Job 5

Eliphaz, in the foregoing chapter, for the making good of his charge against Job, had vouched a word from heaven, sent him in a vision. In this chapter he appeals to those that bear record on earth, to the saints, the faithful witnesses of God's truth in all ages, ver. 1. They will testify,

I. That the sin of sinners is their ruin, ver. 2 -5.

II. That yet affliction is the common lot of mankind, ver. 6, 7.

III. That when we are in affliction it is our wisdom and duty to apply to God, for he is able and ready to help us, ver. 8 -16.

IV. That the afflictions which are borne well will end well; and Job particularly, if he would come to a better temper, might assure himself that God had great mercy in store for him, ver. 17 -27. So that he concludes his discourse in somewhat a better humour than he began it.

Job 5:1-5

The Address of Eliphaz. B. C. 1520.

¹ Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and to which of the saints wilt thou turn? ² For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one. ³ I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation. ⁴ His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them. ⁵ Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.

A very warm dispute being begun between Job and his friends, Eliphaz here makes a fair motion to put the matter to a reference. In all debates perhaps the sooner this is done the better if the contenders cannot end it between themselves. So well assured is Eliphaz of the goodness of his own cause that he moves Job himself to choose the arbitrators (v. 1): Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; that is,

1. "If there be any that suffer as thou sufferest. Canst thou produce an instance of any one that was really a saint that was reduced to such an extremity as thou art now reduced to? God never dealt with any that love his name as he deals with thee, and therefore surely thou art none of them."

2. "If there be any that say as thou sayest. Did ever any good man curse his day as thou dost? Or will any of the saints justify thee in these heats or passions, or say that these are the spots of God's children? Thou wilt find none of the saints that will be either thy advocates or my antagonists. To which of the saints wilt thou turn? Turn to which thou wilt, and thou wilt find they are all of my mind. I have the communis sensus fidelium – the unanimous vote of the faithful on my side; they will all subscribe to what I am going to say." Observe, (1.) Good people are called saints even in the Old Testament; and therefore I know not why we should, in common speaking (unless because we must loqui cum vulgo – speak as our neighbours), appropriate the title to those of the New Testament, and not say St. Abraham, St. Moses, and St. Isaiah, as well as St. Matthew and St. Mark; and St. David the psalmist, as well as St. David the British bishop. Aaron is expressly called the saint of the Lord. (2.) All that are themselves saints will turn to those that are so, will choose them for their friends and converse with them, will choose them for their judges and consult them. See Ps. 119:79. The saints shall judge the world, 1 Cor. 6:1, 2. Walk in the way of good men (Prov. 2:20), the old way, the footsteps of the flock. Every one chooses some sort of people or other to whom he studies to recommend himself, and whose sentiments are to him the test of honour and dishonour. Now all true saints endeavour to recommend themselves to those that are such, and to stand right in their opinion. (3.) There are some truths so plain, and so universally known and believed, that one may venture to appeal to any of the saints concerning them. However there are some things about which they unhappily differ, there are many more, and more considerable, in which they are agreed; as the evil of sin, the vanity of the world, the worth of the soul, the necessity of a holy life, and the like. Though they do not all live up, as they should, to their belief of these truths, yet they are all ready to bear their testimony to them.

Now there are two things which Eliphaz here maintains, and in which he doubts not but all the saints concur with him: –

I. That the sin of sinners directly tends to their own ruin (v. 2): Wrath kills the foolish man, his own wrath, and therefore he is foolish for indulging it; it is a fire in his bones, in his blood, enough to put him into a fever. Envy is the rottenness of the bones, and so slays the silly one that frets himself with it. "So it is with thee," says Eliphaz, "while thou quarrellest with God thou doest thyself the greatest mischief; thy anger at thy own troubles, and thy envy at our prosperity, do but add to thy pain and misery: turn to the saints, and thou wilt find they understand their interest better." Job had told his wife she spoke as the foolish women; now Eliphaz tells him he acted as the foolish men, the silly ones. Or it may be meant thus: "If men are ruined and undone, it is always their own folly that ruins and undoes them. They kill themselves by some lust or other; therefore, no doubt, Job, thou hast done some foolish thing, by which thou hast brought thyself into this calamitous condition." Many understand it of God's wrath and jealousy. Job needed not be uneasy at the prosperity of the wicked, for the world's smiles can never shelter them from God's frowns; they are foolish and silly if they think they will. God's anger will be the death, the eternal death, of those on whom it fastens. What is hell but God's anger without mixture or period?

II. That their prosperity is short and their destruction certain, v. 3 -5. He seems here to parallel Job's case with that which is commonly the case of wicked people.

1. Job had prospered for a time, seemed confirmed, and was secure in his prosperity; and it is common for foolish wicked men to do so: I have seen them taking root – planted, and, in their own and others' apprehension, fixed, and likely to continue. See Jer. 12:2; Ps. 37:35, 36. We see worldly men taking root in the earth; on earthly things they fix the standing of their hopes, and from them they draw the sap of their comforts. The outward estate may be flourishing, but the soul cannot prosper that takes root in the earth.

2. Job's prosperity was now at an end, and so has the prosperity of other wicked people quickly been. (1.) Eliphaz foresaw their ruin with an eye of faith. Those who looked only at present things blessed their habitation, and thought them happy, blessed it long, and wished themselves in their condition. But Eliphaz cursed it, suddenly cursed it, as soon as he saw them begin to take root, that is, he plainly foresaw and foretold their ruin; not that he prayed for it (I have not desired the woeful day), but he prognosticated it. He went into the sanctuary, and there understood their end and heard their doom read (Ps. 73:17, 18), that the prosperity of fools will destroy them, Prov. 1:32. Those who believe the word of God can see a curse in the house of the wicked (Prov. 3:33), though it be ever so finely and firmly built, and ever so full of all good things; and they can foresee that the curse will, in time, infallibly consume it with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof, Zech. 5:4. (2.) He saw, at length, what he had foreseen. He was not disappointed in his expectation concerning him; the event answered it; his family was undone, and his estate ruined. In these particulars he plainly and very invidiously reflects on Job's calamities. [1.] His children were crushed, v. 4. They thought themselves safe in their eldest brother's house, but were far from safety, for they were crushed in the gate. Perhaps the door or gate of the house was highest built, and fell heaviest upon them, and there was none to deliver them from perishing in the ruins. This is commonly understood of the destruction of the families of wicked men, by the execution of justice upon them, to oblige them to restore what they have ill-gotten. They leave it to their children; but the descent shall not bar the entry of the rightful owners, who will crush their children, and cast them by due course of law (and there shall be none to help them), or perhaps by oppression, Ps. 109:9, etc. [2.] His estate was plundered, v. 5. Job's was so. The hungry robbers, the Sabeans and Chaldeans, ran away with it, and swallowed it; and this, says he, I have often observed in others. What has been got by spoil and rapine has been lost in the same way. The careful owner hedged it about with thorns, and then thought it safe; but the fence proved insignificant against the greediness of the spoilers (if hunger will break through the stone walls, much more through thorn hedges), and against the divine curse, which will go through the thorns and briers, and burn them together, Isa. 27:4.

Job 5:6-16

⁶ Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; ⁷ Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ⁸ I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: ⁹ Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: ¹⁰ Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields: ¹¹ To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety. ¹² He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. ¹³ He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong. ¹⁴ They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night. ¹⁵ But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty. ¹⁶ So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

Eliphaz, having touched Job in a very tender part, in mentioning both the loss of his estate and the death of his children as the just punishment of his sin, that he might not drive him to despair, here begins to encourage him, and puts him in a way to make himself easy. Now he very much changes his voice (Gal. 4:20), and speaks in the accents of kindness, as if he would atone for the hard words he had given him.

I. He reminds him that no affliction comes by chance, nor is to be attributed to second causes: It doth not come forth of the dust, nor spring out of the ground, as the grass doth, v. 6. It doth not come of course, at certain seasons of the year, as natural productions do, by a chain of second causes. The proportion between prosperity and adversity is not so exactly observed by Providence as that between day and night, summer and winter, but according to the will and counsel of God, when and as he thinks fit. Some read it, Sin comes not forth out of the dust, nor iniquity of the ground. If men be bad, they must not lay the blame upon the soil, the climate, or the stars, but on themselves. If thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. We must not attribute our afflictions to fortune, for they are from God, nor our sins to fate, for they are from ourselves; so that, whatever trouble we are in, we must own that God sends it upon us and we procure it to ourselves: the former is a reason why we should be very patient, the latter why we should be very penitent, when we are afflicted.

II. He reminds him that trouble and affliction are what we have all reason to expect in this world: Man is brought to trouble (v. 7), not as man (had he kept his innocency he would have been born to pleasure), but as sinful man, as born of a woman (ch. 14:1), who was in the transgression. Man is born in sin, and therefore born to trouble. Even those that are born to honour and estate are yet born to trouble in the flesh. In our fallen state it has become natural to us to sin, and the natural consequence of that is affliction, Rom. 5:12. There is nothing in this world we are born to, and can truly call our own, but sin and trouble; both are as the sparks that fly upwards. Actual transgressions are the sparks that fly out of the furnace of original corruption; and, being called transgressors from the womb, no wonder that we deal very treacherously, Isa. 48:8. Such too is the frailty of our bodies, and the vanity of all our enjoyments, that our troubles also thence arise as naturally as the sparks fly upwards – so many are they, so thick and so fast does one follow another. Why then should we be surprised at our afflictions as strange, or quarrel with them as hard, when they are but what we are born to? Man is born to labour (so it is in the margin), is sentenced to eat his bread in the sweat of his face, which should inure him to hardness, and make him bear his afflictions the better.

III. He directs him how to behave himself under his affliction (v. 8): I would seek unto God; surely I would: so it is in the original. Here is,

1. A tacit reproof to Job for not seeking to God, but quarrelling with him: "Job, if I had been in thy case, I would not have been so peevish and passionate as thou art. I would have acquiesced in the will of God." It is easy to say what we would do if we were in such a one's case; but when it comes to the trial, perhaps it will be found not so easy to do as we say.

2. Very good and seasonable advice to him, which Eliphaz transfers to himself in a figure: "For my part, the best way I should think I could take, if I were in thy condition, would be to apply to God." Note, We should give our friends no other counsel than what we would take ourselves if we were in their case, that we may be easy under our afflictions, may get good by them, and may see a good issue of them. (1.) We must by prayer fetch in mercy and grace from God, seek to him as a Father and friend, though he contend with us, as one who is alone able to support and succour us. His favour we must seek when we have lost all we have in the world; to him we must address ourselves as the fountain and Father of all good, all consolation. Is any afflicted? let him pray. It is heart's-ease, a salve for every sore. (2.) We must by patience refer ourselves and our cause to him: To God would I commit my cause; having spread it before him, I would leave it with him; having laid it at his feet, I would lodge it in his hand. "Here I am, let the Lord do with me as seemeth him good." If our cause be indeed a good cause, we need not fear committing it to God, for he is both just and kind. Those that would seek so as to speed must refer themselves to God.

IV. He encourages him thus to seek to God, and commit his cause to him. It will not be in vain to do so, for he is one in whom we shall find effectual help.

1. He recommends to his consideration God's almighty power and sovereign dominion. In general, he doeth great things (v. 9), great indeed, for he can do any thing, he doth do every thing, and all according to the counsel of his own will – great indeed, for the operations of his power are, (1.) Unsearchable, and such as can never be fathomed, can never be found out from the beginning to the end, Eccl. 3:11. The works of nature are mysterious; the most curious searches come far short of full discoveries and the wisest philosophers have owned themselves at a loss. The designs of Providence ar much more deep and unaccountable, Rom. 11:33. (2.) Numerous, and such as can never be reckoned up. He doeth great things without number; his power is never exhausted, nor will all his purposes ever be fulfilled till the end of time. (3.) They are marvellous, and such as never can be sufficiently admired; eternity itself will be short enough to be spent in the admiration of them. Now, by the consideration of this, Eliphaz intends, [1.] To convince Job of his fault and folly in quarrelling with God. We must not pretend to pass a judgment upon his works, for they are unsearchable and above our enquiries; nor must we strive with our Maker, for he will certainly be too hard for us, and is able to crush us in a moment. [2.] To encourage Job to seek unto God, and to refer his cause to him. What more encouraging than to see that he is one to whom power belongs? He can do great things and marvellous for our relief, when we are brought ever so low.

2. He gives some instances of God's dominion and power.

(1.) God doeth great things in the kingdom of nature: He gives rain upon the earth (v. 10), put here for all the gifts of common providence, all the fruitful seasons by which he filleth our hearts with food and gladness, Acts 14:17. Observe, When he would show what great things God does he speaks of his giving rain, which, because it is a common thing, we are apt to look upon as a little thing, but, if we duly consider both how it is produced and what is produced by it, we shall see it to be a great work both of power and goodness.

(2.) He doeth great things in the affairs of the children of men, not only enriches the poor and comforts the needy, by the rain he sends (v. 10), but, in order to the advancing of those that are low, he disappoints the devices of the crafty; for v. 11 is to be joined to v. 12. Compare with Luke 1:51 -53. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, and so hath exalted those of low degree, and filled the heart with good things. See,

[1.] How he frustrates the counsels of the proud and politic, v. 12 -14. There is a supreme power that manages and overrules men who think themselves free and absolute, and fulfils its own purposes in spite of their projects. Observe, First, The froward, that walk contrary to God and the interests of his kingdom, are often very crafty; for they are the seed of the old serpent that was noted for his subtlety. They think themselves wise, but, at the end, will be fools. Secondly, The Froward enemies of God's kingdom have their devices, their enterprises, and their counsels, against it, and against the loyal faithful subjects of it. They are restless and unwearied in their designs, close in their consultations, high in their hopes, deep in their politics, and fast-linked in their confederacies, Ps. 2:1, 2. Thirdly, God easily can, and (as far as is for his glory) certainly will, blast and defeat all the designs of his and his people's enemies. How were the plots of Ahithophel, Sanballat, and Haman baffled! How were the confederacies of Syria and Ephraim against Judah, of Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek, against God's Israel, the kings of the earth and the princes against the Lord and against his anointed, broken! The hands that have been stretched out against God and his church have not performed their enterprise, nor have the weapons formed against Sion prospered. Fourthly, That which enemies have designed for the ruin of the church has often turned to their own ruin (v. 13): He takes the wise in their own craftiness, and snares them in the work of their own hands, Ps. 7:15, 16; 9:15, 16. This is quoted by the apostle (1 Cor. 3:19) to show how the learned men of the heathen were befooled by their own vain philosophy. Fifthly, When God infatuates men they are perplexed, and at a loss, even in those things that seem most plain and easy (v. 14): They meet with darkness even in the day-time: nay (as in the margin), They run themselves into darkness by the violence and precipitation of their own counsels. See ch. 12:20, 24, 25.

[2.] How he favours the cause of the poor and humble, and espouses that. First, He exalts the humble, v. 11. Those whom proud men contrive to crush he raises from under their feet, and sets them in safety, Ps. 12:5. The lowly in heart, and those that mourn, he advances, comforts, and makes to dwell on high, in the munitions of rocks, Isa. 33:16. Sion's mourners are the sealed ones, marked for safety, Ezek. 9:4. Secondly, He delivers the oppressed, v. 15. The designs of the crafty are to ruin the poor. Tongue, and hand, and sword, and all, are at work in order to this; but God takes under his special protection those who, being poor and unable to help themselves, being his poor and devoted to his praise, have committed themselves to him. He saves them from the mouth that speaks hard things against them and the hand that does hard things against them; for he can, when he pleases, tie the tongue and wither the hand. The effect of this is (v. 16),

1. That weak and timorous saints are comforted: So the poor, who began to despair, has hope. The experiences of some are encouragement to others to hope the best in the worst of times; for it is the glory of God to send help to the helpless and hope to the hopeless.

2. That daring threatening sinners are confounded: Iniquity stops her mouth, being surprised at the strangeness of the deliverance, ashamed of its enmity against those who appear to be the favourites of Heaven, mortified at the disappointment, and compelled to acknowledge the justice of God's proceedings, having nothing to object against them. Those that domineered over God's poor, that frightened them, menaced them, and falsely accused them, will not have a word to say against them when God appears for them. See Ps. 76:8, 9; Isa. 26:11; Mic. 7:16.

Job 5:17-27

¹⁷ Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: ¹⁸ For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole. ¹⁹ He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. ²⁰ In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword. ²¹ Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh. ²² At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth. ²³ For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee. ²⁴ And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin. ²⁵ Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth. ²⁶ Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season. ²⁷ Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.

Eliphaz, in this concluding paragraph of his discourse, gives Job (what he himself knew not how to take) a comfortable prospect of the issue of his afflictions, if he did but recover his temper and accommodate himself to them. Observe,

I. The seasonable word of caution and exhortation that he gives him (v. 17): "Despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. Call it a chastening, which comes from the father's love and is designed for the child's good. Call it the chastening of the Almighty, with whom it is madness to contend, to whom it is wisdom and duty to submit, and who will be a God all-sufficient (for so the word signifies) to all those that trust in him. Do not despise it;" it is a copious word in the original.

1. "Be not averse to it. Let grace conquer the antipathy which nature has to suffering, and reconcile thyself to the will of God in it." We need the rod and we deserve it; and therefore we ought not to think it either strange or hard if we feel the smart of it. Let not the heart rise against a bitter pill or potion, when it is prescribed for our good.

2. "Do not think ill of it; do not put it from thee (as that which is either hurtful or at least not useful, which there is not occasion for nor advantage by) only because for the present it is not joyous, but grievous." We must never scorn to stoop to God, nor think it a thing below us to come under his discipline, but reckon, on the contrary, that God really magnifies man when he thus visits and tries him, ch. 7:17, 18.

3. "Do not overlook and disregard it, as if it were only a chance, and the production of second causes, but take great notice of it as the voice of God and a messenger from heaven." More is implied than is expressed: "Reverence the chastening of the Lord; have a humble awful regard to this correcting hand, and tremble when the lion roars, Amos 3:8. Submit to the chastening, and study to answer the call, to answer the end of it, and then you reverence it." When God by an affliction draws upon us for some of the effects he has entrusted us with we must honour his bill by accepting it, and subscribing it, resigning him his own when he calls for it.

II. The comfortable words of encouragement which he gives him thus to accommodate himself to his condition, and (as he himself had expressed it) to receive evil at the hand of God, and not despise it as a gift not worth the accepting.

1. If his affliction was thus borne, (1.) The nature and property of it would be altered. Though it looked like a man's misery, it would really be his bliss: Happy is the man whom God correcteth if he make but a due improvement of the correction. A good man is happy though he be afflicted, for, whatever he has lost, he has not lost his enjoyment of God nor his title to heaven. Nay, he is happy because he is afflicted; correction is an evidence of his sonship and a means of his sanctification; it mortifies his corruptions, weans his heart from the world, draws him nearer to God, brings him to his Bible, brings him to his knees, works him for, and so is working for him, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Happy therefore is the man whom God correcteth, Jam. 1:12. (2.) The issue and consequence of it would be very good, v. 18. [1.] Though he makes sore the body with sore boils, the mind with sad thoughts, yet he binds up at the same time, as the skilful tender surgeon binds up the wounds he had occasion to make with his incision-knife. When God makes sores by the rebukes of his providence he binds up by the consolations of his Spirit, which oftentimes abound most as afflictions do abound, and counterbalance them, to the unspeakable satisfaction of the patient sufferers. [2.] Though he wounds, yet his hands make whole in due time; as he supports his people, and makes them easy under their afflictions, so in due time he delivers them, and makes a way for them to escape. All is well again; and he comforts them according to the time wherein he afflicted them. God's usual method is first to wound and then to heal, first to convince and then to comfort, first to humble and then to exalt; and (as Mr. Caryl observes) he never makes a wound too great, too deep, for his own cure. Una eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit – The hand that inflicts the wound applies the cure. God tears the wicked and goes away; let those heal that will, if they can (Hos. 5:14); but the humble and penitent may say, He has torn and he will heal us, Hos. 6:1. This is general, but,

2. In the following verses Eliphaz addresses himself directly to Job, and gives him many precious promises of great and kind things which God would do for him if he did but humble himself under his hand. Though then they had no Bibles that we know of, yet Eliphaz had sufficient warrant to give Job these assurances, from the general discoveries God had made of his good will to his people. And, though in every thing which Job's friends said they were not directed by the Spirit of God (for they spoke both of God and Job some things that were not right), yet the general doctrines they laid down expressed the pious sense of the patriarchal age, and as St. Paul quoted v. 13 (1 Cor 1:19) for canonical scripture, and as the command v. 17 (Heb. 12:5) is no doubt binding on us, so these promises here may be, and must be, received and applied as divine promises, and we may through patience and comfort of this part of scripture have hope. Let us therefore give diligence to make sure our interest in these promises, and then view the particulars of them and take the comfort of them.

(1.) It is here promised that as afflictions and troubles recur supports and deliverances shall be graciously repeated, be it ever so often: In six troubles he shall be ready to deliver thee; yea, and in seven, v. 19. This intimates that,as long as we are here in this world, we must expect a succession of troubles, that the clouds will return after the rain. After six troubles may come a seventh; after many, look for more; but out of them all will God deliver those that are his, 2 Tim. 3:11; Ps. 34:19. Former deliverances are not, as among men, excuses from further deliverances, but earnests of them, Prov. 19:19.

(2.) That, whatever troubles good men may be in, there shall no evil touch them; they shall do them no real harm; the malignity of them, the sting, shall be taken out; they may hiss, but they cannot hurt, Ps. 91:10. The evil one toucheth not God's children, 1 John 5:18. Being kept from sin, they are kept from the evil of every trouble.

(3.) That, when desolating judgments are abroad, they shall be taken under special protection, v. 20. Do many perish about them for want of the necessary supports of life? They shall be supplied. "In famine he shall redeem thee from death; whatever becomes of others, thou shalt be kept alive, Ps. 33:19. Verily, thou shalt be fed, nay, even in the days of famine thou shalt be satisfied, Ps. 37:3, 19. In time of war, when thousands fall on the right and left hand, he shall redeem thee from the power of the sword. If God please, it shall not touch thee; or if it wound thee, if it kill thee, it shall not hurt thee; it can but kill the body, nor has it power to do that unless it be given from above."

(4.) That, whatever is maliciously said against them, it shall not affect them to do them any hurt, v. 21. "Thou shalt not only be protected from the killing sword of war, but shalt be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, which, like a scourge, is vexing and painful, though not mortal." The best men, and the most inoffensive, cannot, even in their innocency, secure themselves from calumny, reproach, and false accusation. From these a man cannot hide himself, but God can hide him, so that the most malicious slanders shall be so little heeded by him as not to disturb his peace, and so little heeded by others as not to blemish his reputation: and the remainder of wrath God can and does restrain, for it is owing to the hold he has of the consciences of bad men that the scourge of the tongue is not the ruin of all the comforts of good men in this world.

(5.) That they shall have a holy security and serenity of mind, arising from their hope and confidence in God, even in the worst of times. When dangers are most threatening they shall be easy, believing themselves safe; and they shall not be afraid of destruction, no, not when they see it coming (v. 21), nor of the beasts of the field when they set upon them, nor of men as cruel as beasts; nay, at destruction and famine thou shalt laugh (v. 22), not so as to despise any of God's chastenings or make a jest of his judgments, but so as to triumph in God, in his power and goodness, and therein to triumph over the world and all its grievances, to be not only easy, but cheerful and joyful, in tribulation. Blessed Paul laughed at destruction when he said, O death! where is thy sting? when, in the name of all the saints, he defied all the calamities of this present time to separate us from the love of God, concluding that in all these things we are more than conquerors, Rom. 8:35, etc. See Isa. 37:22.

(6.) That, being at peace with God, there shall be a covenant of friendship between them and the whole creation, v. 23. "When thou walkest over thy grounds thou shalt not need to fear stumbling, for thou shalt be at league with the stones of the field, not to dash thy foot against any of them, nor shalt thou be in danger from the beasts of the field, for they shall all be at peace with thee;" compare Hos. 2:18, I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field. This implies that while man is at enmity with his Maker the inferior creatures are at war with him; but tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia – a reconciled God reconciles all things. Our covenant with God is a covenant with all the creatures that they shall do us no hurt but be ready to serve us and do us good.

(7.) That their houses and families shall be comfortable to them, v. 24. Peace and piety in the family will make it so. "Thou shalt know and be assured that thy tabernacle is and shall be in peace; thou mayest be confident both of its present and its future prosperity." That peace is thy tabernacle (so the word is); peace is the house in which those dwell who dwell in God, and are at home in him. "Thou shalt visit" (that is, enquire into the affairs of) "thy habitation, and take a review of them, and shalt not sin." [1.] God will provide a settlement for his people, mean perhaps and movable, a cottage, a tabernacle, but a fixed and quiet habitation. "Thou shalt not sin," or wander; that is, as some understand it, "thou shalt not be a fugitive and a vagabond" (Cain's curse), "but shalt dwell in the land, and verily, not uncertainly as vagrants, shalt thou be fed." [2.] Their families shall be taken under the special protection of the divine Providence, and shall prosper as far as is for their good. [3.] They shall be assured of peace, and of the continuance and entail of it. "Thou shalt know, to thy unspeakable satisfaction, that peace is sure to thee and thine, having the word of God for it." Providence may change, but the promise cannot. [4.] They shall have wisdom to govern their families aright, to order their affairs with discretion, and to look well to the ways of their household, which is here called visiting their habitation. Masters of families must not be strangers at home, but must have a watchful eye over what they have and what their servants do. [5.] They shall have grace to manage the concerns of their families after a godly sort, and not to sin in the management of them. They shall call their servants to account without passion, pride, covetousness, worldliness, or the like; they shall look into their affairs without discontent at what is or distrust of what shall be. Family piety crowns family peace and prosperity. The greatest blessing, both in our employments and in our enjoyments, is to be kept from sin in them. When we are abroad it is comfortable to hear that our tabernacle is in peace; and when we return home it is comfortable to visit our habitation with satisfaction in our success, that we have not failed in our business, and with a good conscience, that we have not offended God.

(8.) That their posterity shall be numerous and prosperous. Job had lost all his children; "but," says Eliphaz, "if thou return to God, he will again build up thy family, and thy seed shall be many and as great as ever, and thy offspring increasing and flourishing as the grass of the earth (v. 25), and thou shalt know it." God has blessings in store for the seed of the faithful, which they shall have if they do not stand in their own light and forfeit them by their folly. It is a comfort to parents to see the prosperity, especially the spiritual prosperity, of their children; if they are truly good, they are truly great, how small a figure soever they may make in the world.

(9.) That their death shall be seasonable, and they shall finish their course, at length, with joy and honour, v. 26. It is a great mercy, [1.] To live to a full age, and not to have the number of our months cut off in the midst. If the providence of God do not give us long life, yet, if the grace of God give us to be satisfied with the time allotted us, we may be said to come to a full age. That man lives long enough that has done his work and is fit for another world. [2.] To be willing to die, to come cheerfully to the grave, and not to be forced thither, as he whose soul was required of him. [3.] To die seasonably, as the corn is cut and housed when it is fully ripe; not till then, but then not suffered to stand a day longer, lest it shed. Our times are in God's hand; it is well they are so, for he will take care that those who are his shall die in the best time: however their death may seem to us untimely, it will be found not unseasonable.

3. In the last verse he recommends these promises to Job, (1.) As faithful sayings, which he might be confident of the truth of: "Lo, this we have searched, and so it is. We have indeed received these things by tradition from our fathers, but we have not taken them upon trust; we have carefully searched them, have compared spiritual things with spiritual, have diligently studied them, and been confirmed in our belief of them from our own observation and experience; and we are all of a mind that so it is." Truth is a treasure that is well worth digging for, diving for; and then we shall know both how to value it ourselves and how to communicate it to others when we have taken pains in searching for it. (2.) As well worthy of all acceptation, which he might improve to his great advantage: Hear it, and know thou it for thy good. It is not enough to hear and know the truth, but we must improve it, and be made wiser and better by it, receive the impressions of it, and submit to the commanding power of it. Know it for thyself (so the word is), with application to thyself, and thy own case; not only "This is true," but "this is true concerning me." That which we thus hear and know for ourselves we hear and know for our good, as we are nourished by the meat which we digest. That is indeed a good sermon to us which does us good.

Job 6

Eliphaz concluded his discourse with an air of assurance; very confident he was that what he had said was so plain and so pertinent that nothing could be objected in answer to it. But, though he that is first in his own cause seems just, yet his neighbour comes and searches him. Job is not convinced by all he had said, but still justifies himself in his complaints and condemns him for the weakness of his arguing.

I. He shows that he had just cause to complain as he did of his troubles, and so it would appear to any impartial judge, ver. 2 -7.

II. He continues his passionate wish that he might speedily be cut off by the stroke of death, and so be eased of all his miseries, ver. 8 -13.

III. He reproves his friends for their uncharitable censures of him and their unkind treatment, ver. 14 -30. It must be owned that Job, in all this, spoke much that was reasonable, but with a mixture of passion and human infirmity. And in this contest, as indeed in most contests, there was fault on both sides.

Job 6:1-7

Job's Reply to Eliphaz. B. C. 1520.

¹ But Job answered and said, ² Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! ³ For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up. ⁴ For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. ⁵ Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder? ⁶ Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? ⁷ The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.

Eliphaz, in the beginning of his discourse, had been very sharp upon Job, and yet it does not appear that Job gave him any interruption, but heard him patiently till he had said all he had to say. Those that would make an impartial judgment of a discourse must hear it out, and take it entire. But, when he had concluded, he makes his reply, in which he speaks very feelingly.

I. He represents his calamity, in general, as much heavier than either he had expressed it or they had apprehended it, v. 2, 3. He could not fully describe it; they would not fully apprehend it, or at least would not own that they did; and therefore he would gladly appeal to a third person, who had just weights and just balances with which to weigh his grief and calamity, and would do it with an impartial hand. He wished that they would set his grief and all the expressions of it in one scale, his calamity and all the particulars of it in the other, and (though he would not altogether justify himself in his grief) they would find (as he says, ch. 23:2) that his stroke was heavier than his groaning; for, whatever his grief was, his calamity was heavier than the sand of the sea: it was complicated, it was aggravated, every grievance weighty, and all together numerous as the sand. "Therefore (says he) my words are swallowed up;" that is, "Therefore you must excuse both the brokenness and the bitterness of my expressions. Do not think it strange if my speech be not so fine and polite as that of an eloquent orator, or so grave and regular as that of a morose philosopher: no, in these circumstances I can pretend neither to the one nor to the other; my words are, as I am, quite swallowed up." Now,

1. He hereby complains of it as his unhappiness that his friends undertook to administer spiritual physic to him before they thoroughly understood his case and knew the worst of it. It is seldom that those who are at ease themselves rightly weigh the afflictions of the afflicted. Every one feels most from his own burden; few feel from other people's.

2. He excuses the passionate expressions he had used when he cursed his day. Though he could not himself justify all he had said, yet he thought his friends should not thus violently condemn it, for really the case was extraordinary, and that might be connived at in such a man of sorrows as he now was which in any common grief would by no means be allowed.

3. He bespeaks the charitable and compassionate sympathy of his friends with him, and hopes, by representing the greatness of his calamity, to bring them to a better temper towards him. To those that are pained it is some ease to be pitied.

II. He complains of the trouble and terror of mind he was in as the sorest part of his calamity, v. 4. Herein he was a type of Christ, who, in his sufferings, complained most of the sufferings of his soul. Now is my soul troubled, John 12:27. My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, Matt. 26:38. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Matt. 27:46. Poor Job sadly complains here,

1. Of what he felt The arrows of the Almighty are within me. It was not so much the troubles themselves he was under that put him into this confusion, his poverty, disgrace, and bodily pain; but that which cut him to the heart and put him into this agitation, was to think that the God he loved and served had brought all this upon him and laid him under these marks of his displeasure. Note, Trouble of mind is the sorest trouble. A wounded spirit who can bear! Whatever burden of affliction, in body or estate, God is pleased to lay upon us, we may well afford to submit to it as long as he continues to the use of our reason and the peace of our consciences; but, if in either of these we be disturbed, our case is sad indeed and very pitiable. The way to prevent God's fiery darts of trouble is with the shield of faith to quench Satan's fiery darts of temptation. Observe, He calls them the arrows of the Almighty; for it is an instance of the power of God above that of any man that he can with his arrows reach the soul. He that made the soul can make his sword to approach to it. The poison or heat of these arrows is said to drink up his spirit, because it disturbed his reason, shook his resolution, exhausted his vigour, and threatened his life; and therefore his passionate expressions, though they could not be justified, might be excused.

2. Of what he feared. He saw himself charged by the terrors of God, as by an army set in battle-array, and surrounded by them. God, by his terrors, fought against him. As he had no comfort when he retired inward into his own bosom, so he had none when he looked upward towards Heaven. He that used to be encouraged with the consolations of God not only wanted those, but was amazed with the terrors of God.

III. He reflects upon his friends for their severe censures of his complaints and their unskilful management of his case.

1. Their reproofs were causeless. He complained, it is true, now that he was in this affliction, but he never used to complain, as those do who are of a fretful unquiet spirit, when he was in prosperity: he did not bray when he had grass, nor low over his fodder, v. 5. But, now that he was utterly deprived of all his comforts, he must be a stock or a stone, and not have the sense of an ox or a wild ass, if he did not give some vent to his grief. He was forced to eat unsavoury meats, and was so poor that he had not a grain of salt wherewith to season them, nor to give a little taste to the white of an egg, which was now the choicest dish he had at his table, v. 6. Even that food which once he would have scorned to touch he was now glad of, and it was his sorrowful meat, v. 7. Note, It is wisdom not to use ourselves or our children to be nice and dainty about meat and drink, because we know not how we or they may be reduced, nor how that which we now disdain may be made acceptable by necessity.

2. Their comforts were sapless and insipid; so some understand v. 6, 7. He complains he had nothing now offered to him for his relief that was proper for him, no cordial, nothing to revive and cheer his spirits; what they had afforded was in itself as tasteless as the white of an egg, and, when applied to him, as loathsome and burdensome as the most sorrowful meat. I am sorry he should say thus of what Eliphaz had excellently well said, ch. 5:8, etc. But peevish spirits are too apt thus to abuse their comforters.

Job 6:8-13

⁸ Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! ⁹ Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! ¹⁰ Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One. ¹¹ What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? ¹² Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass? ¹³ Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?

Ungoverned passion often grows more violent when it meets with some rebuke and check. The troubled sea rages most when it dashes against a rock. Job had been courting death, as that which would be the happy period of his miseries, ch. 3. For this Eliphaz had gravely reproved him, but he, instead of unsaying what he had said, says it here again with more vehemence than before; and it is as ill said as almost any thing we meet with in all his discourses, and is recorded for our admonition, not our imitation.

I. He is still most passionately desirous to die, as if it were not possible that he should ever see good days again in this world, or that, by the exercise of grace and devotion, he might make even these days of affliction good days. He could see no end of his trouble but death, and had not patience to wait the time appointed for that. He has a request to make; there is a thing he longs for (v. 8); and what is that? One would think it should be, "That it would please God to deliver me, and restore me to my prosperity again;" no, That it would please God to destroy me, v. 9. "As once he let loose his hand to make me poor, and then to make me sick, let him loose it once more to put an end to my life. Let him give the fatal stroke; it shall be to me the coup de grace – the stroke of favour," as, in France, they call the last blow which dispatches those that are broken on the wheel. There was a time when destruction from the Almighty was a terror to Job (ch. 31:23), yet now he courts the destruction of the flesh, but in hopes that the spirit should be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Observe, Though Job was extremely desirous of death, and very angry at its delays, yet he did not offer to destroy himself, nor to take away his own life, only he begged that it would please God to destroy him. Seneca's morals, which recommend self-murder as the lawful redress of insupportable grievances, were not then known, nor will ever be entertained by any that have the least regard to the law of God and nature. How uneasy soever the soul's confinement in the body may be, it must by no means break prison, but wait for a fair discharge.

II. He puts this desire into a prayer, that God would grant him this request, that it would please God to do this for him. It was his sin so passionately to desire the hastening of his own death, and offering up that desire to God made it no better; nay, what looked ill in his wish looked worse in his prayer, for we ought not to ask any thing of God but what we can ask in faith, and we cannot ask any thing in faith but what is agreeable to the will of God. Passionate prayers are the worst of passionate expressions, for we should lift up pure hands without wrath.

III. He promises himself effectual relief, and the redress of all his grievances, by the stroke of death (v. 10): "Then should I yet have comfort, which now I have not, nor ever expect till then." See,

1. The vanity of human life; so uncertain a good is it that it often proves men's greatest burden and nothing is so desirable as to get clear of it. Let grace make us willing to part with it whenever God calls; for it may so happen that even sense may make us desirous to part with it before he calls.

2. The hope which the righteous have in their death. If Job had not had a good conscience, he could not have spoken with this assurance of comfort on the other side death, which turns the tables between the rich man and Lazarus. Now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

IV. He challenges death to do its worst. If he could not die without the dreadful prefaces of bitter pains and agonies, and strong convulsions, if he must be racked before he be executed, yet, in prospect of dying at last, he would make nothing of dying pangs: "I would harden myself in sorrow, would open my breast to receive death's darts, and not shrink from them. Let him not spare; I desire no mitigation of that pain which will put a happy period to all my pains. Rather than not die, let me die so as to feel myself die." These are passionate words, which might better have been spared. We should soften ourselves in sorrow, that we may receive the good impressions of it, and by the sadness of the countenance our hearts, being made tender, may be made better; but, if we harden ourselves, we provoke God to proceed in his controversy; for when he judgeth he will overcome. It is great presumption to dare the Almighty, and to say, Let him not spare; for are we stronger than he? 1 Cor. 10:22. We are much indebted to sparing mercy; it is bad indeed with us when we are weary of that. Let us rather say with David, O spare me a little.

V. He grounds his comfort upon the testimony of his conscience for him that he had been faithful and firm to his profession of religion, and in some degree useful and serviceable to the glory of God in his generation: I have not concealed the words of the Holy One. Observe,

1. Job had the words of the Holy One committed to him. The people of God were at that time blessed with divine revelation.

2. It was his comfort that he had not concealed them, had not received the grace of God therein in vain. (1.) He had not kept them from himself, but had given them full scope to operate upon him, and in every thing to guide and govern him. He had not stifled his convictions, imprisoned the truth in unrighteousness, nor done any thing to hinder the digestion of this spiritual food and the operation of this spiritual physic. Let us never conceal God's word from ourselves, but always receive it in the light of it. (2.) He had not kept them to himself, but had been ready, on all occasions, to communicate his knowledge for the good of others, was never ashamed nor afraid to own the word of God to be his rule, nor remiss in his endeavours to bring others into an acquaintance with it. Note Those, and those only, may promise themselves comfort in death who are good, and do good, while they live.

VI. He justifies himself, in this extreme desire of death, from the deplorable condition he was now in, v. 11, 12. Eliphaz, in the close of his discourse, had put him in hopes that he should yet see a good issue of his troubles; but poor Job puts these cordials away from him, refuses to be comforted, abandons himself to despair, and very ingeniously, yet perversely, argues against the encouragements that were given him. Disconsolate spirits will reason strangely against themselves. In answer to the pleasing prospects Eliphaz had flattered him with, he here intimates,

1. That he had no reason to expect any such thing: "What is my strength, that I should hope? You see how I am weakened and brought low, how unable I am to grapple with my distempers, and therefore what reason have I to hope that I should out-live them, and see better days? Is my strength the strength of stones? Are my muscles brass and my sinews steel? No, they are not, and therefore I cannot hold out always in this pain and misery, but must needs sink under the load. Had I strength to grapple with my distemper, I might hope to look through it; but, alas! I have not. The weakening of my strength in the way will certainly be the shortening of my days," Ps. 102:23. Note, All things considered, we have no reason to reckon upon the long continuance of life in this world. What is our strength? It is depending strength. We have no more strength than God gives us; for in him we live and move. It is decaying strength; we are daily spending the stock, and by degrees it will be exhausted. It is disproportionable to the encounters we may meet with; what is our strength to be depended upon, when two or three days' sickness will make us weak as water? Instead of expecting a long life, we have reason to wonder that we have lived hitherto and to feel that we are hastening off apace.

2. That he had no reason to desire any such thing: "What is my end, that I should desire to prolong my life? What comfort can I promise myself in life, comparable to the comfort I promise myself in death?" Note, Those who, through grace, are ready for another world, cannot see much to invite their stay in this world, or to make them fond of it. That, if it be God's will, we may do him more service and may get to be fitter and riper for heaven, is an end for which we may wish the prolonging of life, in subservience to our chief end; but, otherwise, what can we propose to ourselves in desiring to tarry here? The longer life is the more grievous will its burdens be (Eccl. 12:1), and the longer life is the less pleasant will be its delights, 2 Sam. 19:34, 35. We have already seen the best of this world, but we are not sure that we have seen the worst of it.

VII. He obviates the suspicion of his being delirious (v. 13): Is not my help in me? that is, "Have I not the use of my reason, with which, I thank God, I can help myself, though you do not help me? Do you think wisdom is driven quite from me, and that I am gone distracted? No, I am not mad, most noble Eliphaz, but speak the words of truth and soberness." Note, Those who have grace in them, who have the evidence of it and have it in exercise, have wisdom in them, which will be their help in the worst of times. Sat lucis intus – They have light within.

Job 6:14-21

¹⁴ To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty. ¹⁵ My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; ¹⁶ Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: ¹⁷ What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. ¹⁸ The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish. ¹⁹ The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them. ²⁰ They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed. ²¹ For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid.

Eliphaz had been very severe in his censures of Job; and his companions, though as yet they had said little, yet had intimated their concurrence with him. Their unkindness therein poor Job here complains of, as an aggravation of his calamity and a further excuse of his desire to die; for what satisfaction could he ever expect in this world when those that should have been his comforters thus proved his tormentors?

I. He shows what reason he had to expect kindness from them. His expectation was grounded upon the common principles of humanity (v. 14): "To him that is afflicted, and that is wasting and melting under his affliction, pity should be shown from his friend; and he that does not show that pity forsakes the fear of the Almighty." Note,

1. Compassion is a debt owing to those that are in affliction. The least which those that are at ease can do for those that are pained and in anguish is to pity them, – to manifest the sincerity of a tender concern for them, and to sympathize with them, – to take cognizance of their case, enquire into their grievances, hear their complaints, and mingle their tears with theirs, – to comfort them, and to do all they can to help and relieve them: this well becomes the members of the same body, who should feel for the grievances of their fellow-members, not knowing how soon the same may be their own.

2. Inhumanity is impiety and irreligion. He that withholds compassion from his friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. So the Chaldee. How dwells the love of God in that man? 1 John 3:17. Surely those have no fear of the rod of God upon themselves who have no compassion for those that feel the smart of it. See Jam. 1:27.

3. Troubles are the trials of friendship. When a man is afflicted he will see who are his friends indeed and who are but pretenders; for a brother is born for adversity, Prov. 17:17; 18:24.

II. He shows how wretchedly he was disappointed in his expectations from them (v. 15): "My brethren, who should have helped me, have dealt deceitfully as a brook." They came by appointment, with a great deal of ceremony, to mourn with him and to comfort him (ch. 2:11); and some extraordinary things were expected from such wise, learned, knowing men, and Job's particular friends. None questioned but that the drift of their discourses would be to comfort Job with the remembrance of his former piety, the assurance of God's favour to him, and the prospect of a glorious issue; but, instead of this, they most barbarously fall upon him with their reproaches and censures, condemn him as a hypocrite, insult over his calamities, and pour vinegar, instead of oil, into his wounds, and thus they deal deceitfully with him. Note, It is fraud and deceit not only to violate our engagements to our friends, but to frustrate their just expectations from us, especially the expectations we have raised. Note, further, It is our wisdom to cease from man. We cannot expect too little from the creature nor too much from the Creator. It is no new thing even for brethren to deal deceitfully (Jer. 9:4, 5; Mic. 7:5); let us therefore put our confidence in the rock of ages, not in broken reeds-in the fountain of life, not in broken cisterns. God will out-do our hopes as much as men come short of them. This disappointment which Job met with he here illustrates by the failing of brooks in summer.

1. The similitude is very elegant, v. 15 -20. (1.) Their pretensions are fitly compared to the great show which the brooks make when they are swollen with the waters of a land flood, by the melting of the ice and snow, which make them blackish or muddy, v. 16. (2.) His expectations from them, which their coming so solemnly to comfort him had raised, he compares to the expectation which the weary thirsty travellers have of finding water in the summer where they have often seen it in great abundance in the winter, v. 19. The troops of Tema and Sheba, the caravans of the merchants of those countries, whose road lay through the deserts of Arabia, looked and waited for supply of water from those brooks. "Hard by here," says one, "A little further," says another, "when I last travelled this way, there was water enough; we shall have that to refresh us." Where we have met with relief or comfort we are apt to expect it again; and yet it does not follow; for, (3.) The disappointment of his expectation is here compared to the confusion which seizes the poor travellers when they find heaps of sand where they expected floods of water. In the winter, when they were not thirsty, there was water enough. Every one will applaud and admire those that are full and in prosperity. But in the heat of summer, when they needed water, then it failed them; it was consumed (v. 17); it was turned aside, v. 18. When those who are rich and high are sunk and impoverished, and stand in need of comfort, then those who before gathered about them stand aloof from them, those who before commended them are forward to run them down. Thus those who raise their expectations high from the creature will find it fail them when it should help them; whereas those who make God their confidence have help in the time of need, Heb. 4:16. Those who make gold their hope will sooner or later be ashamed of it, and of their confidence in it (Ezek. 7:19); and the greater their confidence was the greater their shame will be: They were confounded because they had hoped, v. 20. We prepare confusion for ourselves by our vain hopes: the reeds break under us because we lean upon them. If we build a house upon the sand, we shall certainly be confounded, for it will fall in the storm, and we must thank ourselves for being such fools as to expect it would stand. We are not deceived unless we deceive ourselves.

2. The application is very close (v. 21): For now you are nothing. They seemed to be somewhat, but in conference they added nothing to him. Allude to Gal. 2:6. He was never the wiser, never the better, for the visit they made him. Note, Whatever complacency we may take, or whatever confidence we may put, in creatures, how great soever they may seem and how dear soever they may be to us, one time or other we shall say of them, Now you are nothing. When Job was in prosperity his friends were something to him, he took complacency in them and their society; but "Now you are nothing, now I can find no comfort but in God." It were well for us if we had always such convictions of the vanity of the creature, and its insufficiency to make us happy, as we have sometimes had, or shall have on a sick-bed, a death-bed, or in trouble of conscience: "Now you are nothing. You are not what you have been, what you should be, what you pretend to be, what I thought you would have been; for you see my casting down and are afraid. When you saw me in my elevation you caressed me; but now that you see me in my dejection you are shy of me, are afraid of showing yourselves kind, lest I should thereby be emboldened to beg something of you, or to borrow" (compare v. 22); "you are afraid lest, if you own me, you should be obliged to keep me." Perhaps they were afraid of catching his distemper or of coming within smell of the noisomeness of it. It is not good, either out of pride or niceness, for love of our purses or of our bodies, to be shy of those who are in distress and afraid of coming near them. Their case may soon be our own.

Job 6:22-30

²² Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance? ²³ Or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? ²⁴ Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. ²⁵ How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? ²⁶ Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? ²⁷ Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend. ²⁸ Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie. ²⁹ Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it. ³⁰ Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?

Poor Job goes on here to upbraid his friends with their unkindness and the hard usage they gave him. He here appeals to themselves concerning several things which tended both to justify him and to condemn them. If they would but think impartially, and speak as they thought, they could not but own,

I. That, though he was necessitous, yet he was not craving, nor burdensome to his friends. Those that are so, whose troubles serve them to beg by, are commonly less pitied than the silent poor. Job would be glad to see his friends, but he did not say, Bring unto me (v. 22), or, Deliver me, v. 23. He did not desire to put them to any expense, did not urge his friends either,

1. To make a collection for him, to set him up again in the world. Though he could plead that his losses came upon him by the hand of God and not by any fault or folly of his own, – that he was utterly ruined and impoverished, – that he had lived in good condition, and that when he had wherewithal he was charitable and ready to help those that were in distress, – that his friends were rich, and able to help him, yet he did not say, Give me of your substance. Note, A good man, when troubled himself, is afraid of being troublesome to his friends. Or,

2. To raise the country for him, to help him to recover his cattle out of the hands of the Sabeans and Chaldeans, or to make reprisals upon them: "Did I send for you to deliver me out of the hand of the mighty? No, I never expected you should either expose yourselves to any danger or put yourselves to any charge upon my account. I will rather sit down content under my affliction, and make the best of it, than sponge upon my friends." St. Paul worked with his hands, that he might not be burdensome to any. Job's not asking their help did not excuse them from offering it when he needed it and it was in the power of their hands to give it; but it much aggravated their unkindness when he desired no more from them than a good look, and a good word, and yet could not obtain them. It often happens that from man, even when we expect little, we have less, but from God, even when we expect much, we have more, Eph. 3:20.

II. That, though he differed in opinion from them, yet he was not obstinate, but ready to yield to conviction, and to strike sail to truth as soon as ever it was made to appear to him that he was in an error (v. 24, 25): "If, instead of invidious reflections and uncharitable insinuations, you will give me plain instructions and solid arguments, which shall carry their own evidence along with them, I am ready to acknowledge my error and own myself in a fault: Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; for I have often found, with pleasure and wonder, how forcible right words are. But the method you take will never make proselytes: What doth your arguing reprove? Your hypothesis is false, your surmises are groundless, your management is weak, and your application peevish and uncharitable." Note,

1. Fair reasoning has a commanding power, and it is a wonder if men are not conquered by it; but railing and foul language are impotent and foolish, and it is no wonder if men are exasperated and hardened by them.

2. It is the undoubted character of every honest man that he is truly desirous to have his mistakes rectified, and to be made to understand wherein he has erred; and he will acknowledge that right words, when they appear to him to be so, though contrary to his former sentiments, are both forcible and acceptable.

III. That, though he had been indeed in a fault, yet they ought not to have given him such hard usage (v. 26, 27): "Do you imagine, or contrive with a great deal of art" (for so the word signifies), "to reprove words, some passionate expressions of mine in this desperate condition, as if they were certain indications of reigning impiety and atheism? A little candour and charity would have served to excuse them, and to put a better construction upon them. Shall a man's spiritual state be judged of by some rash and hasty words, which a surprising trouble extorts from him? Is it fair, is it kind, is it just, to criticize in such a case? Would you yourselves be served thus?" Two things aggravated their unkind treatment of him: –

1. That they took advantage of his weakness and the helpless condition he was in: You overwhelm the fatherless, a proverbial expression, denoting that which is most barbarous and inhuman. "The fatherless cannot secure themselves from insults, which emboldens men of base and sordid spirits to insult them and trample upon them; and you do so by me." Job, being a childless father, thought himself as much exposed to injury as a fatherless child (Ps. 127:5) and had reason to be offended with those who therefore triumphed over him. Let those who overwhelm and overpower such as upon any account may be looked upon as fatherless know that therein they not only put off the compassions of man, but fight against the compassions of God, who is, and will be, a Father of the fatherless and a helper of the helpless.

2. That they made a pretence of kindness: "You dig a pit for your friend; not only you are unkind to me, who am your friend, but, under colour of friendship, you ensnare me." When they came to see and sit with him he thought he might speak his mind freely to them, and that the more bitter his complaints to them were the more they would endeavour to comfort him. This made him take a greater liberty than otherwise he would have done. David, though he smothered his resentments when the wicked were before him, would probably have given vent to them if none had been by but friends, Ps. 39:1. But this freedom of speech, which their professions of concern for him made him use, had exposed him to their censures, and so they might be said to dig a pit for him. Thus, when our hearts are hot within us, what is ill done we are apt to misrepresent as if done designedly.

IV. That, though he had let fall some passionate expressions, yet in the main he was in the right, and that his afflictions, though very extraordinary, did not prove him to be a hypocrite or a wicked man. His righteousness he holds fast, and will not let it go. For the evincing of it he here appeals,

1. To what they saw in him (v. 28): "Be content, and look upon me; what do you see in me that bespeaks me either a madman or a wicked man? Nay, look in my face, and you may discern there the indications of a patient and submissive spirit, for all this. Let the show of my countenance witness for me that, though I have cursed my day, I do not curse my God." Or rather, "Look upon my ulcers and sore boils, and by them it will be evident to you that I do not lie," that is, "that I do not complain without cause. Let your own eyes convince you that my condition is very sad, and that I do not quarrel with God by making it worse than it is."

2. To what they heard from him, v. 30. "You hear what I have to say: Is there iniquity in my tongue? that iniquity that you charge me with? Have I blasphemed God or renounced him? Are not my present arguings right? Do not you perceive, by what I say, that I can discern perverse things? I can discover your fallacies and mistakes, and, if I were myself in an error, I could perceive it. Whatever you think of me, I know what I say."

3. To their own second and sober thoughts (v. 29): "Return, I pray you, consider the thing over again without prejudice and partiality, and let not the result be iniquity, let it not be an unrighteous sentence; and you will find my righteousness is in it," that is, "I am in the right in this matter; and, though I cannot keep my temper as I should, I keep my integrity, and have not said, nor done, nor suffered, any thing which will prove me other than an honest man." A just cause desires nothing more than a just hearing, and if need be a re-hearing.

Job 7

Job, in this chapter, goes on to express the bitter sense he had of his calamities and to justify himself in his desire of death.

I. He complains to himself and his friends of his troubles, and the constant agitation he was in, ver. 1 -6.

II. He turns to God, and expostulates with him (ver. 7, to the end), in which,

1. He pleads the final period which death puts to our present state, ver. 7 -10.

2. He passionately complains of the miserable condition he was now in, ver. 11 -16.

3. He wonders that God will thus contend with him, and begs for the pardon of his sins and a speedy release out of his miseries, ver. 17 -21. It is hard to methodize the speeches of one who owned himself almost desperate, ch. 6:26.

Job 7:1-6

Job's Reply to Eliphaz. B. C. 1520.

¹ Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of a hireling? ² As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: ³ So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. ⁴ When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. ⁵ My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. ⁶ My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.

Job is here excusing what he could not justify, even his inordinate desire of death. Why should he not wish for the termination of life, which would be the termination of his miseries? To enforce this reason he argues,

I. From the general condition of man upon earth (v. 1): "He is of few days, and full of trouble. Every man must die shortly, and every man has some reason (more or less) to desire to die shortly; and therefore why should you impute it to me as so heinous a crime that I wish to die shortly?" Or thus: "Pray mistake not my desires of death, as if I thought the time appointed of God could be anticipated: no, I know very well that that is fixed; only in such language as this I take the liberty to express my present uneasiness: Is there not an appointed time (a warfare, so the word is) to man upon earth? and are not his days here like the days of a hireling?" Observe,

1. Man's present place. He is upon earth, which God has given to the children of men, Ps. 115:16. This bespeaks man's meanness and inferiority. How much below the inhabitants of yonder elevated and refined regions is he situated! It also bespeaks God's mercy to him. He is yet upon the earth, not under it; on earth, not in hell. Our time on earth is limited and short, according to the narrow bounds of this earth; but heaven cannot be measured, nor the days of heaven numbered.

2. His continuance in that place. Is there not a time appointed for his abode here? Yes, certainly there is, and it is easy to say by whom the appointment is made, even by him that made us and set us here. We are not to be on this earth always, nor long, but for a certain time, which is determined by him in whose hand our times are. We are not to think that we are governed by the blind fortune of the Epicureans, but by the wise, holy, and sovereign counsel of God.

3. His condition during that continuance. Man's life is a warfare, and as the days of a hireling. We are every one of us to look upon ourselves in this world, (1.) As soldiers, exposed to hardship and in the midst of enemies; we must serve and be under command; and, when our warfare is accomplished, we must be disbanded, dismissed with either shame or honour, according to what we have done in the body. (2.) As day-labourers, that have the work of the day to do in its day and must make up their account at night.

II. From his own condition at this time. He had as much reason, he thought, to wish for death, as a poor servant or hireling that is tired with his work has to wish for the shadows of the evening, when he shall receive his penny and go to rest, v. 2. The darkness of the night is as welcome to the labourer as the light of the morning is to the watchman, Ps. 130:6. The God of nature has provided for the repose of labourers, and no wonder that they desire it. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, Eccl. 5:12. No pleasure more grateful, more relishing, to the luxurious than rest to the laborious; nor can any rich man take so much satisfaction in the return of his rent-days as the hireling in his day's wages. The comparison is plain, the application is concise and somewhat obscure, but we must supply a word or two, and then it is easy: exactness of language is not to be expected from one in Job's condition. "As a servant earnestly desires the shadow, so and for the same reason I earnestly desire death; for I am made to possess, etc." Hear his complaint.

1. His days were useless, and had been so a great while. He was wholly taken off from business, and utterly unfit for it. Every day was a burden to him, because he was in no capacity of doing good, or of spending it to any purpose. Et vitæ partem non attigit ullam – He could not fill up his time with any thing that would turn to account. This he calls possessing months of vanity, v. 3. It very much increases the affliction of sickness and age, to a good man, that he is thereby forced from his usefulness. He insists not so much upon it that they are days in which he has no pleasure as that they are days in which he does not good; on that account they are months of vanity. But when we are disabled to work for God, if we will but sit still quietly for him, it is all one; we shall be accepted.

2. His nights were restless, v. 3, 4. The night relieves the toil and fatigue of the day, not only to the labourers, but to the sufferers: if a sick man can but get a little sleep in the night, it helps nature, and it is hoped that he will do well, John 11:12. However, be the trouble what it will, sleep gives some intermission to the cares, and pains, and griefs, that afflict us; it is the parenthesis of our sorrows. But poor Job could not gain this relief. (1.) His nights were wearisome, and, instead of taking any rest, he did but tire himself more with tossing to and fro until morning. Those that are in great uneasiness, through pain of body or anguish of mind, think by changing sides, changing places, changing postures, to get some ease; but, while the cause is the same within, it is all to no purpose; it is but a resemblance of a fretful discontented spirit, that is ever shifting, but never easy. This made him dread the night as much as the servant desires it, and, when he lay down, to say, When will the night be gone? (2.) These wearisome nights were appointed to him. God, who determines the times before appointed, had allotted him such nights as these. Whatever is at any time grievous to us, it is good to see it appointed for us, that we may acquiesce in the event, not only as unavoidable because appointed, but as therefore designed for some holy end. When we have comfortable nights we must see them also appointed to us and be thankful for them; many better than we have wearisome nights.

3. His body was noisome, v. 5. His sores bred worms, the scabs were like clods of dust, and his skin was broken; so evil was the disease which cleaved fast to him. See what vile bodies we have, and what little reason we have to pamper them or be proud of them; they have in themselves the principles of their own corruption: as fond as we are of them now, the time may come when we may loathe them and long to get rid of them.

4. His life was hastening apace towards a period, v. 6. He thought he had no reason to expect a long life, for he found himself declining fast (v. 6): My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, that is, "My time is now but short, and there are but a few sands more in my glass, which will speedily run out." Natural motions are more swift near the centre. Job thought his days ran swiftly because he thought he should soon be at his journey's end; he looked upon them as good as spent already, and he was therefore without hope of being restored to his former prosperity. It is applicable to man's life in general. Our days are like a weaver's shuttle, thrown from one side of the web to the other in the twinkling of an eye, and then back again, to and fro, until at length it is quite exhausted of the thread it carried, and then we cut off, like a weaver, our life, Isa. 38:12. Time hastens on apace; the motion of it cannot be stopped, and, when it is past, it cannot be recalled. While we are living, as we are sowing (Gal. 6:8), so we are weaving. Every day, like the shuttle, leaves a thread behind it. Many weave the spider's web, which will fail them, ch. 8:14. If we are weaving to ourselves holy garments and robes of righteousness, we shall have the benefit of them when our work comes to be reviewed and every man shall reap as he sowed and wear as he wove.

Job 7:7-16

⁷ O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good. ⁸ The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not. ⁹ As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. ¹⁰ He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. ¹¹ Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. ¹² Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me? ¹³ When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; ¹⁴ Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: ¹⁵ So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. ¹⁶ I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.

Job, observing perhaps that his friends, though they would not interrupt him in his discourse, yet began to grow weary, and not to heed much what he said, here turns to God, and speaks to him. If men will not hear us, God will; if men cannot help us, he can; for his arm is not shortened, neither is his ear heavy. Yet we must not go to school to Job here to learn how to speak to God; for, it must be confessed, there is a great mixture of passion and corruption in what he here says. But, if God be not extreme to mark what his people say amiss, let us also make the best of it. Job is here begging of God either to ease him or to end him. He here represents himself to God,

I. As a dying man, surely and speedily dying. It is good for us, when we are sick, to think and speak of death, for sickness is sent on purpose to put us in mind of it; and, if we be duly mindful of it ourselves, we may in faith put God in mind of it, as Job does here (v. 7): O remember that my life is wind. He recommends himself to God as an object of his pity and compassion, with this consideration, that he was a very weak frail creature, his abode in this world short and uncertain, his removal out of it sure and speedy, and his return to it again impossible and never to be expected – that his life was wind, as the lives of all men are, noisy perhaps and blustering, like the wind, but vain and empty, soon gone, and, when gone, past recall. God had compassion on Israel, remembering that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again, Ps. 78:38, 39. Observe,

1. The pious reflections Job makes upon his own life and death. Such plain truths as these concerning the shortness and vanity of life, the unavoidableness and irrecoverableness of death, then do us good when we think and speak of them with application to ourselves. Let us consider then, (1.) That we must shortly take our leave of all the things that are seen, that are temporal. The eye of the body must be closed, and shall no more see good, the good which most men set their hearts upon; for their cry is, Who will make us to see good? Ps. 4:6. If we be such fools as to place our happiness in visible good things, what will become of us when they shall be for ever hidden from our eyes, and we shall no more see good? Let us therefore live by that faith which is the substance and evidence of things not seen. (2.) That we must then remove to an invisible world: The eye of him that hath here seen me shall see me no more there. It is hades – an unseen state, v. 8. Death removes our lovers and friends into darkness (Ps. 88:18), and will shortly remove us out of their sight; when we go hence we shall be seen no more (Ps. 39:13), but go to converse with the things that are not seen, that are eternal. (3.) That God can easily, and in a moment, put an end to our lives, and send us to another world (v. 8): "Thy eyes are upon me and I am not; thou canst look me into eternity, frown me into the grave, when thou pleasest."

Shouldst thou, displeased, give me a frowning look,
I sink, I die, as if with lightning struck.

Sir R. BLACKMORE.

He takes away our breath, and we die; nay, he but looks on the earth and it trembles, Ps. 104:29, 30. (4.) That, when we are once removed to another world, we must never return to this. There is constant passing from this world to the other, but vestigia nulla retrorsum – there is no repassing. "Therefore, Lord, kindly ease me by death, for that will be a perpetual ease. I shall return no more to the calamities of this life." When we are dead we are gone, to return no more, [1.] From our house under ground (v. 9): He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more until the general resurrection, shall come up no more to his place in this world. Dying is work that is to be done but once, and therefore it had need be well done: an error there is past retrieve. This is illustrated by the blotting out and scattering of a cloud. It is consumed and vanisheth away, is resolved into air and never knits again. Other clouds arise, but the same cloud never returns: so a new generation of the children of men is raised up, but the former generation is quite consumed and vanishes away. When we see a cloud which looks great, as if it would eclipse the sun and drawn the earth, of a sudden dispersed and disappearing, let us say, "Just such a thing is the life of man; it is a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." [2.] To return no more to our house above ground (v. 10): He shall return no more to his house, to the possession and enjoyment of it, to the business and delights of it. Others will take possession, and keep it till they also resign to another generation. The rich man in hell desired that Lazarus might be sent to his house, knowing it was to no purpose to ask that he might have leave to go himself. Glorified saints shall return no more to the cares, and burdens, and sorrows of their house; nor damned sinners to the gaieties and pleasures of their house. Their place shall no more know them, no more own them, have no more acquaintance with them, nor be any more under their influence. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die, for this will no more own us.

2. The passionate inference he draws from it. From these premises he might have drawn a better conclusion that this (v. 11): Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak; I will complain. Holy David, when he had been meditating on the frailty of human life, made a contrary use of it (Ps. 39:9, I was dumb, and opened not my mouth); but Job, finding himself near expiring, hastens as much to make his complaint as if he had been to make his last will and testament or as if he could not die in peace until he had given vent to his passion. When we have but a few breaths to draw we should spend them in the holy gracious breathings of faith and prayer, not in the noisome noxious breathings of sin and corruption. Better die praying and praising than die complaining and quarrelling.

II. As a distempered man, sorely and grievously distempered both in body and mind. In this part of his representation is he is very peevish, as if God dealt hardly with him and laid upon him more than was meet: "Am I a sea, or a whale (v. 12), a raging sea, that must be kept within bounds, to check its proud waves, or an unruly whale, that must be restrained by force from devouring all the fishes of the sea? Am I so strong that there needs so much ado to hold me? so boisterous that no less than all these mighty bonds of affliction will serve to tame me and keep me within compass?" We are very apt, when we are in affliction, to complain of God and his providence, as if he laid more restraints upon us that there is occasion for; whereas we are never in heaviness but when there is need, nor more than the necessity demands.

1. He complains that he could not rest in his bed, v. 13, 14. There we promise ourselves some repose, when we are fatigued with labour, pain, or traveling: "My bed shall comfort me, and my couch shall ease my complaint. Sleep will for a time give me some relief;" it usually does so; it is appointed for that end; many a time it has eased us, and we have awaked refreshed, and with new vigour. When it is so we have great reason to be thankful; but it was not so with poor Job: his bed, instead of comforting him, terrified him; and his couch, instead of easing his complaint, added to it; for if he dropped asleep, he was disturbed with frightful dreams, and when those awaked him still he was haunted with dreadful apparitions. This was it that made the night so unwelcome and wearisome to him as it was (v. 4): When shall I arise? Note, God can, when he pleases, meet us with terror even where we promise ourselves ease and repose; nay, he can make us a terror to ourselves, and, as we have often contracted guilt by the rovings of an unsanctified fancy, he can likewise, by the power of our own imagination, create us much grief, and so make that our punishment which has often been our sin. In Job's dreams, though they might partly arise from his distemper (in fevers, or small pox, when the body is all over sore, it is common for the sleep to be unquiet), yet we have reason to think Satan had a hand, for he delights to terrify those whom it is out of his reach to destroy; but Job looked up to God, who permitted Satan to do this (thou scarest me), and mistook Satan's representations for the terror of God setting themselves in array against him. We have reason to pray to God that our dreams may neither defile nor disquiet us, neither tempt us to sin nor torment us with fear, that he who keeps Israel, and neither slumbers nor sleeps, may keep us when we slumber and sleep, that the devil may not then do us a mischief, either as an insinuating serpent or as a roaring lion, and to bless God if we lie down and our sleep is sweet and we are not thus scared.

2. He covets to rest in his grave, that bed where there are no tossings to and fro, nor any frightful dreams, v. 15, 16. (1.) He was sick of life, and hated the thoughts of it: "I loathe it; I have had enough of it. I would not live always, not only not live always in this condition, in pain and misery, but not live always in the most easy and prosperous condition, to be continually in danger of being thus reduced. My days are vanity at the best, empty of solid comfort, exposed to real griefs; and I would not be for ever tied to such uncertainty." Note, A good man would not (if he might) life always in this world, no, not though it smile upon him, because it is a world of sin and temptation and he has a better world in prospect. (2.) He was fond of death, and pleased himself with the thoughts of it: his soul (his judgment, he thought, but really it was his passion) chose strangling and death rather than life; any death rather than such a life as this. Doubtless this was Job's infirmity; for though a good man would not wish to live always in this world, and would choose strangling and death rather than sin, as the martyrs did, yet he will be content to live as long as pleases God, not choose death rather than life, because life is our opportunity of glorifying God and getting ready for heaven.

Job 7:17-21

¹⁷ What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? ¹⁸ And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment? ¹⁹ How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle? ²⁰ I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? ²¹ And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.

Job here reasons with God,

I. Concerning his dealings with man in general (v. 17, 18): What is man, that thou shouldst magnify him? This may be looked upon either,

1. As a passionate reflection upon the proceedings of divine justice; as if the great God did diminish and disparage himself in contending with man. "Great men think it below them to take cognizance of those who are much their inferiors so far as to reprove and correct their follies and indecencies; why then does God magnify man, by visiting him, and trying him, and making so much ado about him? Why will he thus pour all his forces upon one that is such an unequal match for him? Why will he visit him with afflictions, which, like a quotidian ague, return as duly and constantly as the morning light, and try, every moment, what he can bear?" We mistake God, and the nature of his providence, if we think it any lessening to him to take notice of the meanest of his creatures. Or,

2. As a pious admiration of the condescensions of divine grace, like that, Ps. 8:4; 144:3. He owns God's favour to man in general, even when he complains of his own particular troubles. "What is man, miserable man, a poor, mean, weak creature, that thou, the great and glorious God, shouldst deal with him as thou dost? What is man," (1.) "That thou shouldst put such honour upon him, shouldst magnify him, by taking him into covenant and communion with thyself?" (2.) "That thou shouldst concern thyself so much about him, shouldst set thy heart upon him, as dear to thee, and one that thou hast a kindness for?" (3.) "That thou shouldst visit him with thy compassions every morning, as we daily visit a particular friend, or as the physician visits his patients every morning to help them?" (4.) "That thou shouldst try him, shouldst feel his pulse and observe his looks, every moment, as in care about him and jealous over him?" That such a worm of the earth as man is should be the darling and favourite of heaven is what we have reason for ever to admire.

II. Concerning his dealings with him in particular. Observe,

1. The complaint he makes of his afflictions, which he here aggravates, and (as we are all too apt to do) makes the worst of, in three expressions: – (1.) That he was the butt to God's arrows: "Thou hast set me as a mark against thee," v. 20. "My case is singular, and none is shot at as I am." (2.) That he was a burden to himself, ready to sink under the load of his own life. How much delight soever we take in ourselves God can, when he pleases, make us burdens to ourselves. What comfort can we take in ourselves if God appear against us as an enemy and we have not comfort in him. (3.) That he had no intermission of his griefs (v. 19): "How long will it be ere thou cause thy rod to depart from me, or abate the rigour of the correction, at least for so long as that I may swallow down my spittle?" It should seem, Job's distemper lay much in his throat, and almost choked him, so that he could not swallow his spittle. He complains (ch. 30:18) that it bound him about like the collar of his coat. "Lord," says he, "wilt not thou give me some respite, some breathing time?" ch. 9:18.

2. The concern he is in about his sins. The best men have sin to complain of, and the better they are the more they will complain of it. (1.) He ingenuously owns himself guilty before God: I have sinned. God had said of him that he was a perfect and an upright man; yet he says of himself, I have sinned. Those may be upright who yet are not sinless; and those who are sincerely penitent are accepted, through a Mediator, as evangelically perfect. Job maintained, against his friends, that he was not a hypocrite, not a wicked man; and yet he owned to his God that he had sinned. If we have been kept from gross acts of sin, it does not therefore follow that we are innocent. The best must acknowledge, before God, that they have sinned. His calling God the observer, or preserver, of men, may be looked upon as designed for an aggravation of his sin: "Though God has had his eye upon me, his eye upon me for good, yet I have sinned against him." When we are in affliction it is seasonable to confess sin, as the procuring cause of our affliction. Penitent confessions would drown and silence passionate complaints. (2.) He seriously enquires how he may make his peace with God: "What shall I do unto thee, having done so much against thee?" Are we convinced that we have sinned, and are we brought to own it? We cannot but conclude that something must be done to prevent the fatal consequences of it. The matter must not rest as it is, but some course must be taken to undo what has been ill done. And, if we are truly sensible of the danger we have run ourselves into, we shall be willing to do any thing, to take a pardon upon any terms; and therefore shall be inquisitive as to what we shall do (Mic. 6:6, 7), what we shall do to God, not to satisfy the demands of his justice (that is done only by the Mediator), but to qualify ourselves for the tokens of his favour, according to the tenour of the gospel-covenant. In making this enquiry it is good to eye God as the preserver or Saviour of men, not their destroyer. In our repentance we must keep up good thoughts of God, as one that delights not in the ruin of his creatures, but would rather they should return and live. "Thou art the Saviour of men; be my Saviour, for I cast myself upon thy mercy." (3.) He earnestly begs for the forgiveness of his sins, v. 21. The heat of his spirit, as, on the one hand, it made his complaints the more bitter, so, on the other hand, it made his prayers the more lively and importunate; as here: "Why dost thou not pardon my transgression? Art thou not a God of infinite mercy, that art ready to forgive? Hast not thou wrought repentance in me? Why then dost thou not give me the pardon of my sin, and make me to hear the voice of that joy and gladness?" Surely he means more than barely the removing of his outward trouble, and is herein earnest for the return of God's favour, which he complained of the want of, ch. 6:4. "Lord, pardon my sins, and give me the comfort of that pardon, and then I can easily bear my afflictions," Matt. 9:2; Isa. 33:24. When the mercy of God pardons the transgression that is committed by us the grace of God takes away the iniquity that reigns in us. Wherever God removes the guilt of sin he breaks the power of sin. (4.) To enforce his prayer for pardon he pleads the prospect he had of dying quickly: For now shall I sleep in the dust. Death will lay us in the dust, will lay us to sleep there, and perhaps presently, now in a little time. Job had been complaining of restless nights, and that sleep departed from his eyes (v. 3, 4, 13, 14); but those who cannot sleep on a bed of down will shortly sleep in a bed of dust, and not be scared with dreams nor tossed to and fro: "Thou shalt seek me in the morning, to show me favour, but I shall not be; it will be too late then. If my sins be not pardoned while I live, I am lost and undone for ever." Note, The consideration of this, that we must shortly die, and perhaps may die suddenly, should make us all very solicitous to get our sins pardoned and our iniquity taken away.

Job 8

Job's friends are like Job's messengers: the latter followed one another close with evil tidings, the former followed him with harsh censures: both, unawares, served Satan's design; these to drive him from his integrity, those to drive him from the comfort of it. Eliphaz did not reply to what Job had said in answer to him, but left it to Bildad, whom he knew to be of the same mind with himself in this affair. Those are not the wisest of the company, but the weakest rather, who covet to have all the talk. Let others speak in their turn, and let the first keep silence, 1 Cor. 14:30, 31. Eliphaz had undertaken to show that because Job was sorely afflicted he was certainly a wicked man. Bildad is much of the same mind, and will conclude Job a wicked man unless God do speedily appear for his relief. In this chapter he endeavours to convince Job,

I. That he had spoken too passionately, ver. 2.

II. That he and his children had suffered justly, ver. 3, 4.

III. That, if he were a true penitent, God would soon turn his captivity, ver. 5 -7.

IV. That it was a usual thing for Providence to extinguish the joys and hopes of wicked men as his were extinguished; and therefore that they had reason to suspect him for a hypocrite, ver. 8 -19.

V. That they would be abundantly confirmed in their suspicion unless God did speedily appear for his relief, ver. 20 -22.

Job 8:1-7

The Address of Bildad. B. C. 1520.

¹ Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, ² How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? ³ Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? ⁴ If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression; ⁵ If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; ⁶ If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. ⁷ Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.

Here,

I. Bildad reproves Job for what he had said (v. 2), checks his passion, but perhaps (as is too common) with greater passion. We thought Job spoke a great deal of good sense and much to the purpose, and that he had reason and right on his side; but Bildad, like an eager angry disputant, turns it all off with this, How long wilt thou speak these things? taking it for granted that Eliphaz had said enough to silence him, and that therefore all he said was impertinent. Thus (as Caryl observes) reproofs are often grounded upon mistakes. Men's meaning is not taken aright, and then they are gravely rebuked as if they were evil-doers. Bildad compares Job's discourse to a strong wind. Job had excused himself with this, that his speeches were but as wind (ch. 6:26), and therefore they should not make such ado about them: "Yea, but" (says Bildad) "they are as strong wind, blustering and threatening, boisterous and dangerous, and therefore we are concerned to fence against them."

II. He justifies God in what he had done. This he had no occasion to do at this time (for Job did not condemn God, as he would have it thought he did), or he might at least have done it without reflecting upon Job's children, as he does here. Could he not be an advocate for God but he must be an accuser of the brethren?

1. He is right in general, that God doth not pervert judgment, nor ever go contrary to any settled rule of justice, v. 3. Far be it from him that he should and from us that we should suspect him. He never oppresses the innocent, nor lays a greater load on the guilty than they deserve. He is God, the Judge; and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen. 18:25. If there should be unrighteousness with God, how should he judge the world? Rom. 3:5, 6. He is Almighty, Shaddai – all sufficient. Men pervert justice sometimes for fear of the power of others (but God is Almighty, and stands in awe of none), sometimes to obtain the favour of others; but God is all-sufficient, and cannot be benefited by the favour of any. It is man's weakness and impotency that he often is unjust; it is God's omnipotence that he cannot be so.

2. Yet he is not fair and candid in the application. He takes it for granted that Job's children (the death of whom was one of the greatest of his afflictions) had been guilty of some notorious wickedness, and that the unhappy circumstances of their death were sufficient evidence that they were sinners above all the children of the east, v. 4. Job readily owned that God did not pervert judgment; and yet it did not therefore follow either that his children were cast-aways or that they died for some great transgression. It is true that we and our children have sinned against God, and we ought to justify him in all he brings upon us and ours; but extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces; and, in our judgment of another's case (unless the contrary appears), we ought to take the more favourable side, as our Saviour directs, Luke 13:2 -4. Here Bildad missed it.

III. He put Job in hope that, if he were indeed upright, as he said he was, he should yet see a good issue of his present troubles: "Although thy children have sinned against him, and are cast away in their transgression (they have died in their own sin), yet if thou be pure and upright thyself, and as an evidence of that wilt now seek unto God and submit to him, all shall be well yet," v. 5 -7. This may be taken two ways, either,

1. As designed to prove Job a hypocrite and a wicked man, though not by the greatness, yet the by the continuance, of his afflictions. "When thou wast impoverished, and thy children were killed, if thou hadst been pure and upright, and approved thyself so in the trial, God would before now have returned in mercy to thee and comforted thee according to the time of thy affliction; but, because he does not so, we have reason to conclude thou art not so pure and upright as thou pretendest to be. If thou hadst conducted thyself well under the former affliction, thou wouldst not have been struck with the latter." Herein Bildad was not in the right; for a good man may be afflicted for his trial, not only very sorely, but very long, and yet, if for life, it is in comparison with eternity but for a moment. But, since Bildad put it to this issue, God was pleased to join issue with him, and proved his servant Job an honest man by Bildad's own argument; for, soon after, he blessed his latter end more than his beginning. Or,

2. As designed to direct and encourage Job, that he might not thus run himself into despair, and give up all for gone; there might yet be hope if he would take the right course. I am apt to think Bildad here intended to condemn Job, yet would be thought to counsel and comfort him. (1.) He gives him good counsel, yet perhaps not expecting he would take it, the same that Eliphaz had given him (ch. 5:8), to seek unto God, and that betimes (that is, speedily and seriously), and not to be dilatory and trifling in his return and repentance. He advises him not to complain, but to petition, to make his supplication to the Almighty with humility and faith, and to see that there was (what he feared had hitherto been wanting) sincerity in his heart ("thou must be pure and upright") and honesty in his house – "that must be the habitation of thy righteousness, and not filled with ill-gotten goods, else God will not hear thy prayers," Ps. 66:18. It is only the prayer of the upright that is the acceptable and prevailing prayer, Prov. 15:8. (2.) He gives him good hopes that he shall yet again see good days, secretly suspecting, however, that he was not qualified to see them. He assures him that, if he would be early in seeking God, God would awake for his relief, would remember him and return to him, though now he seemed to forget him and forsake him – that if his habitation were righteous it should be prosperity. When we return to God in a way of duty we have reason to hope that he will return to us in a way of mercy. Let not Job object that he had so little left to being the world with again that it was impossible he should ever prosper as he had done; no, "Though thy beginning should be ever so small, a little meal in the barrel and a little oil in the cruse, God's blessing shall multiply that to a great increase." This is God's way of enriching the souls of his people with graces and comforts, not per saltum – as by a bound, but per gradum – step by step. The beginning is small, but the progress is to perfection. Dawning light grows to noonday, a grain of mustard seed to a great tree. Let us not therefore despise the day of small things, but hope for the day of great things.

Job 8:8-19

⁸ For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: ⁹ (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) ¹⁰ Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? ¹¹ Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? ¹² Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. ¹³ So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish: ¹⁴ Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. ¹⁵ He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. ¹⁶ He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden. ¹⁷ His roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the place of stones. ¹⁸ If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee. ¹⁹ Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow.

Bildad here discourses very well on the sad catastrophe of hypocrites and evil-doers and the fatal period of all their hopes and joys. He will not be so bold as to say with Eliphaz that none that were righteous were ever cut off thus (ch. 4:7); yet he takes it for granted that God, in the course of his providence, does ordinarily bring wicked men, who seemed pious and were prosperous, to shame and ruin in this world, and that, by making their prosperity short, he discovers their piety to be counterfeit. Whether this will certainly prove that all who are thus ruined must be concluded to have been hypocrites he will not say, but rather suspect, and thinks the application is easy.

I. He proves this truth, of the certain destruction of all the hopes and joys of hypocrites, by an appeal to antiquity and the concurring sentiment and observation of all wise and good men; and an undoubted truth it is, if we take in the other world, that, if not in this life, yet in the life to come, hypocrites will be deprived of all their trusts and all their triumphs: whether Bildad so meant or no, we must so take it. Let us observe the method of his proof, v. 8 -10.

1. He insists not on his own judgment and that of his companions: We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, v. 9. He perceived that Job had no opinion of their abilities, but thought they knew little. "We will own," says Bildad, "that we know nothing, are as ready to confess our ignorance as thou art to condemn it; for we are but of yesterday in comparison, and our days upon earth are short and transient, and hastening away as a shadow. And hence," (1.) "We are not so near the fountain-head of divine revelation" (which then for aught that appears, was conveyed by tradition) "as the former age was; and therefore we must enquire what they said and recount what we have been told of their sentiments." Blessed be God, now that we have the word of God in writing, and are directed to search that, we need not enquire of the former age, nor prepare ourselves to the search of their fathers; for, though we ourselves are but of yesterday, the word of God in the scripture is as nigh to us as it was to them (Rom. 10:8), and it is the more sure word of prophecy, to which we must take heed. If we study and keep God's precepts, we may by them understand more than the ancients, Ps. 119:99, 100. (2.) "We do not live so long as those of the former age did, to make observations upon the methods of divine providence, and therefore cannot be such competent judges as they in a cause of this nature." Note, The shortness of our lives is a great hindrance to the improvement of our knowledge, and so are the frailty and weakness of our bodies. Vita brevis, ars longa – life is short, the progress of art boundless.

2. He refers to the testimony of the ancients and to the knowledge which Job himself had of their sentiments. "Do thou enquire of the former age, and let them tell thee, not only their own judgment in this matter, but the judgment also of their fathers, v. 8. They will teach thee, and inform thee (v. 10), that all along, in their time, the judgments of God followed wicked men. This they will utter out of their hearts, that is, as that which they firmly believe themselves, which they are greatly affected with and desirous to acquaint and affect others with." Note, (1.) For the right understanding of divine Providence, and the unfolding of the difficulties of it, it will be of use to compare the observations and experiences of former ages with the events of our own day; and, in order thereto, to consult history, especially the sacred history, which is the most ancient, infallibly true, and written designedly for our learning. (2.) Those that would fetch knowledge from the former ages must search diligently, prepare for the search, and take pains for the search. (3.) Those words are most likely to reach to the hearts of the learners that come from the hearts of the teachers. Those shall teach thee best that utter words out of their heart, that speak by experience, and not by rote, of spiritual and divine things. The learned bishop Patrick suggests that Bildad being a Shuhite, descended from Shuah one of Abraham's sons by Keturah (Gen. 25:2), in this appeal which he makes to history he has a particular respect to the rewards which the blessing of God secured to the posterity of faithful Abraham (who hitherto, and long after, continued in his religion) and to the extirpation of those eastern people, neighbours to Job (in whose country they were settled), for their wickedness, whence he infers that it is God's usual way to prosper the just and root out the wicked, though for a while they may flourish.

II. He illustrates this truth by some similitudes.

1. The hopes and joys of the hypocrite are here compared to a rush or flag, v. 11 -13. (1.) It grows up out of the mire and water. The hypocrite cannot gain his hope without some false rotten ground or other out of which to raise it, and with which to support it and keep it alive, any more than the rush can grow without mire. He grounds it on his worldly prosperity, the plausible profession he makes of religion, the good opinion of his neighbours, and his own good conceit of himself, which are no solid foundation on which to build his confidence. It is all but mire and water; and the hope that grows out of it is but rush and flag. (2.) It may look green and gay for a while (the rush outgrows the grass), but it is light and hollow, and empty, and good for nothing. It is green for show, but of no use. (3.) It withers presently, before any other herb, v. 12. Even while it is in its greenness it is dried away and gone in a little time. Note, The best state of hypocrites and evil-doers borders upon withering; even when it is green it is going. The grass is cut down and withers (Ps. 90:6); but the rush is not cut down and yet withers, withers before it grows up (Ps. 129:6): as it has no use, so it has no continuance. So are the paths of all that forget God (v. 13); they take the same way that the rush does, for the hypocrite's hope shall perish. Note, [1.] Forgetfulness of God is at the bottom of men's hypocrisy, and of the vain hopes with which they flatter and deceive themselves in their hypocrisy. Men would not be hypocrites if they did not forget that the God with whom they have to do searches the heart and requires truth there, that he is a Spirit and has his eye on our spirits; and hypocrites would have no hope if they did not forget that God is righteous, and will not be mocked with the torn and the lame. [2.] The hope of hypocrites is a great cheat upon themselves, and, though it may flourish for a while, it will certainly perish at last, and they with it.

2. They are here compared to a spider's web, or a spider's house (as it is in the margin), a cobweb, v. 14, 15. The hope of the hypocrite, (1.) Is woven out of his own bowels; it is the creature of his own fancy, and arises merely from a conceit of his own merit and sufficiency. There is a great deal of difference between the work of the bee and that of the spider. A diligent Christian, like the laborious bee, fetches in all his comfort from the heavenly dews of God's word; but the hypocrite, like the subtle spider, weaves his out of a false hypothesis of his own concerning God, as if he were altogether such a one as himself. (2.) He is very fond of it, as the spider of her web; pleases himself with it, wraps himself in it, calls it his house, leans upon it, and holds it fast. It is said of the spider that she takes hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces, Prov. 30:28. So does a carnal worldling hug himself in the fulness and firmness of his outward prosperity; he prides himself in that house as his palace, fortifies himself in it as his castle, and makes use of it as the spider of her web, to ensnare those he has a mind to prey upon. So does a formal professor; he flatters himself in his own eyes, doubts not of his salvation, is secure of heaven, and cheats the world with his vain confidences. (3.) It will easily and certainly be swept away, as the cobweb with the besom, when God shall come to purge his house. The prosperity of worldly people will fail them when they expect to find safety and happiness in it. They seek to hold fast their estates, but God is plucking them out of their hands; and whose shall all those things be, which they have provided? or what the better they will be for them? The confidences of hypocrites will fail them. I tell you, I know you not. The house built on the sand will fall in the storm, when the builder most needs it and promised himself the benefit of it. When a wicked man dies his expectation perishes. The ground of his hopes will prove false; he will be disappointed of the thing he hoped for, and his foolish hope with which he buoyed himself up will be turned into endless despair; and thus his hope will be cut off, his web, that refuge of lies, swept away, and he crushed in it.

3. The hypocrite is here compared to a flourishing and well-rooted tree, which, though it do not wither of itself, yet will easily be cut down and its place no it no more. The secure and prosperous sinner may think himself wronged when he is compared to a rush and a flag; he thinks he has a better root. "We will allow him his conceit," says Bildad, "and give him all the advantage he can desire, and bring him in suddenly cut off." He is here represented as Nebuchadnezzar was in his own dream (Dan. 4:10) by a great tree. (1.) See this tree fair and flourishing (v. 16) like a green bay-tree (Ps. 37:35), green before the sun, it keeps its greenness in defiance of the scorching sun-beams, and his branch shoots forth under the protection of his garden-wall and with the benefit of his garden-soil. See it fixed, and taking deep root, never likely to be overthrown by stormy winds, for his roots are interwoven with the stones (v. 17); it grows in firm ground, not, as the rush, of mire and water. Thus does a wicked man, when he prospers in the world, think himself secure; his wealth is a high wall in his own conceit. (2.) See this tree felled and forgotten notwithstanding, destroyed from his place (v. 18), and so entirely extirpated that there shall remain no sign or token where it grew. The very place say, I have not seen thee; and the standers by shall say the same. I sought him, but he could not be found, Ps. 37:36. He made a great show and a great noise for a time, but he is gone of a sudden, and neither root nor branch is left him, Mal. 4:1. This is the joy (that is, this is the end and conclusion) of the wicked man's way (v. 19); this is that which all his joy comes to. The way of the ungodly shall perish, Ps. 1:6. His hope, he thought, would in the issue be turned into joy; but this is the issue, this is the joy. The harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow, Isa. 17:11. This is the best of it; and what then is the worst of it? But shall he not leave a family behind him to enjoy what he has? No, out of the earth (not out of his roots) shall others grow, that are nothing akin to him, and shall fill up his place, and rule over that for which he labored. Others (that is, others of the same spirit and disposition) shall grow up in his place, and be as secure as ever he was, not warned by his fall. The way of worldlings is their folly, and yet there is a race of those that approve their sayings, Ps. 49:13.

Job 8:20-22

²⁰ Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers: ²¹ Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing. ²² They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought.

Bildad here, in the close of his discourse, sums up what he has to say in a few words, setting before Job life and death, the blessing and the curse, assuring him that as he was so he should fare, and therefore they might conclude that as he fared so he was.

1. On the one hand, if he were a perfect upright man, God would not cast him away, v. 20. Though now he seemed forsaken of God, he would yet return to him, and by degrees would turn his mourning into dancing (Ps. 30:11) and comforts should flow in upon him so plentifully that his mouth should be filled with laughing, v. 21. So affecting should the happy change be, Ps. 126:2. Those that loved him would rejoice with him; but those that hated him, and had triumphed in his fall, would be ashamed of their insolence, when they should see him restored to his former prosperity. Now it is true that God will not cast away an upright man; he may be cast down for a time, but he shall not be cast away for ever. It is true that, if not in this world, yet in another, the mouth of the righteous shall be filled with rejoicing. Though their sun should set under a cloud, yet it shall rise again clear, never more to be clouded; though they go mourning to the grave, that shall not hinder their entrance into the joy of their Lord. It is true that the enemies of the saints will be clothed with shame when they see them crowned with honour. But it does not therefore follow that, if Job were not perfectly restore to his former prosperity, he would forfeit the character of a perfect man.

2. On the other hand, if he were a wicked man and an evil-doer, God would not help him, but leave him to perish in his present distresses (v. 20), and his dwelling-place should come to nought, v. 22. And here also it is true that God will not help the evil-doers; they throw themselves out of his protection, and forfeit his favour. He will not take the ungodly by the hand (so it is in the margin), will not have fellowship and communion with them; for what communion can there be between light and darkness? He will not lend them his hand to pull them out of the miseries, the eternal miseries, into which they have plunged themselves; they will then stretch out their hand to him for help, but it will be too late: he will not take them by the hand. Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed. It is true that the dwelling-place of the wicked, sooner or later, will come to nought. Those only who make God their dwelling-place are safe for ever, Ps. 90:1; 91:1. Those who make other things their refuge will be disappointed. Sin brings ruin on persons and families. Yet to argue (as Bildad, I doubt, slyly does) that because Job's family was sunk, and he himself at present seemed helpless, therefore he certainly was an ungodly wicked man, was neither just nor charitable, as long as there appeared no other evidence of his wickedness and ungodliness. Let us judge nothing before the time, but wait till the secrets of all hearts shall be made manifest, and the present difficulties of Providence be solved to universal and everlasting satisfaction, when the mystery of God shall be finished.

Job 9

In this and the following chapter we have Job's answer to Bildad's discourse, wherein he speaks honourably of God, humbly of himself, and feelingly of his troubles; but not one word by way of reflection upon his friends, or their unkindness to him, nor in direct reply to what Bildad had said. He wisely keeps to the merits of the cause, and makes no remarks upon the person that managed it, nor seeks occasion against him. In this chapter we have,

I. The doctrine of God's justice laid down, ver. 2.

II. The proof of it, from his wisdom, and power, and sovereign dominion, ver. 3 -13.

III. The application of it, in which,

1. He condemns himself, as not able to contend with God either in law or battle, ver. 14 -21.

2. He maintains his point, that we cannot judge of men's character by their outward condition, ver. 22 -24.

3. He complains of the greatness of his troubles, the confusion he was in, and the loss he was at what to say or do, ver. 25 -35.

Job 9:1-13

Job's Reply to Bildad. B. C. 1520.

¹ Then Job answered and said, ² I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God? ³ If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. ⁴ He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? ⁵ Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger. ⁶ Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. ⁷ Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars. ⁸ Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. ⁹ Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. ¹⁰ Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number. ¹¹ Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not: he passeth on also, but I perceive him not. ¹² Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou? ¹³ If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him.

Bildad began with a rebuke to Job for talking so much, ch. 8:2. Job makes no answer to that, though it would have been easy enough to retort it upon himself; but in what he next lays down as his principle, that God never perverts judgment, Job agrees with him: I know it is so of a truth, v. 2. Note, We should be ready to own how far we agree with those with whom we dispute, and should not slight, much less resist, a truth, though produced by an adversary and urged against us, but receive it in the light and love of it, though it may have been misapplied. "It is so of a truth, that wickedness brings men to ruin and the godly are taken under God's special protection. These are truths which I subscribe to; but how can any man make good his part with God?" In his sight shall no flesh living be justified, Ps. 143:2. How should man be just with God? Some understand this as a passionate complaint of God's strictness and severity, that he is a God whom there is no dealing with; and it cannot be denied that there are, in this chapter, some peevish expressions, which seem to speak such language as this. But I take this rather as a pious confession of man's sinfulness, and his own in particular, that, if God should deal with any of us according to the desert of our iniquities, we should certainly be undone.

I. He lays this down for a truth, that man is an unequal match for his Maker, either in dispute or combat.

1. In dispute (v. 3): If he will contend with him, either at law or at an argument, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. (1.) God can ask a thousand puzzling questions which those that quarrel with him, and arraign his proceedings, cannot give an answer to. When God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind he asked him a great many questions (Dost thou know this? Canst thou do that?) to none of which Job could give an answer, ch. 38, 39. God can easily manifest the folly of the greatest pretenders to wisdom. (2.) God can lay to our charge a thousand offences, can draw up against us a thousand articles of impeachment, and we cannot answer him so as to acquit ourselves from the imputation of any of them, but must, by silence, give consent that they are all true. We cannot set aside one as foreign, another as frivolous, and another as false. We cannot, as to one, deny the fact, and plead not guilty, and, as to another, deny the fault, confess and justify. No, we are not able to answer him, but must lay our hand upon our mouth, as Job did (ch. 40:4, 5), and cry, Guilty, guilty.

2. In combat (v. 4): "Who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered?" The answer is very easy. You cannot produce any instance, from the beginning of the world to this day, of any daring sinner who has hardened himself against God, has obstinately persisted in rebellion against him, who did not find God too hard for him and pay dearly for his folly. Such transgressors have not prospered or had peace; they have had no comfort in their way nor any success. What did ever man get by trials of skill, or trials of titles, with his Maker? All the opposition given to God is but setting briers and thorns before a consuming fire; so foolish, so fruitless, so destructive, is the attempt, Isa. 27:4; Ezek. 28:24; 1 Cor. 10:22. Apostate angels hardened themselves against God, but did not prosper, 2 Pet. 2:4. The dragon fights, but is cast out, Rev. 12:9. Wicked men harden themselves against God, dispute his wisdom, disobey his laws, are impenitent for their sins and incorrigible under their afflictions; they reject the offers of his grace, and resist the strivings of his Spirit; they make nothing of his threatenings, and make head against his interest in the world. But have they prospered? Can they prosper? No; they are but treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath. Those that roll this will find it return upon them.

II. He proves it by showing what a God he is with whom we have to do: He is wise in heart, and therefore we cannot answer him at law; he is mighty in strength, and therefore we cannot fight it out with him. It is the greatest madness that can be to think to contend with a God of infinite wisdom and power, who knows every thing and can do every thing, who can be neither outwitted nor overpowered. The devil promised himself that Job, in the day of his affliction, would curse God and speak ill of him, but, instead of that, he sets himself to honour God and to speak highly of him. As much pained as he is, and as much taken up with his own miseries, when he has occasion to mention the wisdom and power of God he forgets his complaints, dwells with delight, and expatiates with a flood of eloquence, upon that noble useful subject. Evidences of the wisdom and power of God he fetches,

1. From the kingdom of nature, in which the God of nature acts with an uncontrollable power and does what he pleases; for all the orders and all the powers of nature are derived from him and depend upon him.

(1.) When he pleases he alters the course of nature, and turns back its streams, v. 5 -7. By the common law of nature the mountains are settled and are therefore called everlasting mountains, the earth is established and cannot be removed (Ps. 93:1) and the pillars there of are immovably fixed, the sun rises in its season, and the stars shed their influences on this lower world; but when God pleases he can not only drive out of the common track, but invert the order and change the law of nature. [1.] Nothing more firm than the mountains. When we speak of removing mountains we mean that which is impossible; yet the divine power can make them change their seat: He removes them and they know not, removes them whether they will or no; he can make them lower their heads; he can level them, and overturn them in his anger; he can spread the mountains as easily as the husbandman spreads the molehills, be they ever so high, and large, and rocky. Men have much ado to pass over them, but God, when he pleases, can make them pass away. He made Sinai shake, Ps. 68:8. The hills skipped, Ps. 114:4. The everlasting mountains were scattered, Hab. 3:6. [2.] Nothing more fixed than the earth on its axletree; yet God can, when he pleases, shake the earth out of its place, heave it off its centre, and make even its pillars to tremble; what seemed to support it will itself need support when God gives it a shock. See how much we are indebted to God's patience. God has power enough to shake the earth from under that guilty race of mankind which makes it groan under the burden of sin, and so to shake the wicked out of it (Job 38:13); yet he continues the earth, and man upon it, and does not make it, as once, to swallow up the rebels. [3.] Nothing more constant than the rising sun, it never misses its appointed time; yet God, when he pleases, can suspend it. He that at first commanded it to rise can countermand it. Once the sun was told to stand, and another time to retreat, to show that it is still under the check of its great Creator. Thus great is God's power; and how great then is his goodness, which causes his sun to shine even upon the evil and unthankful, though he could withhold it! He that made the stars also, can, if he pleases, seal them up, and hide them from our eyes. By earthquakes and subterraneous fires mountains have sometimes been removed and the earth shaken: in very dark and cloudy days and nights it seems to us as if the sun were forbidden to rise and the stars were sealed up, Acts 27:20. It is sufficient to say that Job here speaks of what God can do; but, if we must understand it of what he has done in fact, all these verses may perhaps be applied to Noah's flood, when the mountains of the earth were shaken, and the sun and stars were darkened; and the world that now is we believe to be reserved for that fire which will consume the mountains, and melt the earth, with its fervent heat, and which will turn the sun into darkness.

(2.) As long as he pleases he preserves the settled course and order of nature; and this is a continued creation. He himself alone, by his own power, and without the assistance of any other, [1.] Spreads out the heaven (v. 8), not only did spread them out at first, but still spreads them out (that is, keeps them spread out), for otherwise they would of themselves roll together like a scroll of parchment. [2.] He treads upon the waves of the sea; that is, he suppresses them and keeps them under, that they return not to deluge the earth (Ps. 104:9), which is given as a reason why we should all fear God and stand in awe of him, Jer. 5:22. He is mightier than the proud waves Ps. 93:4; 65:7. [3.] He makes the constellations; three are named for all the rest (v. 9), Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and in general the chambers of the south. The stars of which these are composed he made at first, and put into that order, and he still makes them, preserves them in being, and guides their motions; he makes them to be what they are to man, and inclines the hearts of man to observe them, which the beasts are not capable of doing. Not only those stars which we see and give names to, but those also in the other hemisphere, about the antarctic pole, which never come in our sight, called here the chambers of the south, are under the divine direction and dominion. How wise is he then, and how mighty!

2. From the kingdom of Providence, that special Providence which is conversant about the affairs of the children of men. Consider what God does in the government of the world, and you will say, He is wise in heart and mighty in strength. (1.) He does many things and great, many and great to admiration, v. 10. Job here says the same that Eliphaz had said (ch. 5:9), and in the original in the very same words, not declining to speak after him, though now his antagonist. God is a great God, and doeth great things, a wonder-working God; his works of wonder are so many that we cannot number them and so mysterious that we cannot find them out. O the depth of his counsels! (2.) He acts invisibly and undiscerned, v. 11. "He goes by me in his operations, and I see him not, I perceive him not. His way is in the sea," Ps. 77:19. The operations of second causes are commonly obvious to sense, but God does all about us and yet we see him not, Acts 17:23. Our finite understandings cannot fathom his counsels, apprehend his motions, or comprehend the measures he takes; we are therefore incompetent judges of God's proceedings, because we know not what he does or what he designs. The arcana imperii – secrets of government, are things above us, which therefore we must not pretend to expound or comment upon. (3.) He acts with an incontestable sovereignty, v. 12. He takes away our creature-comforts and confidences when and as he pleases, takes away health, estate, relations, friends, takes away life itself; whatever goes, it is he that takes it; by what hand so ever it is removed, his hand must be acknowledged in its removal. The Lord takes away, and who can hinder him? Who can turn him away? (Margin, Who shall make him restore?) Who can dissuade him or alter his counsels? Who can resist him or oppose his operations? Who can control him or call him to an account? What action can be brought against him? Or who will say unto him, What doest thou? Or, Why doest thou so? Dan. 4:35. God is not obliged to give us a reason of what he does. The meanings of his proceedings we know no now; it will be time enough to know hereafter, when it will appear that what seemed now to be done by prerogative was done in infinite wisdom and for the best. (4.) He acts with an irresistible power, which no creature can resist, v. 13. If God will not withdraw his anger (which he can do when he pleases, for he is Lord of his anger, lets it out or calls it in according to his will), the proud helpers do stoop under him; that is, He certainly breaks and crushes those that proudly help one another against him. Proud men set themselves against God and his proceedings. In this opposition they join hand in hand. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, to throw off his yoke, to run down his truths, and to persecute his people. Men of Israel, help, Acts 21:28; Ps. 83:8. If one enemy of God's kingdom fall under his judgment, the rest come proudly to help that, and think to deliver that out of his hand: but in vain; unless he pleases to withdraw his anger (which he often does, for it is the day of his patience) the proud helpers stoop under him, and fall with those whom they designed to help. Who knows the power of God's anger? Those who think they have strength enough to help others will not be able to help themselves against it.

Job 9:14-21

¹⁴ How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with him? ¹⁵ Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge. ¹⁶ If I had called, and he had answered me; yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice. ¹⁷ For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause. ¹⁸ He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness. ¹⁹ If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong: and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead? ²⁰ If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. ²¹ Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.

What Job had said of man's utter inability to contend with God he here applies to himself, and in effect despairs of gaining his favour, which (some think) arises from the hard thoughts he had of God, as one who, having set himself against him, right or wrong, would be too hard for him. I rather think it arises from the sense he had of the imperfection of his own righteousness, and the dark and cloudy apprehensions which at present he had of God's displeasure against him.

I. He durst not dispute with God (v. 14): "If the proud helpers do stoop under him, how much less shall I (a poor weak creature, so far from being a helper that I am very helpless) answer him? What can I say against that which God does? If I go about to reason with him, he will certainly be too hard for me." If the potter make the clay into a vessel of dishonour, or break in pieces the vessel he has made, shall the clay or the broken vessel reason with him? So absurd is the man who replies against God, or thinks to talk the matter out with him. No, let all flesh be silent before him.

II. He durst not insist upon his own justification before God. Though he vindicated his own integrity to his friends, and would not yield that he was a hypocrite and a wicked man, as they suggested, yet he would never plead it as his righteousness before God. "I will never venture upon the covenant of innocency, nor think to come off by virtue of that." Job knew so much of God, and knew so much of himself, that he durst not insist upon his own justification before God.

1. He knew so much of God that he durst not stand a trial with him, v. 15 -19. He knew how to make his part good with his friends, and thought himself able to deal with them; but, though his cause had been better than it was, he knew it was to no purpose to debate it with God. (1.) God knew him better than he knew himself and therefore (v. 15), "Though I were righteous in my own apprehension, and my own heart did not condemn me, yet God is greater than my heart, and knows those secret faults and errors of mine which I do not and cannot understand, and is able to charge me with them, and therefore I would not answer." St. Paul speaks to the same purport: I know nothing by myself, am not conscious to myself of any reigning wickedness, and yet I am not hereby justified, 1 Cor. 4:4. "I dare not put myself upon that issue, lest God should charge that upon me which I did not discover in myself." Job will therefore wave that plea, and make supplication to his Judge, that is, will cast himself upon God's mercy, and not think come off by his own merit. (2.) He had no reason to think that there was anything in his prayers to recommend them to the divine acceptance, or to fetch in an answer of peace, no worth or worthiness at all to which to ascribe their success, but it must be attributed purely to the grace and compassion of God, who answers before we call and not because we call, and gives gracious answers to our prayers, but not for our prayers (v. 16): "If I had called, and he had answered, had given the thing I called to him for, yet, so weak and defective are my best prayers, that I would not believe he had therein hearkened to my voice; I could not say that he had saved with his right hand and answered me" (Ps. 60:5), "but that he did it purely for his own name's sake." Bishop Patrick expounds it thus: "If I had made supplication, and he had granted my desire, I would not think my prayer had done the business." Not for your sakes, be it known to you. (3.) His present miseries, which God had brought him into notwithstanding his integrity, gave him too sensible a conviction that, in the ordering and disposing of men's outward condition in this world, God acts by sovereignty, and, though he never does wrong to any, yet he does not ever give full right to all (that is, the best do not always fare best, nor the worst fare worst) in this life, because he reserves the full and exact distribution of rewards and punishments for the future state. Job was not conscious to himself of any extraordinary guilt, and yet fell under extraordinary afflictions, v. 17, 18. Every man must expect the wind to blow upon him and ruffle him, but Job was broken with a tempest. Every man, in the midst of these thorns and briers, must expect to be scratched; but Job was wounded, and his wounds were multiplied. Every man must expect a cross daily, and to taste sometimes of the bitter cup; but poor Job's troubles came so thickly upon him that he had no breathing time, and he was filled with bitterness. And he presumes to say that all this was without cause, without any great provocation given. We have made the best of what Job said hitherto, though contrary to the judgment of many good interpreters; but here, no doubt, he spoke unadvisedly with his lips; he reflected on God's goodness in saying that he was not suffered to take his breath (while yet he had such good use of his reason and speech as to be able to talk thus) and on his justice in saying that it was without cause. Yet it is true that as, on the one hand, there are many who are chargeable with more sin than the common infirmities of human nature, and yet feel no more sorrow than that of the common calamities of human life, so, on the other hand, there are many who feel more than the common calamities of human life and yet are conscious to themselves of no more than the common infirmities of human nature. (4.) He was in no capacity at all to make his part good with God, v. 19. [1.] Not by force of arms. "I dare not enter the lists with the Almighty; for if I speak of strength, and think to come off by that, lo, he is strong, stronger than I, and will certainly overpower me." There is no disputing (said one once to Cæsar) with him that commands legions. Much less is there any with him that has legions of angels at command. Can thy heart endure (thy courage and presence of mind) or can thy hands be strong to defend thyself, in the days that I shall deal with thee? Ezek. 22:14. [2.] Not by force of arguments. "I dare not try the merits of the cause. If I speak of judgment, and insist upon my right, who will set me a time to plead? There is no higher power to which I may appeal, no superior court to appoint a hearing of the cause; for he is supreme and from him proceeds every man's judgment, which he must abide by."

2. He knew so much of himself the he durst not stand a trial, v. 20, 21. "If I go about to justify myself, and to plead a righteousness of my own, my defence will be my offence, and my own mouth shall condemn me even when it goes about to acquit me." A good man, who knows the deceitfulness of his own heart, and is jealous over it with a godly jealousy, and has often discovered that amiss there which had long lain undiscovered, is suspicious of more evil in himself than he is really conscious of, and therefore will by no means think of justifying himself before God. If we say we have no sin, we not only deceive ourselves, but we affront God; for we sin in saying so, and give the lie to the scripture, which has concluded all under sin. "If I say, I am perfect, I am sinless, God has nothing to lay to my charge, my very saying so shall prove me perverse, proud, ignorant, and presumptuous. Nay, though I were perfect, though God should pronounce me just, yet would I not know my soul, I would not be in care about the prolonging of my life while it is loaded with all these miseries." Or, "Though I were free from gross sin, though my conscience should not charge me with any enormous crime, yet would I not believe my own heart so far as to insist upon my innocency nor think my life worth striving for with God." In short, it is folly to contend with God, and our wisdom, as well as duty, to submit to him and throw ourselves at his feet.

Job 9:22-24

²² This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. ²³ If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. ²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?

Here Job touches briefly upon the main point now in dispute between him and his friends. They maintained that those who are righteous and good always prosper in this world, and none but the wicked are in misery and distress; he asserted, on the contrary, that it is a common thing for the wicked to prosper and the righteous to be greatly afflicted. This is the one thing, the chief thing, wherein he and his friends differed; and they had not proved their assertion, therefore he abides by his: "I said it, and day it again, that all things come alike to all." Now,

1. It must be owned that there is very much truth in what Job here means, that temporal judgments, when they are sent abroad, fall both upon good and bad, and the destroying angel seldom distinguishes (though once he did) between the houses of Israelites and the houses of Egyptians. In the judgment of Sodom indeed, which is called the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7), far be it from God to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked (Gen. 18:25); but, in judgments merely temporal, the righteous have their share, and sometimes the greatest share. The sword devours one as well as another, Josiah as well as Ahab. Thus God destroys the perfect and the wicked, involves them both in the same common ruin; good and bad were sent together into Babylon, Jer. 24:5, 9. If the scourge slay suddenly, and sweep down all before it, God will be well pleased to see how the same scourge which is the perdition of the wicked is the trial of the innocent and of their faith, which will be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, 1 Pet. 1:7; Ps. 66:10.

Against the just th' Almighty's arrows fly,
For he delights the innocent to try,
To show their constant and their Godlike mind,
Not by afflictions broken, but refined. – Sir R. BLACKMORE.

Let this reconcile God's children to their troubles; they are but trials, designed for their honour and benefit, and, if God be pleased with them, let not them be displeased; if he laugh at the trial of the innocent, knowing how glorious the issue of it will be, at destruction and famine let them also laugh (ch. 5:22), and triumph over them, saying, O death! where is thy sting? On the other hand, the wicked are so far from being made the marks of God's judgments that the earth is given into their hand, v. 24 (they enjoy large possessions and great power, have what they will and do what they will), into the hand of the wicked one (in the original, the word is singular); the devil, that wicked one, is called the god of this world, and boasts that into his hands it is delivered, Luke 4:6. Or into the hand of a wicked man, meaning (as bishop Patrick and the Assembly's Annotations conjecture) some noted tyrant then living in those parts, whose great wickedness and great prosperity were well known both to Job and his friends. The wicked have the earth given them, but the righteous have heaven given them, and which is better – heaven without earth or earth without heaven? God, in his providence, advances wicked men, while he covers the faces of those who are fit to be judges, who are wise and good, and qualified for government, and buries them alive in obscurity, perhaps suffers them to be run down and condemned, and to have their faces covered as criminals by those wicked ones into whose hand the earth is given. We daily see that this is done; if it be not God that does it, where and who is he that does it? To whom can it be ascribed but to him that rules in the kingdoms of men, and gives them to whom he will? Dan. 4:32. Yet,

2. It must be owned that there is too much passion in what Job here says. The manner of expression is peevish. When he meant that God afflicts he ought not to have said, He destroys both the perfect and the wicked; when he meant that God pleases himself with the trial of the innocent he ought not to have said, He laughs at it, for he doth not afflict willingly. When the spirit is heated, either with dispute or with discontent, we have need to set a watch before the door of our lips, that we may observe a due decorum in speaking of divine things.

Job 9:25-35

²⁵ Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good. ²⁶ They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey. ²⁷ If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself: ²⁸ I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent. ²⁹ If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain? ³⁰ If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; ³¹ Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. ³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. ³³ Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. ³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me: ³⁵ Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

Job here grows more and more querulous, and does not conclude this chapter with such reverent expressions of God's wisdom and justice as he began with. Those that indulge a complaining humour know not to what indecencies, nay, to what impieties, it will hurry them. The beginning of that strife with God is as the letting forth of water; therefore leave it off before it be meddled with. When we are in trouble we are allowed to complain to God, as the Psalmist often, but must by no means complain of God, as Job here.

I. His complaint here of the passing away of the days of his prosperity is proper enough (v. 25, 26): "My days (that is, all my good days) are gone, never to return, gone of a sudden, gone ere I was aware. Never did any courier that went express" (like Cushi and Ahimaaz) "with good tidings make such haste as all my comforts did from me. Never did ship sail to its port, never did eagle fly upon its prey, with such incredible swiftness; nor does there remain any trace of my prosperity, any more than there does of an eagle in the air or a ship in the sea," Prov. 30:19. See here,

1. How swift the motion of time is. It is always upon the wing, hastening to its period; it stays for no man. What little need have we of pastimes, and what great need to redeem time, when time runs out, runs on so fast towards eternity, which comes as time goes!

2. How vain the enjoyments of time are, which we may be quite deprived of while yet time continues. Our day may be longer than the sun-shine of our prosperity; and, when that is gone, it is as if it had not been. The remembrance of having done our duty will be pleasing afterwards; so will not the remembrance of our having got a great deal of worldly wealth when it is all lost and gone. "They flee away, past recall; they see no good, and leave none behind them."

II. His complaint of his present uneasiness is excusable, v. 27, 28.

1. It should seem, he did his endeavour to quiet and compose himself as his friends advised him. That was the good he would do: he would fain forget his complaints and praise God, would leave off his heaviness and comfort himself, that he might be fit for converse both with God and man; but,

2. He found he could not do it: "I am afraid of all my sorrows. When I strive most against my trouble it prevails most over me and proves too hard for me!" It is easier, in such a case, to know what we should do than to do it, to know what temper we should be in than to get into that temper and keep in it. It is easy to preach patience to those that are in trouble, and to tell them they must forget their complaints and comfort themselves; but it is not so soon done as said. Fear and sorrow are tyrannizing things, not easily brought into the subjection they ought to be kept in to religion and right reason. But,

III. His complaint of God as implacable and inexorable was by no means to be excused. It was the language of his corruption. He knew better, and, at another time, would have been far from harbouring any such hard thoughts of God as now broke in upon his spirit and broke out in these passionate complaints. Good men do not always speak like themselves; but God, who considers their frame and the strength of their temptations, gives them leave afterwards to unsay what was amiss by repentance and will not lay it to their charge.

1. Job seems to speak here, (1.) As if he despaired of obtaining from God any relief or redress of his grievances, though he should produce ever so good proofs of his integrity: "I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent. My afflictions have continued so long upon me, and increased so fast, that I do not expect thou wilt ever clear up my innocency by delivering me out of them and restoring me to a prosperous condition. Right or wrong, I must be treated as a wicked man; my friends will continue to think so of me, and God will continue upon me the afflictions which give them occasion to think so. Why then do I labour in vain to clear myself and maintain my own integrity?" v. 29. It is to no purpose to speak in a cause that is already prejudged. With men it is often labour in vain for the most innocent to go about to clear themselves; they must be adjudged guilty, though the evidence be ever so plain for them. But it is not so in our dealings with God, who is the patron of oppressed innocency and to whom it was never in vain to commit a righteous cause. Nay, he not only despairs of relief, but expects that his endeavour to clear himself will render him yet more obnoxious (v. 30, 31): "If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my integrity ever so evident, it will be all to no purpose; judgment must go against me. Thou shalt plunge me in the ditch" (the pit of destruction, so some, or rather the filthy kennel, or sewer), "which will make me so offensive in the nostrils of all about me that my own clothes shall abhor me and I shall even loathe to touch myself." He saw his afflictions coming from God. Those were the things that blackened him in the eye of his friends; and, upon that score, he complained of them, and of the continuance of them, as the ruin, not only of his comfort, but of his reputation. Yet these words are capable of a good construction. If we be ever so industrious to justify ourselves before men, and to preserve our credit with them, – if we keep our hands ever so clean from the pollutions of gross sin, which fall under the eye of the world, – yet God, who knows our hearts, can charge us with so much secret sin as will for ever take off all our pretensions to purity and innocency, and make us see ourselves odious in the sight of the holy God. Paul, while a Pharisee, made his hands very clean; but when the commandment came and discovered to him his heart-sins, made him know lust, that plunged him in the ditch. (2.) As if he despaired to have a fair hearing with God, and that were hard indeed. [1.] He complains that he was not upon even terms with God (v. 32): "He is not a man, as I am. I could venture to dispute with a man like myself (the potsherds may strive with the potsherds of the earth), but he is infinitely above me, and therefore I dare not enter the lists with him; I shall certainly be cast if I contend with him." Note, First, God is not a man as we are. Of the greatest princes we may say, "They are men as we are," but not of the great God. His thoughts and ways are infinitely above ours, and we must not measure him by ourselves. Man is foolish and weak, frail and fickle, but God is not. We are depending dying creatures; he is the independent an immortal Creator. Secondly, The consideration of this should keep us very humble and very silent before God. Let us not make ourselves equal with God, but always eye him as infinitely above us. [2.] That there was no arbitrator or umpire to adjust the differences between him and God and to determine the controversy (v. 33): Neither is there any days-man between us. This complaint that there was not is in effect a wish that there were, and so the LXX. reads it: O that there were a mediator between us! Job would gladly refer the matter, but no creature was capable of being a referee, and therefore he must even refer it still to God himself and resolve to acquiesce in his judgment. Our Lord Jesus is the blessed days-man, who has mediated between heaven and earth, has laid his hand upon us both; to him the Father has committed all judgment, and we must. But this matter was not then brought to so clear a light as it is now by the gospel, which leaves no room for such a complaint as this. [3.] That the terrors of God, which set themselves in array against him, put him into such confusion that he knew not how to address God with the confidence with which he was formerly wont to approach him, v. 34, 35. "Besides the distance which I am kept at by his infinite transcendency, his present dealings with me are very discouraging: Let him take his rod away from me." He means not so much his outward afflictions as the load which lay upon his spirit from the apprehensions of God's wrath; that was his fear which terrified him. "Let that be removed; let me recover the sight of his mercy, and not be amazed with the sight of nothing but his terrors, and then I would speak and order my cause before him. But it is not so with me; the cloud is not at all dissipated; the wrath of God still fastens upon me, and preys on my spirits, as much as ever; and what to do I know not."

2. From all this let us take occasion, (1.) To stand in awe of God, and to fear the power of his wrath. If good men have been put into such consternation by it, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (2.) To pity those that are wounded in spirit, and pray earnestly for them, because in that condition they know not how to pray for themselves. (3.) Carefully to keep up good thoughts of God in our minds, for hard thoughts of him are the inlets of much mischief. (4.) To bless God that we are not in such a disconsolate condition as poor Job was here in, but that we walk in the light of the Lord; let us rejoice therein, but rejoice with trembling.