Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 35:10
But none saith, Where [is] God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;
10. The explanation of the anomaly.
Where is God ] The language of one devoutly seeking God.
songs in the night ] They seek not God in truth, who by sudden deliverances (comp. ch. Job 34:20; Job 34:25) fills the mouth of the afflicted with singing, Psa 32:7.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But none saith – That is, none of the oppressed and down-trodden say. This is the solution which Elihu gives of what appeared so mysterious to Job, and of what Elihu regarded as the source of the bitter complaints of Job. The solution is, that when people are oppressed they do not apply to God with a proper spirit, and look to him that they may find relief. It was a principle with Elihu, that if when a man was afflicted he would apply to God with a humble and penitent heart, he would hear him, and would withdraw his hand; see this principle fully stated in Job 33:19-26. This Elihu now says, was not done by the oppressed, and this, according to him, is the reason why the hand of God is still upon them.
Where is God my Maker – That is, they do not appeal to God for relief. They do not inquire for him who alone can help them. This is the reason why they are not relieved.
Who giveth songs in the night – Night, in the Scriptures, is an emblem of sin, ignorance, and calamity. Here calamity is particularly referred to; and the idea is, that God can give joy, or impart consolation, in the darkest season of trial. He can impart such views of himself and his government as to cause the afflicted even to rejoice in his dealings; he can raise the song of praise even when all external things are gloomy and sad; compare Act 16:25. There is great beauty in this expression. It has been verified in thousands of instances where the afflicted have looked up through tears to God, and their mourning has been turned into joy. Especially is it true under the gospel, that in the day of darkness and calamity, God puts into the mouth the language of praise, and fills the heart with thanksgiving. No one who has sought comfort in affliction with a right spirit has found it withheld, and all the sad and sorrowful may come to God with the assurance that he can put songs of praise into their lips in the night of calamity; compare Psa 126:1-2.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 35:10-11
But none saith, Where is God my Maker?
Questions which ought to be asked
Elihu perceived the great ones of the earth oppressing the needy, and he traced their domineering tyranny to their forgetfulness of God. None said, Where is God my Maker? Surely, had they thought of God, they could not have acted so unjustly. Worse still, if I understand Elihu aright, he complained that even among the oppressed there was the same departure in heart from the Lord: they cried out by reason of the arm of the mighty, but unhappily they did not cry unto God their Maker, though He waits to be gracious unto all such, and executeth righteousness and judgment for all the oppressed.
I. Think over these neglected questions.
1. Where is God? Pope said, The proper study of mankind is man; but it is far more true that the proper study of mankind is God. Let man study man in the second place, but God first. Some men have a place for everything else, but no place in their heart for God. They are most exact in the discharge of other relative duties, and yet they forget their God.
2. Where is God thy Maker? Oh! unthinking man, God made you. Do you never think of your Maker? Have you no thought for Him without whom you could not think at all?
3. Where is God our Comforter? Who giveth songs in the night? Though you have had very severe trials, you have always been sustained in them when God has been near you. It will be very sad if we poor sufferers forget our God, our Comforter, our Song-giver.
4. Where is God our Instructor? Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of the heaven? God has given us intellect. It is not by accident, but by His gift, that we are distinguished from the beasts and the fowls. If animals do not turn to God, we do not wonder, but shall man forget? Why, O man, with thy superior endowments, art thou the sole rebel, the only creature of earthly mould that forgets the creating and instructing Lord?
II. There are questions which God will ask of you. Adam heard the voice cry, Where art thou? There will come such a voice to you if you have neglected God. Though you hide in the top of Carmel, or dive with the crooked serpent into the depths of the sea, you will hear that voice, and be constrained to answer it. You will hear a second question by and by, Why didst thou live and die without Me? Such questions as these will come thick upon you–What did I do that thou shouldst slight Me? Did I not give you innumerable mercies? Why did you never think of Me? You will have no answer to these questions. Then will come another question–How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
III. Give the answers to the grave inquiries of the text. Where is God? He is everywhere. Where is God your Maker? He is within eyesight of you. You cannot see Him, but He sees you. Where is your Comforter? He is ready with songs in the night. Where is your Instructor? He waits to make you wise unto salvation. Where then may I meet Him? says one. You cannot meet Him–you must not attempt it–except through the Mediator. If you come to Jesus, you have come to God. Believe in Jesus Christ, and your God is with you. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Neglect of God in seasons of need
I. That seasons of affliction should induce men to seek after God.
1. All men are exposed to trouble.
(1) Temporal visitations of Divine displeasure. When God visits a nation with war, famine, or pestilence, then it is a time of darkness. When families or individuals are subjected to poverty, to disappointment in their plans, hopes, etc. Happy are they who have then the God of light for their refuge.
(2) Bodily and mental afflictions may be compared to night
(3) The season of temptation is a dark season (1Pe 1:6).
(4) Declensions and backslidings lead to darkness (Rev 2:4-5).
(5) Death is compared to night (Joh 9:4).
2. It is the duty of all to inquire after God. Where is God my Maker?
(1) A conviction that He is the source of all that is good and excellent, and that without an interest in Him the soul will be ruined forever.
(2) Investigation of His character by the light of revelation.
(3) A deep conviction of our state of alienation from Him, which induces repentance, godly sorrow, etc.
(4) A knowledge of Christ as the Mediator, the way to the Father–a cordial reception of His own terms of reconciliation, and the exercise of faith in the Redeemers sacrifice.
(5) Frequent prayer to Him, especially in seasons of darkness, believing that in Him alone is our help found.
II. That God can and will afford relief in the darkest seasons. Who giveth songs in the night. He can give deliverance, grant support and consolation, and sanctify all the trials of His people, which will make them utter songs of gladness and praise.
1. It is evident from His power. Who has an arm like God? etc. (Psa 66:3; Psa 46:1, etc.; Deu 33:27). The Psalmist might well sing of His power (Psa 21:13).
2. It is evident from His love. He loves as a father, and will defend them, and save them.
3. It is evident from His promises.
4. It is evident from what He has done. Call to remembrance the former days.
(1) He has given songs in the night of spiritual alarm (Act 16:34).
(2) He has given songs in the time of deprivation and want (Hab 3:17-19; 1Co 5:11); yet the apostles uttered songs of triumph (2Co 1:3-4).
(3) He has given songs under bodily afflictions (2Co 12:7-10).
(4) He has given songs in the time of persecution (Rom 8:36-37, etc.; 2Ti 1:12; Mat 5:10).
(5) He has given songs in the hour of temptation (1Co 10:13; Jam 1:12; 1Pe 1:6).
(6) He has given songs in the night of death (Psa 23:4; Act 21:13; 1Co 15:55).
III. Why it is that so few are inquiring after God.
1. Because man naturally hates God (Rom 8:7).
2. From the want of spiritual perception (1Co 2:14).
3. Because they are intoxicated with the vain pleasures of earth.
4. Pride also prevents them (Psa 10:4).
5. Because they are captives to Satan. They are his servants–him they obey (Eph 2:2).
Application–
1. The happiness of those who inquire after God.
2. The present and future misery of the wicked.
3. Seek the Lord while He may be found. (Helps for the Pulpit.)
Inquiry after God
It is the height of ingratitude to forget God in the day of prosperity. Considering, however, the deep corruption of mans fallen nature, there is little in such ingratitude, culpable as it is, to excite our surprise. The great subject for wonder is, that while God has revealed Himself as the refuge of the oppressed, a friend in the day of calamity, a Saviour from guilt, and sin, and hell, a comforter in darkness, and a deliverer in trouble, He should be neglected in circumstances and times when no other being and no other object can cheer the heart, or interpose any effectual relief. There is no deficiency of complaint in the hour of affliction, come from what source it may. The charge of the text is one involving deep criminality. It implies an affectation of independence of God; it argues ingratitude; it evinces all the temerity of rebellion; it is the expression of contempt. For it is the duty, and it ought to be esteemed the delight of the rational soul to be inquiring after God, to be climbing up the ascent to an intimate acquaintance and near fellowship with Him, who is the Father of our spirits and the God of glory. But wherefore is it necessary to inquire after God? Whence this language importing difficulty–language which supposes the absence of God our Maker? There is no local distance to separate between the soul of any living thing and Him the former of it. The only absence of God from men is one of reserve, of restrained manifestation: it is the cold distance of offence created by human guilt; for we have compelled Him to stand aloof; we have insulted Him in the manifestation of His glory. Therefore it is necessary to seek God, and to say, Where is God my Maker? To solicit, not His presence, for that necessarily fills heaven and earth, but His favourable presence, the spiritual union of our souls with Him. We must seek Him as He is in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. What are the motives which ought to influence everyone to ask, Where is God my Maker? and to seek Him as He reveals Himself in Christ Jesus?
1. His glory, that we may give Him the worship due to His name and majesty.
2. That we may express our gratitude.
3. That we may obtain assurance of His favour.
4. That we may learn His will.
5. That we may secure His help.
But the charge is aggravated. Were God a being regardless of the worship, the miseries, and discomforts of His creatures, although such neglect could not then be justified, yet it would seem to be palliated to a certain extent. But when God is a strength to the poor, when it is in the ordinary course of His government to heal the broken in heart, the neglect is greatly aggravated. The night is a general symbol for what is melancholy and sorrowful; as the day, illuminated by the splendour of the sun, is the image of joy and exhilaration. Whatever the darkness we contemplate, we shall find that for that night season God has provided consolations, has given songs to cheer the heart of the believer. Life itself is a time of darkness. It is a scene of sin, trial, and temptation. There are seasons of gloomy night to individuals, as well as to the world. The seasons of temptation, affliction, and death, are times of darkness, on which Christ arises as the light. Then let reason have her just sway, and you will inquire after God your Maker. You will become penitent, humble believers in Christ. You will become new creatures. (T. Kennion, M.A.)
Men who do not ask for God
None sayeth, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night? They do not betake themselves to God thus revealed for consolation in their trials. There are some who ask not for God at all, speculative or practical–atheists, who, in conscious fear of Divine holiness and justice and truth, set themselves resolutely to disbelieve in the Divine existence, and strangely choose to be creatures of chance and slaves to inexorable fate, rather than the creatures of a personal God–the children of a Heavenly Father. So, instead of asking for God, they go groping amid old geologic ruins for some substitute for the Eternal One, crying into every skeleton and spectre, Where is this monstrous thing, force or law, that hides itself in the night? And in this reference there is an undesigned but withering irony in Jobs foregoing confession, I said to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. And we leave the whole school to the raptures of such a brotherhood and sisterhood–to all the consolation, in coming trials, of the promise unto those who honour such a father and mother, to fill all the death caverns of unbelief with the sibilation inspired by such a genesis. But be it our blessed privilege to honour a nobler parentage, to cherish holier hopes and higher memories, and to go forth amid present glooms crying, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night? (C. Wadsworth, D.D.)
Song in the night of sorrow
The late Sir Arthur Sullivan had long admired the words of The Lost Chord, and had made up his mind to set them to music. Relating the circumstances of the composition of the best-known sacred solo of the day, Sir Arthur said, One night I was in the room next to that in which my brother lay dying. I had been watching at his bedside, and was thoroughly tired out and weary. I chanced to sit down in the room and there the noble words were before me. I did not rise from the seat until I had composed the music. The lovely strains were composed in the hour of sorrow. The dark night gave birth to the sweet song! Perhaps we do not know what we are producing when we travel the rough road–we are only conscious of the pains, and not of the products. But we may rest assured that our Father knows the ministry of every circumstance through which He makes us pass. (J.H. Jowett, M.A.)
Mens neglect of God
I. What is meant by inquiring after God our maker?
1. When we investigate the important question, Is there a Deity? what notions are we to form of His nature, perfections, and providence?
2. When we apply to Him in the exercise of religious duty, particularly prayer (Job 8:5; Isa 55:6).
3. When we are solicitous to discover His will concerning our duty and privilege, as moral and reasonable beings (Rom 12:2; 1Th 4:3).
4. When we earnestly pant after His approbation, and give ourselves no rest till we obtain it, through repentance for sin, and faith in the atonement of the Son of God (Rom 3:25-26).
5. When we thirst after that better country, where God is enjoyed, and where our inquiries after Him shall meet with ample success. There we shall have the justest and the brightest ideas of Him, the most glorious resemblance of His holy and benevolent nature (1Jn 3:2).
II. Why is it that so new are making this inquiry?
1. Because mankind are so much engaged about visible things: these strike the senses more than things of a spiritual and invisible nature; and seem to be the only things which command their attention.
2. Dissipation. They have no taste but for play and amusement, one scene of diversion after another; the hours which should be spent in intercourse with heaven, are prostituted to folly, vanity, and idleness.
3. They make a God of this world, by placing their affections supremely upon it (Jam 2:4); its gold and silver, honour, fame, power, dominion, popular applause.
4. They are sensual, making a God of pleasure, sensuality, lascivious gratifications. How can a soul, thus fettered to earth, elevate itself to inquire after God its Maker? no more than a bird can ascend without wings.
5. Some live so criminally, that God is the object of their dread: they wish there was no God; are glad to hear religion opposed; would be happy to hear its truths confuted, if they could; they would obliterate the doctrine of providence, and the souls immortality.
III. Consider the amiable account here given of God. He giveth songs in the night; or matter of songs, etc.
1. By exhibiting those bright orbs which fill the expanse of heaven (Psa 8:3-4).
2. Night may be taken figuratively. Day is put for prosperity, success, joy, and comfort. Night for adversity, calamity, grief, and vexation. God cheereth the mourners heart, and solaceth His people in the night of adversity, grants support, unexpected relief (Psa 66:19).
3. He giveth songs in the night of death, of praise and thanksgiving, of victory (1Co 15:55; 1Co 4:7).
Improvement–
1. Let us rejoice in Him, who lifteth up the hands that hang down, and giveth songs of praise in adversity.
2. Let us adore the wisdom of Providence, in whose dispensations day and night, good and evil, are so seasonably blended, enjoy the good thankfully, suffer the evil with resignation.
3. Let us fortify ourselves under every calamity by looking forward. (T. Hannam.)
The apparent intentions of Divine wisdom
To inquire after God our Maker, with a view of understanding, so far as we are able, His designs, and conforming to His will, is our highest wisdom. But what are we able to know of Him? Are we able to attain no knowledge of Him? That would be denying our own reason, and degrading ourselves to a level with the brute creatures. God has distinguished us with a rational nature above them. It is therefore our privilege and duty to inquire, Where and what is God our Maker? His infinite unsearchable perfection ought not to discourage our humble and sincere inquiries; but is a consideration proper only to damp that pride, conceit, and self-sufficiency which would obstruct our inquiries, and prevent our attainment of real knowledge. All His works discover something of Him; and we are utterly ignorant of ourselves and of the world around us, if we know nothing of God. The apprehension of a Deity results immediately from the very consciousness of our own existence. Every creature around us points to a Creator. Our acquisition of knowledge was an intention of the Almighty Creator. All instruction comes from God, the original fountain of wisdom and knowledge. The Divine intention will strike our minds, if we attend to the gradual process by which men arrive at that portion of knowledge which they are severally possessed of. In the beginning of life the human soul subsists with few ideas, according to its minute capacity. But they multiply fast; the inquisitive curiosity is adapted to and gratified with a continual accession of new objects. When the stock of ideas is sufficiently increased, the comparing and judging faculty begins to operate. Here reason commences, and is henceforth continually employed in disposing the intellectual furniture of the mind, arranging everything in due place and order. Is there no design of creative wisdom in this admirable and evident process of nature? Did not God thus intend to disclose to us His works, and consequently lead us to the study and contemplation of Himself? The first branch of knowledge is that which respects ourselves and mankind around us, the relations, dependencies, connections, interests, inclinations, customs, and laws of human society. This qualifies me to live in society, and to behave as subjects of law and government, and in a manner proper to domestic and national obligations. The second branch of knowledge is that of a Supreme Being, as the maker and disposer of all things, the all-wise Governor of the whole world, the just Judge of mankind, and the original Author of all good. This knowledge is constantly taught by the still eloquence of universal nature. These two kinds of knowledge, so important and so beneficial, are common to mankind in general. Reflections–
1. It becomes us to acknowledge with all gratitude the liberality and kindness of our Creator, in forming and designing us for the acquisition of such excellent and valuable knowledge, and in bringing us to the possession of it.
2. Let us observe and pursue the Divine intention, by a diligent improvement of our advantages.
3. The knowledge of God, and of the visible intentions of His wisdom and goodness in the frame of our world, in the faculties of our minds, and in the order of society, is the best preparation for understanding and embracing the Gospel of our Saviour. We must believe in God, before we can have faith in Christ; we must previously hear and learn of the Father Almighty, before we come to Christ duly qualified for His instructions. If we wisely improve present advantages, there is a glorious everlasting constitution, which God hath established in Christ Jesus our Lord, in order to our rising again from the dead to the enjoyment of immortality. (E. Bown.)
Who giveth songs in the night.—
Songs in the night
I. What season of our lives is described under the image of night? Night is the time of darkness and of gloominess; when we can see nothing and can do nothing, as we can in the bright and cheerful light of day. As such it fitly represents a time of ignorance, and unbelief, and sin. It also represents a time of adversity and of affliction, whether of a public or a private nature. The season of suffering is, to the unconverted person, a season of gloom and heaviness. How cheerless is the chamber of sickness to the eye and the heart of an unsanctified sufferer!
II. What is the real Christians spirit and temper and condition in these dark seasons of suffering? Singing bespeaks an easy, contented, and happy state of mind. We seldom if ever hear a person singing who is very unhappy. But this excellent gift and faculty may be and often is abused. There are different sorts of song, and different characters who sing them. We should not understand the word songs in our text, only in its literal meaning. It also represents that sweet and composed and resigned spirit which the Christian sufferer experiences inwardly when all outward things are dark about him. Songs in the night describe that peaceful and composed frame of mind and soul which the Christian sufferer enjoys in his darkest night of suffering or sorrow.
III. Who is to give us this Christian spirit, temper, and condition? Even the Lord, our Maker, and Preserver, and Saviour, and Comforter. A heavenly mind and spirit can only proceed from heaven. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; and as such he receives a new nature, and a new spirit, and he sings a new song. He sees everything with different eyes; he receives everything with a different spirit; he bears everything with a different temper; he no longer looks upon himself, or his condition in this world, as he once did. It is no longer his rest; it is a school in which he is to learn lessons of heavenly wisdom; a warfare, in which he is to fight the good fight of faith. (Robert Grant, B.C.L.)
Songs in the night
Elihu suggests one possible reason why the cry of the afflicted is not oftener redressed. The reason suggested is, that it is a godless cry. Surely God will not hear vanity. But if he sufferer would apply to God with a humbled, penitent, and believing spirit, the darkness might be more readily dispelled. God, our Maker, giveth songs in the night, songs at an unwonted time, melody when least expected. Here then we have a forcible and effective contrast. An ever-helpful truth this, that when the cry of deep disquietude and great unrest is changed into a prayer, when it assumes the form of an intelligent and patient faith, it loses in the act its plaintiveness and becomes triumphant. It is no longer the wail of hopelessness, it is the hallelujah of thanksgiving.
1. Young has these lines–
Earth, turning from the sun, brings night to man;
Man, turning from his God, brings endless night.
And we have no more fit image than night for the occasion of our heaviest woes. What a pall sin will bring over our souls! We are all of us learning by experience. Are not our moods ofttimes of a sombre character? We cannot always control the moods of our soul. It is not easy to sing the song of faith when the voice refuses to sing the song of glad and happy love. Yet let the true soul wait on God, and the songs will come. Cry first, and you will sing presently.
2. So, too, faith may lose its assurance. It may want some of the links that give perfection and continuity to a personal trust. The shades of unbelief, or a faith that has lost its clearer lights, will sometimes take the place of a well-evidenced trust. If the time should ever come that you lose your early trust, do not let your cry lose aught of its devoutness; do not lose your hold upon God; still cling to Him. He is still with you in all those earnest questionings; and He will give you songs even in that dark night if you cry to Him.
3. At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises to God. It was a strange place for the voice of thanksgiving, for the melody of praise. That night seemed a fit image of their circumstances, dark enough in all truth. Not much, to human seeming, that could inspire songfulness; everything to beget fear and alarm. Not more so, perhaps you are thinking, than the circumstances of some you know–your own, perhaps. Little outwardly to cheer your life, very much to depress it. And yet you, too, may have songs of trust and loving confidence; songs of hope, and triumph in that hope. We must not spend the time of our trial in fruitless complaining. Let us besiege heaven with our suppliant tones.
4. But I think it would be easier to die for Christ than to live through the commonplace life of thousands of modern Christians, who have to drink of the water of affliction, and eat the bread of adversity, and yet be Christ-like. Yes, to live thus, and still keep ones hold of God, and lift in consequence a hymn of glad thankfulness or patient hope, is it not yet more difficult? I often think so.
5. What is the aggregate life of the Church, with all its blessed fruits of love, joy, and peace, but a song in the night? If then, God has given any of us songs in the night; songs of happy love, songs of quiet hope, songs of deep trust, songs of true thankfulness, no night will last forever. (G.J. Proctor.)
Songs in the night
There is sufficient in our God to give every saint a song even during his darkest night of sorrow.
1. Our sufficiency in God is in no way affected by our outward circumstances. Have you never rejoiced in the purposes of your God? Another well of comfort is found in the love of God. The thought of Gods having pardoned us is a fountain of joy. Have you not often rejoiced in the anticipation of heaven? What is your night? Perhaps it is one of changed prospects; or of changed health; or it is a night of bereavement; or, may be, of spiritual depression.
2. Some of the songs God gives to His saints. The song of faith; hope; tranquillity; sympathy with Jesus; heavenly anticipation. (Archibald G. Brown.)
Songs in the night
The world hath its night. It seems necessary that it should have one. Night is one of the greatest blessings man enjoys. Yet night is to many a gloomy season. Yet even night has its songs. Man, too, like the great world in which he lives, must have his night. And many a night do we have–nights of sorrow, of persecution, of doubt, of bewilderment, of anxiety, of oppression, of ignorance–nights of all kinds, which press upon our spirits, and terrify our souls.
I. Who is the author of these songs in the night? God our Maker. Any fool can sing in the day. It is easy enough for an AEolian harp to whisper music when the wind blows; the difficulty is for music to come when no wind blows. What does the text mean, when it asserts that God giveth songs in the night? Two answers.
1. Usually in the night of a Christians experience God is his only song. We can sacrifice to ourselves in daylight–we only sacrifice to God by night.
2. He is the only one who inspires songs in the night. It is marvellous how one sweet word of God will make whole songs for Christians.
II. What is generally the matter contained in a song in the night? What do we sing about? About the yesterday that is over; or else about the night itself; or else about the morrow that is to come.
III. What are the excellencies of songs in the night above all other songs? A song in the night of trouble is sure to be a hearty one. The songs we sing in the night will be lasting. They will be those which show a real faith in God. Such songs prove that we have true courage and true love to Christ.
IV. Show the use of such songs. It is useful to sing in the night of our troubles, because thus we may cheer ourselves: because God loves to hear His people sing. Because it will cheer your companions. Because it is one of the best arguments in favour of your religion. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Songs in the night
In regard of Gods dealings with our race, there is an almost universal disposition to the looking on the dark side, and not on the bright; as though there were cause for nothing but wonder, that a God of infinite love should permit so much misery in any section of His intelligent creation. We cannot deny, that if we merely regard the earth as it is, the exhibition is one whose darkness it is scarcely possible to overcharge. But when you seek to gather from the condition of the world the character of its Governor, you are bound to consider, not what the world is, but what it would be, if all which that Governor has done on its behalf were allowed to produce its legitimate effect. When you set yourselves to compute the amount of what may be called unavoidable misery–that misery which must equally remain, if Christianity possessed unlimited sway–you would find no cause for wonder, that God has left the earth burdened with so great a weight of sorrow, but only of praise, that He has provided so amply for the happiness of the fallen. The greatest portion of the misery which exists, arises in spite of Gods benevolent arrangements, and would be avoided, if men were not bent on choosing the evil and rejecting the good. There must be sorrow on the earth, so long as there is death; but, if this were all, the certain hope of resurrection and immortality would dry every tear, or cause at least triumph so to blend with lamentation, that the mourner would almost be lost in the believer. For wise ends, a certain portion of suffering has been made unavoidable. When we come to give the reasons why so vast an accumulation of wretchedness is to be found in every district of the globe, we cannot assign the will and appointment of God; we charge the whole on mans forgetfulness of God; on his contempt or neglect of remedies and assuagements Divinely provided; yea, we offer in explanation the words of our text,–None saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night? Elihu represents it as a most strange and criminal thing, that, though our Maker giveth songs in the night, He is not inquired after by those on whom the calamity presses.
1. What an aggravation it is of the guilt of mens forgetting their Creator, that He is a God who giveth songs in the night. It is one beautiful instance of the adaptation of revelation to our circumstances, that the main thing which it labours to set forth is the love of our Maker. Natural theology, whatever its success in delineating the attributes of God, could never have proved that sin had not excluded us from all share in His favour. The revelation, which alone can profit us, must be a revelation of mercy, a revelation which brings God before us as not made irreconcilable by our many offences. This is the character of the revelation with which we have been favoured. But if God has thus revealed Himself in the manner most adapted to the circumstances of the suffering, does not the character of the revelation vastly aggravate the sinfulness of those by whom God is not sought?
2. With how great truth and fitness this touching description may be applied to our Maker. Take the cases of death in a family, or the times of sorrow a minister meets with. And how accurate the description is, if referred generally to Gods spiritual dealings with our race. Who would not be a believer in Christ? when such are the privileges of righteousness, the privileges through life, the privileges in death, the wonder is, that all are not eager to close with the offers of the Gospel, and make these privileges their own. (Henry Melvill, B.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. Where is God my Maker] They have no just apprehension of his being; they do not consider themselves his creatures, or that he who created them still preserves them, and would make them happy if they would pray unto him.
Who giveth songs in the night] This is variously translated. “Before whom the high angels give praise in the night.” – CHALDEE.
“Who sets the night-watches.” – SEPTUAGINT.
“Gives meditations in the night.” – SYRIAC and ARABIC.
“And that shyneth upon us that we might prayse him in the night.” – COVERDALE.
A holy soul has continual communion with God: night and day its happiness is great; and God, from whom it comes, is the continual subject of its songs of praise.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
None, i.e. few or none (for few are oft called and accounted as none, both in Scripture and other authors) of the great numbers of oppressed persons.
None saith, to wit, seriously or sincerely, and it may be not so much as in word and profession.
Where is God? they howl and cry out of men, and to men, but they seek not after God; they do not acknowledge him in all their ways; they praise him not for that ease, and liberty, and estate, and other mercies which God gave them; and by this unthankfulness they forfeit their mercies; and therefore if God suffer oppressors to take them away, they have no cause to complain of God, but only of themselves: they will not vouchsafe to pray to God seriously and fervently, either to continue or to restore their lost mercies; and therefore if God do not hear nor regard their brutish cries, arising only from a natural sense of their misery, it is not strange nor unjust.
My Maker; who alone made me, and whose power and providence preserveth me every day, and who only can protect and deliver me; all which were obligations upon them to praise God, and pray to him, and depend upon him, and aggravations of their gross neglect of God. Heb. my Makers, in the plural number; which being used not only here, but also Ecc 12:1; Isa 44:5, and that without any necessity, when it might as well have been put in the singular number, yea, though Elohim be plural, as it is Gen 1:1, plainly implies a plurality of persons in the Divine essence, of which see on Gen 1:26. Songs, i.e. matter of songs; great occasion to rejoice and praise God.
In the night; either,
1. Metaphorically taken, i.e. in the night of affliction; implying that they want not cause to bless God even in their afflictions. Or rather,
2. Properly, as this word is always used in Job, one place excepted, which is doubtful, to wit, Job 36:20; which he may mention rather than the day, either because oppressed persons, who in the day time are cruelly used by their oppressors, are permitted to rest in the night; or because the hand and mercy of God is more manifest in the preservation, and rest, and sleep of the night, than in the blessings of the day, which are procured by mans industry; or because the day is the time of action, the night of contemplation, when we do and ought to remember Gods mercies with thanksgiving: compare Psa 42:8; 119:62.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10-13. But the reason is thatthe innocent sufferers often do not humbly seek God for succor; so totheir “pride” is to be laid the blame of their ruin; alsobecause (Job 35:13-16)they, as Job, instead of waiting God’s time in pious trust, are proneto despair of His justice, when it is not immediately visible (Job33:19-26). If the sufferer would apply to God with a humbled,penitent spirit, He would hear.
Where, c. (Jer 2:6Jer 2:8; Isa 51:13).
songsof joy atdeliverance (Psa 42:8; Psa 149:5;Act 16:25).
in the nightunexpectedly(Job 34:20; Job 34:25).Rather, “in calamity.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But none saith, where [is] God my Maker?…. Or “Makers” y, as in Ps 149:2; for there are more concerned in the formation of man, Ge 1:26; even the Father, Son, and Spirit, who are the one God that has made all men, Mal 2:10. Now not one of the oppressed ones that cry by reason of their oppression, or very few of them, inquire after God, seek unto him for help and deliverance from their oppressions, or desire to enjoy him and his gracious presence under their afflictions and distresses; and that is one reason why they are not heard: they do not so much as consider him as the author of their beings, and be thankful to him for them; nor as the preserver of them in their beings; nor as their kind benefactor, who gives them all that they enjoy, and who is the disposer of all their affairs in providence: and if they are new creatures, or are remade, they are his workmanship; and therefore should upon all accounts seek him and submit to his will, and patiently bear all their afflictions, waiting his time to deliver them out of them: but there are few or none that regard him in this light, or make an inquiry after him, even though he has not only made them, but is he
who giveth songs in the night; which respects not the praises of the angels in the night, as the Targum; nor the shining of the moon and stars in the night, which cause praise and thankfulness; nor the singing of birds in the night, as of the nightingale; senses some give into: but matter and cause of rejoicing in the night, either taken literally, as the mercies of the day, which, when reflected upon when men come to lie down on their beds at night, and commune with their hearts there, afford them songs of praise, see Ps 42:8. Or the mercies of the night, as sweet refreshing sleep, and preservation in safety from all dangers by fire, thieves, c. all which are of God and, when duly considered, will direct to encompass him with songs of deliverance, see Ps 137:2. Or, figuratively, the night sometimes signifying a time of calamity, affliction, and distress, either on temporal or spiritual accounts; and when men seek to him in such a night with their whole hearts, and he is pleased to visit them in a gracious manner, and favour them with his presence and the discoveries of his love, this occasions songs of praise to him,
Isa 26:9. But when men are unconcerned about and not thankful for the mercies of the day and of the night, though these administer songs unto them, it is no wonder that, when they cry through oppression, they are not heard.
y “factores mei”; Drusius, Mercerus, Piscator, Cocceius, Michaelis, Schultens; so Broughton.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(10) But none saith.Some render this, But he who giveth songs in the night saith not, Where is God my Maker, i.e., the selfish and luxurious oppressor, who spendeth the night in feasting and revelry. This is an intelligible meaning. On the other hand, though the phrase, who giveth songs in the night, has become proverbial, and, with the meaning assigned to it, is very beautiful, it may be doubted whether it is so obvious or natural in this place. This is a matter for individual taste and judgment to decide. If it is understood of God, it ascribes to Him the turning of sorrow into gladness, and the night of affliction into joyan office which is, indeed, frequently assigned to God, but of which the appropriateness is not so manifest here. The decision of this question will perhaps partly depend upon the view we take of the words which followWhere is God my Maker?whether they are part of the cry of the oppressed or whether they are the words of Elihu. If the latter, then they become more intelligible; if otherwise, it is difficult to see their special appropriateness in this particular place. Perhaps it is better to regard them as the words of Elihu.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. But none saith But they do not say. The reason that they are not heard is, that their cry has no element of faith or regard for God, in this respect resembling the instinctive cries of beasts and birds.
My maker . The plural form does not so much express “excellency” as point to the multiplicity and richness of the divine benefits, “so that the one is instar multorum,” (Hengstenberg,) that is, the one God bestows as if he himself were many beings in one. Compare “thy Creator” (plural form) in Ecc 12:1.
Songs in the night As with Paul and Silas at midnight in prison. Act 16:25. The Talmud gives a pleasing allegory entitled “The Songs of the Night.” “As David in his youthful days was tending his flocks on Bethlehem’s fertile plains, the Spirit of the Lord descended upon him, and his senses were opened, and his understanding enlightened, so that he could understand the songs of the night. The heavens proclaimed the glory of God, the glittering stars formed one general chorus, their harmonious melody resounded upon earth, and the sweet fulness of their voices vibrated to its utmost bounds. “Light is the countenance of the Eternal,” said the setting sun. “I am the hem of his garment,” responded the soft and rosy twilight. The clouds gathered themselves together and said, “We are his nocturnal tent.” “We bless thee from above,” said the gentle moon. “We too bless thee,” responded the stars; and the lightsome grasshopper chirped, “Me too he blesses in the pearly dewdrop.” See KITTO’S Journal of S.L., 6:67; also, sermon, in loc., by H. Melvill.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 35:10. Who giveth songs in the night? Who appointeth guards over me in the night-season? Heath; following the LXX. See Psa 91:11. But Houbigant, after the Syriac, renders it, Who giveth thoughts in the night? which seems best to agree with the next verse.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 487
THE IMPIETY AND FOLLY OF MANKIND
Job 35:10. None saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?
IN investigating so deep a mystery as that of, what is generally called, the doctrine of the Trinity, we ought, beyond all doubt, to look for clear and solid ground whereon to found our judgment: and happily there is ample proof, throughout the whole Scriptures, that, though there is but one God, there is in the Godhead a distinction of persons, who are severally revealed to us as possessing all the attributes of Deity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are represented as concurring in the great work of Redemption; the Father sending his Son into the world; the Son laying down his life for us; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, to apply that redemption to our souls: and this distinction is especially recognised by every one that is received into the Christian Church; every one being, by the express command of Christ himself, baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
In so important a doctrine as this we may reasonably expect to find that, though the clear and full manifestation of it might be reserved for the Messiah some intimations of it should be given from the beginning of the world. Accordingly, we find that, at the very creation of man, the Sacred Three consulted, if I may so speak, with each other, in reference to this matter: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness [Note: Gen 1:26.]. Again, when man had fallen, and the punishment denounced against transgression was to be inflicted on him, the same concert between them is marked: And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil [Note: Gen 3:22.]. In like manner, when, after the Deluge, the inhabitants of the earth were devising a plan for their own consolidation and aggrandizement, and God determined to defeat it, the language used by Jehovah on the occasion was precisely similar: The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language [Note: Gen 11:5-7.]. Moreover, in many passages where God is mentioned, his name is put in the plural number; as when it is said, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, it is in the original. Remember thy Creators [Note: Ecc 12:1.]. And the noun thus plural is often united to a singular verb: thus it is said, Thy Makers is thy husband [Note: Isa 54:5.]: and again in my text, None saith, Where is God, my Makers?
The particular occasion on which my text was spoken seems to have been this. All of Jobs friends interpreted his expressions in a way more unfavourable than truth or equity required. Elihu, after doing this in numerous instances, specifies, as a further proof of Jobs supposed impiety, that he had complained of God, as not attending to the cry of the oppressed, either in his own case or in that of others [Note: Alluding probably to what Job had said in chap. 24:12. in reference to others; and in 19:7 and 30:20. in reference to himself.]. In answer to which, Elihu says, that this arose from the people themselves, who under their troubles complained and murmured, but never, in a becoming manner, inquired after God, to seek relief from him. Now, in this answer, as containing a general and a very important truth, Elihu marks, in very strong characters, the impiety and folly of ungodly men: but, in the answer, as intimating also a plurality of persons in the Godhead, there is an extraordinary force, which places their guilt in a most aggravated point of view.
That we may exhibit this truth in its just light, we shall proceed to mark distinctly the impiety and folly of ungodly men. And,
I.
Their impiety
The assertion must, of course, be limited to unconverted men: but of all classes of them, without exception, it is true. St. Paul, shewing that all, whether Jews or Gentiles, are alike under sin, cites a variety of passages to prove his point, and which fully prove also the declaration in my text: It is written, There is none righteous, no not one: there is none that understandeth; there is none that sceketh after God: they are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one [Note: Rom 3:9-12.]. Humiliating as this description of human nature is, it is strictly true, in reference to every unconverted man: there is none that has any sense,
1.
Of duty to God
[Men will acknowledge that there is a Supreme Being; and that they owe him allegiance as their Creator and Governor: but, practically, they pay no regard to his authority whatever. His Law is no law to them: they take no pains to ascertain his will: and, if it be stated to them as the rule of their conduct, they pour contempt upon it, and set it at nought, and determine to regulate themselves by a standard of their own. The language of their hearts is, Our lips are our own: who is Lord over us [Note: Psa 12:4.]? As for the word which is spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not obey it [Note: Jer 44:16.]; but we will certainly do whatever cometh into our own mind, and will walk every one of us, after the imagination of his own evil heart [Note: Jer 18:12.]: We know not the Lord; neither will we obey his voice [Note: Exo 5:2.].
If this statement appear too strong, look around you, and see where you can find persons truly and abidingly influenced by the fear of God. Verily, whatever appearance of that principle there may be in some who are more religiously inclined, it is no other fear of God than what is taught by the precept of men [Note: Isa 29:13.]; the true vital principle itself is found in none but those who have been renewed in the spirit of their minds by the power of the Holy Ghost [Note: Eph 4:23.].]
2.
Of dependence on him
[As men will acknowledge the existence of God, so will they, in words, confess his providence also. But who receives every thing as from God? Who looks to him to order every thing in his behalf! Who realizes the idea, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the special appointment of God? Who has not his attention so fixed on second causes, as almost to overlook the First great Cause of all? It is undeniable, that men are universally leaning to their own understanding, or making flesh their arm, or saying to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence: and that, to be satisfied with all that God does, and, in the absence of all human help, to trust simply and confidently in him, is an attainment far out of the reach of the natural man, whoever he may be.]
3.
Of desire after him
[Where do we ever hear the language of the Psalmist? O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, that I may behold thy power and glory, like as I have seen thee in the sanctuary [Note: Psa 63:1-2.]? Does the hunted deer, panting after the water-brooks, justly represent the desires of mens souls for God [Note: Psa 42:1-2.]? Does their delight in his word, or their earnestness in prayer, or their contempt of all sublunary good, evince that God is indeed the chief object of their desire? Where shall we find the people who can with truth make that appeal to God, Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee [Note: Psa 73:25.]? The truth is, that they are content to live without God in the world [Note: Eph 2:12.]; that he is not in all their thoughts [Note: Psa 10:4.]; and that, if they were to be assured that there was no such Being in existence, it would give them no concern at all: they would sleep as soundly, and eat their food as pleasantly, and spend the morrow as cheerfully, as if no such information had been given them: yea, rather, instead of occasioning them any pain, it would accord with what God himself declares to be the wish of their hearts; The fool hath said in his heart, No God [Note: Psa 14:1.].]
A more distinct view of our text will further exhibit to us,
II.
Their folly
It is the peculiar prerogative of God to give songs in the night
[This is the office, and this the blessed employment, of each person in the Sacred Trinity. The Father, as the source and fountain of all good, is, to all who seek him, a God of grace, and of all consolation, forgiving all their sins, healing all their diseases redeeming their lives from destruction, and crowning them with mercy and loving-kindness. The Lord Jesus Christ as our Great High-Priest, sprinkles his own precious blood on the soul of the repenting sinner, and gives him beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. The Holy Spirit also will descend and dwell in the contrite soul, to revive and comfort it: with those also who are bowed down through manifold temptations, to succour them with great might, and to make them victorious over all their enemies. Indeed our Triune God assumes to himself that endearing name, The God that comforteth all them that are cast down [Note: 2Co 7:6.]. There is no tribulation so heavy, but he can make our consolations to abound above all our afflictions [Note: 2Co 1:4-5.]. Behold Paul and Silas when in prison, their backs torn with scourges, and their feet made fast in the stocks; that was certainly to them a night of deep affliction: yet, so far were they from being dejected, that at midnight, with a loud voice, they sang praises to their God, insomuch that all who were in the prison heard them [Note: Act 16:25.]. And thus will God support all his afflicted people: he will cause light to arise unto them in darkness, yea, and in the darkest night, will himself be a light unto them.
But where besides shall we find a god that can do this? As for the gods of the Heathen, they cannot do either good or evil: and all the creatures in the universe are no better than broken cisterns, which can hold no water. With God alone is the fountain of life; and in his light alone shall we see light [Note: Psa 36:9.].]
Yet is this consideration wholly insufficient to stir up their desires after him
[Though God would be a Father unto them, and treat them as his sons and daughters, they will not seek his face: and though the Lord Jesus Christ would wash away their sins, and clothe them in the robe of his own unspotted righteousness, they will not follow after him: and, though the Holy Ghost would accomplish in them the whole work of salvation, they will not implore his gracious influences. The vanities of time and sense they will seek with avidity: but after God they will not inquire, nor will they use the appointed means to obtain his favour.
Now, what extreme folly is this! For, however long their day of prosperity may be, there must come at last a night of affliction; since man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. And what will they do when the night shall arrive? To whom will they flee for succour? or where will they find any solid consolation? Even in the midst of their sufficiency they are in straits: and in the midst of laughter their heart is in heaviness. What, then, will they do, when all created comforts shall vanish, and God himself shall frown upon them? What will they have to comfort them in a time of sickness? what under the guilt of an accusing conscience, and under the apprehensions of Gods impending wrath? What comforters will they find then? Who will brighten their prospects then? Whatever satisfactions they may have found in the day, who will give them songs in the night? Above all, who will console them under the loss of heaven; or administer to them in hell one drop of water to cool their tongue? Verily, the neglect of such a God, who is the only and the all-sufficient source of all good, is nothing short of madness itself: as it is said, Madness is in their heart while they live; and, after that, they go to the dead [Note: Ecc 9:3.].]
Address
1.
To those who are yet in the sunshine of prosperity
[You, under your present circumstances, feel no need of God: and you can sing, as it were, all the day long. But will night never come? Will the period never arrive when you shall say, Oh that I had God for my Friend! Oh that I had God for my Portion!? You cannot but know that that time must come; and that, if your day close before the Sun of Righteousness has arisen upon you, it were better for you never to have been born. Why, then, will you delay to seek the Lord? Why will you not turn, and inquire early after God? Why will you not be as wise for eternity as others are for the concerns of time? You see persons anxious enough to provide for their bodily wants: why will you not be careful for your souls? Were God held forth to you only as a Governor and a Judge, you should want no further inducement to seek his favour: for you cannot but know that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But, when God is set forth to you under the endearing characters of a Father, a Saviour, a Comforter, how can you withstand his invitations to accept of mercy? Hear how he himself expostulates with you on your impiety and folly: O generations, see ye the word of the Lord! Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? Wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee? [Note: Jer 2:31.] Dear Brethren, delay not any longer to turn unto your God: provoke him not utterly to depart from you, and to swear in his wrath that you shall never enter into his rest: but seek ye the Lord whilst he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near.]
2.
To those who are in the night-season of adversity
[Tell me, Beloved, whether, on a supposition that you have truly sought the Lord, you have not found him a present, a very present help in the time of trouble? Has he not been ready to hear your every prayer, and to supply your every want? and has not the light of his countenance been abundantly sufficient to turn all your sorrows into joy? Has he not enabled you even to glory in tribulation, yea, and to take pleasure in the heaviest calamities, because of the augmented consolations and supports which they have been the means of bringing into your soul [Note: 2Co 12:10.]? Ye, then, are witnesses for God, that he giveth songs in the night, and that he is worthy of all possible love and adoration and praise. This is the state in which the Lords people should be. When you can say, as his Church of old, In the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee; with my soul have I desired thee in the night; and with my spirit within me will I seek thee early; then it is well with your soul: whatever your outward circumstances may be, you are, and must be, happy: no increase of corn or wine or oil could put such gladness into your hearts as that which you experience in the light of your Redeemers countenance. Go on, then, and let your light shine more and more unto the perfect day. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ your Saviour, and the love of God your Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost your Comforter, yea, may all the richest communications of our Triune God, be ever with you! Amen and Amen.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Job 35:10 But none saith, Where [is] God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;
Ver. 10. But none saith, Where is God my maker ] Heb. my makers; to note the Trinity, Hebrew Text Note say some; others think that he speaks of God in the plural number only for honour’s sake. They call not upon God as their Creator, they praise him not as their preserver and benefactor, saith Elihu in this and the next verse; but express a great deal of pride and vanity, Job 35:12-13 ; and thence it is that their prayers are unanswered and themselves unrelieved. The oppressed should not only make moan and fill the air, vagis clamoribus, with brutish outcries (the fruit of the flesh for ease, rather than of the spirit for grace), but beg help of God by faithful prayer, and say, “Where is God my maker?” as Elisha once said, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” Did he not make me, and will he not maintain me? built he not the earthly house of this tottering tabernacle, and is not he bound to repairs? will he cast off the care of his own handiwork? Qui nos fecit, idem ille est qui nos fovet, conservat ac sustentat, &c. (Brent.). Is he not my master as well as my maker? and shall other lords beside him have dominion over me, and do with me at their pleasure? Lord, look upon the wounds of thy hands (said Queen Elizabeth while she was a prisoner at Woodstock, and had like to have been burnt in her bed one night), and despise not the work of thine hands. Thou hast written me down in thy book of preservation with thine own hand; oh read thine own handwriting, and save me, &c.
Who giveth songs in the night
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
GOD. Hebrew Eloah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Songs in the Night
But none saith, Where is God my Maker,
Who giveth songs in the night?
Job 35:10.
1. Some men are always disposed to look at the bright side of life, and others at the dark. The tempers and feelings of some are so cheerful and elastic that it is hardly within the power of ordinary circumstances to depress them; while others are of so gloomy a temperament that the least adversity serves to confound them. But if we can divide men into these classes, when reference is had simply to their private affairs, we doubt whether the same division will hold, we are sure it will not in the same proportion, when the reference is generally to Gods dealings with our race. In regard to these dealings, there is an almost universal disposition to look on the dark side, and not on the bright; as though there were cause for nothing but wonder that a God of infinite love should permit so much misery in any section of His intelligent Creation. Few are ready to observe what provision has been made for human happiness, and what capacities there are yet in the world of ministering to the satisfaction of such as prefer righteousness to wickedness.
Here are two men, who both seem to have deserved success; both have worked hard, and one to-day is rich and the other is poor. All the chances came to the one, and all the hindrances to the other. There is something obviously unfair and unjust in all this. So the world thinks. O world, so swift to judge, so slow to understand! I know that some get that which they never worked for, and some work for that which they never get; and if money were the real end of existence and the real standard of success, then your plaint about inequality would be a true one. But it is not. You say all the chances came to one. Not so. There were some chances that came to them both, the chance to be honest and meek and merciful and pure in heart, and these are the things that fit men to enter into and possess the true success, the kingdom of heaven; and finding that is finding happiness. So, then, human happiness depends on our relation to God.1 [Note: 1 P. C. Ainsworth, The Blessed Life, 54.]
2. No one can deny that, if we look upon the earth merely as it is, the exhibition is one whose darkness it is scarcely possible to exaggerate. But when we seek to gather from the condition of the world the character of its Governor, we are bound to consider, not what the world is, but what it would be if all that that Governor has done on its behalf were allowed to produce its legitimate effect. And when we set ourselves to compute the amount of what may be called unavoidable miserythat misery which must still remain even if Christianity possessed unlimited swaywe should find no cause for wonder that God has left the earth burdened with so great a weight of sorrow, but only of praise that He has provided so amply for mens happiness.
Elihu, in seeking to justify Gods ways with man, pressed his argument unduly in the context, and made it appear that God is so high and great that the guilt or innocence of a petty human being is of no moment to Him. So now he proceeds to alter his course, and to feel his way to some higher explanation of the unredressed miseries of life. His words deserve full attention. True, he says, a voice of wailing goes up from earth, a groan of suffering under injustice and oppression. But it is a mere cry of pain, not a turning to God, mans Maker, to Him who giveth songs in the night, brings, i.e., a joyful sense of sudden deliverance in the very darkest hour of tribulation. God would have men cry to Him with something more worthy of those whom He has made in His own image than the mere inarticulate cries of the beast of the earth, the fowls of heaven. He has taught us more than the one, He has made us wiser than the other. Empty moans, empty cries, will not reach His ear. Thy passionate words give thee no claim, Job, he seems to say, on God; and thy prayers to Him, have not risen above mere childish brute-like cries of pain.2 [Note: G. G. Bradley, The Book of Job, 296.]
3. Though for wise ends a certain portion of suffering has been made unavoidable, the Divine dealings with man are, in the largest sense, those of tenderness and love, so that, if the great majority of our race were not determined to be wretched, enough has been done to ensure their being happy. And when we come to give the reasons why so much wretchedness is found in the world, we cannot assign it to the will of God; we must charge the whole of it on mans forgetfulness of God, on his contempt or neglect of remedies divinely provided; in short, we must offer in explanation the words of our text, None saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?
The note of praise once reached, its office is, even humanly speaking, no less serviceable than that of prayer. It is the attitude of mind that gives courage for the attack of things difficult. The healthy soul cannot accept the view, taken by many of the devout, that our mortal state is so sunk and wretched that, should we look closely into it, we must remain for ever inconsolable. By no man have such as these been reproached more than by Dante, who had had himself much cause for sadness. To the sorrowful he assigns the shades of the fourth circle of hell, and out of their darkness they cry unto him
Tristi fummo
Nel aer dolce che dal sol sallegra,
Portando dentro accidioso fummo;
Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.
Fretful were we in the sweet air which is gladdened by the sun, bearing within us a smoke of Accidie; now we are fretting ourselves in the black mire.1 [Note: Lady Dilke, The Book of the Spiritual Life, 180.]
My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves,
So dark that men cry out against the Heavens.
Who knows but that the darkness is in man?
The doors of Night may be the gates of Light;
For wert thou born or blind or deaf, and then
Suddenly heald, how wouldst thou glory in all
The splendours and the voices of the world!
And we, the poor earths dying race, and yet
No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore
Await the last and largest sense to make
The phantom walls of this illusion fade,
And show us that the world is wholly fair.2 [Note: Tennyson, The Ancient Sage.]
I.
The Song
1. Shakespeare says that music is the concord of sweet sounds. But it is more, just as poetry consists of something more than harmonious words. Music is the language of the unseen and eternal; and song is the accord of the heart with this, the utterance of eternity. Of course there are evil songs, which show that the heart of the singer is in accord with the dark nether world of evil; but good and holy songs show that the heart of the singer has caught the strains and chords of the bright, blessed world of God and the holy angels.
All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! The primal element of us; of us, and of all things.1 [Note: Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship.]
You must have the right moral state first, or you cannot have the art. But when the art is once obtained, its reflected action enhances and completes the moral state out of which it arose, and, above all, communicates the exultation to other minds which are already morally capable of the like.
For instance, take the art of singing, and the simplest perfect master of it (up to the limits of his nature) whom you can finda skylark. From him you may learn what it is to sing for joy. You must get the moral state first, the pure gladness, then give it finished expression; and it is perfected in itself, and made communicable to other creatures capable of such joy. But it is incommunicable to those who are not prepared to receive it.2 [Note: Ruskin, Lectures on Art, 66 (Works, xx. 73).]
Music, heard by my inner ear, accompanied me at all times and during all my walks, and I created for myself a singular test by which to know if a piece of music was beautiful or not. There was a spot, a bench under a tree by the side of a very small waterfall, where I loved to sit and think music. Then, going in my mind through a piece of music such as Beethovens Adelaide, or the Cavatina from Der Freyschtz, I could imagine that I heard it in the air surrounding me, that the whole of nature sang it, and then I knew that it was beautiful. Many pieces would not stand that test, however hard I tried, and those I rejected as indifferent.3 [Note: Life and Letters of Sir Charles Hall, 10.]
2. Love is the inspirer of the highest song. When our heart is enlarged we can run in the way of Gods commandments. Life breaks out into music and light. The obedience which the law demands, which at first promised only to bring constraint and a gloomy darkening of lifes joy, is the spring of happiness and peace. In the joy of reconcilement we are in accord with Gods will for us, and are in tune with the whole universe. We know the service which is perfect freedom. The house of our pilgrimage is made glad with music. Life laughs back its radiance in the sunshine of Gods smile.
Fix this in your mind as the guiding principle of all right practical labour, and source of all healthful life energy, that your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may be only the praise of a shell or a stone; it may be the praise of a hero; it may be the praise of God. Your rank, as a living creature, is determined by the height and breadth of your love; but, be you small or great, what healthy art is possible to you must be the expression of your true delight in a real thing better than the art.1 [Note: Ruskin.]
3. God is the giver of the song. No man can make a song in the night himself; he may attempt it, but he will find how difficult it is. It is not natural to sing in trouble, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name; for that is a daylight song. But it was a Divine song which Habakkuk sang when in the night he said, Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, and so on, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Methinks, on the margin of the Red Sea, any man could have made a song like that of Moses, The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea; the difficulty would have been to compose a song before the Red Sea had been divided, and to sing it before Pharaohs hosts had been drowned, while yet the darkness of doubt and fear was resting on Israels hosts. Songs in the night come only from God; they are not in the power of man.
For when God has all that He should have of thy heart, when thou art wholly given up to the obedience of the light and spirit of God within thee, to will only in His will, to love only in His love, to be wise only in His wisdom, then it is that everything thou dost is as a song of praise, and the common business of thy life is a conforming to Gods will on earth as angels do in heaven.1 [Note: William Law.]
I never awake in the middle of the night without feeling induced to commune with God. One feels brought more into contact with Him. The whole world around us, we think, is asleep. God the Shepherd of Israel slumbers not, nor sleeps. He is awake, and so are we! We feel, in the solemn and silent night, as if alone with God. And then there is everything in the circumstances around you to lead you to pray. The past is often vividly recalled. The voices of the dead are heard, and their forms crowd around you. No sleep can bind them. The night seems the time in which they should hold spiritual commune with man. The future too throws its dark shadow over youthe night of the grave, the certain death-bed, the night in which no man can work. And then everything makes such an impression on the mind at night, when the brain is nervous and susceptible; the low sough of the wind among the trees, the roaring, or eerie whish, of some neighbouring stream, the bark or low howl of a dog, a general impressive silence, all tend to sober, to solemnize the mind, and to force it from the world and its vanities, which then seem asleep, to God, who alone can uphold and defend.2 [Note: Dr. Norman Macleod, in Memoir by his brother, i. 151.]
4. And what God gives He looks to us to render to Him again. The slightest vision of God begets in our hearts the desire to praise Him. Prayer is for ourselves, praise is for God. When we pray we really contemplate ourselves, and our own needs; when we praise we are gazing at God and at God only, and it is the sense of His infinite greatness, of His majesty, of His dominion, of His power, that compels us to burst into songs of praise and gratitude. Praise suggests melody, for this simple reasonthat the contemplation of the greatness, and the glory, and the majesty of God fills our hearts with thoughts which are much too deep to be uttered in words. It is useless that we should enumerate Gods perfections with our lips; it is useless that we should try to express simply what we can understand, simply what we perceive. We naturally wish to express feelings which soar far beyond our power of expressing them in words. Thus it follows that the only mode of giving expression to such feelings is by music, is by the power of sound; for remember, music is at once the most intimate and the most sublime of all the arts. It has a power of expression which is peculiarly its own, and which goes beyond that of any other form of expression.
Why does man have recourse to music to express these fine thoughts of his heart? He does so because it seems to him so free and unfettered. My lips, they stumble when I speak, I catch after words and I cannot find them; but let me betake myself to song and the notes well forth, and the melody tells its own tale, and I am in a freer atmosphere, and I can soar aloft untrammelled by sordid considerations which perforce bind me down so long as I am merely trying to speak.
On Saturday I had a good bout at Beethovens Quartettswhich I used to play with poor Blanco Whiteand thought them more exquisite than everso that I was obliged to lay down the instrument and literally cry out with delight. I really think it will add to my power of working, and the length of my life. I never wrote more than when I played the fiddle. I always sleep better after music. There must be some electric current passing from the strings through the fingers into the brain and down the spinal marrow. Perhaps thought is music.1 [Note: Cardinal Newman, in Life by W. Ward, ii. 76.]
In almost his earliest poem, Browning wrote the wise advice:
Respect all such as sing when all alone.
Let us sing with the understanding, and then there is scarcely any experience so uplifting as to offer a hymn to God; to say in the soul, My God and Father, here is my little offering of sweet and humble adoration. Public praise and secret praise are both powerful to bring the spirit into closer touch with God. On the wings of music we can soar into the vast region where
Time and sense seem all no more.
Some years ago I found a special method very profitable in private devotion. Beginning with the section of an old hymn-book that dealt with believers praying, I set off two hymns for each day of the month. During the first month I marked the verses of special appealing power, and month after month I used to sing these selected verses. That, I found, was a strong method of obtaining a direct answer to the prayer, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. In such singing the right spirit is renewed.2 [Note: J. A. Clapperton, Culture of the Christian Heart, 142.]
Why should I always pray,
Although I always lack?
It were a better way
Some praise to render back:
The earth that drinks the plenteous rain
Returns the grateful cloud again.
We should not get the less
That we remembered more
The truth and righteousness
Thou keepst for us in store:
In heaven they do not praythey sing,
And they have wealth of every thing.
And it would be more meet
To compass Thee with song
Than to have at Thy feet
Only a begging throng
Who take Thy gifts, and then forget
Alike Thy goodness, and their debt.
So give me joyous Psalms,
And Hymns of grateful praise:
Instead of seeking alms,
A song to Thee Ill raise:
Yet still I must a beggar be,
When lauding Thy great charity.
But where shall I begin?
With health and daily bread?
Or cleansing of my sin?
Or light around me shed?
Till I would praise, I did not see
How rich Thy gifts have been to me.1 [Note: Walter C. Smith, Thoughts and Fancies for Sunday Evenings, 1.]
II.
The Song in the Night
1. It is evident that night is here used as a symbol of affliction and suffering; and there is a beautiful appropriateness in the symbol which commends itself at once to our minds; for the shades of night, though a relief to some from toil and labour, bring to many an increase of trial and suffering. There is an untold relief in light. Whilst suffering and sorrow continue just the same, light seems to reanimate hope and endurance. Darkness has the opposite effect. The greatest inward conflicts take place during its long hourssickness is doubly weary, and full of uneasiness. The unclosed eye, the unsubdued pain, the voice of sympathy hushedall these tax often to the uttermost the patience of a Christian. These make many a man recoil from the night season. And so it must be felt at once to be a fit symbol of trial. When, then, our text speaks of God, who giveth songs in the night, it evidently means that it belongs to Him to put songs of praise and joy into the Christians heart in seasons of sorrow and trial. It belongs to God, and to God alone, to give such songs. A thoughtless world seeks its happiness in that which is outwardin worldly pleasure, in earthly aims, and in the creature. So long as the outward path is smooth, pleasures succeeding each other, and keeping the mind in a perpetual state of excitementso long as success crowns those earthly aims, and either money or fame increasesso long the world has its songs. But let a change come over the scene. Let these pleasures fail, its schemes end in disappointment, and its all is gone. The world may sing in its dayits short and uncertain day. But it knows not, and can never learn, songs in the night. It cannot even understand them. The most it can do is to keep silence. But the Christians noblest and most elevated songs are not those which he sings in the day, but those which rise up in the night-season of sorrowsongs sung with tearful eyes and a heaving heart.
Butterflies are said to be so sensitive to want of light that they are not only stupid at night, but are also affected in the daytime by the shadow of every passing cloud. It is a common practice of butterfly-hunters to keep their eye on an insect without pursuing it, waiting till a cloud comes, when it is nearly certain to settle down and become more or less torpid. Thus is the human soul sensitive to sorrow: the shadow of every passing cloud chills it, the deeper eclipses of life paralyse it, and these morbid hours prove not rarely the tempters opportunity.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Education of the Heart, 141.]
Read the lives of the great souls, and you will find almost always that their inner career begins with a period of night and darkness. With some, as with Paul, Bunyan, Tolstoy, it is a despair of themselves and their world. With others, it is a crash of the creed in which they were brought up, and a dreary scepticism when all their stars go out and there seems naught left but chaos and old night. It is singular that we have read so many of these experiences, and perhaps have gone through them in our turn, without asking the reason of all this. Are we not here in contact with a psychological law; the law that, in a lower order, we perceive in the germination of the plant, in all the vital processes? The spiritual life, like all other life, requires darkness and the deep for its starting-point! A man must dive into his inmost recesses in order that he may find himself.1 [Note: J. Brierley, The Secret of Living, 218.]
2. What we need most is certainty of God, that we may hold fast our faith in Him. We shall still be beset by mystery, and the worlds sorrow and our own pain will still remain a terrible problem, but we shall see enough to make us willing to believe and wait. We shall let every experience of trial and sorrow bring some lessons to withdraw our hearts from the love of the material. We shall learn to look upon the whole discipline of life as a means of sanctification, and in our highest moments we shall see it to be a terror to be left of God, and shall pray that the beautiful promise may be true for us: As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. When we do, the last word to us is not tribulation, but joy. Even suffering only sets a seal on faith, like the kiss of God upon the brow. Faith sees far enough into the meaning of tribulation to see in it the sign of love; for it sees in it the Fathers hand.
I know Thee who hast kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow,
So that it reached me like a solemn joy.
A picture of deep pathos, carrying its own tender suggestion to the heart, appeared in the Academy of 1897. It was painted by Byam Shaw, and entitled The Comforter. In the interior of a room, upon a bed, there lies a form, the face of which is not seen, only a hand lying upon the silk counterpane with a weddingring upon the finger. By the side of the bed there sits a young man, his elbow leaning upon the bed, his head supported by his hand, his face drawn with grief. In his loneliness he sits there while his beloved, with slow and painful breaths, sighs out her little store of life. The picture gives the impression of stillness; the heedless world is without, ignorant and uncaring, while the pitiful tragedy is working itself out within. But the young man, as he sits there in his unutterable anguish, is not alone; the Comforter has come. Seated beside him is a white figure, unseen to him but consciously near. The pierced hands hold the hand of the young man, and in that silent room of death there is another watcher.1 [Note: J. Burns, Illustrations from Art (1912), 10.]
Night and darkness, with their uses and abuses, are, after all, of limited area. The sunlight is so much more than they. This ebon blackness, so seeming all-enveloping, is merely a result of your position on a sloping planet. The nights dimension is a trifle compared with the light that is abroad. All around you, though you cannot see it, the pulsing beam is raying out from the centre, spreading through the immensity of the outer spaces. It is you who are in the night, not the solar system. It is not for lack of sunshine that you see nothing. That is an affair of your present position, your present need. And when the need is gone, the night will go. Your destiny is not the night, but the day. Your darkest hour is only its prelude. We see already the boundary of the night, for
On the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God makes Himself an awful rose of dawn.2 [Note: J. Brierley, The Secret Living, 221.]
These stones that make the meadow brooklet murmur
Are keys on which it plays.
Oer every shelving rock its touch grows firmer,
Resounding notes to raise.
If all the course were smooth by which it passes
Adown the pastures fair,
Then those who wander through its flowers and grasses
Would hear no music there.
These troubles sore, and griefs, and hard conditions,
Through which I pass along,
When going forth to keep my Lords commissions,
May all be turned to song.
What are they but sweet harp-strings for the spirit
Boldly to play upon?
If all the lot were pleasant I inherit,
These harmonies were gone!
If every path oer which my footsteps wander,
Were smooth as ocean strand,
There were no theme for gratitude and wonder
At Gods delivering hand.
All this will plain appear when ends lifes story,
Where rivers meet the tide
That stills their murmurs in a sea of glory,
Where peace and rest abide.1 [Note: W. E. Winks.]
III.
The Value of the Song in the Night
1. The singing of a glad song cheers and comforts the singer. Life and sunshine are native to the soul. God fashioned us as children of light, and His original thought concerning us was that we should walk in the light, move to music, and taste the sweetness of manifold felicity. We were created for glory and gladness, as certainly as the angels were. Our invincible horror of sickness, weakness, loneliness, and death tells most eloquently that we were predestinated to health, strength, fellowship, and life. We have an ineradicable genius for joy, and when plunged into gloomy spheres of trial are perplexed and dismayed. Unnatural conditions are always perilous, and the soul subjected to deep sadness is in danger of wild unbeliefs, subtle selfishness, benumbing indifference to life, profane murmuring, and defiance.
It is a fine thing to go about ones work singing some hymn with praise in it, and with Jesus name in it. And if singing may not always be allowable under all circumstances, you can hum a tune. And that brings up to the memory the words connected with it. I know of a woman who was much given to worrying. She made it a rule to sing the long metre doxology whenever things seemed not right. Ofttimes she could hardly get her lips shaped up to begin the first words. But she would persist. And by the time the fourth line came it was ringing out, and her atmosphere had changed without and within.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 206.]
The music in Jenny Lind was ever an inspiration, which lifted her, as the lark is carried heavenward by its songthe lark, her own chosen symbol, carved over her house-door; the lark, the winged thing that singing ever soars, and soaring ever sings. What a gift is Art, she herself writes; music above allwhen we understand, not to make it an idol, but to place it at the foot of the Cross, laying all our longings, sufferings, joys and expectations in a light of a dying and risen Saviour! He aloneand surely nothing elseis the goal of all our intense longing, whether we know it or not.2 [Note: Canon H. Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 28.]
2. The singing of the song has a quick effect upon the listener. When the prisoners heard Paul and Silas sing in the prison at midnight, they hearkened, they sat up on the pallets, and tried to catch the strange sounds. They rose and crept to the door of the inner dungeon and bent their heads towards it, eager to catch every word. There they stood, an awe-stricken group, listening breathlessly in the darkness. They had often heard singing in the prison before. But never before had they heard in prison strains like these. There was something holy and heavenly in them, which overawed and melted them. As they listened, strange feelings and memories stirred in them.3 [Note: J. Stalker, The New Song, 175.]
There is an exquisite sketch written by the hand which penned the immortal story of Rab and his Friends, of a quaint old character of other days, well known to Dr. Brown, because he was his fathers beadle. The sketch (entitled Jeems the Doorkeeper) is written with the love and humour of which the authors heart was full; and among other traits of his humble friend he gives this touching one. He had been married in his youth, but after a year his wife and their one child died together; but always afterwards he kept up the practice of family worship, though quite alone, giving out the psalm and the chapter, as if his dear wife had been there. He lived in a high storey in the Canongate, and his voice, in the notes of Martyrdom or Coleshill, sounded morning and evening through the thickly tenanted land; and many a careless foot was arrested and many a heart touched by that strange sound.1 [Note: J. Stalker, The New Song, 179.]
I heard a voice in the darkness singing
(That was a valiant soul I knew),
And the joy of his song was a wild bird winging
Swift to his mate through a sky of blue.
MyselfI sang when the dawn was flinging
Wide his guerdon of fire and dew;
I heard a voice in the darkness singing
(That was a valiant soul I knew).
And his song was of love and all its bringing
And of certain day when the night was through;
I raised my eyes where the hope was springing,
And I think in His heaven God smiled, too.
I heard a voice in the darkness singing
(That was a valiant soul I knew).
3. The midnight song is a powerful witness in favour of our religion. There are times when the heart has to fill the place of the eye. We see nothing; the sky is dark; yet we are not dismayed. There is no ray of light upon our path that we can discern, no opening in the cloud, no rent in the gloom. Yet somehow the heart singssings in the shadow, sings in the silence. And at these times we are to take the song as the substitute for the sun. We are to impute to the hearts singing all that is wanting to the eyes vision. The song is itself to be our revelation. If it were not so, I would have told you, says the Lordwould not have suffered you to sing. The hearts joy demands a contradiction if it be not true. If my soul says Yea, and God does not say Nay, the Yea is to prevail. The silence of God is vocal. If hope cries, and He answers not, hopes cry is to be itself the answer, for He has sent me a wing instead of a star; He has given me a song in the night.
Her child is crying in the darkend room!
The mother hears, and soon with her arms
She clasps her darling, banishing alarms,
Dispersing with her presence fear and gloom.
And does thy Heavenly Father turn aside
Unheeding, when thy cry to Him ascends
From depths of night? Nay, comfort He extends,
Thy heart is strengthened and thy tears are dried.
Thy voice can reach Him, crying in the night,
Afraid and desolate, scarce knowing why:
Lo! thou art not forsaken, He draws nigh!
Be still, sad heart, for He will give thee light.1 [Note: Una, In Lifes Garden, 92.]
Literature
Bardsley (J. W.), Illustrative Texts, 133.
Matheson (G.), Leaves for Quiet Hours, 51.
Melvill (H.), Sermons at Cambridge, 21.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, ii. 504.
Robertson (S.), The Rope of Hair, 28.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvi. (1880), No. 1511; xliv. (1898), No. 2558.
Wagner (G.), Sermons on the Book of Job, 260.
Church of England Magazine, x. 169 (Grant).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
none: Job 36:13, 1Ch 10:13, 1Ch 10:14, 2Ch 28:22, 2Ch 28:23, Isa 8:21
Where: Ecc 12:1, Isa 51:13, 1Pe 4:19
my: Job 32:22, Job 36:3, Isa 54:5
who: Psa 42:8, Psa 77:6, Psa 119:62, Psa 149:5, Act 16:25
Reciprocal: Gen 1:26 – Let us Psa 92:2 – every night Psa 95:6 – our Psa 119:55 – night Psa 149:2 – rejoice Isa 24:15 – glorify Jer 2:6 – Where Hos 7:14 – they have not