Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 21:11
They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
11. Their children, numerous like the flock and happy like the lambs, skip in their glee and sport.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
They send forth their little ones – Their numerous and happy children they send forth to plays and pastimes.
Like a flock – In great numbers. This is an exquisitely beautiful image of prosperity. What can be more so than a group of happy children around a mans dwelling?
And their children dance – Dance for joy. They are playful and sportive, like the lambs of the flock. It is the skip of playfulness and exultation that is referred to here, and not the set and formal dance where children are instructed in the art; the sportiveness of children in the fields, the woods, and on the lawn, and not the set step taught in the dancing-school. The word used here ( raqad), means to leap, to skip – as from joy, and then to dance. Jerome has well rendered it, exultant lusibus – they leap about in their plays. So the Septuagint, prospaizousin – they frolic or play. There is no evidence here that Job meant to say that they taught their children to dance; that they caused them to be trained in anything that now corresponds to dancing-schools; and that he meant to say that such a training was improper and tended to exclude God from the heart.
The image is one simply of health, abundance, exuberance of feeling, cheerfulness, prosperity. The houses were free from alarms; the fields were filled with herds and flocks, and their families of happy and playful children were around them. The object of Job was not to say that all this was in itself wrong, but that it was a plain matter of fact that God did not take away the comforts of all the wicked and overwhelm them with calamity. Of the impropriety of training children in a dancing-school, there ought to be but one opinion among the friends of religion (see National Preacher for January 1844), but there is no evidence that Job referred to any such training here, and this passage should not be adduced to prove that dancing is wrong. It refers to the playfulness and the cheerful sports of children, and God has made them so that they will find pleasure in such sports, and so that they are benefited by them. There is not a more lovely picture of happiness and of the benevolence of God any where on earth than in such groups of children, and in their sportiveness and playfulness there is no more that is wrong than there is in the gambols of the lambs of the flock.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 11. They send forth their little ones] It is not very clear whether this refers to the young of the flocks or to their children. The first clause may mean the former, the next clause the latter; while the young of their cattle are in flocks, their numerous children are healthy and vigorous, and dance for joy.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Like a flock of sheep or goats, as the word signifies; in great numbers, and with sweet concord; which is a singular delight to them and to their parents.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. send forthnamely, out ofdoors, to their happy sports under the skies, like a joyful flocksent to the pastures.
little oneslikelambkins.
childrensomewhat olderthan the former.
dancenot formaldances; but skip, like lambs, in joyous and healthful play.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
They send forth their little ones like a flock,…. Of sheep, which are creatures very increasing, and become very numerous,
Ps 144:13; to which a large increase of families may be compared,
Ps 107:41, for this is not to be interpreted of their kine sending or bringing forth such numbers as to be like a flock of sheep; but of the families of wicked men being increased in like manner; and the sending them forth to be understood either of the birth of their children being sent out or proceeding from them as plants out of the earth, or branches from a tree; or of their being sent out not to school to be instructed in useful learning, but into the streets to play, and pipe, and dance; and it may denote, as their number, so their being left to themselves, and being at liberty to do as they please, being under no restriction, nor any care taken of their education; at least in such a manner as to have a tendency to make them sober, virtuous, and useful in life:
and their children dance; either in a natural way, skip and frisk, and play like calves and lambs, and so are very diverting to their parents, as well as shows them to be in good health; which adds to their parents happiness and pleasure: or in an artificial way, being taught to dance; and it should be observed, it is “their” children, the children of the wicked, and not of the godly, that are thus brought up; so Abraham did not train up his children, nor Job his; no instance can be given of the children of good men being trained up in this manner, or of their dancing in an irreligious way; however, this proves in what a jovial way, and in what outward prosperity and pleasure, wicked men and their families live; which is the thing Job has in view, and is endeavouring to prove and establish.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
THE DANCE OF DEATH
Job 21:11-14.
Preached in Minneapolis when the Public School Buildings opened to Round Dances
THE charge that the age is amusement-mad could scarce have a better illustration of its truthfulness than that to which the public has been treated in the last few weeks. There was never a time in history when so many matters of grave and great importance were up for consideration as now. And yet, the public gives increasing attention to the dance, showing that the passion for pleasure has outstripped much else.
It has been confessed that all other pastimes fade and fall away when brought into comparison with the modern dance. It was lately said by a minister of the Gospel that he could quote Scripture for the modern dance. He could. Our text is an instance apropos:
They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways?.
This Scripture suggests three things to which we invite attention.
First:
THE DEFENSE OF THE DANCE
It is not to be supposed that there is any great difference between ancients and moderns. Humanity remains essentially the same through the centuries. The men of whom Job wrote must have had their reasons for their conduct and stood ready to defend the same. They would have agreed with the present advocates of the dance on certain salient points. They would have said, as others are now saying: It is the natural expression of youth and health. It is an essential education in graceful movements. It is a popular manifestation of the social temperament.
It is the natural expression of youth and health. We are told that the young lamb in the field cannot keep from running and skipping. It is not only his pastime, his pleasure, but enters into his development, and the lad and lass have a kindred exuberance of life, and it must voice itself. Hence, the dance is as natural to youth as is hopeful temperament and ruddy cheek!
We admit it! No one has ever heard us blame a boy or a girl for wanting to dance. I think I know how to sympathize with them at that point. I frankly confess it was one of the temptations of my youth, and I also admit that even now I find it difficult to keep my feet still at the sound of the fiddle.
I know it is easy for some people to tell others they ought not to be tempted, and I have noticed that such people almost always take the points at which they are not tempted and talk about them. I was in a meeting not long since in North Dakota, and a pastor said, One night in my prayer meeting, when a good many of the young people were present, and the Spirit of God seemed to be moving them, one after another of the young men and young women rose, and with tears in their eyes and with quivering lips, said, We have been dancing and we are losing out in our spiritual lives. Bible study is a task; prayer is no longer pleasant, and we have decided to give up the dance. And so one followed another until the whole house melted at sight of the battles waging in the breasts of these boys and girls, in which the Spirit of God seemed to be conquering. Finally an old fellow who had lived the life of a bachelor, got up. His unkempt hair and his uncut whiskers reminded one of George Ades description of the farmer from whose beard one could stir up a meadow lark and two field mice almost any moment. In addition to this uncanny appearance he was crippled from head to toe with rheumatism so that when he rose to speak he had to help himself by hanging to the seat in front of him, and by ejaculations of pain as he slowly untangled. But once up and free, he said, I have been listening to the testimony of these frivolous young folks, and I want to thank God that I have no temptations to such worldliness!
I suppose he thought his testimony was an expression of virtue, but it was not; and I have little doubt that he had habits of life far more offensive both to God and man than were the dances the young people were striving to surrender for the sake of Christ and His Church.
I admit the force of the argument that the dance is a natural expression of youth and health. I am not out of sympathy with young people because they want to do it. In fact, I think the desire is a part of ones physical constitution, and is felt in proportion to the strength of his heart beat. And yet, be it remembered that youth is not alone in this desire. Long after nimbleness has left the limbs the lusts to which the round dance appeals lives in the lives of men and women, and many of them illustrate the words of Sam Jones. He said, I have been a young fool; I am free to admit that. I have been a middle-aged fool, and I am sorry about that, and I am praying earnestly now that the Lord will just keep me from being an old fool. You see that is the last wag of the hammer. You take an old widower, for instance! I was sitting in a car some time ago, and an old widower walked in. I suppose he was eighty years old, his nose and chin nearly met. He took a seat near me and began to brag of his health. He said he hadnt felt better in forty years, and he said, They tease me about marrying again, and I dont know but that I will. I suspect the old rascal had rubbed every joint of his limbs with Wizard Oil before he could get out of bed that morning. There are quite a few of the wizard-oil brethren found in the ball-room today, and they are morally the most dangerous fellows that appear there.
Again, they say it is an essential education in graceful movement. A few years ago it was quite the custom with ball-room folk to remind the public that a man was not adapted to an evening occasion who could not dance. He was told that in all probability, by the blundering movements of his feet, beautiful costumes would be stained or torn. But that argument will hold no longer. There is no train; there is not even a skirtonly an abbreviated hint of the same; so that the old silken train is no longer in danger of being trampled upon, and any awkward man, uneducated in this terpsichorean art, could enter a dance hall without danger of trampling on anything more important than unprotected toes.
The old-fashioned folk dances did meet the natural desire of youth to move to music, and were free from the moral perils of even the waltz, not to speak of the later hugging devices of the devil. President Hall of Clark University, when lecturing before the Ypsilanti Normal College, once said, The dance is the best exercise for developing every muscle of the body, and I am glad it is being taught in our gymnasiums. By this I mean the dance like that of the religious dances of the early races, the tragic chorus of the Greeks, the dance that embodies racial and national characteristics, that expresses poetry, love, fear, joy, natural emotion, that exemplifies every industry and development of the races; that teaches self-control and the power to express the highest emotion of the soul. Such dancing vitalizes; it makes one conscious of the joy of being alive, and I think it is a shame that it has been allowed to die out, and our young people reduced to the miserable effete, decadent dance of the modern ball rooma thing contemptible, of insignificant culture value and usually stained with undesirable associations, and unworthy of an intelligent people.
But even that lone dance has been debased by women who strip for its rendition.
One of the defenders of the school dance, appearing before a school board, said, I saw the heathen dance a while ago, and I said how natural and how desirable, but she forgot to say that even the heathen would be shocked by the American method. In fact, it is not so many years since, a representative of the Japanese government, taken to the ballroom of the White House, looked upon the evenings procedure, dazed by what he saw, and when asked if he would participate, flatly refused.
We believe in grace of movement, and we do not blame young people for wanting to dance the round dance; that desire is also natural. But no man should preach the Gospel of yielding life to its natural desires. Such a gospel is the antithesis of the Christian ministry.
Yes, it is a manifestation of the social temperament. Young people delight to be together, and by Divine appointment, they delight most in the fellowship of the opposite sex. We advocate co-education. My advocacy has rested upon my experience. I look back to the years 8185, spent in a college in which young men and women sat together in the same classes, and I have not a single regret over that delightful relationship. I never knew brothers who revealed more chivalry toward their sisters in the flesh than the men of that college showed toward the women of the same. The sexes were mutually advantaged. Not a marriage occurring out of that college fellowship has been annulled by the divorce court, with a single exception; and it is significant that that exception applies to the case of the young man and young woman, both of whom were cultured in the ball-room art, and used to slip away to a near-by city to indulge themselves in that art. But in the years of our stay together, school authorities never once opened any hall to the round dance; and if young men and women slipped away from the school to some public hall, they were haled before the faculty, criticized, counseled and warned not to repeat the act. We did not always approve the position of the faculty at that time. We were sometimes fretted by their old foggy notions; but now that the men, who thus jealously guarded youth against what they believed to be a doubtful pastime if not a very dangerous one, are gone, we know that they were the most loyal friends lads and lassies ever knew.
THE DIGNITY OF THE DANCE
is also often referred to. We are reminded that it is linked with the beautiful art of music. We are compelled to remember that it is associated with splendid dress; and if a man is observant, he knows that it is the peculiar pastime of the prospered.
Music is easily one of the fine arts! More can be said in favor of it than of almost any other art known to history. Painting and sculpture alike have come under an appalling curse. It is regarded very narrow to so much as make mention of the fact, and yet, the great Tolstoi, whose sacrifices for the social, mental and moral uplift of his people, have never been surpassed since the day when the Son of Man suffered on Calvary, braved public opinion, and, like the courageous soul he was, excoriated the nude in art. He tells us that certain artists freely affirm that we must not demand morality in art, and then, after an argument of 184 pages, he makes this declaration, Rather that there be no art at all than continue the depraving art, or simulation of art, which now exists.
You say that is an extreme position. That would depend entirely upon whether one esteemed culture or character most highly; upon whether one valued polished marble or perfect morals, the painted canvas or exemplary conduct. Now, while music is in itself a veritable gift from God, when one remembers the scandalous dress in which some singers appear and the fetid associations of certain fiddlers, and the intimate relationship between the dance hall, the grog shop and the bagnio, he knows that even this art, noble as it was by its very nature, has also been prostituted to unholy ends; and by no invention of the devil more so than by the modern round dance.
Some time since an Eastern preacher, adopting the spirit of the world from which he received his salary, attempted to defend the dance by quotations from the Bible, and among others he gave Mar 6:22, The daughter of Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod, apparently forgetting that it was this same daughter who so far exploited herself in the presence of the king as to draw from him the drunken pledge of giving her whatsoever she asked; and that same daughter, trained in the dance, at the suggestion of her mother who, doubtless was as adept in the same, demanded the head of John the Baptist on a charger! Music and dancing were responsible for one of the first martyrdoms in the Church of God.
As to the dress with which the dance is associated, it would be almost as difficult to defend that as to defend the dance itself. We love pretty clothes. We like to see women beautifully dressed; but we candidly believe that the surest indication of the character of the dance itself is voiced in the dress of the women who are ball-room patrons. It is notoriously a display of such parts of the person as God expects to be covered: When a deliberate appeal is made to both the lusts of the flesh and the lust of the eye, even though it come from high social position and arrays itself in silks, a minister must have a very flexible conscience if he can bring himself to defend the conduct.
Some years ago the Christian Standard said, After all our squirming and twisting and arguing and explaining (and even attempting to explain away) our Bibles, still they put it in plain black and white, I will * * that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; * * but with good works, and then continues, Is any womans apparel modest that exposes her person like the apparel of some church women does? Is it any use for a woman to claim and profess purity whose scant apparel is shockingly suggestive of impurity? Shamefacedness does not spell brazenfacedness.
It was these patent things that led Mrs. General Sherman to say, I have always given the round dance a silent condemnation, and have refused to let my daughters participate in it under any circumstances. And it was this patent fact that led General Pike of Washington to declare, The waltz is only fit for houses of prostitution. What would he say of our present lustful movements? It was this patent fact that led Mr. Joseph Brown, former mayor of St. Louis, to say, It is a shame that society countenances such things. The late Dr. George Lorimer was never regarded as an extremist, but he was pronounced one of the greatest preachers of America, and as one converted from the stage, he was familiar with that side of life; and he said, speaking of the dress of the dance, These displays are, as a rule, only made by those whose charms are conspicuous. Rarely will a narrow-chested, scraggy, yellow-necked female bare herself to the mocking eyes of those around her. Yet, that these fashions are for somebodys eyes, no one doubts. Whose? It is a pertinent question. Divinity is sometimes bedrabbled, and we candidly believe that no amount of rustling silks can bind thinking men to the sin resulting from the combination of the modern dance and the modern dress.
Undoubtedly this dance is the pastime of the prospered. One writer, at least, has asked that we provide proof of that statement, and has excoriated it as a cowardly attempt to array classes against each other. A newspaper, of a day preceding the appearance of his article, would have given him proof, had he read it. There the social elite of the Avenue were reported as going the full length of even the most disgusting dances. The same paper reported the plain Scandinavian people of this city as in absolute revolt against the whole movement; and even the Waitress Association as putting the ban upon those so-called social stunts.
We would like to challenge the principals of our High Schools to provide the public the names of those young people who have been accustomed to attend the class dances, sure that such a report would show that the big majority of those attending come from homes of ease, if not luxury. The preachers who appear to defend the modern round dance are almost, without exception, the pastors of rich congregations, where this pastime is largely indulged in. An observing man, and a courageous minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in speaking upon the decadence of Lots family life in Sodom, says a very suggestive thing: On the suburban train the other day, coming into London, a man was speaking of one of his fellows who had fallen out of the line of success, and he remarked somewhat glibly, In these days, it is each man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. And then the minister comments, That is the gospel men are preaching outside. Here in the sanctuary of God, I say that is not true. In the majority of cases the devil gets the foremost.
Minneapolis is illustrating those words a thousand times a day. The men that made Minneapolis were trained in the school of adversity, and in the blessing of bearing the yoke in youth. Their boys and girls will, in all too many cases, make mere beaux and belles, we fear. There are exceptions to every rule, and we thank God every time we see young men and women come out of houses of culture or wealth, and, like the younger Pitt, prove themselves the equals of noble sires, the superiors of worthy mothers. Thank God, some such there are! But, on the contrary, what a multitude of pygmies are turned out of palaces. How can you expect else when you weakly yield to every appeal for pastime and gladly feed their passion for pleasure. These are not the things that make great men and good women.
But we cannot finish the discussion of this text without calling your attention to
THE DEATH IN THE DANCE
In a moment they go down to the grave.
Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways (Job 21:13-14).
To say the least, that death is threefold.
It is death to serious thoughts. Every dance is death to serious thoughts. We do not object to the folk-dance within limits. But even the folk-dance flings away serious thought. True, young men and young women ought not to be asked to be forever serious. We can afford sometimes to forget the serious things of life, but if any safety abide, the season of such forgetting must be brief. Robert Murray MCheyne only lived thirty-three summers, but he moved the whole world for good and for God in that brief space, and made for himself an immortal name, and left behind him a history as beautiful as blessed. Robert MCheyne, pleading with some young people to forsake the world, said, What has the world done for you that you love it so much? Did the world die for you? Will the world blot out your sins or change your heart? Will the world carry you to Heaven? No! No! You may go back to the world if you please, but it can only destroy your poor soul. She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. Read these words and mark them in your Bible, and if you go back that mark will be a witness against you. Have you not lived long enough in pleasure? Come and try the pleasures of Christforgiveness and a new heart. I have not been to a dance for many years, and yet I believe I have had more pleasure in a single day than you have had in all your life. Can any one conceive of Robert MCheyne having kept up the dance, and yet at the same time as having lived such a wonderful life and wrought such a wonderful work?
It is also death to moral sentiment. Any subject can be debated. Truly, there are two sides to every subject; but, as one man, speaking of the liquor traffic, said, It only amounts to this: There is a right side and a wrong side. That is absolutely true with reference to the round dance. Any minister who says that it is not morally perilous, has not been observant, or else, for the sake of carrying his point, and meeting the demands of the multitude, he is willing to be morally dishonest. Is it not a singular circumstance that at the very moment that the modern stage critics are telling us that the modern stage is immoral, ministers are rising in its defense; and is not sad that when such men as converted dancing masters are writing such books as From the Ball Room to Hell, preachers, occupying evangelical pulpits, are trying to bring the public to believe that it is an entirely innocent pas-time? How true that statement in Scripture, like people: like priest (Hos 4:9).
And then, often the dance is death to the immortal soul. Only a bit ago one of the same papers that is now defending this proposition, told, in pitiful words, of a poor nineteen-year-old girl picked out of an alley one morning. She was ragged, hungry and freezing, and the paper said that this bedraggled, degraded and dying creature was only a year ago a radiant little girl from the country, who began her downfall by flirting at a dance hall. I suppose we are to imagine that if the flirting occurred with the consent of the public school beard, and by the provisions of its act, kindred consequences cannot follow. But the imaginations of some of us are not capable of such a stretch. A morning paper gave a conspicuous place to the story of the foolish girl in Chicago who had agreed to mortgage her soul for a thousand dollars. Her name was Maud LaPage. She was twenty-four years of age, and was what Mr. Dooley would call poetry struck, saying, Yes, I will mortgage my soul and they can foreclose it, and do what they please with me if they will only hand over the thousand dollars. I aspire to a life other than one endless grind of selling a dab of bolonga, or of measuring out macaroni, or wrapping boxes of smelly sardines. Ambitions such as mine are smothered in the odors of the shop. Poor girl, it never once occurred to her that after she had her thousand dollars and invested it in publishing a book of poetry, there might not be a single buyer, and she might lose her soul without even the gratification of knowing that the world applauded her poetic endeavor.
But the proposition to barter her soul was upon higher ground than when another woman puts her soul in barter for an hour of sensual pleasure. Dwight L. Moody tells the story of a girl, the daughter of a rich house, who walked past the sanctuary on the Sabbath. The Gospel music attracted her within doors, and the Gospel sermon got hold of her heart. She went home to her parents to declare her desire to lead the Christian life. They were in the world and of it. They laughed and jeered her, but failing to turn her from her thought, they converted their home into a dance hall, dressed this daughter in silks, and debecked her with jewels and made her the hostess of the hour. And as they hoped, she yielded, forgot her serious thought, and threw herself into the evening with such a passion as she had never known. Then, heated, she sat in a window, and the unprotected shoulders were smitten with cold and eight days later she lay dying with pneumonia. As the end approached, she said to her mother, Bring me my ball dress, and the mother, thinking its beauty would give her pleasure, went for it. But when she brought it to the bedside, the girl lifted her hands and cried, Oh, my God! that dress was the price of my soul! and breathed her last.
You say you doubt the story? No, you do not. It has been enacted too often. History is replete with its illustration. And tonight, there is no one thing that stands as stubbornly between many of the souls that hear me and the Son of God as this very social pastime. I conclude with a question: Will you give it up and take Christ?
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(11, 12) They send forth their little ones . . .In striking contrast to the fate of Jobs own children, and in contradiction to what Eliphaz had said (Job. 15:29-33).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. Like a flock His wounded heart conceives of the choicest of God’s gifts under the beautiful figure of a flock. Epiphanius has observed that in the early ages of the world the child rarely died before the parent. Hence the emphasis laid upon the death of Haran before that of his father, Terah, (Gen 11:28,) who, he thinks, was thus punished for his idolatry. (Jos 24:2; Jos 24:14.) The thought of his dead family must have added to the perplexities of Job, and may account somewhat for his confusion as to the moral government of God.
Children dance , jump about, ( Delitzsch,) like the young of the flocks. The children of the wicked disport themselves under the skies (this is implied by , they send them forth, namely, out of doors) like the sheep of the pastures. (Umbreit.) There is no evidence that their diversion corresponded to the modern dance. The harmless frolicking of the children was simply one of the features of domestic happiness that crowned the homes of the wicked. While the passage has no bearing on the question of dancing, as such, it is not unworthy of remark that the moralist, having in view the well-being of the soul, has ever felt himself called upon to condemn dancing as practiced in modern times.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 21:11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
Ver. 11. They send forth their little ones like a flock ] Sunt qui de eorum vitulis intelligunt recens natis, saith Mercer. Some understand it to be young calves, but better of young children, which have here their name from a root which signifieth wickedness, naughtiness, to show what little ones are, not innocents, as we call them, not pueri quasi puri; , is both a fool and a child. The first blanket wherein a child is wrapped, is woven of sin, shame, blood, and filth, Eze 16:4 ; Eze 16:6 . Hence infants were circumcised, and their foreskin cast away, to show that they themselves had deserved to be so served. Parents therefore should strive to mend that by education which they have marred by propagation. Wicked parents think not on this, though they send out their little ones like a flock, but tend them not, keep them not from the wolf of hell, who seeketh to devour them.
And their children dance
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
children = lads.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 107:41, Psa 127:3-5
Reciprocal: Gen 31:27 – with mirth Job 27:14 – children Job 36:11 – spend Ecc 2:8 – musical instruments Ecc 8:11 – sentence Isa 5:12 – the harp Isa 14:11 – pomp Isa 21:4 – the night Isa 30:32 – every place Amo 6:5 – to the Luk 6:25 – mourn Luk 12:19 – take Luk 16:19 – clothed 1Ti 5:6 – she Heb 11:25 – the pleasures Jam 5:5 – have lived
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
21:11 They send forth their little ones {e} like a flock, and their children dance.
(e) They have healthy children and in those points he answers to that which Zophar alleged before.