Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 31:40
Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
40. For “thistles” perhaps thorns is more accurate. The word translated “cockle” means perhaps any noisome weed. The concrete expressions, however, add to the vigour of the passage.
Some have thought that these last verses (38 40) have been misplaced, and ought to be introduced at some other point in the chapter, allowing Job’s challenge Job 31:35-37 to be the last words which he utters. To modern feeling the passage would thus gain in rhetorical effect; but it is not certain that the Author’s taste would have coincided with modern feeling in this instance. And it is difficult to find in the chapter a suitable place where the verses could be inserted. If the verses belong to the passage at all, which there is no reason to doubt, they seem to stand in the only place suitable for them.
The concluding statement “the words of Job are ended” hardly belongs to the Author of the Book. It is the remark of some editor or copyist, who drew attention to the fact that Job’s connected discourses here come to an end. It is rather hazardous to draw any critical conclusion from it in reference to the immediately following speeches of Elihu.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let thistles grow; – Gen 3:18. Thistles are valueless; and Job is so confident of entire innocence in regard to this, that he says he would be willing, if he were guilty, to have his whole land overrun with noxious weeds.
And cockle – Cockle is a well known herb that gets into wheat or other grain. It has a bluish flower, and small black seed, and is injurious because it tends to discolor the flour. It is not certain by any means, however, that this is intended here. The margin is, noisome weeds. The Hebrew word bo’shah is from ba’ash, to have a bad smell, to stink, and was given to the weed here referred to on that account, compare Isa 34:3. The cockle however, has no unpleasant odor, and the word here probably means noxious weeds. So it is rendered by Herder and by Noyes. The Septuagint has batos, bramble; the Vulgate, spina, thorn; Prof. Lee, prunus sylvestris, a bramble resembling the hawthorn; Schultens, labrusca, wild vine.
The words of Job are ended – That is, in the present speech or argument; his discussions with his friends are closed. He spoke afterward, as recorded in the subsequent chapters, but not in controversy with them. He had vindicated his character, sustained his positions, and they had nothing to reply. The remainder of the book is occupied mainly with the speech of Elihu, and with the solemn and sublime address which God himself makes.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 31:40
The words of Job are ended.
Jobs final position
Running like a golden thread through all this vehement and passionate language, we have seen a vein of thought which has given this half-rebellious questioner a claim upon our sympathy, and which even had the book ended here, would have prevented thoughtful men from joining his opponents, and from abandoning the solitary and tortured sufferer to the reproaches of his friends, and to the condemnation of the future readers of this great controversy. His soul, ripened by the hot blast of cruel affliction, is being prepared for a step, a long step forward, in that progressive revelation of God Himself to man, given us in Holy Scripture. He sickens at the sight and sense of wrong, and clinging to the conviction that, in spite of all appearances, God must be just–juster than his friends, or his own creed, or his own experience have declared Him to be–he struggles to be true, at once to himself, to his conscience, and his God. He yearns for a clearer sight of, and a nearer approach to the Divine Being against whom, as seen in the insufficient light given him, he has launched so vehement an indictment, so terrible a flood of fervid and poetic wrath. And while he has no sure and certain hope of a life beyond the grave, such as was revealed to the world in Christ, yet his pathetic moans at the finality of death give place, once to a dim aspiration, and once and again to a more loud assertion of his conviction–bursting forth like a flash of light from his darkest mood–that even if he is to die, die in his misery and desolation, God will yet be his Goel, his Vindicator; that somehow, he knows not how, he shall even after the shock of death have sight of God, and have his wrongs redressed; and therefore that he who has once been so dear to Him, and who has fallen so low in this life, will not be left to be of all men most miserable. And we have noticed how, in his description of his early life, he moves in a serene and lofty atmosphere, puts before us a moral standard of practice and even of thought which a Christian might be thankful to attain and realise And now, he and his friends are alike silent, silent but unconvinced. Neither the one side nor the other have won the adhesion of those against whom they argue. They cannot point to any guilt on Jobs part. He cannot convince them of his innocence. Neither one side nor the other have, we cannot but feel, laid their hands upon the whole truth. Yet each has exhausted his store of arguments, shot his arrows, and emptied his quiver. And deep as is the hold which Job has gained upon our interest and sympathy, yet the light and shade has been so graduated that those sympathies are not entirely confined to one side. (Dean Bradley.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 40. Let thistles grow instead of wheat] What the word choach means, which we translate thistles, we cannot tell: but as chach seems to mean to hold, catch as a hook, to hitch, it must signify some kind of hooked thorn, like the brier; and this is possibly its meaning.
And cockle] bashah, some fetid plant, from baash, to stink. In Isa 5:2; Isa 5:4, we translate it wild grapes; and Bishop Lowth, poisonous berries: but Hasselquist, a pupil of the famous Linnaeus, in his Voyages, p. 289, is inclined to believe that the solanum incanum, or hoary nightshade is meant, as this is common in Egypt, Palestine, and the East. Others are of opinion that it means the aconite, which [Arabic] beesh, in Arabic, denotes: this is a poisonous herb, and grows luxuriantly on the sunny hills among the vineyards, according to Celsus in Hieroboticon. [Arabic] beesh is not only the name of an Indian poisonous herb, called the napellus moysis, but [Arabic] beesh moosh, or [Arabic] farut al beesh, is the name of an animal, resembling a mouse, which lives among the roots of this very plant. “May I have a crop of this instead of barley, if I have acted improperly either by my land or my labourers!”
The words of Job are ended.] That is, his defence of himself against the accusations of his friends, as they are called. He spoke afterwards, but never to them; he only addresses God, who came to determine the whole controversy.
These words seem very much like an addition by a later hand. They are wanting in many of the MSS. of the Vulgate, two in my own possession; and in the Editio Princeps of this version.
I suppose that at first they were inserted in rubric, by some scribe, and afterwards taken into the text. In a MS. of my own, of the twelfth or thirteenth century, these words stand in rubric, actually detached from the text; while in another MS., of the fourteenth century, they form a part of the text.
In the Hebrew text they are also detached: the hemistichs are complete without them; nor indeed can they be incorporated with them. They appear to me an addition of no authority. In the first edition of our Bible, that by Coverdale, 1535, there is a white line between these words and the conclusion of the chapter; and they stand, forming no part of the text, thus: –
Here ende the wordes of Job.
Just as we say, in reading the Scriptures “Here ends such a chapter;” or, “Here ends the first lesson,” c.
Or the subject of the transposition, mentioned above, I have referred to the reasons at the end of the chapter.
Dr. Kennicott, on this subject, observes: “Chapters xxix., xxx., and xxxi., contain Job’s animated self-defence, which was made necessary by the reiterated accusation of his friends. This defense now concludes with six lines (in the Hebrew text) which declare, that if he had enjoyed his estates covetously, or procured them unjustly, he wished them to prove barren and unprofitable. This part, therefore seems naturally to follow Job 31:25, where he speaks of his gold, and how much his hand had gotten. The remainder of the chapter will then consist of these four regular parts, viz.,
“1. His piety to God, in his freedom from idolatry, Job 31:26-28.
“2. His benevolence to men, in his charity both of temper and behaviour, Job 31:29-32.
“3. His solemn assurance that he did not conceal his guilt, from fearing either the violence of the poor, or the contempt of the rich, Job 31:33; Job 31:34.
“4. (Which must have been the last article, because conclusive of the work) he infers that, being thus secured by his integrity, he may appeal safely to God himself. This appeal he therefore makes boldly, and in such words as, when rightly translated, form an image which perhaps has no parallel. For where is there an image so magnificent or so splendid as this?
Job, thus conscious of innocence, wishing even God himself to draw up his indictment, [rather his adversary Eliphaz and companions to draw up this indictment, the Almighty to be judge,] that very indictment he would bind round his head and with that indictment as his crown of glory, he would, with the dignity of a prince, advance to his trial! Of this wonderful passage I add a version more just and more intelligible than the present: –
“Ver. 35. O that one would grant me a hearing!
Behold, my desire is that the Almighty would answer me;
And, as plaintiff against me, draw up the indictment.
With what earnestness would I take it on my shoulders!
I would bind it upon me as a diadem.
The number of my steps would I set forth unto Him;
Even as a prince would I approach before Him!”
I have already shown that Eliphaz and his companions, not GOD, are the adversary or plaintiff of whom Job speaks. This view makes the whole clear and consistent, and saves Job from the charge of presumptuous rashness. See also Kennicott’s Remarks, p. 163.
It would not be right to say that no other interpretation has been given of the first clause of Job 31:10 than that given above. The manner in which Coverdale has translated the 9th and 10th verses is the way in which they are generally understood: Yf my hert hath lusted after my neghbour’s wife, or yf I have layed wayte at his dore; O then let my wife be another man’s harlot, and let other lye with her.
In this sense the word grind is not unfrequently used by the ancients. Horace represents the divine Cato commending the young men whom he saw frequenting the stews, because they left other men’s wives undefiled!
Virtute esto, inquit sententia dia Catonis,
Nam simul ac venas inflavit tetra libido,
Hue juvenes aequum est descendere, non alienas
Permolere uxores.
SAT. lib. i., s. 2., ver. 32.
“When awful Cato saw a noted spark
From a night cellar stealing in the dark:
‘Well done, my friend, if lust thy heart inflame,
Indulge it here, and spare the married dame.'”
FRANCIS.
Such were the morals of the holiest state of heathen Rome; and even of Cato, the purest and severest censor of the public manners! O tempora! O mores!
I may add from a scholiast: – Molere vetus verbum est pro adulterare, subagitare, quo verbo in deponenti significatione utitur alibi Ausonius, inquiens, Epigr. vii., ver. 6, de crispa impudica et detestabili: –
Deglubit, fellat, molitur, per utramque cavernam.
Qui enim coit, quasi molere et terere videtur. Hinc etiam molitores dicti sunt, subactores, ut apud eundem, Epigr. xc., ver. 3.
Cum dabit uxori molitor tuus, et tibi adulter.
Thus the rabbins understand what is spoken of Samson grinding in the prison-house: quod ad ipsum Palaestini certatim suas uxores adduxerunt, suscipiendae ex eo prolis causa, ob ipsius robur.
In this sense St. Jerome understands La 5:13: They took the young men to GRIND. Adolescentibus ad impudicitiam sunt abusi, ad concubitum scilicet nefandum. Concerning grinding of corn, by portable millstones, or querns, and that this was the work of females alone, and they the meanest slaves; See Clarke on Ex 11:5, and on “Jdg 16:21“.
The Greeks use to signify a harlot; and , to grind, and also coeo, ineo, in the same sense in which Horace, as quoted above, alienas PERMOLERE uxores.
So Theocritus, Idyll. iv., ver. 58.
‘ , ‘
, ‘
Dic age mihi, Corydon, senecio ille num adhuc molit,
Illud nigro supercilio scortillum, quod olim deperibat?
Hence the Greek paronomasia, , scortam molere. I need make no apology for leaving the principal part of this note in a foreign tongue. To those for whom it is designed it will be sufficiently plain. If the above were Job’s meaning, how dreadful is the wish or imprecation in verse the tenth! Job 31:10
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
To wit, in answer to his friends; for he speaks but little afterwards, and that is to God.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
40. thistlesor brambles,thorns.
cockleliterally,”noxious weeds.”
The words . . . endedthatis, in the controversy with the friends. He spoke in the bookafterwards, but not to them. At Job31:37 would be the regular conclusion in strict art. But Job31:38-40 are naturally added by one whose mind in agitationrecurs to its sense of innocence, even after it has come to the usualstopping point; this takes away the appearance of rhetoricalartifice. Hence the transposition by EICHORNof Job 31:38-40 tofollow Job 31:25 is quiteunwarranted.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley,…. This is an imprecation of Job’s, in which he wishes that if what he had said was not true, or if he was guilty of the crimes he denied, that when and where he sowed wheat, thorns or thistles might come up instead of it, or tares, as some Jewish writers d interpret it; and that when and where he should sow barley, cockle, or darnel, or any “stinking” or “harmful” weed e, as the word signifies, might spring up in room of it; respect seems to be had to the original curse upon the earth, and by the judgment of God is sometimes the case, that a fruitful land is turned into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell in it, Ge 3:18;
the words of Job are ended; which is either said by himself, at the close of his speech; thus far says Job, and no farther, having said enough in his own defence, and for the confutation of his antagonists, and so closes in a way of triumph: or else this was added by Moses, supposed to have written this book; or by some other hand, as Ezra, upon the revision of it, and other books of the Old Testament, when put in order by him: and these were the last words of Job to his friends, and in vindication of himself; for though there is somewhat more said afterwards by him, and but little, yet to God, and by way of humiliation, acknowledging his sin, and repentance for it with shame and abhorrence; see Job 40:3. Jarchi, and so the Midrash, understand this concluding clause as all imprecation of Job’s; that if he had done otherwise than he had declared, he wishes that these might be his last words, and he become dumb, and never open his mouth more; but, as Bar Tzemach observes, the simple sense is, that his words were now completed and finished, just as the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are said to be, Ps 72:20.
d Bar Tzemach, et alii. e “herba foetens”, Montanus, Bolducius; “spina foetida”, Drusius; “vitium frugum”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “labrusca”, Cocceius, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
40. Thistles Translated elsewhere thorns.
Cockle The Hebrew root points to some kind of noxious, ill-smelling weed. The word is also the last in the Hebrew text, and forms a surprising climax to the discourse, and possibly an unsavory reflection on the friends. Among the calamities Sennacherib declares himself to have entailed upon a conquered race was the sowing of thistles over their corn fields. Inscription 30. The words of Job are ended The poetical accents with which this sentence is marked express the very ancient opinion that these closing words are the words of Job. Hitzig, however, regards them as “a boundary set up by the revisers of Job!” A boundary stone they may be, but, by whomsoever set up, they serve to mark the line between Job’s darkness and despair on the one side, and the rich dawning light of a divine solution on the other, first through Elihu, God’s servant, and then from God himself. “All words,” observes Hengstenberg, “spoken against God come, after a brief season, to an end, either of grace, as in Job’s case, who begs that the folly of his discourses may be forgiven, or of wrath, when the mouth that uttereth great things is closed with violence.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
REFLECTIONS
READER! while we behold the man of Uz in this chapter justifying himself against the unjust charges of his friends, and making appeal to the LORD to plead his cause, let not you and I mistake the Patriarch’s meaning. It is one thing to justify our conduct against the unjust reproaches of men; and another to attempt palliating our offences committed against the sovereign majesty of Almighty GOD. At that throne of GOD’S justice, Job pleaded always guilty. He repeatedly confessed himself to have been a sinner. When he looked at the holiness of GOD’S law, he had nothing to say in his own justification. I have sinned (said Job), what shall I say unto thee, O thou Preserver of men. In our view of Job’s justification of himself, therefore, let us not fail to have this in remembrance.
But Reader! how sweet a relief is it to every mind conscious of the manifold offences there dwelling, and seen perhaps to no eye but to His that seeth in secret, that blessed scripture which saith, ‘If we confess our sins, GOD is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ Here, Reader, let you and I seek justification before GOD in that blood which cleanseth from all sin, and that righteousness which justifieth the ungodly which believe in JESUS. Though the patriarch Job was evidently taught concerning these precious means of saving and justifying poor sinners, and undoubtedly had strong faith in his kinsman Redeemer, the LORD JESUS, yet, had he lived to know of that blessed Holy One what you and I know, and to read, what you and I may read, of the complete redemption wrought by him, how would his soul have rejoiced in the vast consolation! Precious LORD JESUS! let thy righteousness, as my glorious Mediator and Surety, be the everlasting comfort, confidence, and joy of my heart. Then shall I be enabled to stand out against all the accusations of Satan, of false friends or open foes; and cry out with the Apostle in the holy triumph of the believer, It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Ended Words
Job 31:40
What have they come to? What can words come to at any time? What lies within the scope of the most eloquent controversy? Yet the Almighty permits us now and again to talk ourselves right out. By no other method can he teach us so clearly and effectually how little we can do for ourselves when we come face to face with the great and solemn mysteries of life. Observe, we can speak; we have that sometimes unhappy and fatal gift. Notice also how providence arranges for us opportunities of telling all we know, speaking all we think, and arguing about all the facts which lie within our cognisance. The question is, What does it amount to? The great wind of controversy has passed: what is left behind? The facts are very much where the speakers found them.
Observe the limit of words; and see how difficult it is for us to accept that limit as indicating a providential design and a method of instruction. How eloquently the comforters began after their seven days’ silence! They opened well. Truly they were gifted speakers. There was no want of language. Now the whole speech has been made many-coloured, many-toned what does it come to? How soon we reach the point of agnosticism! Yet agnosticism is paraded before us as quite a new invention, something perfectly novel, and not without a certain degree of bewitchment to certain peculiarly constituted minds. We do not come upon that point in theology only. We soon come upon it in materialism. We see nothing as it really is There is a point of agnosticism in the plainest piece of wood we ever had in hand. The philosophers themselves acknowledge this. They do not claim to be agnostics only in theology, or in spiritual thinking, or in metaphysics of any name or degree: they say plainly, We are also agnostics in matter: we do not know everything in the wood we handle and in the stone we tread upon. Surely this is not the very last idea in Christian or general civilisation. This supposedly novel idea runs through the Bible from end to end. We see a notable illustration of its action in this controversy as between Job and his three friends. We cannot call them ineloquent men, and say, Had your gift of words been greater, your discoveries would have been larger and brighter. We have been amazed at the copiousness and dignity of their eloquence; yet when such speakers have ended, what has all the conference amounted to?
Notice the despair of words as well as their limit. All has come to nothing. Yet how many weapons have been used, and used with masterly skill! They were not inexperienced controversialists; they represented the highest debating power of their age. We might name some of the weapons in order to assure ourselves that nothing was wanting in the armoury: there was eloquence, abundant; self-accusation, tipped with criticism, an accusation that spared no feeling, that could not be turned aside by any pity or clemency or regard for human sensitiveness; a style of impeachment that struck right home. The men were not afraid to tell Job what an evil life he must have lived, and on Job’s part there was abundant self-defence. All the weakness he suffered in his body did not prevent him, so to say, standing mentally erect and returning blow for blow every charge that was made against him. He held to his integrity. He was skilled, too, in recrimination. He did not allow the tu quoque argument to remain unused. He was as skilled a fencer as any of his friends. And now the whole fray is over what does it amount to? This point may be worth insisting upon as showing how little can be done by words, even in argument, in persuasion, in the counter-action of sophistical reasoning, and in the education of prejudiced minds. Have we not had sufficient argument in the Church? Is it not now time we took to some other course mayhap of action, or dignified suffering, to the cultivation of fraternal sentiments, to the expression of religious solicitudes? Is it not time to cease the argument and begin the mighty prayer? What has ever been settled by words? The settlement has been momentary, has been expediential, has been of the nature of compromise too often. Whoever had exactly the same meaning attached to the same word, when it came to argument as between two men or two typical sets of mind? Silence is sometimes more eloquent than speech, and prayer is often mightier than controversy. It must always be allowed that there must be individuality of speech; that every man is, so to speak, his own interpreter of his own words; that we do not understand the speech until we understand the speakers; that we know nothing of the words until we know the very soul of the man who uttered them. Here, then, must be liberty, so long as it does not infringe the rights of integrity, absolute consecration to the very spirit and genius of truth. How pleasant is this silence! Now we can look back and review, and estimate, and infer, and conclude about things, with all the evidence before us.
See what it is to endure unexplained misery. Job was doing this. He was unaware of the concert or compact which had been entered into at the beginning of the book which records his experience. So long as we can trace causes we find in that very tracing some elements of comfort. When we can explain how it is that we have come to pain, loss, sorrow, we fall back upon the explanation, and turn it into a species of solace: but the unexplained miseries of life make us tremble as with a double distress, first the actual pain of bodily or mental suffering, and, secondly, the mysteriousness which is ever coming round about us, descending upon us, and touching our imagination as with the sting of fire. When not one sound can be heard in the still night, and yet in the morning the tower of life is found rent, yea, thrown down in one shapeless ruin, the very silence of the process adds to the pain of the result. Could we have felt the shock of an earthquake, could we have seen the flying thunderbolt, could we have heard the mighty tearing tempest, we should have said, The downfall of the tower is no mystery: verily it can be accounted for precisely and completely: what could survive the storm which raged in the night-time? But all was quiet: the night was never more silent: not a voice could be heard, not the faintest breeze seemed to be stirring; and yet the tower has fallen down. Are there not men who are enduring unexplained miseries? We should have said, looking upon them from the outside, They do not deserve all this discipline: surely some great mistake is at the root and bottom of all this difficulty; the men are sober, honest, upright, God-fearing; they sanctify every morning with prayer, and they pass into their rest every night with a hymn of praise upon their lips; and yet they suffer like lepers; they are impoverished, baffled, disappointed: who can explain this great sorrow? There is nothing romantic in the history of Job. In the mere letter, in the transient colour of the occasion, there may be a good deal that is special or unique, but in the substantial meaning of the history we ourselves can sympathise with Job: for who can tell how that great loss was incurred? Who can explain the sorrow that fell upon us so swiftly and shut out all God’s bright sky? We have criticised our history, examined ourselves clearly and unsparingly; our scrutiny has been pushed almost to the point of cruelty, and yet we have not been able to detect an adequate reason for all this sudden gloom and overwhelming judgment; and if through the cloud we have cried, Oh, that we could tell why this distress has fallen upon us! God has not chided us for expressing a wonder that is religious, a surprise ennobled by reverence. See Job, then, living a life of unexplained misery. We cannot account for Job’s misery by the general law of apostacy. We might say, All men have sinned, and Job is only enduring the proper rewards of sin. That reasoning proves too much, and therefore proves nothing. There is a point of speciality as well as a point of generality in human experience. If this be the general law of human apostacy, then why were there comforters as well as a comforted man? why were they not in the same state? Why not all moaning because of a common sorrow? We must beware how we attempt to meet specific cases by merely general laws. Such an application of general laws divests our speech of that sweetest of all music, the tone of sympathy, unless indeed it seal our lips in silence, or reduce us to the necessity of saying, We also endure the same pain, for we are in the same condemnation.
See how man can be talked to by comforters who do not understand him. The three comforters were well-disposed, but they were not on the same level; they were kindly in spirit, but they were wanting in similarity of experience. Only he can exhort to courage who has himself felt the need of such exhortation. Only he can sympathise who has suffered. The sufferer knows when the really sympathetic voice is addressing him. Somehow it is not in the words that the sufferer finds the truest comfort, but in the words as spoken by a particular tone: the words themselves may be right, may be chosen from the very volume of inspiration, but if they be not uttered with the tenderness of simplicity, with the ardour of a fellow-feeling, with all the music of remembered pain, they will fail of their happiest effect. Here is the power of the pulpit. The man who preaches must be the man who has suffered: then he will preach well, not, perhaps, according to some canon of preaching as laid down by mechanicians and formalists, but well in the sense of touching the inner line of experience, now and again coming down with gracious power upon special suffering, unique necessity; and the common people will hear the preacher gladly, because he knows how broken is the human heart, how self-helpless is the general spiritual condition of man. Now there have been comforters who have Sought to address the distressed. We know their modern names. We do not resent their approach, but we know in a moment that they do not understand us. They do not speak our language. If they speak the words of our mother tongue, they speak them with a foreign accent. But these very words they often decline to use. Has not Science come to speak with some measure of comforting to the world? Let us hear what it has to say. What is the disqualification of science for speaking to the common experience of the human heart? It is wise, it is learned, it abounds in information; yet when it attempts to comfort the world it fails. Why? Because science has never had a broken heart. What, then, can it do to broken hearts? It speaks loftily, it sets its mouth against the heavens; it hardly ever speaks but in ponderous polysyllables: but science never cried, science was never blinded with tears, science has not lived the life of sorrow, and therefore taken up the language of sorrow. Herein the Son of God stands without rival or equal or approach; when we hear him we wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth; we say, What wisdom, what tenderness, what pathos, what knowledge of the human heart! oh! never man spake like this man: continue thy healing speech, oh thou Saviour of the world! Then Political Economy has come to rectify us and to comfort us: but political economy never buried a child, political economy never dug a grave. Let it deal with averages, with supply and demand, and with comings, and goings of produce; let it elaborate all its calculations, and we shall be thankful for what measure of help it can render to the living of this multitudinous life: but when it comes to darkness, sorrow, bereavement, heart-ache, how dumb the thing is! It cannot speak to such agony! See it gathering up all its papers and calculations, and hastening away affrighted because of the heartbreak that came for one moment into the darkened human face. And Philosophy has come to adjust our relations, and to account for our condition, and to supply a high basis of reasoning: but philosophy never had a guilty conscience. Philosophy also talks well. Indeed all these comforters are gifted speakers. But how well they look! Not one of them ever had a head-ache that sprang from real pain of heart; when they have been weary it has been with high intellectual pursuit, and they will soon recruit their energy and renew their youth. With what dignity they walk! They have never been bowed down with burden-carrying of the kind which the heart knows but two well. Eliphaz, and Bildad, and Zophar, and Science, and Political Economy and Philosophy, if you so please to change their names are gifted; yea, they are not without genius itself; they are noble-minded, they are welcomed and honoured within proper limits: “but they do not know what a guilty conscience is that fire within which will not allow the life one moment’s rest. So then, in asking for comfort we must always insist upon a similar experience as the necessity of fundamental, complete, and permanent sympathy. Where do we find this similar experience? Nowhere so fully as in the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: there it grows like a flower in its native soil; there all men may listen to profit and edification. We are well aware that there are times when this sympathy is not needed; when men are young, radiant, hopeful, successful; when wherever they walk flowers spring up in their footprints: what do they want with sympathy? They want high converse, intellectual dignity, philosophic speculation. That is right. The pulpit has nothing to say in condemnation of one set of circumstances being met by a similar set of circumstances: nay, that is the very point of our immediate argument, that similarity is essential to true fellowship. Now comes the Job period: the wind has struck down the house, all the sons are dead, all the cattle taken away; the flesh smitten with sore diseases, the very breath turned into a vapour of corruption, the whole life become a burden, a pestilence, a living pain: now who can speak? Given a world in which there is no experience, and you have given a world in which you need no New Testament; but dealing with facts as they are, and as we know them to be, and as we represent them, we are aware that there are moments in human life when no man dare speak to us but one who has; been sent from God. Here, let me repeat, is the power of the Church, the power of the Bible, the power of the true ministry a human ministry, rich with human sympathy, quick with human sensitiveness, and yet baptised, yea, saturated with the very spirit of the Cross of Christ.
Here is a man also who is representing in his own individual experience an aspect of the providence of God which could not be otherwise made clear. There are various kinds of what may be called vicarious suffering. What if sometimes one man has to suffer in a way which can teach the whole race what suffering really is, and to what sources of consolation suffering should retire? God may be using some men for the illustration of personal integrity. Each sufferer should say, Perhaps God is teaching the world through me: all this calamity has not fallen upon me personally because of inmediate sin, but through me God is revealing his providence and kingdom; he is saying in effect, This is the child of my family who can best represent this particular aspect of discipline: many other children have I, but this one could show best what it is to suffer and be strong, to have no day but only night in the weary, weary life, and yet all the time to be able to show a faith which never falters, and to glorify God in sevenfold darkness. Perhaps some of our suffering may be used for this public purpose. We may be called to preach illustratively. We may have no words; we may be without argument, or learning, or power of exposition, and yet by suffering, as if in fellowship with Christ, we may be revealing to other men sources of truth undiscovered and unsuspected by them. Let us, then, take the largest view of life, and not the smallest; let us bring in the whole to assist the part; let us bring within our purview the great field of time in order to illustrate the immediate moment.
The sublime lesson is that we need some one who understands us all and who can talk to us all. The preacher, be he ever so able, can often but speak to one class of mind, but the Son of God can speak to all mankind, to men, to women, to little children, to learned scribe, and rabbi, and pompous Pharisee, to self-smiting publican, and wandering woman, and wondering little child. The Son of God can confound the wisdom of the wise, and take the crafty in their own net, and send them away crestfallen, wondering that they have been in the presence of one who overwhelmed them with a new and uncalculated dignity. And little children can be with him, so that they want to come back again, and remain there always, for never saw they so sweet a smile, never felt so gentle a touch, never looked upon such a face. We bear witness to this. We have been in many moods, but never found Jesus Christ unequal to them. Sometimes men have been intellectual; they have felt a conscious elevation of mental faculty, so that really they began to think they could do something in pure intellect, and when they came to the Son of God they found that his sayings were unfathomable and his suggestions were infinite philosophies. They have said so; they have uncovered themselves in the presence of the great Teacher, and said with reverence, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Sometimes we have been blinded with tears; we could not read our own mother’s handwriting; we could see nothing but threatening clouds: then the Son of God has spoken to us, and soon the rain was over and gone, the voice of the turtle was heard in the land, and the soul rejoiced with gladness celestial. We have gone to him when we had none other to go to, and he has opened his heart-door to its lull width, and made us welcome to the heaven of his peace. We have tottered to him from the churchyard, where we have laid all that was dearest and had nothing left; then in our weariness, and reeling, and deprivation, and darkness we have groped for him, and found him, and he has not let us go until he has enriched us with a new hope, and made us strong with a new comfort. We have not read this, or you might dash the book out of our hands; we have felt this, known this. To destroy its power you must destroy our recollection. To take away this evidence of Christ’s deity, sonship, priesthood, you must first destroy our consciousness. Let those who have profited by Christ speak for their Lord. Let those who have been benefited by his word and thought and comfort, stand up and say so. The enemy is bold with impertinence and defiance: let the friends of Christ be bold with reverence and thankfulness.
Note
In the third dialogue (Job 22-31) no real progress is made by Job’s opponents. They will not give: up, and cannot defend, their position. Eliphaz (Job 22 ) makes a last effort, and raises one new point which he states with some ingenuity. The station in which Job was formerly placed presented temptations to certain crimes; the punishments which he undergoes are precisely such as might be expected had those crimes been committed; hence he infers they actually were committed. The tone of this discourse thoroughly harmonises with the character of Eliphaz. He could scarcely come to a different conclusion without surrendering his fundamental principles, and he urges with much dignity and impressiveness the exhortations and warnings which in his opinion were needed. Bildad has nothing to add but a few solemn words on the incomprehensible majesty of God and the nothingness of man. Zophar, the most violent and least rational of the three, is put to silence, and retires from the contest.
In his two last discourses Job does not alter his position, nor, properly speaking, adduce any new argument, but he states with incomparable force and eloquence the chief points which he regards as established (Job 26 ). All creation is confounded by the majesty and might of God; man catches but a faint echo of God’s word, and is baffled in the attempt to comprehend his ways. He then (Job 27 ) describes even more completely than his opponents had done the destruction which, as a rule, ultimately falls upon the hypocrite, and which he certainly would deserve if he were hypocritically to disguise the truth concerning himself, and deny his own integrity. He thus recognises what was true in his opponent’s arguments, and corrects his own hasty and unguarded statements, Then follows (Job 28 ) the grand description of Wisdom, and the declaration that human wisdom does not consist in exploring the hidden and inscrutable ways of God, but in the fear of the Lord, and in turning away from evil. The remainder of this discourse (Job 29-31) contains a singularly beautiful description of his former life, contrasted with his actual misery, together with a full vindication of his character from all the charges made or insinuated by his opponents. Thus ends the discussion, in which it is evident both parties had partially failed. Job has been betrayed into very hazardous statements, while his friends had been on the one hand disingenuous, on the other bigoted, harsh, and pitiless. The points which had been omitted, or imperfectly developed, are now taken up by a new interlocutor (Job 32-37) Elihu. [See note, post, p. 328.] Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job 31:40 Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
Ver. 40. Let thistles grow instead of wheat ] This was a piece of that first curse, Gen 3:8 , under which the earth hath lain bedridden, as it were, ever since, waiting for the coming of the Son of God, that it may he delivered from the bondage of corruption, Rom 8:20 ; and Job wished it as due to him, Ex lege Talionis, if he should be guilty of the forementioned cruelty, Jas 2:13 , et Arvum ab Heb. Arur, accursed.
And cockle instead of barley
The words of Job are ended
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Let thistles grow. This is not an imprecation, but an argument in favor of his integrity: i.e. Had he been as his friends alleged, would he not have had bad instead of bountiful harvests? See translation below.
ended: so far as his friends were concerned. He had words for God (ch. Job 42:1-6).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
thistles: Choach, probably the black thorn. (See note on 2Ki 14:9). Gen 3:17, Gen 3:18, Isa 7:23, Zep 2:9, Mal 1:3
cockle: or, noisome weeds
The: Psa 72:20
Reciprocal: Lev 26:20 – for your land Num 5:22 – the woman Job 31:22 – let Pro 24:31 – it Jer 51:64 – Thus far Heb 6:8 – beareth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
31:40 Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The {f} words of Job are ended.
(f) That is, the talk which he had with his three friends.