ).
Just get out of here and don’t terrify me with your fears.
Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me. How many are my iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin ( Job 13:22-23 ).
You say I’m such a horrible sinner and all, how many? Show them to me. Reveal them to me.
I went through a long period of my own Christian experience when I was trying to be righteous enough to be accepted and approved by God. I was desiring to receive what was termed “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” And well-meaning evangelists and all would say, “But God will not fill an unclean vessel. You’ve got to clean up your act, you know, if you’re going to be filled with the Spirit of God, because He is a Holy Spirit and He won’t enter an unholy vessel.” So I was doing my best to clean up my act. As I was asking God to fill me with the Holy Spirit, of course I would confess all my sins and I heard people say, “When I took my cigarettes out and laid them on the altar and said, ‘God, there they are, you know, I’m through.’ Then God filled me with the Holy Spirit.” “When I told God, ‘I’ll never take another drink,’ then God filled me with the Holy Spirit.” “When I said, ‘God, I’ll go to China,’ then God filled me with the Holy Spirit.” Well, my problem was I never did smoke, so I couldn’t lay my cigarettes down. Nor did I ever drink, so I couldn’t give up booze. And I told God I’d go to China. And I actually would confess everything that I could think of that I did wrong and ask God’s forgiveness. And made all kinds of promises of, you know, “I’ll do better. I’ll pray more. I’ll read more. I’ll study more.” But still I didn’t receive. Now it really troubled me because I had a buddy who did receive and I knew he was smoking cigarettes and that was not fair because I was much more righteous than he was. And he actually went to shows too. And I didn’t do that. I was so much more righteous than he was. I couldn’t understand how in the world he would receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit on his life and I didn’t. And I had a difficult time. And I would pray, “God, show me. Show me what’s wrong. Show me my sin.”
And here’s Job with his friends, “Hey, you’re a horrible sinner, man. This wouldn’t happen to you unless you’re a really rank sinner.” And Job says, “All right. Just show them to me. Show me where I’m…you know, you say I’m a sinner, then point them out. Help me out. Point them out to me.” And they say, “Well, they’re secret, Job. You’re hiding them, Job. We can’t see them, but they’re surely there.” And then Job said,
Why do you hide your face ( Job 13:24 ),
Now you have to realize that this is Oriental culture, culture of the Mid-East. You have to actually go over there and watch these people in their arguments to really appreciate this fully. I mean, they don’t just say things to each other, they’re always yelling at each other. It’s interesting, you see people talking and you think, surely, there’s going to be a fistfight any minute now, because they’re just standing there yelling. I think even the language sounds vicious, you know. You don’t understand what they’re saying, but they’re just standing there yelling. But they not only yell, they shake their heads, they shake their hands, and they’re just all full of gestures and gyrations.
And so this is the way these things are going on with Job. And so when Job gets to this point, he says, “Just show me.” And they go, “Ohh, noo.” And so Job says, “Why are you hiding your face?” A little later on, he’ll speak of other gestures that are being, you know, demonstrated. So to get a full mental picture, you’ve got to see this thing with a bunch of actions and yelling and all. They’re not just talking to each another, they’re yelling at each another. These accusations and all, and this is really a lively interchange that is going on here, full of all kinds of “ahh,” covering their mouth and other (noises and expansive gestures). And Job speaks of these actions, you know, these phony actions, “Oh no,” and all of this. So here Job said,
Why are you hiding your face, and why do you hold me for your enemy? Will you break a leaf that is driven to and fro? will you pursue the dry stubble? For you write bitter things against me, and you make me to possess the iniquities of my youth. You put my feet also in the stocks, and look narrowly unto all my paths; and you set a print upon the heels of my feet. As he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth-eaten ( Job 13:24-28 ). “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Job 13:1-12
Introduction
Job 13
JOB’S FOURTH DISCOURSE CONTINUED
There are three divisions in this chapter: (1) He accuses his “comforters” of forging lies (Job 13:1-12); (2) he again affirms his uprightness and righteousness (Job 13:13-19); and (3) he proclaimed his submissiveness to God’s will (Job 13:20-28). This third paragraph was called by Scherer, “A new attack upon God”; but, of course, it is no such thing.
Job 13:1-12
JOB DENIES THAT HIS FRIENDS’ ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE
“Lo, mine eye hath seen all this,
Mine ear hath heard and understood it.
What ye know, the same do I know also:
I am not inferior to you.
Surely I would speak to the Almighty,
And I desire to reason with God.
But ye are forgers of lies;
Ye are all physicians of no value.
Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace!
And it would be your wisdom.
Hear now my reasoning,
And hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
Will ye speak unrighteously for God,
And talk deceitfully for him?
Will ye show partiality to him?
Will ye contend for God?
Is it good that he should search you out?
Or, as one deceiveth a man, will ye deceive him?
He will surely reprove you,
If ye do secretly show partiality.
Shall not his majesty make you afraid,
And his dread fall upon you?
Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes.
Your defenses are defenses of clay.”
“Ye are forgers of lies” (Job 13:4). This is the topic sentence of the whole paragraph. Literature has no more severe a castigation of irresponsible language than this which Job here heaped upon his friends. He called them physicians of no value (Job 13:4), stated that their silence had more wisdom in it than their words (Job 13:5), indicated that they were speaking unrighteously and deceitfully for God (Job 13:7), noted that God would certainly reprove them (Job 13:10), flatly declared that their proverbs were proverbs of ashes, and that their defenses were defenses of clay (Job 13:12).
“Will ye show partiality … contend for God” (Job 13:8)? Job here spoke of their untruthful allegation that God always dealt with men in this life according to their character, a crooked proposition indeed, as proved by God’s great blessings upon thieves, robbers, and all kinds of wicked men. In the view of his friends, they were defending God’s honor in this affirmation; but in these last few verses of the paragraph, Job appealed to their consciences, that in the majesty of God and their fear of him, they should be ashamed and afraid to defend such a lie.
JOB AGAIN AFFIRMS THAT HE IS RIGHTEOUS
In these affirmations, Job does not claim sinless perfection; because, he mentioned the iniquities of his youth (Job 13:26). What he does affirm is that the terrible misfortunes which have come upon him could not possibly have resulted from any gross wickedness on his part. In the concluding revelation, God Himself allowed the fact of Job’s righteousness (Job 42).
E.M. Zerr:
Job 13:1-2. Job stated what has been observed from the beginning of this story, that the friends said many things that were true but he already knew them; also, they had no bearing on the case in controversy. The few assertions that might have been a basis for an argument were not true.
Job 13:3. Job would prefer to make his appeal to God, for he would be given due consideration in the hearing, and not be misrepresented as the friends were doing.
Job 13:4. Using the physician as the illustration Job likened his friends to one who entered a case without the remedy necessary to it.
Job 13:5. They would show more wisdom by keeping silent than by their talking, since what they said was false in most particulars; this thought is also in Pro 17:28.
Job 13:6-7. God does not need the assistance of any man, much less one who would use deceit in his speech.
Job 13:8-9. The friends professed to be in harmony with God. Job’s proposition was that they come to “close quarters” with him and see if their contentions would stand the test of the divine scrutiny.
Job 13:10. If they insist on attacking Job at close range while remaining at a safe distance from God, it is likely they would justify a wicked man if they could do so secretly and also at a safe distance from God.
Job 13:11-12. This paragraph is a rebuke to these men for their lack of respect for the Lord. They were forgetful of the many evidences of God’s greatness. He compared their fickle memories to ashes and clay.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Continuing his answer, Job restated his conviction that his knowledge was not inferior to theirs, and declared that his appeal was to God (1-3). Before making this appeal there is an introductory passage in which he first addressed himself to them in terms of anger (4-12), and then avowed his determination to make his appeal directly to God, and urged two conditions. His contempt for his friends as they are revealed in their attitude toward him knows no bounds. He described them as “forgers of lies,” and “physicians of no value”; and proceeded to turn their argument back upon them. They had declared that God is righteous, and visits men according to their deeds. They had been speaking unrighteously for God, and therefore must accept His judgment upon themselves. He finally dismissed all their argument as “proverbs of ashes.” Announcing his determination to appeal to God, even though God slay him in this determination, he found some comfort in believing that the godless cannot be heard. He urged two conditions: first, that God withdraw His hand from him; and, second, that He not make him afraid by His terror.
After these preliminary matters, Job’s speech becomes a direct appeal to God. He first demanded to know his sins, and why God dealt with him as a leaf, as a moth-eaten garment.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Though He Slay Me
Job 13:1-28
The sufferer first rebukes his friends, Job 13:4-12. Then he makes an appeal to God, affirming that he was no hypocrite, and asking that his sins, for which he was suffering, might be set down, Job 13:23.
When Job said that he knew himself to be righteous, he was clearly speaking of known sin; he knew, so far as a man may know himself, that he had not committed the sins of which his friends charged him. He could bare his life to the inspection of men and angels, being sure that no accusation of which human law-courts would take cognizance could be established against him. But this is a very different matter with the divine tribunal. When a fuller light had shone upon him from the face of God, when the patriarch had seen Him instead of merely hearing of Him by the ear, then he would abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes, Job 42:5-6.
Job 13:15 is almost the greatest sentence ever uttered by mortal lips! Let us ask for grace to affirm it.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Job 13:15
The object of the writer of the book of Job is to discuss a question which, from its interest no less than its obscurity, has been the subject of debate and anxiety in all ages: What is the precise connection between sin and suffering?-a question which loses itself in turn in the still more mysterious inquiry, How could a God of love permit the existence of evil?
I. It was a doctrine of that age and country (a doctrine not without an element of truth, and one naturally growing up in a primitive form of life) that God proportioned a man’s sufferings to the heinousness of his personal transgressions. If this doctrine were true in the case of Job, it plainly proved that he was a perfect monster of iniquity. But the author has already allowed us to see that this is not the fact, and therefore we must look upon the case of Job as a conclusive refutation of the popular Arabian theory.
II. Job’s friends turn about everywhere within the narrow circle of their original syllogism, Personal suffering is the punishment of personal sin. Job suffers; therefore he has sinned. The doctrine is passed through different minds-through that of Eliphaz, the grave and dignified patriarchal chieftain, the man of practical wisdom and large charity; through that of Bildad, the man of precedent and tradition, distrustful of talent and apprehensive of change; through that of Zophar, the passionate and unreasoning conservative, narrow in his conceptions, bitter, and sometimes even coarse and offensive, in his invective. The minds are different, but the doctrine is the same. It is out of the terrible struggle thus produced in the heart of Job, as he storms forth for light and comfort out of this prison of condemnation, that the life and sufferings of the patriarch yield to us their instruction. Feeling out in the darkness, he discovers three particulars with respect to which it has become matter of imperative necessity that he shall get new light. (1) As to the meaning of human suffering. Job knew, not only through the teaching of his own experience, but through observation of the course of the world, that it was not only the guilty, but far more frequently the helpless, who suffered; it was not only the righteous, but very frequently at least the notoriously wicked, who prospered. Job urged these facts with a point and force which ought to have extorted concession from his adversaries. (2) As to the duration of human existence. Out of the dark night of Job’s sorrow, there shone forth for him the bright dayspring of immortality. (3) As to the true character of God. In the disorder and divergence of his thoughts there would seem almost to arise for him the image of two Gods: the God of the old time and the God of the new, a duality involving that seeming contradiction between justice and love which only the sacrifice of the Cross could abolish. Hence there follows, from this peculiarity in his spiritual position, that striking resemblance between Job and the suffering Messiah which a man must almost be blind to overlook. By throwing on the type the light of the antitype we see the great lesson of Job’s life, that God’s justice is an attribute not merely which doles out gifts to the good, but which seeks to transform all men into its own likeness. Justice going forth in the message of the Cross and working in men the remorse of a just hatred of sin-that is the redeeming justice of our God and Father in Christ Jesus.
Bishop Moorhouse, Oxford Lent Sermons, 1869, p. 151.
I. The first trials by which God would win us back to Himself are often not the severest. Near as they touch us, they are most often without us. They reach not the soul’s inmost self. God’s very chastisement is a token to the soul that it is not abandoned.
II. Deeper and more difficult far are those sorrows wherewith God afflicts the very soul herself and in divers ways “makes her to possess her former iniquities.” Manifold are those clouds whereby God hides for the time the brightness of His presence; yet one character they have in common, that the soul can hardly believe itself in a state of grace.
III. Faint not, weary soul, but trust. If thou canst not hope, act as thou wouldst if thou didst hope. Without Him thou couldst not even hate thy sin. Hatred of what in thyself is contrary to God is love of God. If thou canst not love with the affections, love with the will, or will to love. If thou canst not love as thou wouldst, do what thou canst. If thy heart seems to have died within thee, cleave to God with the understanding.
IV. “If He slay me, I will trust in Him.” Not “although” only, but because He slayeth me. It is life to be touched by the hand of God; to be slain is, through the Cross of Christ, the pledge of the resurrection.
E. B. Pusey, Occasional Sermons, p. 41.
I. What did Job mean when he said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”? (1) Trust in God is built on acquaintance with God. (2) Trust in God is begotten of belief in the representations which are given of God, and of faith in the promises of God. (3) Trust in God is a fruit of reconciliation with God. (4) Trust in God involves the quiet assurance that God will be all that He promises to be, and that He will do all that He engages to do, and that in giving and withholding He will do that which is perfectly kind and right.
II. We may safely copy this most patient of men, and for the following reasons: (1) God does not afflict willingly; (2) God has not exhausted Himself by any former deliverance; (3) in all that affects His saints God takes a living and loving interest; (4) circumstances can never become mysterious, or complicated, or unmanageable to God; (5) God has in time past slain His saints and yet delivered them.
III. We learn from Job (1) that it is well sometimes to imagine the heaviest possible affliction happening to us; (2) that the perfect work of patience is the working of patience to the uttermost; (3) that the extreme of trial should call forth the perfection of trust; (4) that the spirit of trust is the spirit of endurance; (5) that true trust respects all events and all Divine dispensations.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 4th series, No. 8.
References: Job 13:15.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1244; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 56; J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iv., p. 117; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 291; F. E. Paget, Sermons on the Duties of Daily Life, p. 187. Job 13:22.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1255.
Job 13:23
There is a sense in which every one knows that he is a sinner. Every one admits it, just as he admits any abstract Scriptural truth. But a man of the world looks upon sin rather in its relation to himself and its relation to other people than in its relation to God-how it is ungrateful to God, how it grieves God, how it wounds Christ, how it offends the Holy Ghost. Neither does he measure sin by its true measurement, that whatever has not a pious motive, whatever does not give honour to God, whatever comes short of the glory of God, is sin. The practical question for us is this: How is the knowledge of sin to be attained?
I. It is the province of the Holy Ghost. He, and He alone, ever shows a man his sins. Therefore Christ spoke of it as the Spirit’s first great office. “When He is come, He will reprove the world of sin.”
II. By the Law is the knowledge of sin. The Law becomes the schoolmaster, which, convincing us of sin, leads, or rather drives, us to Christ.
III. The Gospel of Jesus Christ convinces us of sin. We often learn the extent of an evil by the intensity of the remedy which is used to relieve it. What a remedy was the death of the Son of God! What an unutterable evil then sin must be!
IV. There is a knowledge of sin by sin itself. Very frequently a man is first taught to read himself by one of his deeper falls. In order to know sin, we must (1) pray for more light to be thrown on our dark hearts; (2) leave the cold, uninfluential generalities about sin, and deal with some particular sin that has power over ourselves; (3) think of the holiness of God till all that is unlike Him begins to look dark; (4) believe in the love of Jesus to us: realise, if it be only in the smallest degree, that there is a power in Him, and that power is for us.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 6th series, p. 9.
References: Job 13:23.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 336; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 189; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 151. Job 13:24.-T. Martineau, Hours of Thought, vol. i., p. 315. Job 13:24, Job 13:25.-R. Allen Davies, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 225. Job 13:26.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 129; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 97. Job 14:4.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 37.
Job 13:26
I. Shadows are suffered to fall on us, and to overcast a while the brightness of God’s firmament, partly to show us what hell is, and to make us flee from it.
II. These afflictions, which are such a fiery trial to some of us, are in truth too often the shadows of our former sins.
III. We must bear in mind that these are departing shadows if only we are doing truth now and drawing nigh to Him who illuminates us with the brightness of His presence.
IV. Continuance in the good fight of faith, however overclouded for a time, “shall bring a man peace at the last.”
G. E. Jelf, Make up for Lost Time, p. 233.
References: Job 14:1.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 70. Job 14:1, Job 14:2.-R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, 3rd series, p. 130. Job 14:4.-Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 124. Job 14:10.-D. G. Watt, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 260. Job 14:13-15.-G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, 2nd series, p. 207.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Lo: Job 5:9-16, Job 12:9-25, Job 42:3-6
ear: Job 4:12, Job 5:27, Job 8:8-10, Job 15:17, Job 15:18, Psa 78:3, Psa 78:4, 1Jo 1:3
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 13:1. Lo, mine eye hath seen all this All this which either you or I have discoursed concerning the infinite power and wisdom of God, I know, both by seeing it, by my own observation and experience, and by hearing it from my ancestors.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 13:4. Forgers of lies, misconstruing the ways of providence.
Job 13:10, He will surely reprove you, though under a specious veil you accept of persons.
Job 13:12. Your remembrances are like ashes. Your treasured wisdom is vain, and profiteth not. Your bodiesof clay; profecto dorsa vestra sunt dorsa luti; truly your backs are backs of clay. The sense is, If God touch you, nothing remains of your glory but ashes; if he lay his rod on your back, you are trampled as clay beneath his feet.
Job 13:15. Though he slay me. So the Vulgate reads; but the LXX read, Though he the Mighty oppress meyet will I speak, and argue before him. This was a divine confidence, the most surprising in its character. It shows how faith can support the mind in the prospect of death.
Job 13:25. Wilt thou break a leaf. The ancients used the most impressive figures of humiliation in speaking to their Maker, and in addressing princes under afflictive circumstances. David calls himself, in the presence of Saul, a fleaa dead dog.
Job 13:27. In the stocks: clogs of wood and iron by which the feet of prisoners were held.
Job 13:28. And he, ipse. The third person is here, used, in reference perhaps to Job 13:25, where man is like a leaf driven by the wind; or as in the next words, consumed like a garment.
REFLECTIONS.
We have here a specimen of the plain dealing which existed in early society. Truth was at all times more revered than men. Job having asserted his equality of knowledge with his friends, and boldly controverted their maxims, felt a consciousness of victory in his own breast; and the more so, as this embarrassment had made Zophar angry. He then longs to speak to God; for men by misconstruing providence were forgers of lies, and physicians of no value; they could neither comfort the mind, nor cure the body. In all cases of anguish and grief, recourse to God by faith and prayer is our best wisdom, and our first duty. We are here taught that Gods providence needs no falsehood or accommodating glosses to clear up its difficulties. Will ye speak wickedly and talk deceitfully for God? He will say, hold your peace. It is your wisdom so to do; for the paths of providence cannot be perceived till the dark clouds are cleared up. Wherefore, though he slay me I will trust in him, and plead my cause before him. Yes, for while we hope we have comfort; but on yielding to despair, nothing but gloom and terror prey upon the spirits. So David, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: and then we know that we shall be justified in the issue.
Job, on finding enlargement of soul, had two requests to make; the one for temporal, the other for spiritual good. He prayed that God would withdraw his afflicting hand from the body, and his terrors from the soul: yet surely the latter are far more grievous than the former. How valuable is a spotless confidence, and peculiarly so to afflicted souls. The good mans faith is much encreased when he can say with Job, God himself shall be my salvation. Schultens.
Notwithstanding the confidence of Job, he ceased not the less to search for his sins: and in the hallowed language of ancient piety, afflictions and sins were synonimous words. Psa 103:3. Isa 38:17. Though he resisted the arguments of his friends, as to the guilt of atrocious crimes; yet he ceased not to search his conscience for every smaller fault. Young men may learn here a good lesson. If they follow the stream, and give way to sin; notwithstanding reformation and repentance in the day of affliction, all these sins will come to their recollection, and greatly augment their trouble. Happy, thrice happy then is that youth who, guarded by a religious education, is preserved from the crimes and follies common to those who follow the passions and vanities of youth. He shall have the confidence of Job, and the comfort of Hezekiah, in the day of visitation.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 13:1-12. Job has shown that he can speak of Gods working in the world; the friends, however, offer an apology for God, which He Himself must reject. I am not inferior to you in knowledge, says Job (Job 13:2). But I would speak and reason with Godthis you do not understand (Job 13:3). The friends had failed to diagnose his case (Job 13:4); his want is a fresh Divine revelation. They are plasterers of lies in their zeal for God. Their best wisdom were silence (Job 13:5) si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses. God, however, will not approve their respect of persons, their partiality in becoming His advocate (Job 13:8). It will not be a pleasant experience for them when God strips bare their paltry souls and shows that which masqueraded as pious reverence to be cowardly sycophancy (Job 13:9). It is noteworthy as showing the conflict of feeling in Job, that while he attacks with the utmost boldness the unrighteousness of Gods conduct he should have such deep-rooted confidence in His righteousness as to believe Him incapable of tolerating a lying defence even of Himself (Peake). Gods appearance will terrify the friends (Job 13:11): how miserable their proverbs, their defences, are (Job 13:12).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
JOB DECLARES HIMSELF FULLY EQUAL TO HIS FRIENDS
(vv.1-12)
Job has spoken at length of God’s wisdom and power, now he tells Zophar that his eye has seen all this, his ear has heard it and understood it. What Zophar knew Job knew also: he was not inferior to his critics (vv.1-2). In fact, what Job has said proves him more knowledgeable than they, so his words in verse 2 are an understatement.
In verse 3 he infers that it was no use talking to them: he wanted to speak to the Almighty, to reason with God, who at least would not be a forger of lies, as they were. They were “worthless physicians,” he said, and would be wise if they kept silent (vv.4-5). He was seeking to reason and to plead with them, but they were not listening, and instead were speaking wickedly on God’s behalf, using deceit in claiming to speak for God. Job knew that God was fully aware that the charges of his friends were not true, so God was certainly not backing them up. Job knew that God was not deceitful, as his friends were proving to be, and when the time came, God would search them out and would surely rebuke them. Of course Job was wondering why God did not intervene immediately, but he asks them a pointed question, “Will not His excellence make you afraid, and the dread of Him fall upon you?” (v.11). Men should deeply fear to misrepresent God whose glory is so high above the heavens. Therefore Job likens their arguments to ashes and to clay (v.12).
JOB PLEADS FOR A LISTENING AUDIENCE
(vv.13-19)
Having exposed his friends’ ignorance, Job asks them to keep quiet and listen to him. Actually, he could not give them the answer to the many questions that troubled him, but he could show them that their answers were empty and wrong. At least, he wants time to speak, then “let come on me what may” (v.13), Perhaps he had the faint hope that it might be so. He asks them, “Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hands?” (v.14). Did his friends consider why he would so expose himself to their ridicule and criticism? Was there not a reason for this? In fact, he declares positively that though God would slay him, yet he would trust Him. Did his trust in God indicate that he was guilty of hidden sin? No! he says, I will defend my own ways, before Him” (v.15).
Would God desert him? No! God would be his salvation. He was fully confident of this, though appearances did not persuade his friends, it was true. If one by sinning was turning away from, God, he would not have such confidence in God as Job had, “for a hypocrite could not come before Him” (v.16). Therefore Job urges his friends (or critics) to listen carefully to what he says. He had not been haphazard in preparing his case for judgment, but was fully certain his case deserved careful consideration, for he says, “I know I shall be vindicated” (v.18). Doubtless it was true he would be vindicated in the eyes of men eventually, but in the eyes of God it is a different matter, as Job acknowledges in chapter 42:5-6, when his case was fully considered before God. Meanwhile he questions who could rightly contend with him, for his friends’ contentions were empty. He felt it needful to defend himself – or perish (v.19). How different were his words when God spoke directly to him: “I lay my hand over my mouth” (ch.40:4), that is, he held his tongue.
A PRAYER OF DESPERATION
(vv.20-27)
After answering his friends’ accusations, Job resorts again to prayer. Was this not because he could expect no understanding from his friends? Where could he find help but in God?
He asks, “Only two things do not do to me” (v.20). If so, then Job would not try to hide from God. First, “Withdraw your hand far from me,” that is, do not continue this trying affliction that Job felt he could not stand; and secondly, “let not the dread of You make me afraid” (v.21). He did not want to be terrified by the contemplation of the glory of God.
Was there not a possibility of some communication with God? Either let God call him and let Job answer, or let Job speak and God respond to him (v.22). He asks God, “How many are my iniquities and sins?” His friends had accused him of sinning, but God knew just how many were his sins. Of course it was not because of Job’s sins that he was afflicted, but neither he nor his friends could think of any other reason for it. Was there some hidden guilt that Job was not aware of? Then let God reveal this to Job.
The fact that God did not respond seemed to Job that God considered Job to be His enemy (v.24). He compared himself to a leaf or to dry stubble, not worth any attention. Why would God frighten an object so insignificant? He felt that God was writing bitter things against Him – not literally, but at least in effect, and that he was bringing up the sins of Job’s youth, for his more recent sins would not be as flagrant as those of his youth (v.26). Verse 27 intimates that God was confining Job to painful limitations. Verse 28 is true concerning all mankind, but Job was thinking of himself as in a state of decay and complaining about it. But sin is inherent in our nature received from Adam, and we cannot escape the resulting decay, which ends in death.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
XII.
BEYOND FACT AND FEAR TO GOD
Job 12:1-25; Job 13:1-28; Job 14:1-22
Job SPEAKS
ZOPHAR excites in Jobs mind great irritation, which must not be set down altogether to the fact that he is the third to speak. In some respects he has made the best attack from the old position, pressing most upon the conscience of Job. He has also used a curt positive tone in setting out the method and principle of Divine government and the judgment he has formed of his friends state. Job is accordingly the more impatient, if not disconcerted. Zophar had spoken of the want of understanding Job had shown, and the penetrating wisdom of God which at a glance convicts men of iniquity. His tone provoked resentment. Who is this that claims to have solved the enigmas of providence, to have gone into the depths of wisdom? Does he know any more, he himself, than the wild asss colt?
And Job begins with stringent irony-
“No doubt but ye are the people
And wisdom shall die with you.
The secrets of thought, of revelation itself are yours. No doubt the world waited to be taught till you were born. Do you not think so? But, after all, I also have a share of understanding, I am not quite so void of intellect as you seem to fancy. Besides, who knoweth not such things as ye speak? Are they new? I had supposed them to be commonplaces. Yea, if you recall what I said, you will find that with a little more vigour than yours I made the same declarations.
“A laughing stock to his neighbours am I,
I who called upon Eloah and He answered me, –
A laughing stock, the righteous and perfect man.”
Job sees or thinks he sees that his misery makes him an object of contempt to men who once gave him the credit of far greater wisdom and goodness than their own. They are bringing out old notions, which are utterly useless, to explain the ways of God; they assume the place of teachers; they are far better, far wiser now than he. It is more than flesh can bear.
As he looks at his own diseased body and feels again his weakness, the cruelty of the conventional judgment stings him. “In the thought of him that is at ease there is for misfortune scorn; it awaiteth them that slip with the foot.” Perhaps Job was mistaken, but it is too often true that the man who fails in a social sense is the man suspected. Evil things are found in him when he is covered with the dust of misfortune, things which no one dreamed of before. Flatterers become critics and judges. They find that he has a bad heart or that he is a fool.
But if those very good and wise friends of Job are astonished at anything previously said, they shall be more astonished. The facts which their account of Divine providence very carefully avoided as inconvenient Job will blurt out. They have stated and restated, with utmost complacency, their threadbare theory of the government of God. Let them look now abroad in the world and see what actually goes on, blinking no facts.
The tents of robbers prosper. Out in the desert there are troops of bandits who are never overtaken by justice; and they that provoke God are secure, who carry a god in their hand, whose sword and the reckless daring with which they use it make them to all appearance safe in villainy. These are the things to be accounted for; and, accounting for them, Job launches into a most emphatic argument to prove all that is done in the world strangely and inexplicably to be the doing of God. As to that he will allow no question. His friends shall know that he is sound on this head. And let them provide the defence of Divine righteousness after he has spoken.
Here, however, it is necessary to consider in what way the limitations of Hebrew thought must have been felt by one who, turning from the popular creed, sought a view more in harmony with fact. Now-a-days the word nature is often made to stand for a force or combination of forces conceived of as either entirely or partially independent of God. Tennyson makes the distinction when he speaks of man:
“Who trusted God was love indeed
And love creations final law,
Though nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravin, shrieked against the creed,”
and again when he asks-
“Are God and nature then at strife
That nature lends such evil dreams,
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life?”
Now to this question, perplexing enough on the face of it when we consider what suffering there is in the creation, how the waves of life seem to beat and break themselves age after age on the rocks of death, the answer in its first stage is that God and nature cannot be at strife. They are not apart; there is but one universe, therefore one Cause. One Omnipotent there is whose will is done, whose character is shown in all we see and all we cannot see, the issues of endless strife, the long results of perennial evolution. But then comes the question, What is His character, of what spirit is He who alone rules, who sends after the calm the fierce storm, after the beauty of life the corruption of death? And one may say the struggle between Bible religion and modern science is on this very field.
Cold heartless power, say some; no Father, but an impersonal Will to which men are nothing, human joy and love nothing, to which the fair blossom is no more than the clod, and the holy prayer no better than the vile sneer. On this, faith arises to the struggle. Faith warm and hopeful takes reason into counsel, searches the springs of existence, goes forth into the future and forecasts the end, that it may affirm and reaffirm against all denial that One Omnipotent reigns who is all-loving, the Father of infinite mercy. Here is the arena; here the conflict rages and will rage for many a day. And to him will belong the laurels of the age who, with the Bible in one hand and the instruments of science in the other, effects the reconciliation of faith with fact. Tennyson came with the questions of our day. He passes and has not given a satisfactory answer. Carlyle has gone with the “Everlasting Yea and No” beating through his oracles. Even Browning, a later athlete, did not find complete reason for faith.
“From Thy will stream the worlds, life, and nature, Thy dread sabaoth.”
Now return to Job. He considers nature; he believes in God; he stands firmly on the conviction that all is of God. Hebrew faith held this, and was not limited in holding it, for it is the fact. But we cannot wonder that providence disconcerted him, since the reconcilation of “merciless” nature and the merciful God is not even yet wrought out. Notwithstanding the revelation of Christ, many still find themselves in darkness just when light is most urgently craved. Willing to believe, they yet lean to a dualism which makes God Himself appear in conflict with the scheme of things, thwarted now and now repentant, gracious in design but not always in effect. Now the limitation of the Hebrew was this, that to his idea the infinite power of God was not balanced by infinite mercy, that is, by regard to the whole work of His hands. In one stormy dash after another Job is made to attempt this barrier. At moments he is lifted beyond it, and sees the great universe filled with Divine care that equals power; for the present, however, he distinguishes between merciful intent and merciless, and ascribes both to God.
What does he say? God is in the deceived and in the deceiver; they are both products of nature, that is, creatures of God. He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them. Cities arise and become populous. The great metropolis is filled with its myriads, “among whom are six-score thousand that cannot discern between their right hand and their left.” The city shall fulfil its cycle and perish. It is God. Searching for reconciliation Job looks the facts of human existence right in the face, and he sees a confusion, the whole enigma which lies in the constitution of the world and of the soul. Observe how his thought moves. The beasts, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, all living beings everywhere, not self-created, with no power to shape or resist their destiny, bear witness to the almightiness of God. In His hand is the lower creation; in His hand also, rising higher, is the breath of all mankind. Absolute, universal is that power, dispensing life and death as it broods over the ages. Men have sought to understand the ways of the Great Being. The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat. Is there wisdom with the ancient, those who live long, as Bildad says? Yes: but with God are wisdom and strength; not penetration only, but power. He discerns and does. He demolishes, and there is no rebuilding. Man is imprisoned, shut up by misfortune, by disease. It is Gods decree, and there is no opening till He allows. At His will the waters are dried up; at His will they pour in torrents over the earth. And so amongst men there are currents of evil and good flowing through lives, here in the liar and cheat, there in the victim of knavery; here in the counsellors whose plans come to nothing; there in the judges who sagacity is changed to folly; and all these currents, and cross currents, making life a bewildering maze, have their beginning in the will of God, who seems to take pleasure in doing what is strange and baffling. Kings take men captive; the bonds of the captives are loosed, and the kings themselves are bound. What are princes and priests, what are the mighty to Him? What is the speech of the eloquent? Where is the understanding of the aged when He spreads confusion? Deep as in the very gloom of the grave the ambitious may hide their schemes; the flux of events brings them out to judgment, one cannot foresee how. Nations are raised up and destroyed; the chiefs of the people are made to fear like children. Trusted leaders wander in a wilderness; they grope in midnight gloom; they stagger like the drunken. Behold, says Job, all this I have seen. This is Gods doing. And with this great God he would speak; he, a man, would have things out with the Lord of all. {Job 13:3}
This impetuous passage, full of revolution, disaster, vast mutations, a phantasmagoria of human struggle and defeat, while it supplies a note of time and gives a distinct clue to the writers position as an Israelite, is remarkable for the faith that survives its apparent pessimism. Others have surveyed the world and the history of change, and have protested with their last voice against the cruelty that seemed to rule. As for any God, they could never trust one whose will and power were to be found alike in the craft of the deceiver and the misery of the victim, in the baffling of sincere thought and the overthrow of the honest with the vile. But Job trusts on. Beneath every enigma, he looks for reason; beyond every disaster, to a Divine end. The voices of men have come between him and the voice of the Supreme. Personal disaster has come between him and his sense of God. His thought is not free. If it were, he would catch the reconciling word, his soul would hear the music of eternity. “I would reason with God.” He clings to God-given reason as his instrument of discovery.
Very bold is this whole position, and very reverent also, if you will think of it; far more honouring to God than any attempt of the friends who, as Job says, appear to hold the Almighty no better than a petty chief, so insecure in His position that He must be grateful to any one who will justify His deeds. “Poor God, with nobody to help Him.” Job uses all his irony in exposing the folly of such a religion, the impertinence of presenting it to him as a solution and a help. In short, he tells them, they are pious quacks, and, as he will have none of them for his part, he thinks God will not either. The author is at the very heart of religion here. The word of reproof and correction, the plea for providence must go straight to the reason of man, or it is of no use. The word of the Lord must be a two-edged sword of truth, piercing to the dividing asunder even of soul and spirit. That is to say, into the centre of energy the truth must be driven which kills the spirit of rebellion, so that the will of man, set free, may come into conscious and passionate accord with the will of God. But reconciliation is impossible unless each will deal in the utmost sincerity with truth, realising the facts of existence, the nature of the soul and the great necessities of its discipline. To be true in theology we must not accept what seems to be true, nor speak forensically, but affirm what we have proved in our own life and gathered in utmost effort from Scripture and from nature. Men inherit opinions as they used to inherit garments, or devise them, like clothes of a new fashion, and from within the folds they speak, not as men but as priests, what is the right thing according to a received theory. It will not do. Even of old time a man like the author of Job turned contemptuously from school-made explanations and sought a living word. In our age the number of those whose fever can be lulled with a working theory of religion and a judicious arrangement of the universe is rapidly becoming small. Theology is being driven to look the facts of life full in the face. If the world has learned anything from modern science, it is the habit of rigorous research and the justification of free inquiry, and the lesson will never be unlearned.
To take one error of theology. All men are concluded equally under Gods wrath and curse; then the proofs of the malediction are found in trouble, fear, and pain. But what comes of this teaching? Out in the world, with facts forcing themselves on consciousness, the scheme is found hollow. All are not in trouble and pain. Those who are afflicted and disappointed are often sincere Christians. A theory of deferred judgment and happiness is made for escape; it does not, however, in the least enable one to comprehend how, if pain and trouble be the consequences of sin, they should not be distributed rightly from the first. A universal moral order cannot begin in a manner so doubtful, so very difficult for the wayfaring man to read as he goes. To hold that it can is to turn religion into an occultism which at every point bewilders the simple mind. The theory is one which tends to blunt the sense of sin in those who are prosperous, and to beget that confident Pharisaism which is the curse of church life. On the other hand, the “sacrificed classes,” contrasting their own moral character with that of the frivolous and fleshly rich, are forced to throw over a theology which binds together sin and suffering, and to deny a God whose equity is so far to seek. And yet, again, in the recoil from all this men invent wersh schemes of bland goodwill and comfort, which have simply nothing to do with the facts of life, no basis in the world as we know it, no sense of the rigour of Divine love. So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remain with us and confuse theology until some think it lost in unreason.
“But ye are patchers of lies,
Physicians of nought are ye all.
Oh that ye would only keep silence,
And it should be your wisdom”. {Job 13:4-5}
Job sets them down with a current proverb-“Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.” He begs them to be silent. They shall now hear his rebuke.
“On behalf of God will ye speak wrong?
And for Him will ye speak deceit?
Will ye be partisans for Him?
Or for God will ye contend?”
Job finds them guilty of speaking falsely as special pleaders for God in two respects. They insist that he has offended God, but they cannot point to one sin which he has committed. On the other hand, they affirm positively that God will restore prosperity if confession is made. But in this too they play the part of advocates without warrant. They show great presumption in daring to pledge the Almighty to a course in accordance with their idea of justice. The issue might be what they predict; it might not. They are venturing on ground to which their knowledge does not extend. They think their presumption justified because it is for religions sake. Job administers a sound rebuke, and it extends to our own time. Special pleaders for Gods sovereign and unconditional right and for His illimitable good nature, alike have warning here. What justification have men in affirming that God will work out His problems in detail according to their views? He has given to us the power to apprehend the great principles of His working. He has revealed much in nature, providence, and Scripture, and in Christ; but there is the “hiding of His power,” “His path is in the mighty waters, and His judgments are not known.” Christ has said, “It is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority.” There are certainties of our consciousness, facts of the world and of revelation from which we can argue. Where these confirm, we may dogmatise, and the dogma will strike home. But no piety, no desire to vindicate the Almighty or to convict and convert the sinner, can justify any man in passing beyond the certainty which God has given him to that unknown which lies far above human ken.
“He will surely correct you
If in secret ye are partial.
Shall not His majesty terrify you,
And His dread fall upon you?” {Job 13:10-11}
The Book of Job, while it brands insincerity and loose reasoning, justifies all honest and reverent research. Here, as in the teaching of our Lord, the real heretic is he who is false to his own reason and conscience, to the truth of things as God gives him to apprehend it, who, in short, makes believe to any extent in the sphere of religion. And it is upon this man the terror of the Divine majesty is to fall.
We saw how Bildad established himself on the wisdom of the ancients. Recalling this, Job flings contempt on his traditional sayings.
“Your remembrances are proverbs of ashes,
Your defences, defences of dust.”
Did they mean to smite him with those proverbs as with stones? They were ashes. Did they intrench themselves from the assaults of reason behind old suppositions? Their ramparts were mere dust. Once more he bids them hold their peace, and let him alone that he may speak out all that is in his mind. It is, he knows at the hazard of his life he goes forward; but he will. The case in which he is can have no remedy excepting by an appeal to God, and that final appeal he will make.
Now the proper beginning of this appeal is in the twenty-third verse (Job 13:23), with the words: “How many are mine iniquities and my sins?” But before Job reaches it he expresses his sense of the danger and difficulty under which he lies, interweaving with the statement of these a marvellous confidence in the result of what he is about to do. Referring to the declarations of his friends as to the danger that yet threatens if he will not confess sin, he uses a proverbial expression for hazard of life.
“Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hand?”
Why do I incur this danger, do you say? Never mind. It is not your affair. For bare existence I care nothing. To escape with mere consciousness for a while is no object to me, as I now am. With my life in my hand I hasten to God.
“Lo! He will slay me: I will not delay-
Yet my ways will I maintain before Him”. {Job 13:15}
The old Version here, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” is inaccurate. Still it is not far from expressing the brave purpose of the man- prostrate before God, yet resolved to cling to the justice of the case ashe apprehends it, assured that this will not only be excused by God, but will bring about his acquittal or salvation. To grovel in the dust, confessing himself a miserable sinner more than worthy of all the sufferings he has undergone, while in his heart he has the consciousness of being upright and faithful-this would not commend him to the Judge of all the earth. It would be a mockery of truth and righteousness, therefore of God Himself. On the other hand, to maintain his integrity which God gave him, to go on maintaining it at the hazard of all, is his only course, his only safety.
“This also shall be my salvation,
For a godless man shall not live before Him.”
The fine moral instinct of Job, giving courage to his theology, declares that God demands “truth in the inward parts” and truth in speech-that man “consists in truth”-that “if he betrays truth he betrays himself,” which is a crime against his Maker. No man is so much in danger of separating himself from God and losing everything as he who acts or speaks against conviction.
Job has declared his hazard, that he is lying helpless before Almighty Power which may in a moment crush him. He has also expressed his faith, that approaching God in the courage of truth he will not be rejected, that absolute sincerity will alone give him a claim on the infinitely True. Now turning to his friends as if in new defiance, he says:-
“Hear diligently my speech,
And my explanation with your ears.
Behold now, I have ordered my cause;
I know that I shall be justified.
Who is he that will contend with me?
For then would I hold my peace and expire.”
That is to say, he has reviewed his life once more, he has considered all possibilities of transgression, and yet his contention remains. So much does he build upon his claim on God that, if any one could now convict him, his heart would fail, life would no more be worth living; the foundation of hope destroyed, conflict would be at an end.
But with his plea to God still in view he expresses once more his sense of the disadvantage under which he lies. The pressure of the Divine hand is upon him still, a sore enervating terror which bears upon his soul. Would God but give him respite for a little from the pain and the fear, then he would be ready either to answer the summons of the Judge or make his own demand for vindication.
We may suppose an interval of release from pain or at least a pause of expectancy, and then, in verse twenty-third (Job 13:23), Job begins his cry. The language is less vehement than we have heard. It has more of the pathos of weak human life. He is one with that race of thinking, feeling, suffering creatures who are tossed about on the waves of existence, driven before the winds, of change like autumn leaves. It is the plea of human feebleness and mortality we hear, and then, as the “still sad music” touches the lowest note of wailing, there mingles with it the strain of hope.
“How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Make me to know my transgression and my sin.”
We are not to understand here that Job confesses great transgressions, nor, contrariwise, that he denies infirmity and error in himself. There are no doubt failures of his youth which remain in memory, sins of desire, errors of ignorance, mistakes in conduct such as the best men fall into. These he does not deny. But righteousness and happiness have been represented as a profit and loss account, and therefore Job wishes to hear from God a statement in exact form of all he has done amiss or failed to do, so that he may be able to see the relation between fault and suffering, his faults and his sufferings, if such relation there be. It appears that God is counting him an enemy (Job 13:24). He would like to have the reason for that. So far as he knows himself he has sought to obey and honour the Almighty. Certainly there has never been in his heart any conscious desire to resist the will of Eloah. Is it then for transgressions unwittingly committed that he now suffers-for sins he did not intend or know of? God is just. It is surely a part of His justice to make a sufferer aware why such terrible afflictions befall him.
And then-is it worthwhile for the Almighty to be so hard on a poor weak mortal?
Wilt thou scare a driven leaf-
Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble-
That thou writest bitter judgments against me,
And makest me to possess the faults of my youth,
And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And watchest all my paths,
And drawest a line about the soles of my feet-
One who as a rotten thing is consuming,
As a garment that is moth eaten?
The sense of rigid restraint and pitiable decay was perhaps never expressed with so fit and vivid imagery. So far it is personal. Then begins a general lamentation regarding the sad fleeting life of man. His own prosperity, which passed as a dream, has become to Job a type of the brief vain existence of the race tried at every moment by inexorable Divine judgment; and the low mournful words of the Arabian chief have echoed ever since in the language of sorrow and loss.
“Man that is born of woman,
Of few days is he and full of trouble.
Like the flower he springs up and withers;
Like a shadow he flees and stays not.
Is it on such a one Thou hast fixed Thine eye?
Bringest Thou me into Thy judgment?
Oh that the clean might come out of the unclean!
But there is not one.”
Human frailty is both of the body and of the soul; and it is universal. The nativity of men forbids their purity. Well does God know the weakness of His creatures; and why then does He expect of them, if indeed He expects, a pureness that can stand the test of His searching? Job cannot be free from the common infirmity of mortals. He is born of woman. But why then is he chased with inquiry, haunted and scared by a righteousness he cannot satisfy? Should not the Great God be forbearing with a man?
“Since his days are determined,
The number of his moons with Thee,
And Thou hast set him bounds not to be passed.
Look Thou away from him that he may rest,
At least fulfil as a hireling his day,”
Mens life being so short, his death so sure and soon, seeing he is like a hireling in the world, might he not be allowed a little rest? might he not, as one who has fulfilled his days work, be let go for a little repose ere he die? That certain death, it weighs upon him now, pressing down his thought.
For even a tree hath hope;
If it be hewn down it will sprout anew,
The young shoot thereof will not fail.
If in the earth its root wax old,
Or in the ground its stock should die
Yet at the scent of water it will spring,
And shoot forth boughs like a new plant.
But a man: he dies and is cut off;
Yea, when men die, they are gone.
Ebbs away the water from the sea,
And the stream decays and dries:
So when men have lain down they rise not;
Till the heavens vanish they never awake,
Nor are they roused from their sleep.
No arguments, no promises can break this deep gloom and silence into which the life of man passes. Once Job had sought death; now a desire has grown within him, and with it recoil from Sheol. To meet God, to obtain his own justification and the clearing of Divine righteousness, to have the problem of life explained-the hope of this makes life precious. Is he to lie down and rise no more while the skies endure? Is no voice to reach him from the heavenly justice he has always confided in? The very thought is confounding. If he were now to desire death it would mean that he had given up all faith, that justice, truth, and even the Divine name of Eloah had ceased to have any value for him.
We are to behold the rise of a new hope, like a star in the firmament of his thought. Whence does it spring?
The religion of the Book of Job, as already shown, is, in respect of form, a natural religion; that is to say, the ideas are not derived from the Hebrew Scriptures. The writer does not refer to the legislation of Moses and the great words of prophets. The expression “As the Lord said unto Moses” does not occur in this book, nor any equivalent. It is through nature and the human consciousness that the religious beliefs of the poem appear to have come into shape. Yet two facts are to be kept fully in view.
The first is that even a natural religion must not be supposed to be a thing of mans invention, with no origin further than his dreams. We must not declare all religious ideas outside those of Israel to be mere fictions of the human fancy or happy guesses at truth. The religion of Teman may have owed some of its great thoughts to Israel. But, apart from that, a basis of Divine revelation is always laid wherever men think and live. In every land the heart of man has borne witness to God. Reverent thought, dwelling on justice, truth, mercy, and all virtues found in the range of experience and consciousness, came through them to the idea of God. Every one who made an induction as to the Great Unseen Being, his mind open to the facts of nature and his own moral constitution, was in a sense a prophet. As far as they went, the reality and value of religious ideas, so reached, are acknowledged by Bible writers themselves. “The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity.” God has always been revealing Himself to men.
“Natural religion” we say: and yet, since God is always revealing Himself and has made all men more or less capable of apprehending the revelation, even the natural is supernatural. Take the religion of Egypt, or of Chaldaea, or of Persia. You may contrast any one of these with the religion of Israel; you may call the one natural, the other revealed. But the Persian speaking of the Great Good Spirit or the Chaldaean worshipping a supreme Lord must have had some kind of revelation; and his sense of it, not clear indeed, far enough below that of Moses or Isaiah, was yet a forth reaching towards the same light as now shines for us.
Next we must keep it in view that Job does not appear as a thinker building on himself alone, depending on his own religious experience. Centuries and ages of thought are behind these beliefs which are ascribed to him, even the ideas which seem to start up freshly as the result of original discovery. Imagine a man thinking for himself about Divine things in that far away Arabian past. His mind, to begin with, is not a blank. His father has instructed him. There is a faith that has come down from many generations. He has found words in use which hold in them religious ideas, discoveries, perceptions of Divine reality, caught and fixed ages before. When he learned language the products of evolution, not only psychical, but intellectual and spiritual, became his. Eloah, the lofty one, the righteousness of Eloah, the word of Eloah, Eloah as Creator, as Watcher of men, Eloah as wise, unsearchable in wisdom, as strong, infinitely mighty, -these are ideas he has not struck out for himself, but inherited. Clearly then a new thought, springing from these, comes as a supernatural communication and has behind it ages of spiritual evolution. It is new, but has its root in the old; it is natural, but originates in the over nature.
Now the primitive religion of the Semites, the race to which Job belonged, to which also the Hebrews belonged, has been of late carefully studied; and with regard to it certain things have been established that bear on the new hope we are to find struck out by the Man of Uz.
In the early morning of religious thought among those Semites it was universally believed that the members of a family or tribe, united by blood relationship to each other, were also related in the same way to their God. He was their father, the invisible head and source of their community, on whom they had a claim so long as they pleased him. His interest in them was secured by the sacrificial meal which he was invited and believed to share with them. If he had been offended, the sacrificial offering was the means of recovering his favour; and communion with him in those meals and sacrifices was the inheritance of all who claimed the kinship of that clan or tribe. With the clearing of spiritual vision this belief took a new form in the minds of the more thoughtful. The idea of communion remained and the necessity of it to the life of the worshipper was felt even more strongly when the kinship of the God with his subject family was, for the few at least, no longer an affair of physical descent and blood relation. ship, but of spiritual origin and attachment. And when faith rose from the tribal god to the idea of the Heaven-Father, the one Creator and King communion with Him was felt to be in the highest sense a vital necessity. Here is found the religion of Job. A main element of it was communion with Eloah, an ethical kinship, with Him, no arbitrary or merely physical relation but of the spirit. That is to say, Job has at the heart of his creed the truth as to roans origin and nature. The author of the book is a Hebrew; his own faith is that of the people from whom we have the Book of Genesis; but he treats here of mans relation to God from the ethnic side, such as may be taken now by reasoner treating of spiritual evolution.
Communion with Eloah had been Jobs life and with it had been associated his many years of wealth, dignity, and influence. Lest his children should fall from it and lose their most precious inheritance, he used to bring the periodical offerings. But at length his own communion was interrupted. The sense of being at on with Eloah, if not lost, became dull and faint. It is for the restoration of his very life-not as we might think of religious feeling, but of actual spirit energy-he is now concerned. It is this that underlies his desire for God to speak with him, his demand for an opportunity of pleading his cause. Some might expect that he would ask his friends to offer sacrifice on his behalf, But he makes no such request. The crisis has come in a region higher than sacrifice, where observances are of no use. Thought only can reach it; the discovery of reconciling truth alone can satisfy. Sacrifices which for the old world alone sustained the relation with God could no more for Job restore the intimacy of the spiritual Lord. With a passion for this fellowship keener than ever, since he now more distinctly realises what it is, a fear blends in the heart of the man, Death will be upon him soon. Severed from God he will fall away into the privation of that world where is neither praise nor service, knowledge nor device. Yet the truth which lies at the heart of his religion does not yield. Leaning all upon it, he finds it strong, elastic. He sees at least a possibility of reconciliation; for how can the way back to God ever be quite closed?
What difficulty there was in his effort we know. To the common thought of the time when this book was written, say that of Hezekiah, the state of the dead was not extinction indeed, but an existence of extreme tenuity and feebleness. In Sheol there was nothing active. The hollow ghost of the man was conceived of as neither hoping nor fearing, neither originating nor receiving impressions. Yet Job dares to anticipate that even in Sheol a set time of remembrance will be ordained for him and he shall hear the thrilling call of God. As it approaches this climax the poem flashes and glows with prophetic fire.
Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol,
That Thou wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath be past,
That Thou wouldst appoint a set time, and remember me!
If a (strong) man die, shall he live?
All the days of my appointed time would I wait
Till my release came.
Thou wouldst call, I would answer Thee;
Thou wouldst have a desire to the work of Thy hands.
Not easily can we now realise the extraordinary step forward made in thought when the anticipation was thrown out of spiritual life going on beyond death (“would I wait”), retaining intellectual potency in that region otherwise dark and void to the human imagination (“I would answer Thee”). From both the human side and the Divine the poet has advanced a magnificent intuition, a springing arch into which he is unable to fit the keystone-the spiritual body; for He only could do this who long afterwards came to be Himself the Resurrection and the Life. But when this poem of Job had been given to the world a new thought was implanted in the soul of the race, a new hope that should fight against the darkness of Sheol till that morning when the sunrise fell upon an empty sepulchre, and one standing in the light asked of sorrowful men, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
“Thou wouldst have a desire to the work of Thy hands.” What a philosophy of Divine care underlies the words! They come with a force Job seems hardly to realise. Is there a High One who makes men in His own image, capable of fine achievement, and then casts them away in discontent or loathing? The voice of the poet rings in a passionate key because he rises tea thought practically new to the human mind. He has broken through barriers both of faith and doubt into the light of his hope and stands trembling on the verge of another world. “One must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future.”
But the wrath of God still appears to rest upon Jobs life; still He seems to keep in reserve, sealed up, unrevealed, some record of transgressions for which He has condemned His servant. From the height of hope Job falls away into an abject sense of the decay and misery to which man is brought by the continued rigour of Eloahs examination. As with shocks of earthquake mountains are broken, and waters by constant flowing wash down the soil and the plants rooted in it, so human life is wasted by the Divine severity. In the world the children whom a man loved are exalted or brought low, but he knows nothing of it. His flesh corrupts in the grave and his soul in Sheol languishes.
“Thou destroyest the hope of man.
Thou ever prevailest against him and he passeth
Thou changest his countenance and sendest him away.”
The real is at this point so grim and insistent as to shut off the ideal and confine thought again to its own range. The energy of the prophetic mind is overborne, and unintelligible fact surrounds and presses hard the struggling personality.