“445. THE VISIT—JOB 2:11-13”

The Visit—Job_2:11-13

Such a man as Job could not but have had many friends; and, ere long, the report of the extraordinary succession of calamities which had befallen a man so renowned in all the east country for his possessions, and so eminent for his virtues, spread afar through all that region. It reached the ears of three of the most valued and important of his friends; and although their homes were distant from his and from each other’s, they agreed to pay him a visit of condolence, joining one another on the journey to the place of his abode.

One of these friends was Eliphaz the Temanite; another, Bildad the Shuhite; and the third, Zophar the Naamathite, There are some curious questions respecting these persons, and their tribes and places of abode; but as the discussion of such matters, except in cases of primary interest, would be unsuited to this work, we pass them by, and shall take these persons as they stand in that individuality of character which transpires in the ensuing discussion.

Their demeanor first engages attention. They came to the land of Uz, and drew near to the place of their friend’s abode. They then cast their looks forward to discover him, and they beheld a miserable object, who, though they knew him from the circumstances and from the accounts of his condition they had received, to be their old friend Job, was so awfully changed and disfigured, that they could not, without this knowledge, have recognized in him the man they had known so well in former times. Much as they had heard of his misery, the reality far exceeded their expectations. They were beyond measure grieved and astonished; and when they thought of his former high estate, when last they saw him, and contrasted it with the doleful case in which they saw him lie, “they lifted up their voice and wept, and rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven.” Nothing less, it appears, than the acts of mourning for the dead, were found sufficient to express the intensity of their concern and grief. All these acts of mourning, except the last, we have already had occasions of explaining. The last very remarkable custom is one of extreme antiquity, as we see from this place, as well as from its representation as an act of funereal mourning in the ancient Egyptian and Etruscan paintings. Like other such acts, it was not, however, confined to funereal occasions, but served as a mode of expressing any vehement emotion of sorrow, humiliation, compunction, or rage, as is still the case among the Orientals. In the Egyptian examples, the mourners stoop down to take up a handful of dust, and cast it back over their heads. In the East, at the present day, this is more an act of humiliation than of grief (unless so far is grief is involved in humiliation), and the person who casts dust upon his head usually prostrates himself upon the ground, and throws up the dust in the manner shown in the engraving.

Egyptians casting Dust over the Head

It may be added, that it appears even from Scripture, that there were two modes of casting dust upon the head. In the first case, the dust was taken up and sprinkled upon the head; in the other, the dust was clutched up vehemently, cast up high into the air, and fell upon the head and shoulders of those who had thrown it up. So in Act_22:23, where the expression is that of rage and indignation. Some have sought mythic meanings in this act, as if it expressed, in the commingling of adverse elements, the utmost confusion and dismay. But it seems quite sufficient to regard it as one of the most significant of those demonstrative and impulsive acts (eventually merging into a custom), by which the Orientals strove to give forcible expression to their feelings.

We are further informed that these three old friends of Job did not intrude themselves upon the sacred privacy of his grief by greetings and condolences. Their conduct was such as would, in this our present age, be called “gentlemanly”—which we take to mean, whether with reference to the present or any other age, and whether in the exalted or the lowly, whatever is courteous or considerate, whatever is involved in that tender regard for the feelings of others which shrinks with instinctive dread from the idea of giving offence or pain. Job’s friends “sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great.” This is one of those beautiful touches, true to natural feeling, which abound in the Bible, and which in any other book would be regarded as masterstrokes of literary art. Young, in his well-known “Paraphrase of the Book of Job,” has well described this conduct of the friends as—

“A debt of reverence to distress so great.”

To the statement that the friends sat upon the ground seven days and seven nights in silence, it may be objected that it is scarcely credible that Job himself, weakened by disease and excessive grief, should be able to sit thus seven days successively without speech or motion; and at least, equally so, that his friends, who were in perfect health, and just off a long and tiresome journey, should forego during all that time the natural uses and offices of life, to sit all that time without speaking a single word. Knowing the capacity of the Orientals for remaining so long in one place, and even in one posture, as would be astonishing to Europeans, we are not quite so much impressed as some have been with this as a difficulty. Nevertheless, we may admit that such texts as these are not to be too stringently interpreted. We conceive that, rightly understood, it does not preclude them from sleeping, eating, and going about—not even from some slight expressions of sorrow and condolence, but that it does mean that they constantly, during that period, returned to sit with him, spending, in fact, as much of their time with him as they possibly could; during which, beholding his distress of mind, they made no attempt to enter into conversation, argument, or discussion with him. This is quite sufficient to meet the demands of the text, as we may see by other instances, in which the inspired penmen speak of a thing as being continually done, which was only done very frequently. Thus, it is said that the disciples of our blessed Savior were “continually in the temple, praising and blessing God,” Luk_24:53, which clearly means that they frequented the temple as much as they possibly could. The same evangelist Note: Luk_2:37. describes the aged Anna the prophetess as one who “departed not from the temple, but served God night and day,” not that she was there without intermission, but that she spent the greater part of her time there. And, not to multiply instances, we may refer to the very parallel instance to be found in St. Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders, wherein he calls them to witness, that for the space of three years successively, he ceased not to warn every one night and day, with tears; Note: Act_20:31. not that it can be supposed he preached for three years together, without intermission—for that, as an eminent commentator somewhat quaintly remarks, would have been to make a very long sermon indeed; but the meaning is no more than that, during the space he mentions, he was constant, in season and out of season, in warning; and exhorting the people.

Autor: JOHN KITTO