Notes on the book of Job.

W. Kelly.

With a new version.

Preface.

Many and able as are the extant writings on the Book of Job, there still seemed to the writer room and need both for careful translation and for fresh help towards the better understanding of this most interesting and instructive portion of the Holy Scriptures. Nor does he doubt that to a closer and deeper research, under the guidance of Him who alone can lead into all the truth, it will yield more and more: such is the wealth of that inexhaustible mine, and such the gracious power of the Holy Spirit. Few are likely to feel the defects of the present little work more than the writer; yet he counts on the Lord to use it, such as it is, to the comfort and edification of many a soul, and, it may be, to stimulate other labourers to a still more abundant harvest.

Blackheath, London. January, 1879.

INTRODUCTION.

The book before us is as isolated in form as underneath it is bound up by the closest ties with all scripture. In it we breathe the fresh and free air of desert life, in the strongest antithesis to the settled polity of Israel in Canaan; yet is it quite distinct from the pilgrim character of the fathers, rather approaching the place of Lot, though with a sensible difference as suits the wealthiest chief of Uz, but an independent and honoured visitor of the city, not its denizen. No foreign land is so well known as Egypt; yet Job's own habits lie outside it. Revolutions were known, science and art making progress; godly men discussed the deepest moral questions. The marks of hoar antiquity are graven on it, yet it falls in admirably with the latest outflow of grace to the Gentile. Contemporaneous with, if not before, the five books of Moses, it is of all parts of the Old Testament the most free from the trammels of the law or even from allusions to it; yet none the less does it shadow the ways of God with Israel, blessed of old, losing all meanwhile, but about to be blessed once more and far more in the end than in the beginning.

The problem handled in the book is the moral government of God: how to conciliate His righteousness with the sufferings, and even extreme sufferings, of a just and godly man? how to understand the permission of evil, in its worst form of malignant persecution, with His own good, and this before and apart from His revelation in Christ and by redemption? The books of Moses prepare the way for His government of a people, His own elect Israel, where all was to be manifest and a testimony before the world. Here it is His dealings with a soul before the true light shone, and the veil was rent, and sin condemned in the cross, along with the expression of exercises of heart and conscience under God's dealings. Now that we are reconciled to God by Christ's death and know ourselves to be in Christ before God, there is or ought to be a wholly new experience. But it is of the deepest interest and profit to see how the believer was enabled, not merely to walk uprightly when things were prosperous in an evil world but to confide in God spite of adversity and crushing affliction, and not only to submit to His will as chastening but to measure and abhor himself in dust and ashes before God. The beginning teaches that not Satan but God is the source of the action, the middle that He only and effectually carries forward the true lesson for the soul, the end that He is exceeding pitiful and of tender mercy. A whole long book devoted to the exercises of a soul in suffering, and he a Gentile, and this in the canon of the Jewish scriptures from the first! But it is not yet what some call the "mystery of the cross:" this was reserved for Christ.

The plan or structure is very distinct. There is a prologue in Job 1, 2 with a corresponding conclusion or epilogue in the last chapter (Job 42: 7-17). The question is raised in heaven between God and Satan, the man on earth most concerned being wholly ignorant of it till grace prevailed and the word revealed all. Job, the object of divine interest, becomes therefore the butt of the malice of Satan, who is allowed to inflict his heaviest blows on his possessions and his family, then on his person short of his life, and utterly failing to ensnare the saint into sin disappears from the scene. But God, who had taken the initiative, carries on the trial, which, if it had stopped here, had failed to deal with that which needed to be reached in Job's heart and judged by himself in order to his deeper blessing. Hence the three friends are introduced, whose presence in silence, as they looked on his overwhelming misery and grief, at length opens his mouth in curses on his day, not on God. (Job 3)

Then follows a threefold series of colloquies between Job and his friends, rich in moral suggestion and full of feeling, especially on the part of the sufferer, whose language may seem often in words to approach that of Christ in the Psalms, but is really in contrast with His perfection. For He ever abode in the love of His Father, and never failed to justify His God, even when on the cross abandoned by Him, which Job never was more than any other servant of His that ever lived. (Job 4 - 31) Hence Job stands as the instructive foil, and this not as a man merely, but as a man of God, to the second Man and last Adam. So little are the ancients and moderns to be relied on who agree in declaring that Job prefigured Christ as the Victim or undeserving Sufferer. Inconsistency most grave we see not in Christ but in Job, though real integrity and disinterestedness, whatever said his friends or Satan. The converse of Christ, in absolute submission and justifying God under suffering (and what suffering!) instead of bitter complaint, is thus lost.

In this profound discussion, after the passionate outburst of the long patient sufferer, each of the three friends first insinuates these charges home on Job — that grave secret sin alone could account for such calamities, that therefore his could be only a show of piety, that in short he must be a hypocrite. To each Job replies, with less or more indignation insisting on his integrity; but while he yearns after God, if he could only get near Him, he complains of His dealings as severe and unpitying. On the third occasion (Job 22 - 31), the assailants are so evidently convicted of a too narrow and judicial estimate of God's ways, that Eliphaz drops his original mildness, acts unfairly by Job's reasoning, and plays the sophist himself by converting special instances of divine judgment on the wicked into a sample of His ordinary dealings, ignoring the righteous. Bildad, unable to resist the rejoinder of Job who points out the tangled web of human things, while he admits the occasional intervention in this world of Him who will judge infallibly in the next, is obliged to admit the to man incomprehensible ways of God now, yet still holds to his suspicions of Job under the application of the sententious wisdom of others. After a withering rejoinder of heavier metal from the same arsenal, Job cleaves to the assertion of his sincerity before God, and magnificently contrasts with the petty and acrimonious short-sightedness of his miserable comforters that wisdom which is beyond the ken of the creature and pertains to God alone, however He of His grace may vouchsafe it to him that fears Himself and departs from evil. Zophar is utterly silenced.

Thereon appears a hitherto unnoticed person, Elihu, who had kept silence as became one considerably younger, but now speaks as interpreting God's ways with man, with the soul, so that Job is reduced to silence no less than his friends. Their assaults Elihu defends no more than he insinuates hidden evil against Job; but he reproves the irreverence of his replies, vindicates the dealings of God, whether in judgment of man or in discipline of the righteous, and proves how perilous his language might be for encouraging men in the path of reckless pursuit of prosperity here below. He urges on Job self-judgment and submission to God, exposing his self-righteousness, and condemning the wish for death to escape suffering as wholly unworthy, as well as vain before Him whose glory and withal interest in creation he describes in forms of great beauty and force. He completely avoids the error of those who see not correction but only judgment in God's ways. (Job 32 - 37)

Jehovah then answers Job out of the whirlwind, asserting the majesty of His power, laying bare Job's ignorance to himself, and pointedly demanding, Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it. This brings out from Job the confession of his vileness, which is carried on still farther, we may say fully, by a fresh appeal of Jehovah mainly grounded on but two of His earthly creatures. (Job 38 - 42: 6) There could be no more till Christ came not only bringing life and incorruption to light, but clearing up what must then have been left to God as insoluble by man.

The conclusion follows, Elihu the interpreter of good disappearing at the end, as Satan the messenger of evil at the beginning, and Jehovah turning the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends, as well as giving him twice as much as he had before. (Job 42: 7-17) The friends were merely silenced; Job opens his mouth in full confession and thus wins forgiveness not merely for himself but for them by interceding on their behalf.

The longevity of Job and the priestly action as head of the family (his historic reality being attested by Ezekiel in the Old Testament and by James in the New) point to patriarchal times: after Abraham and before the Exodus would seem the limits, if indeed Moses himself did not write the book. At any rate Dr. S. Lee has given a copious list of striking coincidences with the Pentateuch. The reader will notice how "the Almighty" (the revelation of God to the fathers) appears familiarly in the speeches of Job and his friends, as well as "God" as such. Jehovah is regularly used only when the writer describes or introduces Himself as speaking. The exception is in Job 12: 9, Job 28: 18 being Adonai and not Jehovah, Genesis proves however that the name of Jehovah was not a secret before God gave it by Moses as a name of relation to Israel. The idolatry alluded to in Job 31 is the earliest that came in by Satan's craft, and therefore suits well the patriarchal age; but it does prove that the book must have been written after the flood, for we hear of no idolatry before it. The mention of angels as the "sons of God" tallies with the Mosaic phrase in Genesis 6, and Satan's character with the serpent of Genesis 3.

For these and similar reasons of no little weight, some of a linguistic nature, one sees how the book fits in with the days of the earliest revelation from God to man. Nothing can be conceived more opposed to the truthful simplicity of scripture than a late writer (I will not say indulging in a fiction, but) even in a two narrative affecting the archaic style and language of an age long past. Nor is it rational, to take the lowest ground, that the Jewish canon could have admitted such a book unless the prophets had accepted it as inspired no less than authentic, as it is the weightiest and earliest witness against their narrow and exclusive spirit in respect of all outside themselves. The same principle applies to Melchisedek in Genesis and to Jethro in Exodus and Numbers. The book of Job therefore stands properly at the head of the Hagiographa, or poetical books of the Old Testament. Indeed a late Hebrew commentator deserts the general belief of the Rabbins for the scepticism of Samuel Bar Nachman, and a few others, on the express ground of incredulity that the patriarchs of Israel should be so left behind in spiritual power by a Gentile like Job, not to speak of his three friends and Elihu.

Job 1, Job 2

JOB TRIED BY SATAN.

The Spirit of God opens the book with a lovely picture of Job's character, family, and position. We see himself, his sons, and his daughters in all the intimacy of private life, and this in him ruled by the fear of God. "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect* and upright, and fearing God, and eschewing evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great household; and this man was greater than all the sons of the east."

* That is, whole, sound, sincere.

The earthly circumstances of Job are thus clearly set before us. He was the greatest of all the sons of the East. His sons also had their separate establishments, and the description of their ordinary habits gives occasion for the mention of a vivid trait of Job's piety. "And his sons went and feasted, each in [his] house on his day; and sent and called for their three sisters, to eat and to drink with them. And it was [so], when the days of their feasting had gone round, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, Perhaps my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." (Vers. 4, 5.) Such was the habitual life of this godly Gentile, which the Holy Spirit has manifest pleasure in recording. Doubtless it was the fruit of the grace of God; yet Job had to learn better still both the God of grace, and himself in His presence. It is indeed the great moral of the book.

But in order to such a lesson the veil is lifted for us from a higher scene. Earth is the theatre where the godly man is tried, but the spectacle is not later only of apostles and others, but even then of a saint to angels. "Now the day arrived when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, and Satan came also among them. And Jehovah said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And Satan answered Jehovah and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And Jehovah said unto Satan, Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, and fearing God, and eschewing evil? And Satan answered Jehovah, and said, For nought doth Job fear God? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land: but put forth Thine hand now, and touch all that he hath — will he not curse Thee to Thy face? And Jehovah said unto Satan, Lo, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah." (Vers. 6-12.)

How perfect the rebuke to man's dream of God indifferent to all! of a mere theory of earth progressing under natural laws! It was Jehovah who here raised the question: Satan could only avail himself of the prosperity of Job to insinuate self-interest. Were his possessions to be touched, see "if he curse thee not to Thy face!" Jehovah gives the adversary permission to put forth his hand, but not against his person. What a comfort that even the enemy's hand is under God's hand! All is measured on the side of evil, infinite on that of good, as we ought to know well, for all things are ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

The earthly issue soon appears. "And the day arrived when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: and there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the she-asses feeding beside them; and [the] Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; and they have smitten the young men with the edge of the sword: and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, and they have smitten the young men with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: and, lo, there came a great wind from beyond the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead; and I only am escaped along to tell thee." (Vers. 13-19)

Thus we see that not only men's lusts and passions but the elements were in Satan's hand, so far as God allowed. In quick succession perished the herds, the flocks, the camels, and the children: desolation the more keenly felt, because not in one moment, but just time enough to hear of each separately! Outwardly however neither God appeared nor the enemy, but Sabeans, and Chaldeans, and fire of God from heaven, and a whirlwind from beyond the wilderness. What was the effect of these severe and rapid blows on the righteous sufferer in his possessions and family? "And Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." (Vers. 20-22.) He sorrowed deeply, and it was right; but he bowed thoroughly to God. Satan was thus completely foiled; but God would descend into lower depths, and bless Job yet further, though to the praise of His own grace alone.

Accordingly the scene opens yet once more in heaven. "Again the day arrived when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, and Satan came also among them to present himself before Jehovah. And Jehovah said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered Jehovah and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And Jehovah said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, and fearing God, and eschewing evil, and still holding fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him to devour him without cause? And Satan answered Jehovah, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh — if he will not curse thee to thy face? And Jehovah said unto Satan, Lo, he is in thine hand; but save his life. And Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah, and smote Job with malignant ulcer from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took a potsherd to scrape himself with it; and he was sitting among the ashes." (Job 2: 1-8)

Henceforward the adversary vanishes; he had failed no less completely in his renewed malice. What a comfort to learn in a scene where to all appearance then as now he seems to triumph! But so it ever is, whatever seems: God has His way, as the end proves unanswerably, and he that does the will of God, whatever his weakness or exposure, abides for ever. Yet at first what confusion of things! what suffering for the righteous! The person of Job was smitten as sorely and unsparingly as before he had been stripped of children and possessions — all clean gone; and the one who was nearest to him, instead of being a help-meet, tempts him in despair, but in vain. "And his wife said unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. Ay! shall we receive the good from God Himself, and shall we not receive the evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips." (Vers. 9, 10.) It will be noticed, however, that here, not before, it is said, "In all this did not Job sin with his lips." This was much, but it was not all. No flesh shall glory before God.

God soon was pleased to bring out what was in his heart in a way which man could not expect. Godly friends were used of Him to bring to the surface what the adversary had failed utterly to reach or to see. Their very presence drew out impatience even from the patient Job. It is precisely where we are strongest that God proves our weakness. In Christ alone we stand. "Now three friends of Job heard of all this evil that was come upon him, and they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And they lifted up their eyes from afar, and knew him not; and they lifted up their voice and wept; and they rent each one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. And they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that the pain was very great."

Here we pause, and reflect on successive scenes, as genuine in the facts as in their moral depth, which eclipse no less the poor and low and corrupt myths of the ancient heathen, than the equally meagre and even impious efforts of modern philosophy to solve the problem of the world and men as they are with God such as He is. Those who turn away from so holy a revelation, and prefer what is utterly inadequate supposing it true, and what soon proves itself ridiculously false, nauseous even to a right-minded person, and presumptuous against God, prove at least what is the state of their hearts and consciences. We easily believe what we like. How blessed then by grace to love the truth! How awful to apostatize from "the Holy, the True," for unholy fables, old or new! Such alas! is the character of modern infidelity. God's purpose and ways are revealed in His word, and they are as worthy of the only true God as they are of the deepest value for our souls and our walk in fellowship with Him day by day.

The present world is not the manifestation of His government; it does not display His estimate of sinner or of saint. Previously to His judgment of the quick and the dead when Christ appears and reigns, He is in His grace causing all things to work together for good to them that love Him. He makes us, even in all its sorrows, more than conquerors through Him that loved us. But in order to this there are lessons we must learn about ourselves: what they are we may be taught in measure at least as we go through this wonderful book, however much had necessarily to await His coming and death who gave the Holy Ghost to guide us into all the truth. Here we do not rise above yearning after a daysman: eternal redemption could not yet be known, nor our perfecting by the one offering of Christ. Hence we have distress, anxiety and conflict, at least when the law came in to detect the inward state, sin and not sins merely; for faith as yet took the shape of desire for the coming One though also of dependence and trust in God as well as of integrity in confession, not yet of the calm happy knowledge of a God fully revealed in love and by the work of Christ — our sins borne away, sin judged for ever in the cross, and divine righteousness established and ours by grace.

Job 3.

THE COMPLAINT OF JOB.

The sympathy of his friends day after day, or their silent presence in face of all his troubles, was too much for the long-enduring saint.

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day,
And Job answered and said,
Perish the day wherein I was born,
And the night that said, A man is conceived.
That day! be it darkness;
Let not God from above ask after it;
And let not light shine upon it;
Let darkness and death-shade reclaim it;
Let clouds tabernacle on it;
Let darkenings of the day affright it.
That night! thick darkness seize on it;
Let it not be joined to the days of the year;
Let it not come into the number of the months.
Lo, that night! let it be barren;
Let no shout of joy come into it;
Let cursers of days curse it,
Who are prepared to rouse leviathan.
The stars of its twilight be dark;
Let it look for light but [have] none,
And let it not gaze on the eyelids of the dawn;
Because it shut not the doors of my [mother's] belly
And hid sorrow from mine eyes.

Why did I not die from the womb —
Come forth from the belly, and expire?
Why did the knees anticipate me,
And why the breasts that I should suck?
For now I had lain and been quiet,
I had slept, and then had there been rest for me,
With kings and counsellors of the earth,
Who built ruins for themselves;
Or with princes that had gold,
Who filled their houses with silver;
Or, as a hidden abortion, I should not be,
As infants [that] never saw light:
There the wicked cease from raging,
And there the weary are at rest;
Together rest the prisoners;
They hear not the taskmaster's voice
Small and great are there the same;
And free the slave from his master.

Wherefore giveth He light to the wretched one,
And life to the bitter [in] soul;
Who long for death, and it [is] not,
And dig for it more than for hid treasures;
Who rejoice to dancing,
Exult when they find the grave?
To a man whose way is hid,
And whom God hath hedged in?
For instead of my bread cometh my sighing,
And like waters are my groans poured forth.
For greatly I feared, and forthwith it overtook me,
And what I dreaded hath come to me;
I was not at ease, I had no quiet
And no rest, and trouble came."

Thus bitterly does he deprecate the day of his birth and all connected with it. Indeed there had never been a child of Adam or a believer so visited as Job; and as yet he knew not the end, that the Lord is exceeding pitiful, and of tender mercy. He was in the depth of his trial aggravated by the silence of his friends, soon to augment it yet more by the drawn swords of their increasingly expressed suspicion. And so he asks, in the anguish of his soul, why, if such was to be his lot living, did he not die from the womb? Why should he have been so tenderly cared for to encounter at length such agony? Why did he not share the quiet of the grave with earth's grandees, who were spending life in building monuments that decay themselves, or cramming their houses with silver and gold they must leave behind; unless he had been as a still-born babe that never saw light, and thus be where the wicked trouble no more, and the weary are at rest, and the captives repose together, with no taskmaster's voice, small and great alike there, and the slave free from his master?

The last verses (20-26) put the question, first generally, and then with pointed application to himself, why he should live, being thus miserable. There is no need for giving to verse 20 the impersonal turn of the English Bible and of many others, though there is still the avoidance of uttering the name of God. The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ: if it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now is He risen, and become the first-fruits of them that sleep. Fear of evil is gone for ever to him who now walks by faith; for to it evil is gone before God, and nothing but good abides and triumphs in Him whom we know on the throne of God, now appearing in His presence for us. Hence can the Christian glory in tribulations, and die daily; whereas Job can only say that, if he but conceived a fear, it forthwith overtook him, and that which he dreaded was come upon him; not, I think, referring to past anxieties during his prosperity, but the dismal apprehensions which succeeded each other now that he was passing through the furnace.

Job 4, Job 5.

THE FIRST DISCOURSE OF ELIPHAZ.

The eldest of the three friends proceeds to reprove Job.

"And Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Should one attempt a word to thee, wilt thou be grieved?
And yet to hold back from speaking, who is able?
Lo, thou hast corrected many,
And slack hands hast thou strengthened,
The stumbling one thy speech did raise,
And sinking knees thou didst confirm;
But now it cometh to thee, and thou art grieved,
It toucheth thee, and thou art confounded.
[Is] not thy fear thy confidence,
And the uprightness of thy ways thy hope?
Remember, I pray thee, who perished being innocent?
Or where have the upright been blotted out?
So far as I have seen, they that plough iniquity,
And they that sow trouble, reap the same.
By the breath of God they perish,
And by the blast of His nostrils they are consumed.
The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the dark lion,
And the teeth of the young lion are broken;
The strong lion perisheth for lack of prey,
And the whelps of the lioness are scattered.

And to me there stole a word,
And mine ear caught a whisper from it,
In thoughts from visions of the night,
When deep sleep falleth on man;
Shuddering befell me, and trembling,
Which shook the multitude of my bones;
And a spirit glideth before me:
The hairs of my body bristled up.
It stood there — I discerned not its appearance —
An image before mine eyes:
Silence! and a voice I hear,
Is a mortal more just than God?
Is a man purer than his Maker?
Behold, His servants He trusteth not,
And to His angels He ascribeth error;
How much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
The foundation of which [is] in the dust,
Which are crushed as though moths!
From morning to evening they are destroyed;
Before any one marketh it they perish for ever.
Is not their cord in them torn away?
They die, and not in wisdom.

Call now: is there any that will answer thee?
And to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn?
For grief killeth a fool,
And jealousy slayeth the simple.
I have seen a fool taking root,
And suddenly I cursed his habitation.
His sons are far from help,
And are crushed in the gate without deliverance;
Whose harvest the hungry one devoureth,
And taketh it off even out of a thorn-hedge,
And the thirsty swalloweth up their wealth.

For evil goeth not forth of the dust,
And trouble doth not sprout out of the ground;
But man is born to trouble,
As the sparks of flame make high their flight.
For my part, then, I would turn to God (El),
And to God (Elohim) would I commit my cause,
Who doeth great things and unsearchable,
Who giveth rain on the face of the earth,
And sendeth water on the face of the fields,
To set the low on high,
And raise up the mourning to prosperity.
He breaketh to pieces the devices of the crafty,
So that they can do nothing to purpose;
He taketh the wise in their craftiness,
And the counsel of the cunning is overturned.
By day they run against darkness,
And as in the night they grope at noon-day.
And He saveth the poor from the sword out of their mouth,
And from the hand of the strong;
So there is hope to the poor,
And iniquity shutteth her mouth.

Lo, happy the man whom God correcteth:
Therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty.
For He woundeth, and bindeth up,
He smiteth and His hands make whole.
In six troubles He will deliver thee,
And in seven no evil shall befall thee.
In famine He hath redeemed thee from death,
And in war from the hand of the sword.
In the scourge of the tongue thou art hidden,
And fearest not destruction when it cometh;
At destruction and at famine thou shalt laugh,
And thou shalt not be afraid before beasts of the earth.
For with the stones of the field is thy covenant,
And the wild beasts of the field are at peace with thee.
And thou knowest that thy tabernacle [is] peace,
And thou shalt oversee thy place and miss nothing.
And thou shalt know that thy seed [is] great,
And thine offspring as the green herb of the earth.
Thou shalt go to the grave in a full age,
As the heap of sheaves mounteth up in its season.
Lo, this we have searched out; so it [is];
Hear it and mark [it] well for thyself."

Such is the opening speech of the elder of the three interlocutors who henceforth proceed to sit in judgment on Job, and are successively answered by him. Unquestionably the gravest of them is Eliphaz, and this first utterance of his lets us into his character and style. Every word may be true in itself; all is said with the utmost dignity and force; yet it is misapplied and one-sided, and hence, in effect, erroneous as a whole. Eliphaz assumes that God at the present time is displaying His government, and exactly measures prosperity or adversity to men's deserts. This is false ground, and vitiates the application, especially to one like Job given up to be assailed by Satan, and tried to the end (not "the bitter," but the sweet) by God.

Hence, though the pious sage stands revealed in every sentiment, though ripe experience and moral grandeur are everywhere felt, though the spiritual and the natural worlds contribute their full quota to the argument, though the reproach is as yet mild, and the exhortation appears to be that of faithful friendship and earnest piety, there underlies it an assumption of conscious hidden guilt on Job's part, which could not but aggravate his grief, and which did not fail to call forth his too bitter resentment.

Eliphaz begins with a glance at Job's former profession of righteousness, but it is to reprove him for his actual failure in endurance. Ignorant of himself, and feebly realizing the accumulated and overwhelming pressure on Job, he is honestly astounded at his outburst; and then lays down his law of present retribution, but rather to rouse him from his wild despair to the language of piety than to condemn him as impious. If godly fear was his, as Eliphaz trusted yet, why was it not his confidence? why was not the uprightness of his ways his hope? It is plain that Eliphaz was as ignorant as Job of the source, and character, and aim of the trial then going on. All he sees is the necessary triumph of righteousness, and the irretrievable ruin of the wicked; and this by figures taken not only from men, but the wildest of beasts crushed under God's hand.

Next Eliphaz sets forth in mysterious and awful style an oracle of the night, which impressed his own soul with the folly of earthly, sinful, weak, man's pretension to be more just than God by arraigning His dispensations.

In the beginning of Job 5 Eliphaz proceeds in a strain of deepening severity, and not without a claim of superior moral judgment. On whom could Job call, if not on God, against whom he was rather murmuring? For himself he saw the sudden and inevitable ruin of the prosperous fool and of all pertaining to him. Job should therefore accept his suffering from God, and turn to Him with supplication, who is not merely great beyond creature search, but bountiful, and this morally to the abject, as surely as He confounds the crafty and the strong. Eliphaz finally counsels submission to the chastening hand of God, who would surely deliver from all evil, and bless him with all good; and this in the name, not merely of himself, but of his friends, on whose entire agreement he reckons with assurance.

It is to be noticed that the Holy Ghost is pleased to endorse the language of Eliphaz, and this not merely in the earlier revelations but in the fullest light of the New Testament, as we may see in the apostle's use of it to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews. Indeed the issue in the book itself was the remarkable (and probably by himself unexpected) seal of the truth of his closing words, which no doubt at that time fell coldly on the ear and heart of the sufferer.

How natural it is, especially for those who believe in a present moral government of God, to look for a perfect manifestation of His mind in the maintenance of right and the judgment of wrong in the world as it is! No doubt this was strongest among the Jews, who might have expected it justly under the theocracy Jehovah was pleased to establish in their midst. But in truth it is a truth indigenous to every land, and common to all ages, and found in every circumstance and grade of life. Here the three friends of Job more and more yield to it, and Job, who suffered from his allowance of it, was kept from it mainly by the unswerving consciousness of his own integrity, but none the loss writhing under the inexplicable web of inflicted misery, the more poignantly felt because he never doubted that God somehow had to do with it all, and righteousness pleads that evil should be punished and good dwell in peace and honour. Who ever learns till he is taught of God that His children must wait in faith, and suffer patiently in the exercise and trial of their faith, till God has His rights in the return and reign of His Anointed? Then, and not before, shall we reign with Him.

Job 6, Job 7.

THE REPLY OF JOB,

"And Job answered, and said,
O that my vexation were exactly weighed,
And my calamity raised in the scales together!
For now is it heavier than the sand of the seas,
Therefore do my words rave.
For the arrows of the Almighty are in me,
The poison of which my spirit drinketh up.*
The terrors of God array themselves against me.
Doth the wild ass bray by the fresh grass?
Doth an ox low over his fodder?
Is that which is tasteless eaten without salt?
Is there flavour in the white of an egg?
My soul refuseth to touch:
They are as the disease of my bread.

* Perhaps the construction may be, as many think, "drinketh up my spirit."

O that my request might come,
And that God would grant my longing,
That it might please God to destroy me,
That He would let loose His hand, and cut me off!
So would it ever be my comfort,
And I would exult if He in pain should not spare,
For I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
What is my strength that I should wait,
And what mine end that I should be patient?
Is my strength the strength of stones?
Is my flesh copper?
Truly is not the nothingness of help with me,
And substance driven away from me?

To the despairing there is gentleness from his friends,
Even to one forsaking the face of the Almighty.
My brethren have deceived as a torrent,
As the bed of torrents which overflow.
Turbid are they from ice;
The snow hideth itself in them:
What time heat cometh, they are cut off;
When it is hot, they are extinguished from their place.
Caravans,* turn aside out of their way,
They go up into the waste, and vanish.
The caravans of Tema looked,
The companies of Sheba hoped for them;
They were put to shame because one trusted,
They came up to it, and became red with shame.

* Possibly it may mean the streams, not caravans, that wind about.

For truly ye are become nothing,
Ye see a terror, and are dismayed.
Is it that I ever said, Give me,
And bring presents to me from your wealth,
And deliver me out of the enemy's hand,
And redeem me out of the oppressor's hand?
Teach me, and I will be silent,
And show me wherein I have erred.
How sweet are right words!
And what doth reproof from you reprove?
Think you to reprove words,

When the speeches of one despairing are but wind?
Ye would even let fall on the orphan,
And would traffic for your friend.
But now be pleased to face me,
And to your faces it will be if I lie.
Return, I pray, let there be no wrong;
Yea, return; I am still right therein.
Is there wrong in my tongue?
Doth not my palate discern calamities?

Hath not man a warfare on earth,
And are not his days as the days of a hireling?
As the slave panting after the shade,
And as the hireling longing for his wages.
So I am made to inherit months of wretchedness,
And nights of distress are appointed to me.
When I lie down, then I say,
When shall I arise, and the evening be gone?
And I am weary of restlessness till the dawn.
My flesh is clothed with worms and crusts of earth,
My skin healeth, and is again melted;
My days pass more swiftly than a shuttle,
And come to an end without hope.
Remember that my days are a breath,
Mine eye will not return to see good.
The eye of him that seeth me shall not see me;
Thine eyes [look] toward me: I am no more.
The cloud consumeth, and is gone;
So he that goeth down to Sheol cometh not up,
He returneth no more to his house;
His place knoweth him not again.

I also will not restrain my mouth,
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Am I a sea, or a monster,
That Thou settest guard over me?
When I say, My bed shall comfort me,
My couch shall ease my complaint,
Then Thou shakest me with dreams,
And makest me tremble through visions of the night,
So that my soul chooseth strangling,
Death rather than these bones: I would not live on;
I loathe it: let me alone; my days are vanity.

What is man that Thou magnifiest him,
And that Thou settest Thy mind on him,
And that Thou visitest him every morning,
And every moment triest him?
How long dost not Thou look away from me,
Nor lettest me alone till I swallow my spittle?
I have sinned; what could I do to Thee?
Watcher of men, why makest Thou me Thy mark,
So that I am become a burden to myself?
And why dost not Thou pardon my transgression,
And put away my iniquity?
For now shall I lie in the dust,
And, if Thou seekest after me, I am no more."

Thus Job pleads for a fairer appraisal of his sore trial along with his random words. It was easy for others to moralize who were at ease, but as inevitable for him to cry out as for the beast without food. He owned the strokes to be from God, and only desired to be crushed, as his conscience was good. Hope for this life was gone. Such an one should have had pity from his friends, who had, on the contrary, played him false, as the wadys of the desert deceive in summer the caravans that count on them. Nor had he asked help of them, but was willing to learn if they could show his error, instead of cavilling at the wild words of one in despair. He asks an open judgment of his ways, and a lenient estimate of his complaints. When a man has served out as a soldier or slave, may he not retire? It was his grief that he could not, after unutterable days and nights of hopeless misery; yet was he but a wind or cloud, and as he thought of it, he must again speak in his anguish. Was he a sea, or sea-monster, so uncontrollable as to be allowed no respite, not even at night, from horrors enough to make him prefer strangling, any death, rather than for such bones as his to live on? What was mortal man that God should make so much of him? and try him as he was tried unintermittingly? Grant that he had sinned; but why set him as a butt till he should pass away in sorrow?

How beautifully in contrast with Job's repining are Psalms 8 and 144, where a similar question brings out, in and by the Lord Jesus, wholly different answers. Yet the Lord passed into the glory of Son of man set over all things, through infinitely deeper suffering; as He will at length close man's feeble history by His coming in judgment to take the kingdom in power and glory before the universe. Job gives way to murmurs and complaints that God should take such notice of man in daily government: not so He, who was rejected by all, and tasted death for everything, whom now we see exalted above the heavens, and who will ere long judge all men when God gives the word.

Job 8.

FIRST DISCOURSE OF BILDAD.

The second of the three friends takes up Job next. He is inferior to Eliphaz in calm dignity, and less temperate in his insinuations, because more prone to judge by the sight of his eyes and the experience of mankind, and so he rushes in where angels would fear to tread, as they gaze in awe at the wonderful ways of God. It was plain enough to him why Job and his house were punished.

And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,
How long wilt thou recite these [things],
And the words of thy mouth [be] a strong wind?
Doth God pervert right,
And the Almighty pervert justice?
If thy children have sinned against Him,
And He hath cast them into the hand of their transgression;
If thou seekest earnestly unto God,
And makest supplication to the Almighty,
If thou [wert] pure and upright,
He would surely now wake up for thee,
And restore the habitation of thy righteousness;
And though thy beginning were small,
Yet thy latter end would flourish greatly.

Inquire now of the former generation,
And give heed to the research of their fathers
(For we [are of] yesterday, and know not,
For our days on earth are a shadow);
Shall not they teach thee, say to thee,
And bring forth words out of their heart?
Doth the reed shoot up without mire?
Doth the flag* spread out without water?
While yet in its greenness, it is not cut down,
Before all grass doth it dry up.
So [are] the ways of all that forget God,
And the hope of the polluted† perisheth,
Whose confidence is cut off,
And his truth a spider's house;
He leaneth on his house, but it standeth not,
He fasteneth on it, but it abideth not.
Green [is] he before the sun,
And his suckers run over his garden;
His roots are entwined over the stone-heap,
He looketh on a house of stone,
When he is swallowed out of its place,
Then will it deny him: I saw thee not.
Lo, this [is] the joy of his way,
And out of the dust sprout others;
Lo, God will not forsake a perfect [man],
Nor graspeth evil-doers by the hand,
Till He fill thy mouth with laughter,
And thy lips with shouting:
They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame,
And the tent of the wicked shall be no more.

* Or, Eastern rush.

† Or, hypocrite.

Thus does Bildad more than hint, as his explanation of Job's sufferings, that his children had sinned and so brought down the divine displeasure. It must be so, he thought, for God would surely defend the right and punish iniquity. Instead therefore of bluster and complaint, let Job only turn with earnest supplication to God the Almighty, and he will soon find, provided he himself be pure, that prosperity from Him will crown his homestead, and his latter end flourish beyond the beginning. So it came to pass indeed, but by no means as Bildad conceived, who resorts to the wise saws of the ancients in support of strict retribution now at the hand of God. It is from no strength in itself that the papyrus lifts its head so high, but from the abundant mire in which it thrives its little day; and so with the flag or bulrush of the East, from mere and exceeding moisture, not solid ground; and this is so true, that they do not decay slowly, like other plants, but are the first to wither without being cut down.

So it is with the wicked, both in their elevation and their ruin: the paths of all that forget God end thus surely and miserably, the hope of the impure is alike fleeting. The object of their confidence is no firmer than a spider's web, though he may cling to it ever so tenaciously. It has no more permanence than the rank weed which extends over a garden, and entwines its suckers in a stone-heap. But in vain. He may look on a house of stone, but is quickly destroyed, as a mere and mischievous cumberer of the ground, which denies him then as if it never saw him: yet though this is the joy of his way and the bitter end of godless prosperity, there is a succession of such men just as of such weeds; one springs up after another out of the dust, to pass away still more rapidly. If Job be really a perfect man, God will not cast him away (but neither does He grasp the hand of evil-doers) till He give him the amplest grounds for thankful praise, confound his enemies, and destroy the wicked for ever. But, as applied to the present case, there was no fellowship with God in Bildad's thoughts, no gracious consideration for the sufferer; and hence his judgment, being according to appearances, was unrighteous.

We need not be surprised that he could not anticipate the lessons which it was the object of God by this very book to teach; but a believer should not make haste, he should wait where he had not the assurance of His mind, least of all should he have put the worst construction possible on what he did not comprehend. This he did to the aggravation of Job's trial and to the provocation of his spirit, which again furnished an appearance of evil to those who suspected evil; and thus the confusion was worse confounded and the true solution of all veiled in deeper darkness from their eyes. Does it seem ever to have occurred to the three friends that their wisdom would have been to pray rather than to talk, judge, and censure? Desiring to be law-teachers before the law, they like others since it understood neither what they said nor whereof they affirmed.

Job 9, Job 10.

THE ANSWER OF JOB.

What Bildad urged, Job admits might be and was true enough; yet he feels that not only his own first appeal to his friends for their pity had failed, but the real point was in no wise reached, while the suggestion of hidden sin was as false as it was uncharitable. He therefore deals unsparingly with their reasonings.

We can see how immense is the difference when the gospel reveals the righteousness of God. It is no longer the question, How shall man be just with God? It has been proved fully by the law, not to speak of the coming of Christ, that man has no righteousness for God; but now is revealed in the gospel God's righteousness, and hence all on man's part is excluded but faith, that it might be wholly grace on God's part, though resting on the foundation of Christ's suffering for sins, just for unjust, that He might bring us to God. Therefore does the apostle say that in the gospel is revealed God's righteousness from faith to faith. It is from faith, not from works of law, so that Jewish boasting is shut out; and it is to faith, so that the blessing of justification is equally open to the Gentile, as to the Jew, who believes. But this wondrous, present revelation of divine righteousness, justifying the believer who, so far from having works to boast, openly confesses his own guilt and ruin, was still future, in due time predicted by the prophets as it was prefigured in the types of the law, but now preached in the gospel, proclaimed as a present thing to every one who believes, instead of being held out as a promise merely. Hence "we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith," that is, not for righteousness or justification, but for the hope to which such righteousness entitles, even heavenly glory with Christ. But we must now return to the earlier questions.

And Job answered and said,
Verily I know that [it is] so,
But how shall mortal man be just with God?
If He desire to dispute with him,
He cannot answer Him one of a thousand:
Wise in heart, and mighty in strength!
Who hath held out against Him, and been unhurt?
He removeth mountains, and they know not
That He hath overturned them in His wrath;
He shaketh the earth out of its place,
And the pillars of it rock themselves;
He commandeth the sun, and it riseth not,
And He setteth a seal about the stars,
Spreading out the heavens Himself alone,
And treading on the heights of the sea,
Making Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades,
And the chambers of the south;
Doing great things past finding out,
And unravelling things past reckoning.
Lo, He passeth by me, and I see Him not.
And He glideth before me, and I perceive Him not.
Lo, He snatcheth away: who shall turn Him away?
Who saith to Him, What doest Thou?
God turneth not from His wrath:
The helpers of pride have stooped under Him.

How much less should I answer Him —
Choose out my words with Him?
Whom, though I were just, I would not answer;
For mercy would I plead with my Judge.
Though I had cited Him, and He had answered me,
I would not believe that He would listen to me,
For He bruiseth me with a storm,
And multiplieth my wounds without cause.
He suffereth me not to draw my breath,
But surfeiteth me with bitternesses.
If [I turn] to might, lo, [He is] strong,
If to judicial trial, who will cite me?
If I justify myself, my mouth would condemn me.
I perfect! He would prove me perverse.
I perfect! I should not know my own soul,
I should despise my life.
It [is] all one: therefore I said,
He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
If the scourge slay suddenly,
He laugheth at the trial of the innocent.
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked,
The face of the judges He veileth:
If not then, who [is] he?

And my days are swifter than a runner,
They flee, they see not good;
They have swept past like* skiffs of reed,
As an eagle swoopeth on the prey.
If I say, I will forget my plaint,
I will leave off my looks, and brighten up;
I shudder at all my sorrows,
I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent.
For me, I am to be guilty! why labour I then in vain?
If I wash myself with snow-water,
And cleanse my hands with lye,
Then wouldest Thou plunge me in the ditch,
And mine own clothes would abhor me.
For [He is] not a man as I [that] I should answer Him.
Let us come together in judgment,
There is between us no arbiter,
Who might lay his hand on us both.
Let Him take His rod from off me,
And let not His terror frighten me;
I would speak, and not fear Him,
But not thus I with myself.

* Literally with, and hence as fast as.

Job 10.

My soul is weary of my life;
I will give way to my plaint,
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul,
I will say to God, Condemn me not;
Let me know why Thou contendest with me.
[Is it] good to Thee that Thou oppressest,
That Thou despisest the work of Thy hands,
And hast shone on the counsel of the wicked?
Hast Thou eyes of flesh?
Seest Thou as mortal man seeth?
[Are] Thy days as the days of mortal man?
[Are] Thy years as the days of a man,
That thou inquirest for my guilt,
And searchest after my sin,
Upon Thy knowledge that I am not guilty,
And that none can deliver out of Thy hand?

Thy hands have carved me, and fashioned me round about,
And yet Thou destroyest me!

O remember now that as clay Thou formedst me,
And yet Thou bringest me back to dust!
Didst Thou not pour me out as milk,
And curdle me like cheese,
Clothe me with skin and flesh,
And fence me with bones and sinews?
Life and favour hast Thou shown me,
And Thy care hath preserved my spirit;
And these things hast Thou hid in Thy heart!
I know that this [was] with Thee.
If I should sin, Thou wouldest mark me,
And not in mine iniquity hold me guiltless.
If I be guilty, woe unto me!
And righteous, I durst not raise my head,
Filled with shame, and seeing my misery;
And should it hold itself up, as a lion Thou wouldest hunt me,
And turn again, and act wondrously against me.
Thou wouldest renew Thy witnesses against me
And multiply Thy displeasure against me —
Reinforcements, and a host upon me.

Why then didst Thou bring me forth from the womb?
I might have expired, and no eye had seen me
I might have been as though I had not been;
I might have been borne from the belly to the grave.
[Are] not my days few? Let Him leave me
And put Himself from me, that I may brighten up a little,
Before I go, and return not,
To a land of darkness and death-shade,
A land of gloom, like pitch-darkness itself,
Death-shade, without order,
And the shining like pitch-darkness itself.

Bildad had talked truisms as to God's dealing with the wicked and the righteous, but he had not faced the question how mortal man can have a standing of righteousness with God. For his own part he owned man's incapacity, and God's title to act according to His power, In fact, it was exactly what Job himself experienced when Jehovah put His questions to him at the close of the book. To dispute it is to court destruction. To impute his sufferings, therefore, to secret wickedness was ignorance of God's sovereign ways. For he turns from God's power in creation and providence to His overwhelming collision with feeble and failing man, who cannot so much as perceive Him as He sweeps by in His irresistible might.

If it be thus in the outer world, equally hopeless is the struggle morally, as Job proceeds next to show. How vain to think of a favourable issue in a suit with God! It would be derogatory to His glory to think that He could stoop to such a contest, or give hearing to a creature plea against His ways. Not only must He crush all opposition, but man's own mouth would condemn him, and himself be proved perverse. So he would not dare to think for himself of such a plea, but of crying out for mercy. For the dealings of God externally do not for the present discriminate among men. It is all one so far whether men are guilty or blameless. Job grows bolder and says it out, though his piety still withholds the name of God, as in verses 22 et seqq., as he shrank from seeming to arraign His government of the world. But he does speak bitterly of His patience while judgment lingers, as if mocking at the trial of the innocent. This is what no saint should draw from His permission of wrong and sorrow for a little while. But there is no denying that He veils the faces of judges, the wicked being in the highest seats of the world's authority: if not so, who is it? Can Bildad or Eliphaz contradict the fact, or leave God out of it?

But Job felt that he need not go beyond his own case. God does afflict the blameless as well as the wicked. Job's days had slipped away so that he had scarce tasted what good is: no runner on land, no light skiff on the waters, nor eagle in the air, faster than they; and not this merely, but with painful dread that He could if He would hold him as guilty. Efforts at cheerfulness were therefore as vain for him as endeavours to cleanse himself with the most efficacious detergents. It is not that his conscience was bad; but he sees that, if God enters into judgment with His servant, no man living can be justified. His light would detect every fault, so that the clothes would shrink with horror from the wearer. Job therefore yearns after an umpire or mediator between God and man, who might lay his hands on both, instead of being left in his weakness and failings before the awful and inflexible and withering judgment of a Being so infinitely removed from him. If He would only remove His rod, he would not fear to speak; but he could not in his actual state.*

* Many understand this difficult phrase as, "But I am conscious of nothing myself;" or, again, "But in this state I have no self-possession."

What could Job do then, but complain and deprecate God's condemnation of him, without knowing why He so contended, while He shone on the counsel of the wicked? It was the harder to understand, as God was not blind or fleeting like man, needed no inquisition for sin, and knew the innocence of the sufferer, who could not escape and yet was His own curiously elaborated creature, preserved from first to last as if for these things, inevitably doomed right or wrong, and afraid to assert the right, lest it should provoke worse. Why, if not removed from birth, was there not some respite before going to the land of darkness? But in this grievous expostulation against God, it will be, as it has been, remarked, that Job addresses and entreats God, even while he is as unjust toward God as he thinks God unjust toward him. He had yet to learn the pitifulness and tender mercy of God, spite of and above Satan's malice, though the day was not yet come for the Only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father to declare the God whom no man has seen, and as the Son of man to glorify God, even as to sin, in the cross, whereon He also bore our sins who believe. How little we appreciate the value of the true light that now shines!

Job 11.

FIRST DISCOURSE OF ZOPHAR.

The third speaker now advances, who manifests the least knowledge of himself or consideration for Job, and therefore yields forthwith to a more violent tone of censure.

And Zophar, the Naamathite, answered and said,
Shall not the multitude of words be answered?
And shall a man of lips be justified?
Thy babbling puts men to silence:
And thou mockest, and no one saith, Shame!
And thou art to say, My doctrine [is] pure,
And I am clean in Thine eyes!
But O that God would indeed speak,
And open His lips against thee,
And make known to thee the secrets of wisdom,
That they are doubled by inspection,
And God remitteth to thee of thine iniquity.

Canst thou, searching, find out God?
Canst thou the Almighty find out to perfection?
Heights of heaven, what canst thou do?
Deeper than hell, what canst thou know?
Longer than the earth [is] its measure,
And broader than the sea.
If He pass by, and arrest,
And gather together, who can hinder Him?
For He knoweth men of vanity,
And seeth wickedness without considering [it].
But empty man would be wise,
Yet is man born a wild ass's colt.

If thou direct thy heart,
And spread out thy hands to Him;
If iniquity [be] in thy hand, put it far away,
And let not evil dwell in thy tents;
For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot,
And shalt be stedfast without fearing.
For thou shalt forget trouble,
Shalt remember [it] as waters passed away;
And the future shall arise brighter than noonday;
Thou shalt soar — shalt be as the morning.
And thou shalt trust, because there is hope,
And thou shalt search, thou shalt rest securely,
And thou shalt lie down, and none shall cause trembling,
And many shall caress thy face.
But the eyes of the wicked waste,
And refuge vanisheth away from them,
And their hope [is] a breathing out of the soul.

Thus Zophar gives Job credit for nothing beyond a multitude of words and idle talk. The unanswerable grounds against their hypothesis of strict present retribution were to him only babbling, and the bold affirmation that the wicked are allowed of God to prosper in this world seemed but a mockery of those who really could not answer, whatever their replies. He yields to great irritation because of Job's assertion of his soundness in the faith and in his life, and only desired that God would speak as Job had ventured to ask as little as any expecting that interposition which He was about to vouchsafe, not only for them, but for our sakes. Zophar had not a doubt what the sentence would be. He had not learnt that we should not judge, lest we be judged, and that our judgments do really judge ourselves: if solid and gracious, proving that we dwell in God, as dwelling in love, and walking according to light; if harsh, in the like degree manifesting how far we are governed by thoughts and feelings which have no source higher than self. Job would find, he was sure, that the secrets of wisdom are doubled by looking in, and that God did not exact of him what his iniquity deserved: he held to the gravest fears of his friend.

Next, Zophar descants grandly on the absolute and infinite perfection of God. The heights of heaven, the depths of hell, the length of the earth, the breadth of the sea, fail to measure His wisdom. How disastrous for man to stand before Him, were He to institute proceedings, as Job had so rashly challenged. How soon he would find out the folly of his wisdom, let his heart vie in obstinacy with that of a wild ass!

Finally, Zophar exhorts to supplication and repentance as the only door of escape for Job, but a sure opening into a bright and prosperous and secure life, if he would avoid the inevitable doom of the wicked.

In all this, it is plain, that as the ground of peace was feebly seen, so the reality and the nature of God's righteous government of His own was not at all understood. Ignorance in a saint is not wonderful; but it is sad when one forgets the need of light from above and dares to judge anything before the time, until the Lord come, who shall also both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts, when each shall have his praise from God.

Job 12 - 14.

THE ANSWER OF JOB.

And Job answered, and said,
Truly ye [are] the people,
And wisdom shall die with you.
But I have a heart as well as you,
I do not sink beneath you:
And with whom [are] not such things as these?
A mockery to his neighbours am I,
One calling on God, and He heard him:
The just, upright, one a mockery!
For misfortune scorn,* in the thoughts of the secure,
[Is] ready, for those that slide with the feet.
To the spoilers are the tents at peace,
And those who provoke God have security —
He who causeth God to enter into his hand.
But ask now even the beasts — they can teach thee —
And the fowl of the heavens, and it will declare to thee,
Or think on the earth, and it shall teach thee,
And fishes of the sea shall tell out to thee:
Who doth not know by all these
That the hand of Jehovah hath done this?
In whose hand [is] the soul of every living thing,
And the spirit of all flesh of men?
Doth not the ear try words,
As the palate tasteth food for itself?
Among the aged [is] wisdom,
And in length of days understanding.

* Or, A lantern, contemptible in etc,

With Him [are] wisdom and might,
He hath counsel and understanding.
He breaketh down, and it is not built up.
He shutteth up on man, and it is not opened.
Lo, He restraineth the waters, and they dry up;
And He sendeth them forth, and they overturn the land.
With Him [are] strength and wisdom,
His the deceived and the deceiver,
Leading counsellors away spoiled,
And judges He maketh foolish;
The band of kings He looseth,
And bindeth a girdle on their loins.
He leadeth priests away spoiled,
And overthroweth the strong.
He removeth the lips of the trusted,
And taketh away the tact of the aged.
He poureth contempt upon princes,
And looseth the girdle of the mighty.
He discovereth deep things out of darkness,
And bringeth out to light death-shade.
He magnifieth nations, and destroyeth them,
He leadeth out nations, and leadeth them in.
He taketh away the heart
Of the chief of the people of the land,
And He causeth them to wander
In a wilderness — no way.
They grope in the dark without light,
And He maketh them wander as a drunkard.

Job 13.

Lo, mine eye hath seen all,
Mine ear hath heard and understood.
What ye know, I know also,
I do not sink beneath you.
But I will speak to the Almighty,
And I desire to plead with God;
But ye [are] forgers of lies,
Physicians of no value [are] ye all.
O that ye would altogether be silent,
And it would become your wisdom.
Hear now my reproof,
And attend to the pleadings of my lips.
For God do ye speak wickedly,
And for Him do ye talk deceit?
Will ye lift up His countenance?
Will ye contend for God?
Is it well that He should search you out?
Or deceive ye Him, as one man deceiveth another?
He will surely reprove you, if ye secretly accept persons.
Doth not His excellency terrify you,
And His dread fall upon you?
Your maxims [are] proverbs of ashes,
Your bulwarks, bulwarks of clay!
Be silent from me, and I speak;
And let pass over me what [will].
Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hand?
Lo, He will slay me, yet will I trust Him;*
But my ways to His face I will argue.
This also will be my salvation,
That no polluted one shall come before Him.
Hear, O hear, my declaration
And my utterances with your ears.
Lo, now, I have ordered my cause,
I know that I shall be justified.
Who is he [that] will contend with me?
Then indeed I would be silent, and expire.
Only two things do not Thou to me:
Then will I not hide myself from Thee.
Thy hand put far off from me,
And let not Thy terror terrify me.
Then call Thou, and I will answer,
Or let me speak, and answer Thou me.
How many my iniquities and sins!
My transgression and my sin make me know.
Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face,
And regardest me as an enemy to Thee?
Wilt Thou terrify a driven leaf,

And wilt Thou pursue dry stubble?
For Thou writest for me bitter things,
And makest me inherit the iniquities of my youth;
And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And watchest all my paths,
On the soles of my feet Thou cuttest;
And he as a rotten thing consumeth,
As a garment which the moth hath eaten.

* Or, according to the Ketib, I have no hope, or I will not wait. Others contend that the Keri means until I am slain, I wait; or, I wait for Him that He may slay me.

Job 14.

Man, born of woman,
Is of few days, and full of trouble,
Cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down,
And he fleeth as a shadow, and abideth not,
And on such an one Thou openest Thine eyes!
And me dost Thou bring into judgment with Thee?
Who giveth a clean out of an unclean thing?
Not one!
If his days are determined,
The number of his months with Thee,
Thou hast set his bound which he shall not pass.
Look away from him that he may rest,
That he may enjoy as a hireling his day.

For there is hope for a tree if it be cut down,
That it will shoot again, and its sprout fail not,
Though its root wax old in the earth,
And its stump die in the dust:
Through the scent of water it flourisheth,
And putteth forth like a young plant.
But man dieth, and is prostrate,
And man expireth, and where is he?
Waters roll away from a sea,
And the stream becometh waste and dry,
So man lieth down, and riseth not:
Till the heavens [be] no more, they wake not,
Nor are roused out of their sleep.

O that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol,
Hide me till the turning of Thine anger,
Appoint me a set time, and then remember me!
If a man die, shall he live?
All the days of my warfare would I wait
Till my exchange should come.
Thou wouldest call, and I would answer Thee:
After the work of Thine hands Thou yearnest.
But now Thou numberest my steps:
Watchest Thou not over my sins?
My transgression is sealed up in a bag,
And thou sewest up mine iniquity.

And yet a falling mountain decayeth,
And a rock is removed from its place,
Waters wear away stones,
Its floodings sweep away the soil of the earth,
And Thou destroyest the hope of man,
To the last Thou overpowerest him, and he goeth;
Thou changest his face, and sendest him away.
His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not;
And they are abased, and he perceiveth it not;
But his flesh in him hath pain, and his soul in him mourneth.

Thus the sufferer is provoked to treat the language of his friends, especially Zophar's, with sarcasm, and to defend his own ground as sounder than theirs. He feels how empty were their truisms as applied to his peculiar case, and how his rejection of them was driving themselves to the harshest judgment of his trials. It was an upturning of all right that he should be a jeer to his friends — one that called on God, and was heard by Him, just and upright, yet mocked! But it was the world's way, dwelling at ease themselves, to have scorn ready for the unfortunate, a fresh shove for such as have begun to slide; or, if the alternative be right, they may be glad in their hour of trouble of a lantern despised when all seems easy. But Job reiterates with boldness his counter-proposition, that in the world as it is, not the pious but the rapacious have safe tabernacles, and that none enjoy for the time more security than those that provoke God, who nevertheless seems to fling blessings without stint into their hand. They might argue as they pleased, but facts were opposed everywhere; even in the animal kingdom a similar principle reigns. The beasts, the birds, the fishes, tell the same tale, and Jehovah's hand has done this. (Compare Isa. 41: 20)

Yes, the mystery of God's permission of evil remains. The mystery of His will is another thing, revealed now, not then, and only to be manifested at the coming of the Lord, when all things shall be gathered in one under His Headship. (Eph. 1: 9,10) It is not yet the time to order all as the expression of His will, though He is the maker and sovereign disposer of all. Undoubtedly experience has its place, as each has his own measure of discrimination which should profit by length of days; but there are no laws discoverable or possible to bind God, in whom alone is perfect wisdom and power in providence. There are laws which He has imprinted on all above our eyes and below our feet, and around us; but the highest, truest law of all, if law it should be called, is that God is free, not bound, to act, free to act as and when He will. So He acts with man as with the elements, with the more and the less wicked, with counsellors, and judges, and kings, with priests, and heroes, and senators, with whole nations, reduced or aggrandized, with their chiefs infatuated to utter ruin. God is sovereign.

Such was the result of Job's observations, and they could not deny its justice. But he preferred having to do with God, as to his sorrows, rather than with such sophists as they had shown themselves to be — worthless physicians, quacks, to whom he would prescribe silence, which might pass for wisdom. They had assumed to speak for God, but was it right to speak dishonestly or presumptuously? God did not want their favour any more than their fallacies. When their time came to be searched out, they would adopt very different language. Their zeal for God was according to neither knowledge nor conscience; and their confusion and dread must result from His intervention, as the issue proved. Their apothegms were of ashes, their bulwarks (hardly "bodies," as in English Version) of clay: a fresh reason why they should hold their peace, and leave him to have all out with God, desperate as it might seem, and come what would. But His slaying him was not what he dreaded; his conscience was good, and he would defend his ways before Him. That no hypocrite, none polluted, comes into His presence was a pledge of salvation to him, not a source of dismay. He calls attention to his demand earnestly and forcibly, assured of his innocence, and not refusing to die if deserving it; but he deprecates two things before the decision of the cause: first, that God would remove His hand from him; and, secondly, that He crush him not with His majesty. He desired to know what the iniquities were, why God hid His face and dealt so bitterly with him, that his body was perishing under the utmost pain and ignominy.

This leads him to a more general view of man's sad and frail estate, but still expressly with his own case before his eyes. (Job 14: 3) If the fountain were corrupt, one need not wonder at the foulness of its stream. Since his brief allotted space is all in God's hands, why not look away, and give him a little respite, that he may enjoy as a hireling his day? And the more, as life on earth closes for man hopelessly, though a tree cut down may sprout again, while, like waters that fail and dry up, man lies down, and rises no more while the heavens abide. He speaks of "man" for this world, and nothing can really be conceived more exact. It was not the time or place to introduce the special blessedness of the first resurrection, which we shall find has its echo elsewhere in this book. Every scripture is given by inspiration, and consistent with every other.

Job then returns to the expression of his desire that God would secrete him in the grave till His anger was turned away, appoint him a time, and then remember him. If a man die, shall he live? Job was the very reverse of a sceptic. He looks for his time of renovation or exchange, and does not doubt at bottom God's yearning after the work of His hands. Man is surely to live again; spirit, and soul, and body, he will be renewed. But this contrast which he believes throws him back on the, to him, inexplicable trials he was experiencing, and he yields to a fresh torrent of feeling as he dwells on the ruin of man under the eye and hand of God, so completely that, whether his son comes to honour or nothingness, he is none the wiser, the only thing known being his own pain outwardly and inwardly.

Job 15.

SECOND DISCOURSE OF ELIPHAZ.

The second series of discussion now opens with the appeal of Eliphaz, who lets out with less reserve the increasing sense his soul had that Job must lack integrity. As before, there is weighty truth in what he urges, and it is urged with great force; but the application to the sufferer was groundless, and therefore unjust in the last degree.

And Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Will a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
And fill his belly with the east wind,
Arguing with speech that availeth not,
And with words in which is no profit?
Yea, thou makest void the fear of God,
And diminishest devotion before God.
For thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth,
And thou choosest the tongue of the crafty;
Thy mouth condemneth thee, and not I,
And thine own lips testify against thee.

[Wast] thou born the first man,
And wast thou brought forth before the hills?
Didst thou listen in the councils of God,
And dost thou reserve wisdom to thyself?
What knowest thou that we know not?
[What] understandest thou that [is] not with us?
Also among us [is] the hoary, and the aged,
Richer in days than thy father.
[Are] the consolations of God too small for thee,
And a word in gentleness with thee?

Why doth thine heart carry thee away,
And why do thine eyes wink,
That thou turnest thy spirit against God,
And lettest words go out of thy mouth?
What [is] man that he should be clean,
And one born of woman that he should be righteous?
Behold, in His holy ones He trusteth not,
And the heavens are not clean in His eyes;
How much less the abominable and corrupt,
Man, that drinketh iniquity like water!

I will show thee: hear me;
And what I have seen I will relate,
Which wise men have declared
And have not hid, from their fathers,
To whom alone the land was given,
And through the midst of whom no stranger passed.

All the days of the wicked he is in torment,
And the number of years is laid up for the oppressor.
The voice of terrors [is] in his ears;
In peace the destroyer falleth on him.
He despaireth of returning from the darkness,
And he is marked out for the sword.
He wandereth for bread: where [is it]?
He knoweth that ready at his hand is a day of darkness.
Trouble and anguish make him afraid,
They overpower him, as a king ready for the onset.
For against God he stretched out his hand,
And against the Almighty played the hero,
Ran against Him with neck (proudly),
With the thick bosses of his shields.
For he covereth his face with his fatness,
And gathereth fat on [his] loins:
And he inhabiteth desolate cities,
Houses that no man dwelleth in,
Which are destined for heaps.
He becometh not rich, and his wealth endureth not,
Nor doth his substance extend in the earth.
He escapeth not from darkness:
A flame withereth his shoots,
And he passeth away by the breath of his mouth.
Let him not trust in vanity; he is deceived;
For vanity shall be his recompense;
Before his day* it is fulfilled,
And his branch is not green;
He shaketh off like a vine his grapes,
And casteth down like an olive his blossoms.
For the company of the polluted [is] barrenness,
And fire devoureth the tents of bribery;
They conceive misery, and bring forth vanity,
And their womb prepareth deceit.

* Literally, in his not day.

Thus we see that Eliphaz arraigns Job of that moral folly which forgets the presence and light of God, by haughty words blinding others to what God was judging, underneath the fair appearance of his life. He charges his language with worse than bluster, for he sees in it that which was calculated to turn souls aside from the fear of God; and thus Job, in his opinion, was self-condemned. To deny God's present retribution, Eliphaz thought, was to undermine confidence in His ways, and to encourage men to all lawlessness. It was not only conscious guilt talking with the air of offended innocence, but in this venturing to shake the foundations of God's government. (Vers. 1-6.)

Then he proceeds to tax Job with the grossest assumption of superiority in wisdom, without the least ground for it. To allow himself in such contempt of others, Job ought to be the first man, yea, born before the hills, and an assessor in the council of Eloah, conscious of secrets which were confined to his own heart. This Eliphaz gravely doubts, and challenges Job to prove the reality of his claim, putting in a plea for himself and his friends as unworthily set at nought, instead of having the honour due to age and experience. Indeed it was not of this merely that he complained; for if it was wrong to despise elders, how much more to speak of God as they had just heard! and this from a man who should remember his own corrupt nature and ways, and the holy majesty of God, before whom the heavens are not clean, and the holy ones beneath His confidence.

Finally Eliphaz proceeds to set before Job what mature and incorrupt wisdom had found true from the beginning, before the voice of strangers had imported those sophistications of which they had heard too much. The wicked man has an internal tormenter in his own conscience even now, which does not fail to embitter his brief allotted time. He is ever foreboding death in life, want in abundance. The voice of alarm never deserts his ears. In peace the destroyer is invading him; and, if darkness encompass him, he has no hope of emerging, he knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand, full of anguish and distress, even though he plays the hero against God, and rushes on Him as if he could fight it out. But God is not mocked, and the end, if it tarry, comes; so he who thus braved God inhabits places given over to desolation, and his possessions vanish away, and darkness envelopes him, and flame devours his suckers, and himself departs by a blast from God's mouth.

Thus awfully does Eliphaz describe the hollow prosperity, the actual wretchedness, and the inevitable destruction of the godless. As God was not feared, vanity is the impress stamped on all. A man's life consists not in the abundance of his possessions, and they that set their mind on them must learn their vanity in the day of trial. They may promise like the palm, or the vine, or the olive; but all is vain. Barrenness shall be the portion of him and his, and judgment consumes the tabernacles greedy after evil gain. It is but to conceive misery, and bring forth vanity, and frame deception.

Job 16, Job 17.

THE ANSWER OF JOB.

And Job answered and said,
I have heard many such things,
And comforters of distress [are] ye all.
Are windy words at an end?
Or what vexeth* thee that thou answerest?
I also could speak like you,
If your soul were instead of my soul,
I could weave words against you,
And shake my head at you;
With my mouth I could strengthen you,
And the commiseration of my life could assuage.

* Hence, perhaps, "to embolden."

If I speak my pain is not assuaged,
And if I forbear, what departeth from me?
Surely now He hath exhausted me,
Thou hast desolated all my company, and bound me;
It became a witness, and rose up against me,
My leanness accuseth me to the face;
His wrath hath torn and warred on me;
He hath gnashed on me with his teeth;
Mine enemy whetteth his eyes on me.
They gaped at me with their mouth,
With reproach they smote my cheeks.
They strengthen themselves together against me.
God hath shut me up to the unrighteous,
And thrown me over into the hand of the wicked.
I sat at ease, and He smashed me,
And seized me by the neck, and dashed me,
And set me as a mark for Himself;
His arrows* compassed me about;
He cleaveth my reins, and spareth not.
He poureth out my gall on the ground.
He breaketh me breach upon breach,
He runneth upon me like a warrior.
I have sewed sackcloth on my skin,
And stuck my horn into the dust.
My face is red with weeping,
And on mine eyelids [is] death-shade,
Though no violence [is] in my hands,
And my prayer [is] pure.
O earth, cover thou not my blood,
And let my cry have no place.
Even now, behold, my witness [is] in the heavens,
And my testifier in the heights.
My mockers [are] my friends;
Mine eye poureth out to God,
That He would decide for the man with God,
As a son of man for his friend;
My years of number come, †
And I go the way I shall not return.

* Or, archers.

† That is, a few years.

Job 17.

My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
For me the graves!
Truly* mockeries [are] with me,
And mine eye dwelleth on their contention.
Deposit, I pray Thee, be surety for me with Thyself:
Who else would strike hands with me?
For their heart Thou hast hid to understanding,
Therefore Thou wilt not exalt [them].
He that delivereth friends for a spoil,
The eyes of his children shall waste away.
And He hath set me as a bye-word of people,
And I am one to be spit on in the face.
Mine eye also is dim with sorrow,
And all my frame a shadow.
Upright [men] will be amazed at this,
And the guiltless stirred up against the ungodly.
But the righteous shall hold on his way,
And the clean of hands increase in strength.
But as for you all, return now, and come on;
Yet I find not a wise one among you.
My days are gone, my plans are broken —
The possessions of my heart.
Night they put for day, light near
Out of the face of darkness!
If I wait, Sheol [is] my house,
I have spread my bed in the darkness,
To corruption I have cried, Thou [art] my father,
To the worm, My mother and my sister.
Where then now [is] my hope?
Yea, my hope, who beholdeth it?
To the bars of Sheol it goeth down,
When at the same time [is] rest on the dust.

* Or, if not.

Patient as Job proved, he does not spare the obstinacy of his friends, who could not make good, and who would not retract, their uncharitable inferences. Hence he begins his second reply to Eliphaz with a sharp complaint at their threadbare comments. Consolation there was none, only trouble extreme, in the words of them all. Hence he longed for an end of words of no more weight than the wind. It would be better to answer calmly, if they must speak, and not with the sharpness of vexation. Were it possible for them to stand in his stead, he could say at least as cutting words, and shake his head quite as tryingly. With his mouth he could strengthen them and assuage with lip-consolation.

But here he arrests himself; his pain was none the less if he spoke; and if he forbore, what left him? He recurs to his deepest grief. If he could only look up, and find Him all brightness and love! But it was not so. He had fairly tired him out with afflictions, desolated all his circle, and tied himself up. His bodily state, his emaciation, testified against him openly. He was torn as by a wild beast with every mark of cruel unsparing wrath, teeth gnashing, eyes sharpened, mouth gaping. Thus did his enemies smite his cheeks with reproach, and muster in full force against him. God, he says plainly, had shut him up to the perverse man, and turned him over into the hand of the wicked. Nothing can exceed the graphic power with which he describes his troubles: out of ease seized by the neck, and smashed and broken in pieces, and set up as a mark to smite, with arrows whirring round, and his reins split unsparingly, and his gall poured to the earth, broken by breach upon breach, as could not but be if such a warrior ran upon him; so that he was brought down to the last degree of misery, as well as degradation, grief upon grief, and with nothing save the shadow of death before his eyelids, though no violence stained his hand, and his prayer was pure.

Job therefore calls on the earth not to hide his blood, (his life then, as it were, poured out, that it might stand forth to open vision), and to the same end that his cry should find no place to rest in here below, but go straight on high. Therefore his eye turned upward, and he speaks in confident faith that, spite of his inexplicable, or rather as yet unexplained, calamities, his witness is in heaven, even God Himself, to testify on his behalf in those high places. From his friends, who were but mockers, through total misapprehension of the case and haste to judge him, rather than own their ignorance, he can but weep out his sorrow and supplication to God. Such seems to be the simplest way of translating and understanding the language, which is far from easy; instead of taking y['ylim] as a plural of excellency in the sense of "interpreter;" and thus rendering it, "My interpreter is my friend," etc., and applying all throughout to God, who knows all, and will not distort or misconceive anything, whatever the present may convey to those who look at the surface. There is certainly in any rendering the looking for God to plead as well as judge: which it is strange that any Christian should think said by Job "with melancholy quaintness," instead of seeing in it a singular longing after that which was more fully realised in the mediation of Christ with God, a man for men, and God with God. But truth, to be prized and really known, must first be learned in the soul's guilt and need, not by the flickering lamp of the scholar. It was so assuredly that Job was uttering this striking anticipation of what every believer learns through the Holy Spirit, but in his own deep wants as laid bare humblingly before God. Vindication in this life Job did not expect; but grace was yet to give, as it gives us too, more than faith looks for. For faith is in us, though of God, and has its measure; grace is in Him, free, unmixed, and unlimited.

In Job 17, which of course carries on the same line as the close of Job 16, Job speaks of what he could not but expect naturally under such a pressure of overwhelming blows and piercing stabs. His spirit was broken, the light of his days gone out, the graves before him. There is obscurity in the next clause, mainly from the opening words, which, taken as "if not," imply that, unless he were mistaken, he was subject to the strangest illusions, and these so pertinaciously present, that his eye could dwell on nothing else. But others understand the sense to be a form of asseveration. "Truly mockery is with me [that is, speaking of the effort to make him, a dying man, confess what he knew was unfounded, and only existing in their evil surmisings], and on their quarrelling, or pertinacity, mine eye dwelleth." Job therefore entreats of God to engage and be surety for him with Himself: who else would strike hands with him? His friends had proved themselves morally incompetent, and He who had cl