Then Job answered,
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Then Job answered,
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Then Job answered and said,
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 23:1 Then Job answered and said,
Job 23:1 Then Job answered and said,
Ver. 1. Then Job answered and said] viz. In defence of his own integrity, against Eliphaz’s calumnies in the foregoing chapter. To make apology to every one that shall traduce us, Plato holdeth to be both base and bootless, Pασιν απολογεισθαι θεραπευτικον (Plat.). But when such a weighty man as Eliphaz shall lay load upon so innocent a man as Job, Quis tulerit? something would be said in way of answer.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Job is confident that he has wrong done him…
Job is confident that he has wrong done him by his friends, and therefore, ill as he is, he will not give up the cause, nor let them have the last word. Here,
I. He justifies his own resentments of his trouble (Job 23:2): Even to day, I own, my complaint is bitter; for the affliction, the cause of the complaint, is so. There are wormwood and gall in the affliction and misery; my soul has them still in remembrance and is embittered by them, Lam 3:19, Lam 3:20. Even to day is my complaint counted rebellion (so some read it); his friends construed the innocent expressions of his grief into reflections upon God and his providence, and called them rebellion. "But," says he, "I do not complain more than there is cause; for my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Even today, after all you have said to convince and comfort me, still the pains of my body and the wounds of my spirit are such that I have reason enough for my complaints, if they were more bitter than they are." We wrong God if our groaning be heavier than our stroke, like froward children, who, when they cry for nothing, have justly something given them to cry for; but we do not wrong ourselves though our stroke be heavier than our groaning, for little said is soon amended.
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II. He appeals from the censures of his friends to the just judgment of God; and this he thought was an evidence for him that he was not a hypocrite, for then he durst not have made such an appeal as this. St Paul comforted himself in this, that he that judged him was the Lord, and therefore he valued not man's judgment (Co1 4:3, Co1 4:4), but he was willing to wait till the appointed day of decision came; whereas Job is impatient, and passionately wishes to have the judgment-day anticipated, and to have his cause tried quickly, as it were, by a special commission. The apostle found it necessary to press it much upon suffering Christians patiently to expect the Judge's coming, Jam 5:7-9.
1. He is so sure of the equity of God's tribunal that he longs to appear before it (Job 23:3): O that I knew where I might find him! This may properly express the pious breathings of a soul convinced that it has by sin lost God and is undone for ever if it recover not its interest in his favour. "O that I knew how I might recover his favour! How I might come into his covenant and communion with him!" Mic 6:6, Mic 6:7. It is the cry of a poor deserted soul. "Saw you him whom my soul loveth? O that I knew where I might find him! O that he who has laid open the way to himself would direct me into it and lead me in it!" But Job here seems to complain too boldly that his friends wronged him and he knew not which way to apply himself to God to have justice done him, else he would go even to his seat, to demand it. A patient waiting for death and judgment is our wisdom and duty, and, if we duly consider things, that cannot be without a holy fear and trembling; but a passionate wishing for death or judgment, without any such fear and trembling, is our sin and folly, and ill becomes us. Do we know what death and judgment are, and are we so very ready for them, that we need not time to get readier? Woe to those that thus, in a heat, desire the day of the Lord, Amo 5:18.
2. He is so sure of the goodness of his own cause that he longs to be opening it at God's bar (Job 23:4): "I would order my cause before him, and set it in a true light. I would produce the evidences of my sincerity in a proper method, and would fill my mouth with arguments to prove it." We may apply this to the duty of prayer, in which we have boldness to enter into the holiest and to come even to the footstool of the throne of grace. We have not only liberty of access, but liberty of speech. We have leave, (1.) To be particular in our requests, to order our cause before God, to speak the whole matter, to lay before him all our grievances, in what method we think most proper; we durst not be so free with earthly princes as a humble holy soul may be with God. (2.) To be importunate in our requests. We are allowed, not only to pray, but to plead, not only to ask, but to argue; nay, to fill our mouths with arguments, not to move God (he is perfectly apprized of the merits of the cause without our showing), but to move ourselves, to excite our fervency and encourage our faith in prayer.
3. He is so sure of a sentence in favour of him that he even longed to hear it (Job 23:5): "I would know the words which he would answer me," that is, "I would gladly hear what God will say to this matter in dispute between you and me, and will entirely acquiesce in his judgment." This becomes us, in all controversies; let the word of God determine them; let us know what he answers, and understand what he says. Job knew well enough what his friends would answer him; they would condemn him, and run him down. "But" (says he) "I would fain know what God would answer me; for I am sure his judgment is according to truth, which theirs is not. I cannot understand them; they talk so little to the purpose. But what he says I should understand and therefore be fully satisfied in."
III. He comforts himself with the hope that God would deal favourably with him in this matter, Job 23:6, Job 23:7. Note, It is of great use to us, in every thing wherein we have to do with God, to keep up good thoughts of him. He believes, 1. That God would not overpower him, that he would not deal with him either by absolute sovereignty or in strict justice, not with a high hand, nor with a strong hand: Will he plead against me with his great power? No. Job's friends pleaded against him with all the power they had; but will God do so? No; his power is all just and holy, whatever men's is. Against those that are obstinate in their unbelief and impenitency God will plead with his great power; their destruction will come from the glory of his power. But with his own people, that love him and trust in him, he will deal in tender compassion. 2. That, on the contrary, he would empower him to plead his own cause before God: "He would put strength in me, to support me and bear me up, in maintaining my integrity." Note, The same power that is engaged against proud sinners is engaged for humble saints, who prevail with God by strength derived from him, as Jacob did, Hos 12:3. See Psa 68:35. 3. That the issue would certainly be comfortable, Job 23:7. There, in the court of heaven, when the final sentence is to be given, the righteous might dispute with him and come off in his righteousness. Now, even the upright are often chastened of the Lord, and they cannot dispute against it; integrity itself is no fence either against calamity or calumny; but in that day they shall not be condemned with the world, though God may afflict by prerogative. Then you shall discern between the righteous and the wicked (Mal 3:18), so vast will be the difference between them in their everlasting state; whereas now we can scarcely distinguish them, so little is the difference between them as to their outward condition, for all things come alike to all. Then, when the final doom is given, "I shall be delivered for ever from my Judge," that is, "I shall be saved from the unjust censures of my friends and from that divine sentence which is now so much a terror to me." Those that are delivered up to God as their owner and ruler shall be for ever delivered from him as their judge and avenger; and there is no flying from his justice but by flying to his mercy.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Then Job answered and said. In reply to Eliphaz;…
Then Job answered and said. In reply to Eliphaz; for though he does not direct his discourse to him, nor take any notice of his friends; yet, as a proof of his innocence, against his and their accusations and charges, he desires no other than to have his cause laid before God himself, by whom he had no doubt he should be acquitted; and, contrary to their notions, he shows in this chapter, that he, a righteous man, was afflicted by God, according to his unchangeable decrees; and, in the next, that wicked men greatly prosper; so that what he herein says may be considered as a sufficient answer to Eliphaz and his friends; and after which no more is said to him by them, excepting a few words dropped by Bildad.
Then Job answered and said. In reply to Eliphaz; for though he does not direct his discourse to him, nor take any notice of his friends; yet, as a proof of his innocence, against his and their accusations and charges, he desires no other than to have his cause laid before God himself, by whom he had no doubt he should be acquitted; and, contrary to their notions, he shows in this chapter, that he, a righteous man, was afflicted by God, according to his unchangeable decrees; and, in the next, that wicked men greatly prosper; so that what he herein says may be considered as a sufficient answer to Eliphaz and his friends; and after which no more is said to him by them, excepting a few words dropped by Bildad.
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Job 23:2
job 23:2
job 23:2
job 23:2Even today is my complaint bitter,.... Job's afflictions were continued on him long; he was made to possess months of vanity; and, as he had been complaining ever since they were upon him, he still continued to complain to that day, "even" after all the comforts his friends pretended to administer to him, as Jarchi observes: his complaints were concerning his afflictions, and his friends' ill usage of him under them; not of injustice in God in afflicting him, though he thought he dealt severely with him; but of the greatness of his afflictions, they being intolerable, and his strength unequal to them, and therefore death was more eligible to him than life; and he complained of God's hiding his face from him, and not hearing him, nor showing him wherefore he contended with him, nor admitting an hearing of his cause before him: and this complaint of his was "bitter": the things he complained of were such, bitter afflictions, like the waters of Marah the Israelites could not drink of, Exo 15:23; there was a great deal of wormwood and gall in his affliction and misery; and it was in a bitter way, in the bitterness of his soul, he made his complaint; and, what made his case still worse, he could not utter any complaint, so much as a sigh or a groan, but it was reckoned "provocation", or "stubbornness and rebellion", by his friends; so some render the word (x), as Mr. Broughton does, "this day my sighing is holden a rebellion": there is indeed a great deal of rebellion oftentimes in the hearts, words and actions, conduct and behaviour, even of good men under afflictions, as were in the Israelites in the wilderness; and a difficult thing it is to complain without being guilty of it; though complaints may be without it, yet repinings and murmurings are always attended with it:
and my stroke is heavier than my groaning; or "my hand" (y), meaning either his own hand, which was heavy, and hung down, his spirits failing, his strength being exhausted, and so his hands weak, feeble, and remiss, that he could not hold them up through his afflictions, and his groanings under them, see Psa 102:5; or the hand of God upon him, his afflicting hand, which had touched him and pressed hard upon him, and lay heavy, and was heavier than his groanings showed; though he groaned much, he did not groan more, nor so much, as his afflictions called for; and therefore it was no wonder that his complaint was bitter, nor should it be reckoned rebellion and provocation; see Job 6:2.
(x) "exacerbatio", Montanus, Vatablus, Schmidt; "exasperatio", Mercerus, Drusius; "pertinacia", Bolducius; "contumacia habetur", Cocceius; "rebellionem haberi", Junius & Tremellius; "rebellio est", Piscator, Codurcus. (y) "manus mea", Montanus, Vatablus, Mercerus, Drusius, Michaelis.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Here seems to be a struggle throughout this chapter…
Here seems to be a struggle throughout this chapter between nature and grace, Job complains of his condition, yet with an assurance of God's clemency, ver. 1-7. He cannot understand God's dealings, nor hope for relief, yet holds fast his integrity, ver. 8-14. He is in deep trouble, ver. 15-17
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Job answers; apologizes for his complaining; wishes to plead
CHAPTER XXIII
Job answers; apologizes for his complaining; wishes to plead
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his cause in the presence of his Maker, from whom he knows he
should receive justice; but regrets that he cannot find him,
1-9.
He, however, gives himself and his cause up to God, with the
conviction of his own innocence, and God's justice and
goodness, 10-14.
He is, nevertheless, afraid when he considers the majesty of
his Maker, 15-17.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Job 23:1. Then Job answered — Job, being exceedingly…
Job 23:1. Then Job answered — Job, being exceedingly grieved by the freedom which Eliphaz had taken with him in his last speech, charging him directly with the most enormous sins, (see the 15th and following verses,) turns and appeals to God, according to his custom, and earnestly begs he would hear the matter fully, and determine between him and his friends. The passage from this to the end of the 10th verse is peculiarly fine, and well worthy of the reader’s deep attention. In it Job fully answers the charge of Eliphaz concerning his denial or disbelief of the Divine Providence; and observes, that this was so far from being the case, that there was nothing he so much lamented as that he was excluded from God’s presence, and not permitted to draw near and make his defence before him; having the testimony of his own conscience respecting his integrity, and not doubting but he should make his cause good. He then shows, that his cause was far from being singular, for that many other dispensations of God’s providence were equally difficult to be accounted for, at least by human understanding; and that it was this which filled him with greater apprehensions. He expresses his desire that God, in the course of his providence, would make a more visible distinction between the righteous and the wicked in this world, that good men might not fall into such mistakes in censuring suffering innocence. He concludes with showing what, according to their principles, ought to be the general course of providence with regard to wicked men, which, however, it was notorious was not the case: and since it was not, it was plain that he had proved his point, and the falsity of their maxim was apparent: and their censuring him merely for his sufferings was a behaviour by no means justifiable. — Heath.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain B.—Job: Seeing that God withdraws Himself from him, and…
B.—Job: Seeing that God withdraws Himself from him, and that moreover His allotment of men’s destinies on earth is in many ways most unequal, the incomprehensibleness of His ways may hence be inferred, as well as the short-sightedness and one-sidedness of the external theory of retribution held by the friends
Job 23-24
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1. The wish for a judicial decision of God in his favor is repeated, but is repressed by the thought that God intentionally withdraws from him, in order that He may not be obliged to vindicate him in this life
Job 23
1 Then Job answered, and said:
2 Even to-day is my complaint bitter:
my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
3 O that I knew where I might find Him!
that I might come even to His seat!
4 I would order my cause before Him,
and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would know the words which He would answer me,
and understand what He would say unto me.
6 Will He plead against me with His great power?
No; but He would put strength in me.
7 There the righteous might dispute with Him;
so should I be delivered forever from my judge.
8 Behold I go forward, but He is not there;
and backward, but I cannot perceive Him;
9 on the left hand where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him;
He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him.
10 But He knoweth the way that I take:
when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
11 My foot hath held His steps,
His way have I kept, and not declined.
12 Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips;
I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.
13 But He is in one mind, and who can turn Him?
and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth.
14 For He performeth the thing that is appointed for me:
and many such things are with Him.
15 Therefore am I troubled at His presence:
when I consider, I am afraid of Him.
16 For God maketh my heart soft,
and the Almighty troubleth me.
17 Because I was not cut off before the darkness,
neither hath He covered the darkness from my face.
2. The darkness and unsearchableness of God’s ways to be recognized in many other instances of an unequal distribution of earthly prosperity, as well as in Job’s case
Job 24
1 Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty,
do they that know Him not see His days?
2 Some remove the landmarks;
they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof.
3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless,
they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
4 They turn the needy out of the way;
the poor of the earth hide themselves together.
5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert,
go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey:
the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.
6 They reap every one his corn in the field:
and they gather the vintage of the wicked.
7 They cause the naked to lodge without clothing,
that they have no covering in the cold.
8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains,
and embrace the rock for want of a shelter.
9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast,
and take a pledge of the poor.
10 They cause him to go naked without clothing,
and they take away the sheaf from the hungry;
11 which make oil within their walls,
and tread their wine-presses, and suffer thirst.
12 Men groan from out of the city,
and the soul of the wounded crieth out:
yet God layeth not folly to them.
13 They are of those that rebel against the light;
they know not the ways thereof,
nor abide in the paths thereof.
14 The murderer rising with the light
killeth the poor and needy,
and in the night is as a thief.
15 The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight,
saying, No eye shall see me:
and disguiseth his face.
16 In the dark they dig through houses,
which they had marked for themselves in the daytime:
they know not the light.
17 For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death:
If one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death
18 He is swift as the waters;
their portion is cursed in the earth:
he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards.
19 Drought and heat consume the snow waters:
so doth the grave those which have sinned.
20 The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him;
he shall be no more remembered;
and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.
21 He evil entreateth the barren that beareth not:
and doeth not good to the widow.
22 He draweth also the mighty with his power:
he riseth up, and no man is sure of life.
23 Though it be given him to be in safety, whereon he resteth;
yet his eyes are upon their ways.
24 They are exalted for a little while, but are gone
and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all others,
and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.
25 And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar,
and make my speech nothing worth?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Instead of replying directly to the injurious accusations of Eliphaz in Job_22:6 sq.; Job here recurs first of all to the wish which he has already uttered several times (especially in chs. 9 and 13), that God Himself might manifest Himself as Umpire and as Witness of his innocence, and so end authoritatively the controversy which in each successive stage was becoming more and more involved. This wish is, however, immediately repressed by the thought that God purposely keeps Himself removed from him, in order to make him drink the cup of his sufferings to the dregs (Job 23). And in connection with the mournful fact that his state is so cheerless and so full of suffering, and furnishes living proof that God withholds the exercise of His retributive justice, he arrays forthwith (in the second and longer division of his discourse, Job 24), numerous facts of a similar character, which may be observed in the sphere of human life in general. In particular he sets forth many examples of the prosperity of the wicked, continuing to extreme old age, or even to the end of life. He dwells with evident satisfaction on his description of these examples, in order in this way to establish and illustrate most fully, the incomprehensibleness of the divine ways.—The whole discourse, apart from the two principal divisions, which coincide with the customary division by chapters, is divided into smaller strophes of four verses each (in one case of five) in accordance with the strophe-divisions of Ewald, as well as of Stickel and Delitzsch, which in the present case are entirely in harmony.
2. First Division. Repetition of the wish, heretofore uttered, that God might appear to rescue and to vindicate him, together with a self-suggested objection, and an expression of doubt whether the wish would be realized: Job 23.
First Strophe: Job_23:2-5. Even to-day my complaint is still bitter.—Both the authority of the Ancient Versions, such as the Targ., Pesh., Vulg. [E. V.], and also the comparison with former passages, such as Job_7:11; Job_10:1, favor the view that מְרִי signifies “bitterness,” and is thus synonymous with מַר, the possibility of which is shown by the cognate radical relation of the verbs מרה and מרר, which occasionally interchange forms; comp. Delitzsch on the passage. If we take the word however in its ordinary signification of “frowardness, perverseness,” we get a suitable meaning: “my complaint is still ever froward” (ever bids defiance, maintains its opposition), i.e., against such exhortations to penitence as those of Eliphaz (or in opposition to God, as Hahn, Olshausen, etc., explain). On the other hand we can make no use of the reading of the LXX.: ἔκ τῆς χειρὀς μου (מִיָּדִי), nor yet of Ewald’s conjecture derived from it—מִיָּדוֹ, “by reason of His hand is my complaint” [so Copt. and Merx].—My hand lies heavy on my groaning:i. e., I am driven to the continuous outbreak of my groaning, I must all the time force forth groans (not: my hand thrusts down my groaning, forces it back; Hirzel). Since this rendering yields a meaning that is entirely suitable, and suffers from no particular difficulty as to the language, it is unnecessary either with the Targ. [E. V.], to understand יָדִי of “the hand of God which strikes me” (the suffix ־ִיsensu obj.) or (with the LXX. and Pesh.) [Merx] to read יָדוֹ. (According to E. V., Ges., Ber., Noyes, Schlottm., Ren., Rod., עַל is comparative: “the hand upon me is heavier than my groaning,” which gives a suitable meaning, at least if we take מְרִי in the sense of bitterness. The objection to it is, however, as stated by Delitzsch, that “כברה יד על is an established phrase, and commonly used of the burden of the hand upon any one, Psa_32:4 (comp. Job_33:7; and the connection with אֶל, 1Sa_5:6, and שָׁם, 1Sa_5:11”).—E.]. It remains to be said that the clause defining the time, גַּם הַיּוֹם, “even today,” belongs to both halves of the verse, and for the same reason it expresses the more general sense, “even now, even always,” (comp. Job_3:24). The supposition that the colloquy had lasted several days, and that in particular the present third course of the same had begun one day later than the one preceding is scarcely admissible on the strength of their expression, which is certainly not to be pressed too far, (against Ewald, 2d Ed., and Dillmann).
Job_23:3. Oh that I but knew how to find Him.—The Perf. יָדַעְתִּי with the following Imperf. consec. (וְאֶמְצָאֵהוּ) expresses the principal notion contained in Job’s wish: utinam scirem (locum ejus), et invenirem eum = utinam possim invenire eum! Comp. the similar construction in Job_32:22; also Gesen., § 142, (§ 139), 3, c. The rendering of Dillmann: “Oh that I, having known (where He is to be found), might find Him,” (in accordance with Ewald, § 357 b) gives essentially the same sense.—תְּכוּנָה in the second member means by itself, a frame, stand, setting up;” here specifically, “seat, throne,” i.e., the judgment seat of God, as the sequel shows.
Job_23:4. In regard to עָרַךְ מִשְׁפָּט, causam instruere, comp. Job_13:18; in regard to תּוֹכָחוֹת (lit. “objections, reproofs”) in the specific sense of “legal arguments, grounds of justification,” see Psa_38:15 [14]; also above Job_13:3.
Second Strophe: Job_23:6-9. The doubt as to the possibility of such a protective interposition of God, begins again to appear. This (Job_23:6) takes first of all the form of a shrinking reflection on the crushing effect which God’s majesty and infinite fulness of power might easily exert upon him; a thought which has already emerged twice before (Job_9:34; Job_13:21), and which in this place Job, supported by the consciousness of his innocence, repudiates and tramples under foot. Would He in omnipotence then contend with me? Nay! He would only regard me: i. e., only give heed to me (יָשִׂים, scil.לֵב; comp. Job_4:20; here in union with בְּ to express the cleaving of the Divine regard to him, comp. פָּנָה בְּ, Job_6:28): only grant me a hearing, and as the result thereof acquit me. [אַךְ “nothing but;” intensive; the very thing that He would do, hence the thing that He would assuredly do]. To render the Imperfect verbs יָרִיּב and יָשִׂים as expressive of a wish: “shall He contend with me?” i. e., shall I wish, that He would contend with me? (Hirzel, Ew., Dillm., etc.), is altogether too artificial, and not at all required by the connection. [The E. V., Bar., Carey, supply “strength” (כֹּחַ) after ישׂם: God, so far from using His power to crush Job, would strengthen him to plead his cause. But the ellipsis of לֵב is already justified by Job_4:20, and the antithesis thus obtained between a and b is more direct and natural.—E.].
Job_23:7. Then (שָׁם as in Job_35:12; Psa_14:5; Psa_66:6, and often in a temporal sense; then, when such a judicial interposition of God should take place) would a righteous man plead (lit., “be pleading,” נוֹכָח, partic.) with Him:—i. e., it would be shown that it is a righteous man who pleads with him; and I should forever escape my Judge; i. e., by virtue of this my uprightness. פַּלֵּט is, like מַלֵּט Job_20:20, intensive of Kal.
Job_23:8-9. The joyful prospect is suddenly swept away by the thought that God is nowhere, in no quarter of the world to be found.—Yet (הֵן, “yet behold,” in an adversative sense, as in Job_21:16) if I go eastward, He is not there, etc.קֶדֶם (“toward the front, = toward the east”) and אָחוֹר (toward the rear, = toward the west,” comp. Job_18:20), refer to the eastern and western quarters of the heavens, even as the following “left” and “right” refer to the northern and southern.—If He works northward, I behold (Him) not; if He turns southward I see it not. שְׂמֹאול, “toward the left” is an adverbial local clause, qualifying בַּעֲשׂתוֹ, as also יָמִין qualifying יַעֲטֹף. The former verb expresses its customary meaning: “to work, to be active, efficient,” which suits here very well (comp. Job_28:26), so that every different rendering, as e. g., taking = עָשָׂה עָשָׂה דֶּרֶךְ, “to take His way” (Blumenfeld), or = “to hide Himself” (Umbreit), or = עָטָה “to incline Himself, to turn Himself” (Ewald), seems uncalled for. On the other hand the common signification of עטף—“to veil Himself,” is less suitable in b [so E. V., Lee, Con., Ber., Rod. Elz,, etc.], than the signification “bending, turning aside” adopted by Saadia, Schultens, Ewald Delitzsch, etc., after the Arabic. If this latter definition deserves here the preference, there is he less probability that the passage contains any reference to the חַדְרֵי תֵמָן, (“the chambers of the South,” Job_9:9), or, generally speaking, to any celestial abode of God as set forth in heathen theologies or cosmogonies. Rather does he poet conceive of God as omnipresent, as much so as the poet of the 139th Psalm, in his similar description (Job_23:8-10). [Gesenius and Carey translate b: “He veileth the South, etc.,” but less appropriately, the construction of יָמִין being evidently the same with שְׂמֹאול, which is unquestionably adverbial.—E.]
Third Strophe: Job_23:10-13. The reason why God withdraws Himself: although He knows Job’s innocence, He nevertheless will not abandon His purpose, once formed, not to allow Himself to be found by Him. [“He conceals Himself from him, lest He should be compelled to acknowledge the right of the sufferer, and to withdraw His chastening hand from him.” Delitz.]
Job_23:10. For He knows well my accustomed, way.—דֶּרֶךְ עִמָּדִי, lit. “the way with me,” i. e., the way which adheres to me, which is steadfastly pursued by me (comp. Psa_139:24; Ew., § 287 c), or: “the way of which I am conscious” [“which his conscience (συνείδησις) approves (συμμαρτυρεῖ)”], as Delitzsch explains, referring to Job_9:35; Job_15:9.—If He should prove me (בְּחָנַנִי, an elliptical conditional clause; comp. Ewald, § 357, b), I should come forth as gold, i. e., out of His crucible; a very strong and bold declaration of his consciousness of innocence, for which Job must hereafter (Job_42:6) implore pardon.
Job_23:11. My foot hath held firm to His step (אחז, as elsewhere תָּמַךְ, Psa_17:5; Pro_5:5) [“The Oriental foot has a power of grasp and tenacity, because not shackled with shoes from early childhood, of which we can form but little idea.” Carey]: His way I have kept, and turned not aside. אָֽט, Jussive Hiph. from נטה, in the intransitive sense of deflectere, as in Psa_125:5; Isa_30:11.
Job_23:12. The commandment of His lips—I have not departed from it.—הֵמִישׁ, intransitive, like הִטָּה in the verse preceding. In regard to the construction (antecedent placing of a nominative absolute) comp. Job_4:6. More than my (own) law I have observed the saying of His mouth; have accordingly set them for above all that I have, of my own will, desired or prescribed for myself. [Bernard explains the preposition מ here to mean: “by reason of my rule,” i. e., by reason of my having made it a rule. This however obscures the striking contrast between חֻקִּי and אִמְרֵי־פִיו—E.]. With חֻקּי we may compare the “law in the members” warring against the Divine law, Rom_7:23. [E. V. takes חֻקִּי, as in Gen_47:22; Pro_30:8, in the sense of one’s “allowance of food;” Ewald also translates by “Gebühr” (“that which as a distinguished rich man I have the right to require in my relations to other men, and my claims upon them”). The consideration of Job’s greatness and power should be borne in mind with the rendering “law.” The “law” which Job had ever held subordinate to the Divine precepts was the will of a prince.—E.]. צָפַן “to lay up, preserve,” is here substantially equivalent with שָׁמַר, comp. Psa_119:11; in view of which parallel passage it is not necessary with the LXX. instead of מֵהֻקִּי to read בְּחֵיקִי, ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ μον ἔκρυψα ῥήματα αὐτοῦ.
Job_23:13. Nevertheless He remaineth (ever) the same, and who will turn Him׃ viz., from His purpose; comp. Job_9:12; Job_11:10. וְהוּא בְּאֶחָד, not: “He remaineth by one thing” (Hirzel, Del.) [Lee, Noyes, Carey], for this would have been expressed by the neuter form בְּאַחַת (comp. Job_9:22); but the בְּ is בessentiæ (Gesen. § 154 [§ 151] 3, a), and the thought expressed is that of the unchangeableness, the constancy of God (not the oneness, or the absolute superiority of God, as the Vulg., Targ., Starke, who refers to Gal_3:20, Schultens, Ewald, Schlottmann, [Ges., Ber., Rod., Elz.] explain, but against the context. With b compare the well-known expression: “He spake, and it was done, etc.,” Psa_33:9. [The unchangeable purpose of God of which Job here speaks is evidently the purpose to inflict suffering on him, a purpose to which He inflexibly adheres, notwithstanding He knows Job’s integrity, and finds through His crucible that the sufferer is pure gold.—E.].
Fourth Strophe: Job_23:14-17. Truly (כִּי as in Job_22:26), He will accomplish my destiny. חֻקִּי with suffix of the object, means here that which has been decreed, ordained concerning me. And much of a like kind is with Him—i. e., “has been determined by Him, lies in His purpose,” (comp. Job_9:35; Job_10:13; Job_15:9). The “much of that kind” spoken of refers not specifically to Job’s sufferings (Umbreit, Delitzsch, etc.), as rather to all that is analogous thereto, to all decrees of a like character regarding men in general.
Job_23:15. Therefore do I tremble (lit. “I am terrified, troubled”) before His face; if I consider it, I am afraid before Him. אֶתְבּוֹנֵן is an elliptical hypothetical antecedent, as is the case in Job_23:10 b. We are to supply as the object to be considered the unfathomable decree of God, by virtue of which he must suffer.
Job_23:16. And God hath made my heart faint [lit. “soft”] (הֵרַךְ Hiph. from רַךְ, Deu_20:3, etc.), and the Almighty has confounded me. The emphasis rests in the subjects אֵל and שַׁדַּי which are purposely placed first in both members. It is God Himself, who by His incomprehensibly harsh and stern treatment has plunged him in anguish and terror; his suffering considered in itself by no means exerts such a crushing influence upon him (see the vers. following).
Job_23:17. For I am not dumb before the darkness, nor yet before myself whom thick darkness has covered—i. e., the darkness of my calamity (comp. Job_22:11), and my own face and form darkened and disfigured by my sufferings (comp. Job_19:13 seq.) are not able to strike me dumb (with horror); only the thought of God can do this, who with His incomprehensible decree stands behind this my suffering! Observe the significant contrast between the מִפְּנֵי־חשֶׁךְ of this ver. and the מִפָּנָיו of Job_23:15 a; as well as moreover the antithetic relation, which obtains between this passage and the statement of Eliphaz in Job_22:11 that Job seemed not to mark at all the terrible darkness of his misery. Either of these retrospective references of the passage is lost sight of if, with most of the ancients (LXX., Vulg., Luth.] [E. V. Ges., Scott, Noyes, Ber., Ren., Rod., Elz.] we render: “because I was not cut off (נִצְמַתdeleri, perire, as in Job_6:17) before the darkness came, and He has not covered the darkness from my face” [i. e., has not covered me in the grave, so that I might never have faced this suffering]. The signification: “to become dumb, to be brought to silence,” is the only one that is suitable here; we should then have to think (with Delitzsch, etc.) of an inward destruction by terror and confusion.
3. Second Division: Job 24. An extended description of the many incomprehensible things in what God does as ruler of the universe, beginning with the many instances in which He permits the innocent and defenceless to be oppressed and persecuted by their powerful enemies: Job_24:1-12.
Fifth Strophe: Job_24:1-4. Why are times not reserved by the Almighty?—i. e. times of reckoning with good and evil; judicial terms, at which He displays His retributive justice. In. regard to the use of צפן, “reserving” [storing up] in the sense of “appointing, fixing, comp. Job_15:20; Job_21:19. The question is of course so intended as to require no answer, or a negative one. So also in the second member: and do His friends (lit. “His knowers” [acquaintances], they who are His, who know Him, and He them, comp. Job_18:21; Psa_36:11 [10]) not see His days?—The “days” of God here are His judgment days, the days in which He reveals Himself in judicial rigor against his enemies, and in beneficent mercy toward His holy ones (comp. Eze_30:3, also the expression, the “days of the Son of Man” in Luk_17:22). This verse also seems to contain a retrospective reference to the last discourse of Eliphaz, especially to Job_22:19; by the ancients, moreover, who were troubled more; particularly about the עִתִּים, “terms, judicial periods,” it was variously misunderstood, and erroneously translated. [The construction adopted by E. V., Con., etc.: “Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know Him not. see His days?” is a less natural and simple rendering of the original than, that given above. Conant objects that “this, question is not pertinent here. The point of inquiry is not, why are such times of retribution not appointed by God; but why, if they are appointed by Him, as alleged, do not good men witness them?” Job however does deny, by implication, that there is any retribution, or time reserved for it, with the Almighty. The phenomena of human life, he argues, indicate that God cares not how men sin, or suffer. The second member of the verse puts the thought of the first in a still more striking light. The indications of retributive justice in the administration of the world, are such that not even God’s familiars, who are in His secret, can discern the days whereon they occur.—E.].
Job_24:2. Landmarks they remove [or, are removed; vb. impersonal] flocks, they plunder, and feed. From this point on begins the specific description of the many deeds of violence, oppression and persecution permitted by God. The vers. immediately following (3, 4) describe the wicked agents who commit such deeds, Job_24:5-8 the wretched ones who suffer from them, and thence on interchangeably, now the persecutors and now the persecuted, the verbs used being put in the 3d person plural Perfect. In respect to the wickedness of removing landmarks, (יַסִּיגוּ = יַשִּׂגוּ, from סוּג) comp. Deu_19:14; Deu_27:17; Pro_22:28; Pro_23:10. In regard to the plundering and carrying off of herds, comp. Job_20:19. [“They steal flocks, וַיִּרְעוּi. e., they are so bare-faced, that after they have stolen them, they pasture them openly.” Delitzsch].
Job_24:3. נָהַג, “to drive away,” as in Isa_20:4; חָבַל, “to distrain, to take as a pledge” as in Exo_22:25; Deu_24:6; comp. below Job_24:9 (whereas on the other hand in Job_22:6 the word is used in a somewhat different sense). [The ass of the orphan, and the yoke-ox of the widow are here referred to as the most valuable possession, and principal dependence of those unfortunate ones.—E.].
Job_24:4. The poor they thrust oat of the way—i. e., out of the way, in which they have the right to walk, into roadless regions (comp. הִטָּה in a similar sense in Amo_5:12). All together (יַחַד as in Job_3:18) the wretched of the land must hide themselves.—So according to the K’ri: עֲנִיֶּי־אֶרֶץ;, while the K’thibh עַנְויֵ־א׳ would, according to Psa_76:10; Zep_2:3 designate the “afflicted,” the “sufferers” of the land, which seems less suitable here. The Pass. חֻבְּאוּ denotes what these unfortunate ones are compelled to do; comp. Job_30:7.
Sixth Strophe; Job_24:5-8. Description of the miserable condition into which the oppressed and persecuted are brought by those wicked ones (not of another class of evil-doers apart from those previously spoken of, as ancient exegesis for the most part assumed, and as latterly Rosenm., Umbr., Vaih. [Lee, Barnes, Carey, Scott, etc.] explain). As is evident from the more extended description in Job_30:1-8 of the unsettled, vagabond life of such unfortunates, the poet has here before his eyes the aborigines of the lands east of the Jordan, who were driven from their homes into the desert, possibly the remnant of the ancient Horites [cave-dwellers]; comp. what is said more in detail below on Job 30. Behold, wild asses in the wilderness (i. e. as wild asses; comp. Job_6:5; Job_11:12; Job_39:5 seq.), they go forth in their daily work (lit. “work;” comp. Psa_104:23), seeking after prey (טֶרֶף, booty, prey, a living, as in Pro_31:15) [“from טָרַף in the primary signification decerpere describes that which in general forms their daily occupation as they roam about. …The idea of waylaying is not to be connected with the expression.” Del.]; the steppe [עֲרָנָה, the wide, open, desert plain] is to them (lit. “to him,” viz., to each one of them), [or “to him as father of the company,” Del., or possibly the sing. לוֹ is used to avoid the concurrence of לָהֶם with לֶחֶם immediately following: Hirzel] bread for their children—(נְעָרִים as in Job_1:19; Job_29:5) [“the steppe, with its scant supply of roots and herbs, is to him food for the children; ho snatches it from it, it must furnish it to him” (Del.) thus accounting for the use of טֶרֶף]. A striking description of the beggar, vagabond life of these troglodytes, the precursors of the gipsies, or South-African Bushmen of to-day. [Of the פְּרָאִים, onagri (Kulans), with which these are compared, Delitzsch says: “Those beautiful animals, which, while young, are difficult to be caught; which in their love of freedom are an image of the Beduin, Gen_16:12; in their untractableness an image of that which cannot be bound, Job_11:12; and from their roaming about in herds in waste regions, are here an image of a gregarious vagrant, and freebooter kind of life.” Del.]
Job_24:6. In the field they reap (so according to the K’ri יִקְצוֹרוּ the K’thibh יַקְצִירוּ would be rendered by some such expression as “they make for a harvest”) the cattle-fodder [בְּלִילֹו, as in Job_6:5, mixed fodder for the cattle, farrago]; lit. “his cattle-fodder, i. e. that of the רָשָׁע mentioned in b. [Most explain this to mean that these miserable hirelings seek to satisfy their hunger with the fodder grown the cattle. Delitzsch on the ground that “קָצַר does not signify to sweep together, but to reap in an orderly manner; and if they meant to steal why did they not seize the better portion of the produce?” supposes that the “rich evildoer hires them to cut the fodder for his cattle, but does not like to entrust the reaping of the better kinds of corn to them.” This view, however, seems less natural than the former, and less in harmony with the parallelism. See below on b.—E.]. And they glean the vineyard of the wicked. לקשׁserotinos fructus colligere (Rosenm.), to glean the late-ripe fruit, i. e. stealing it. The meaning can scarcely be that this was done in the service of the rich evil-doer, in which case the verb עוֹלֵלracemari would rather have been used (against Delitzsch).
Job_24:7. Naked (ערום, adverbial accusative, as in Job_24:10; comp. שׂוֹלָל, Job_12:17; Job_12:19) they pass the night without clothing, מִבְּלִי lit. “from the lack of,” comp. Job_24:8 b. and Job_24:10.
Job_24:8. …And shelterless (from lack of shelter) they clasp the rock.—חִבְּקוּ, they “embrace” the rock, in that shivering they crouch beneath it as their shelter. Comp. the phrase, “embracing the dunghill” (mezabil), Lam_4:5.
Seventh Strophe: Job_24:9-12. Resuming the description of the tyrannical conduct of those men of power described in Job_24:2-4. They tear the orphan from the breast.—שֹׁד here the same as שַׂד, as also in Isa_60:16; Isa_66:11. Correctly therefore the LXX.: ἀπὸ μαστοῦ—whereas to render שֹׁד in its customary signification of “destruction, ruin” (as e. g. by Ramban, etc.) [=“from the shattered patrimony”], yields no satisfactory meaning. The act of tearing away from the breast is conceived of as the violent deed of harsh creditors, who would satisfy their claims by bringing up the orphan children as slaves. And what the miserable one has on they take away as a pledge.—A tenable meaning, and one that will agree well with Job_24:10 is obtained only by regarding וְעַל as an elliptical expression for וַאֲשֶׂר עַל “and what is on the miserable one,” i. e. What he wears, his clothing (Ralbag, Gesen., Arnh., Vaih., Dillmann) [Rod., Bernard, Noyes]. With the thought may then be compared Mic_2:9; in respect to חבל see above on Job_24:3. The other explanations which have been given are less suited to the connection, if not absolutely impossible, such as: “they take a pledge above [beyond the ability of] the sufferer” (Hirzel); “they take for a pledge the suckling (וְעֻל of the poor”) (Kamphausen) [Elzas]; “with the poor they deal basely,” or “knavishly” (Umbr., Del.), which latter rendering however would make it seem strange that the verb חבל has only a short while before been used twice (Job_24:3, and Job_22:6) in the sense of distraining. [To which add Dillmann’s objection that this interpretation seems “colorless,” out of place in the series of graphic, concrete touches of which the description is composed. It may also be said of the explanation of E. V. Ewald, Schlott., Renan, Conant, etc., “they impose a pledge on the sufferers,” that it is less vivid than that adopted above. It must be admitted on the other hand that the assumption that =על אשׁר על is somewhat doubtful.—E.].
Job_24:10-12 again bring into the foreground as subject those who are maltreated by the proud oppressors. These are however no longer represented as the wretched inhabitants of steppes or caves, but as poor serfs on the estates of the rich, and are thus represented as being in inhabited cities and their vicinity. Naked they (the poor) slink about, without clothing.—Comp. Job_24:7, and in respect to הִלֵּךְ, “to slink,” see Job_30:28. And hungry they bear the sheaves—i. e. for the rich, whose hired service they perform, who however allow them to go hungry in their service, and thus become guilty of the crying sin of the merces retenta laborum (Deu_25:4; 1Ti_5:18, etc.). [The English translators, misled probably by the Piel, הִלֵּכוּ, which they took to be transitive, have made the “oppressors” of the vers. preceding the subject of Job_24:10. הִלֵּךְ however is always “to walk about, to go to and fro” (so also in Pro_8:20). Taking it in this sense here, the subject is naturally “the poor;” and נשׂא in the second member is simply “to bear, not “to take away from.”—E.]
Job_24:11. Between their walls (hence under their strict supervision) they must press out the oil (יַצְהִירוּ, Hiph. denom., only here); they tread the wine-vats, and suffer thirst (while so engaged—Imperf. consec. comp. Ewald, § 342, a). A further violation of the law that the mouth of the ox must not be muzzled.
Job_24:12. Out of the cities the dying groan.—So according to the reading מֵתִים (Pesh., 1 Ms. of de Rossi’s, and some of the older editions), which word indeed elsewhere means “the dead,” but which here, as the parallel of the following חֲלָלִים (“wounded, pierced to death,” comp. Eze_26:15; Jer_51:22) may very well be taken to mean the dying, those who utter the groaning and rattling of the death struggle [see Green, § 266, 2, a]. So correctly Umbreit, Ew., Hirz., Vaih., Stick., Heiligst., Dillmann [Schlott., Renan, Noyes. Others (Carey, Elzas, etc.) in the weaker sense: “mortals.”] The usual reading מְתִים, “men,” yields a suitable rendering only by disregarding the masoretic accentuation, and connecting this מְתִים as subj. with יִנְאָקוּ (so Jer., Symmachus, Theod.). In that case, however, it should be translated not by the colorless and indefinite term “people” [Leute] (Hahn, etc.) but by “men [Männen, viri], warriors,” and understood (with Del.) of the male population of a city, “whom a conqueror would put to the sword.” This however would remove the discourse too far out of the circle of thought in which it has hitherto removed. [According to the Masor. punctuations מֵעִ֣יר מְתִים would be “out of an inhabited, thickly populated city,” a thought which has no place in the connection. Gesenius, followed by Conant, takes עיר (II Lex.) in the sense of “anguish:” “for anguish do the dying groan.” But the second member: “and the soul of the wounded cries out,” brings up before us a scene of blood, involving the slaying of a multitude, for which we should have been unprepared without the mention of the “city” in the first member.—E.]. Yet God regards not the folly!—תִּפְלָה, lit. [“insipidity], absurdity, insulsitas (Job_1:22), a contemptuous expression which seems very suitable here, serving as it does to describe tersely the violence of the wicked, mocking at the moral order of the universe, and still remaining unpunished. The punctuation תְּפִלָּה, “prayer, supplication” (Pesh., some MSS.) [Con., Noyes, Good, Elzas], may also be properly passed by without consideration. In regard to the absolute use of לֹא־יָשִׂים (supply בְּלִכּוֹ, comp. Job_22:22), “he regards not,” see Job_4:20; Isa_41:20; and especially Psa_50:23, where, precisely as here, the expression is construed with the accus. of the object. [The rendering of E. V.: “yet God layeth (=imputeth) not folly to them,” is not essentially different, but is less expressive. Oppression ravages the earth; in the wilderness, among rocks and caves, in fields and vineyards, in villages and cities, men suffer, groan, die—and all this chaotic folly, this dark anomaly, this mockery of the Divine order—God heeds it not!—E.]
4. Second Division: Second Half: Job_24:13-25. Continuation of the preceding description, in which special prominence is given to those evildoers who commit their crimes in secret, and escape for a long time the divine punishment, which surely awaits them.
Eighth Strophe: Job_24:13-17. Those (הֵמָּה, emphatically contrasting the present objects of the description, as a new class of evil-doers, with those previously mentioned) are rebels against the light, or: “are become rebels,” etc.; for so may the clause הָיוּ בְּ with בessential, comp. Job_23:13) be taken, unless we prefer to explain: “are become among apostates from the light,” i. e. have acquired the nature of such (Del., Dillm.) [in either case היה is not the mere copula, but expresses a process of becoming]. מרְֹדֵי־אוֹר, “apostates, revolters from the light, enemies of the light,” are essentially the same, as “children of the night” (Rom_13:12; 1Th_5:5; Eph_5:8, etc.—Will not know its ways; i. e. the ways of the light, for it is more natural to refer the suffix in דְרָכָיו, as well as in נְתִיבוֹתָיו to אוֹר than to “God.”
Job_24:14. At the dawn (לָאוֹר, sub lucem, cum diluculo, toward the break of day, before it is yet broad daylight) the murderer riseth up. רוֹצֵחַ, one who makes a trade of murder, who kills to steal, like the English garotter; for the wealthy oppressor is no longer (down to Job_24:18) the subject of the discourse.—[He slays the poor and needy: because of their defenceless condition; not of course for plunder, but to gratify his bloodthirsty disposition.]—And in the night he acts like a thief, or: “he becomes as the thief,” i. e. in the depths of night, when there is no one to cross his path, he plies the trade of a petty, common thief, committing burglary, etc. for the Jussive יְהִי instead of יִהְיֶה, comp. above Job_18:12; Job_20:23, etc. [poetic form]; and for אָחַז, instead of אֶחֱזֶה, Job_23:9.
Job_24:15. And the adulterer’s eye watches (שָׁמַר, observare, to be on the watch for, to lurk for) the twilight, i. e. the evening twilight, before the approach of which he does not ply his craft; comp. Pro_7:9. נֶשֶׁף here crepusculum; see above on Job_3:9—And puts a veil over the face: lit. “and lays on a covering of the face,” i. e., some kind of a veil;—hardly a mask, of which oriental antiquity had no knowledge; comp. Delitzsch on the passage.
Job_24:16. They break in the dark into houses; lit. “he,” or “one breaks in;” the indefinite subj. of חתר, is, as the plurals in the following members show, an entire band of thieves.—They, who by day keep themselves shut up, know not the light, i. e. they have no fellowship with it, as children of night and of darkness. The rendering of the Targ. and of some of the Rabbis (approximately also of the Vulg.) [also of E. V.]: “which houses) they had marked for themselves in the daytime,” is opposed by the fact that חתם signifies always obsignare, never designare; comp. Job_14:17; Job_37:7.
Job_24:17. For to them all deep darkness is morning; i. e. when the deepest darkness of the night (צלמות, comp. Job_3:5) begins, then they enter upon their day’s work [the drawing on of the night is to them what day-break is to others]—a striking characteristic of the ἔργα τοῦ σκότους, in which these evil-doers engage. Umbreit and Hirzel [and so E. V. Ber., Con.] unsuitably take not צלמות, but בקר as subject: “the morning is to them at once deep darkness.” Against this explanation it may be urged that יַחְדָּו means not “at once,” but as in Job_2:11; Job_9:32, etc., “all together, all in a body.”—Because they know the terrors of deep darkness; i. e. are familiar with them, as other men are with the open day; comp. Job_24:16 e; Job_38:16. The sing, again makes its appearance here [כִּי יַכִּיר, lit. “for he (or one) knows,” etc.], because stress is laid on the fact that every member of this wicked band has this familiarity with the darkness of night. [According to the rendering of E. V., Hirzel, etc., here rejected, the meaning would be that morning or daylight would bring terror to these evil-doers, the fear i. e. of being detected and condemned. In the second member כִּי יַכִּיר would then be antecedent, either general: “when one can discern” (Con.), or particular: “if one know them” (E. V.) and בַּלְחוֹת צַלְמָוֶת, the consequent—“terrors of death-shade!” The other rendering, however, has on the whole the advantage of greater simplicity, and agreement with usage and the context.—E.]
Ninth Strophe: Job_24:18-21. The judgment which will overtake the wicked who have been thus far described. This judgment Job describes here proleptically, for in Job_24:22-24 a he returns once again to their haughty, insolent conduct before the judgment comes, in order to bring out the thought that a long time usually elapses before it overtakes them. This strophe sets forth, in the first place, and this intentionally in strong language, which in the mouth of Job is quite surprising, that a grievous punishment and certain destruction infallibly awaits them; but that such destruction, for the most part, is long delayed, is maintained in the following strophe, which, however, in Job_24:24 again resumes the description of the destruction. The language does not permit us with the LXX., Vulg., Pesh., Eichh., Dathe, Umbr., Vaih, etc., to take these verses in an optative sense, as a description of the punishment, which ought to befal evil-doers: thus at the outset in Job_24:18 we have קַל הוּא, not יְהִי קַל הוּא; and so throughout every sign of the optative form of speech is wanting. It is possible, but the same is not indicated with sufficient clearness by the author, and for that reason is altogether too artificial, to take vers 18–21 (with Ewald, Hirzel, Schlottm., v. Gerlach, Heiligstedt, Dillmann) as a description of the well-merited judgment inflicted on the wicked, ironically attributed by Job to his opponents, Job’s own opinion on the opposite side being in that case annexed to it in Job_24:22 seq. See against this opinion, as well as against the related opinion of Stickel, Böttcher, Hahn, etc., the remarks of Delitzsch [Job 2:33: “(1) There is not the slightest trace observable in Job_24:18-21 that Job does not express his own view. (2) There is no such decided contrast between Job_24:18-21 and Job_24:22-25, for Job_24:19 and Job_24:24 both affirm substantially the same thing concerning the end of the evil-doer. In like manner it is not to be supposed with Stickel, Löw., Böttch., Welte and Hahn, that Job, outstripping the friends, as far as Job_24:21, describes how the evil-doer certainly often comes to a terrible end, and in Job_24:22 seq., how the very opposite of this, however, is often witnessed; so that this consequently furnishes no evidence in support of the exclusive assertion of the friends. Moreover, Job_24:24 compared with Job_24:19, where there is nothing to indicate a direct contrast, is opposed to it; and Job_24:22, which has no appearance of referring to a direct contrast with what has been previously said, is opposed to such an antithetical rendering of the two final strophes.”]
Job_24:18. His course is swift on the face of the waters: i. e. lightly and swiftly is he born hence, as one who is swept away irresistibly by the flood; comp. Job_9:26; Hos_10:7. [Carey curiously conjectures that this ver. speaks of pirates!]—Accursed is their portion in the land; or: “a curse befals,” etc. (Dillm.). [In German: Im Fluge ist er dahin auf Wassers Fläche; verflucht wird ihr Grundstück im Lande; or according to Dillmann: Flucht trifft, etc., whereby, continues Zöckler, the paronomasia between תְּקֻלַּל and קַל is still more clearly expressed. This paronomasia it is impossible to reproduce in English without slightly paraphrasing the one term or the other. The above attempts to combine the verbal play with fidelity to the German original: “his course is swift” for “im Fluge dahin,” and “accursed” for “verflucht.”] Whether a divine curse, or a curse on the part of men, is intended, seems doubtful: still parallel passages, such as Job_5:3; Job_18:20, favor the latter view. The interchange of plur. and sing. occurs here as in Job_24:16.—He enters no more on the way of the Vineyard; lit. “he turns no more into the way to the vineyard” (comp. 1Sa_13:18); i. e. there is an end of his frequent resorting to his favorite possession, and in general of his enjoyment of the same. Observe that from here on wealthy evil-doers again form the prominent subject of the description; in this differing from Job_24:13-17.
Job_24:19. Drought and heat carry off [יִגְזְלוּ lit. “bear away as plunder”] the snow-water (comp. Job_6:16 seq.): so the underworld those who have sinned.—חָטָאִוּ, a relative clause, which is at the same time the object of the verb in the first member, which extends its influence also to the second member. As to the sentiment, comp. Psa_49:13 [12] 21 [20]; also Job_24:18 a; not however Job_21:23, where rather the euthanasia [of the subject] is described, not his sudden end without deliverance.
Job_24:20. The womb forgets him, (whereas) the worms feed sweetly on him.—The two short sentences which constitute this member stand in blunt contrast to each other. מתק here sensu activo: to taste anything with pleasure, delectari aliquare (lit. “to suck”—hence the meaning “sweet”). So then is iniquity broken like the tree—(i. e. like a shattered, or felled tree; comp. Ecc_11:3; Dan_4:7 seq.; also above Job_19:10). Instead of the wicked man his injurious conduct (עַוְלָה, comp. on Job_5:16) is here mentioned as having come to an end, while Job_24:21 again speaks in the concrete concerning the evil-doer himself, in order to point to his heinous bloodguiltiness as the cause of his punishment. [“The fundamental thought of the strophe is this, that neither in life nor in death had he suffered the punishment of his evil-doing. The figure of the broken tree (broken in its full vigor) also corresponds to this thought; comp. on the other hand what Bildad says, Job_18:16 : “his roots dry up beneath, and above his branch is lopped off” (or: withered). The severity of his oppression is not manifest till after his death.” Delitzsch].
Job_24:21. He who hath plundered (lit. “fed upon, devoured,” comp. Job_20:26) the barren, that beareth not (who has therefore no children to protect her), and hath done no good to the widow—but on the contrary has shown himself hard of heart towards her. On the form יְיֵטִיב comp. Gesen. § 70 [§ 69], 2, Rem. [Green, § 150, 2] [The Participial form רֹעֶה introducing the characteristics of the class, and followed by finite verb according to Gesen. § 131, Rem. 2].
Tenth Strophe: Job_24:22-25. And yet He preserveth long the men of might by His strength—i. e., but truly (וְ before משך is at once adversative and restrictive). He (God, comp. Job_24:23) often greatly prolongs the life of such mighty evil-doers (אַבִּירִים, comp. Isa_46:12) [“the strong, who bid defiance not only to every danger, (Psa_76:6) but also to all divine influences and noble impulses.” Delitzsch]. On משךְ as applied to the agency of God in prolonging life comp. Isa_13:22; Psa_36:11; Psa_85:6 [5]. Such an one rises up again, although despairing of life—when he had already despaired of continuing in life. [So far from using his power to crush the mighty villains of earth, God uses it to bring them triumphantly through those crises in which they themselves had given up all hope—E.] וְלא ־יַאֲמִין subordinate circumstantial clause, comp. Ewald, § 341, a.—חַיִּין, Aramaizing plur. like מִלִּין, Job_4:2. [According to E. V. and most commentators the subject of Job_24:22 is still the wicked man, משׁךְ being taken to mean: “to draw, drag” as a captive; or “to hold, bind;” or “to destroy. ‘He subjugates the mighty, and puts all in terror for their very life.’ The interpretation given above however is more in accord with the proper meaning of משׁךְ, with Job_24:23 understood as having God for its subject; and is specially favored by the consideration that it gives more distinct expression to the thought, so important to Job’s argument here of the lengthening out of the life and prosperity of the evil-doer, and of the long delay of his punishment. The omission of the Divine Name is so characteristic of our book as to present no difficulty.—E.].
Job_24:23. He grants him safety (lit. “He (God) grants to him to be in safety; permits him to be at his ease [לבטח, adverbial, of the state or condition He grants him to be in]; so that he is sustained (וַיִּשָּׁעֵן, expressing the consequence of that divine grant of security), and His (God’s) eyes are upon their ways—in order, namely, to keep them therein, and to bless and protect them; comp. הֹופִיעַ עַל, Job_10:3. [God’s eyes, says Job, follow the prosperous evil-doer with watchful interest, to see that he does not step out of the path of security and success! According to the other interpretation, which continues the evil-doer as the subject, the meaning is that the oppressor allows to those who are in his power only a transient respite, watching for every pretence or opportunity to injure them. See Scott. The full-toned suffix ־ֵיהוּ—seems chosen for emphasis.—E.].
Job_24:24. They rise high—a little while only, and they are gone. רֹמּוּ, 3 Plur. Perf. from רוּם=רמם, to raise oneself, to mount upward” (Ew. § 114 a; comp. Gesen. § 67 [§ 66] Rem. 1 [Green, § 139, 1], מְעַט with following וְ for the consequent, forms a short sentence by itself, as in Psa_37:10. As to וְֵאיֶננּוּ “then he is no more,” comp. Gen_5:24. The interchange of numbers as in Job_24:16 and Job_24:18. And they are bowed down (concerning הֻמְּכוּ [Aramaizing] Hoph. from מכךְ, comp. Gesen. § 67 [§ 66], Rem. 1); like all they perish (i. e. like all others), and as the top of the ears [of grain: i. e. the grain-bearing head of the wheat-stalk] they wither.—יָקּֽפְצוּן, lit. “they shrivel together” (Niph. Reflex. from Kal; comp. Job_5:16) i. e., they perish. There is no reference to the componere artus of the dead [Ges. “to gather oneself up, composing the body and limbs as in death,” which here would mean to die in the course of nature, not by violence, or suddenly], nor to the “housing,” i. e. the burial of the dead (comp. Eze_29:5). The expression is rather a figure taken from vegetable life, like the following יִמָּלוּ, “they wither like the heads of grain;” see on Job_42:2. [It may be claimed with reason that the connection here favors the definition, “to be cut off,” the oriental custom of reaping being to cut off the tops, leaving long stalks standing in the field.] It is not altogether in the sense of euthanasia, therefore, of an easy, painless death, as described in Job_21:23, that the present passage is to be understood (against Ewald, Dillmann, etc., also Del.). It rather resumes the description in Job_24:18 seq., although in less forcible language, and in such a way as to set forth a natural death, such as all die, rather than that caused by a divine judgment, such as often falls upon the wicked.
Job_24:25. And should it not be so (וְאִס־לֹא אֵפוֹ as in Job_9:24) who will convict me of falsehood, and make my speech of no effect?—The phrase שִׂים לְאַל (instead of which Symm., Vulg., Pesh. read שׂ׳ לְאֵל) is precisely the same with εἰς μηδεν τιθέναι, or our: “bring to nought,” comp. Ewald, § 286, g; 321, b. The whole question is a triumphant expression of the superiority which Job vividly felt himself to possess over his opponents, especially in the views derived from experience which he had just urged respecting the incomprehensible dealings of God with the destinies of men.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The significance of the present discourse of Job lies essentially in its descriptive treatment of ethical and anthropological themes, some passages even describing matters of interest in the history of civilization (Job_24:5 seq.), whereas the speculative and theological element becomes subordinate. The latter is restricted almost exclusively to the first and shorter Division, which is occupied with the mystery of Job’s own destiny of suffering, just as the second Division is occupied with the obverse side of this mystery, the prosperity and impunity of the wicked. That which the first Division says touching the inexplicableness of his sufferings is substantially only a repetition of the wish, already several times uttered, that God by His personal intervention might decide the controversy, and confirm his innocence, combined with a statement of the reasons why this wish could not be realized. On the first of these reasons, to wit: that on account of the overwhelming majesty pertaining to the appearance of God, the Unapproachable and Almighty One, it would be impossible for him to put in his answer before Him (Job_23:6) he does not dwell this time as on two former occasions (Job_9:34; Job_13:21); he merely touches it with suggestive brevity. His consciousness of innocence is too strong to allow him to give way long to this thought; thanks to the incessant assaults and accusations of the friends, it has become consolidated and strengthened to such a degree that in Job 19. (as indeed had been the case before here and there, especially in Job_16:17; Job_17:9) it even found utterance in decided exaggeration, and drove him to extreme assertions touching his absolute blamelessness and immaculateness, for which he must hereafter implore pardon. Among these assertions we find the following: that he would come forth out of God’s trial of him like gold, that he would never swerve from His ways, that he had always observed the words of His mouth more than his own law (Job_23:10-12). All the more emphatic however is the stress which he lays on the other reasons why that wish seems to him incapable of realization. God, he thinks, purposely withdraws Himself from him. It is deliberately and with good reason that He keeps Himself at a distance and hidden from him, it being now His settled purpose to make him drain his cup of suffering to the dregs (Job_23:13 seq.). [“Job’s suspicion against God is as dreadful as it is childish. This is a profoundly tragic stroke. It is not to be understood as the sarcasm of defiance; on the contrary, as one of the childish thoughts into which melancholy bordering on madness falls. From the bright height of faith to which Job soars in Job_19:25 seq., he is here again drawn down into the most terrible depth of conflict, in which, like a blind man, he gropes after God, and because he cannot find Him thinks that He flees before him lest He should be overcome by him. The God of the present Job accounts his enemy; and the God of the future to whom his faith clings, who will and must vindicate him so soon as He only allows Himself to be found and seen—this God is not to be found.” Delitzsch.]. It is not the invisible essence of God in general, not that He cannot be discovered by those who seek Him on earth east or west, north or south (Job_19:8-9)—it is not the pure spirituality and the divine omnipresence, which extinguishes his hope in God’s interposition to vindicate and to redeem him. The thought of that divine unsearchableness, which he beautifully describes in a way that reminds us of Psa_139:7-9, as well as of Zophar’s first discourse (Job_11:8-9), could have had nothing terrible or cheerless for him. Just as little (as he expressly declares in the closing verse of the First Part, Job_23:17) would the contemplation of his woful physical condition, and the tragical calamities of his outward life have sufficed to plunge him into the fear of death and dumb despair. That which fills him with dismay and terror, that which makes his heart faint, and removes the prospect of his deliverance to the indefinite future, is that same predestinatianism, that same dread of a mysterious, inexorable, and as regards himself malign decree of God, which had already extorted repeatedly from him a cry of lamentation, and which had formed the dark back-ground which so often emerges behind his meditations thus far (comp. Job_6:9 seq.; Job_7:12 seq.; Job_9:22 sqq.; Job_10:13 seq.; Job_13:15 seq.; Job_16:12 sq.; Job_19:6 seq.). No comforting, brightening, alleviating thought, no joyous soaring of hope in God’s compassion, bringing help however late, is to be seen anywhere in this discourse, as was the case e. g. in Job 17. and 19. On the contrary the Second Division of the discourse lays out before us a much wider circle of phenomena and sentiments at variance with a righteous and merciful activity on the part of God. The experience which he had, or believed that he had, of God’s treatment of him as unsympathetic and harsh, as being a mere exhibition of divine power, without the slightest trace of justice or fatherly kindness—this experience he utters in the general proposition: “that God had appointed no times of judgment, would let His friends see no days on this earth in which He would exercise righteous retribution” (Job_24:1). This proposition he expands into an eloquent description of the manifold injustice, which men of the most diverse classes inflict on one another, while the wrongs of the outraged and oppressed weaker party are never redressed or avenged (Job_24:2 seq). Toward the end of this picture, which is true in a sense, although one-sided in its tendency, he changes his tone somewhat to be sure, and by strongly emphasizing the certainty that a rigid judgment of God will at the last terminate the course of the wicked (Job_24:18-21; Job_24:24), qualifies the preceding accusation against the divine justice. Even this however is by no means a surrender to the doctrine of a retribution in this life, as taught by the friends. The chief emphasis even in this passage rests rather on the long delay (משך Job_24:22 a) in interposing for such punishment, on the long duration of their impunity from punishment, or even on the not uncommon prolongation of this state down to their natural death, to which they are subject in common with all men (Job_24:24; see on the ver.). Job here certainly concedes something to his opponents, essentially however not much more than he had conceded already in Job 21. where ( Job_21:17 seq.; Job_21:23 seq.) without denying the fact of the final punishment of the ungodly, he had represented it as much more commonly the case that they were spared any judicial inflictions down to the end of their life. The triumphant exclamation with which he ends his speech: “who will convict me of falsehood?” is intended simply to confirm this fact of experience, in accordance with which this impunitas hominum sceleratorum is the general rule, whereas their justa punitio is the exception, at least in this world.
2. Job however does concede somewhat more here than there; he at least dwells longer on the punishment of the ungodly, as a fact which is not altogether unheard of in the course of human destiny—whether the passage in which he describes it be only a free quotation of the language of his opponents, as the later commentators in part exclaim (see on Job_24:18 seq.), of the expression of his own conviction. And this indicates clearly enough progress for the better in his temper of mind and mode of thought, a progress which is still further indicated by the fact that in the preceding description of God as restraining Himself in the infliction of punishment a calm tone of objective description has a decided predominance, and nothing more is to be discerned of his former passionate, at times even blasphemous complaints touching the tyrannical harshness and cruel vindictiveness of the Almighty in persecuting him with poisoned arrows, sword-thrusts, and merciless scourgings. The terrible fatalistic phantom of a God exercising only His power, and not also His justice and love, which had formerly tortured him, has unmistakably assumed a milder form, of a less threatening aspect than heretofore. In consequence of this, as well as by virtue of the calm dignity which enables him to meet with complete serenity the violent assaults and detractions of Eliphaz, and to avoid all controversy of a bttter personal character, his superiority over his opponents becomes ever more apparent, his statements and arguments drive with ever greater directness at the only possible solution of the controversy, and even where he is one-sided, as particularly in his description, in many respects impressive, of the course of the wicked, and of the needy ones whom they persecute (Job_24:2-17), his discussion has great value, and a fascinating power which is all the stronger by virtue of the comparatively calm objective tone of the treatment. It is in these indications of the growing purity and clearness of the sufferer’s spiritual frame, that the practical and homiletic lessons of the present section can be most advantageously studied.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Job_23:3 seq.—Oecolampadius (on Job_23:7): This word “disputing” or “reproving” expresses confidence rather than impatience or an unfavorable estimate of God. But if we blame this in Job, we must also blame what John and others say; “if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” And wherefore does Christ command us to lift up our heads at His coming? Zeyss: Faith and a good conscience are the two chief jewels of a Christian (1Ti_1:5). Happy he who has kept these. When oppressed he can appear with confidence before God.
Job_23:8 seq. Brentius: Although God fills all things, and is all in all, we cannot approach Him, nor find Him without a Mediator; whether we seek Him before or behind, to the right hand or to the left, He is always afar off, we never lay hold upon Him. For even if we should attempt to approach Him without a mediator, we are deterred from having access to Him in part by the darkness in which He dwells, in part by His power and majesty, in part by His justice.
Job_23:13 seq. Zeyss: As God is one in His nature, so also is He unchangeable in His will (Num_23:19; 1Sa_15:29). Let us therefore submit ourselves in humility and obedience to His good and holy will! The cross which He lays upon us is always less than our sins deserve; His chastisements are tempered with mercy; Psa_103:10.—v. Gerlach (on Job_23:17): In the consciousness of the treatment which he receives from the incomprehensible God, who has irrevocably determined every man’s destiny, Job is penetrated by the profoundest terror before this God. It is not his calamity in itself, not even his own experience of the extremity to which this calamity has brought him from which he shrinks. What a deep glance is here given us into the heart of a sorely tried servant of God, who in his complaints and struggles, spite of all suffering, thinks only of God, and fears nothing so much as that the fellowship of his God having been withdrawn from him, his God should become a terror to him.
Job_24:2 seq. Wohlfarth: How should the contemplation of the unnumbered sins, with which God’s fair earth is stained, affect us? Job was led thereby into temptation to doubt God’s justice. Let it not be so with us, who, enlightened by Christ, should see therein rather: (a) a melancholy proof of the continual inclination of our nature to evil, and of the slothfulness of our spirit to strive against the same; (b) a touching evidence of the long-suffering and patience of God; (c) an earnest warning to be on our guard against every temptation; (d) an emphatic reminder of the day of judgment, which will recompense every man according to his works.
Job_24:17. Starke: As works of the light are accompanied by a joyful conscience and good courage, so on the other hand with works of darkness there is nothing but fear, anguish and terror. For even the abandoned are not without an inward punishment in the conscience.—V. Gerlach: For sinners, who shun the light, the light of day itself is darkness, since through their departure from the eternal light of God, they bear about with them night in their souls (comp. Mat_6:23; Joh_11:10), and thus they feel its terrors even in the midst of the brightness of the day.
Job_24:23 seq. Starke: Be not secure, if a sin passes unpunished; it is not on that account forgotten by God. The happier the ungodly are for a time, the more dangerous is their condition, and the more severely will they be punished at last.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain JOB’S SEVENTH REPLY, Job 23, 24.
JOB’S SEVENTH REPLY, Job 23, 24.
1. Then Job answered — In response to the touching exhortation of Eliphaz, calling him to prayer and holy living, Job pleads that his great misery is that he cannot find God. East, west, north, and south Job had earnestly sought God, but he seemed to hide Himself, lest, hearing his cause, love of righteousness should compel him to absolve his servant. Job’s consciousness of integrity — the thought that if tried he should come forth like gold from the furnace — buoys him up as he contemplates the absolute and unchangeable Arbiter of his fate. Chap. 24. He abruptly takes up again the line of thought pursued in the twenty-first chapter, with the question why it is, if God appoints days of judgment for the wicked, that his servants do not see them. On the contrary, God’s eye constantly rests on oppressors of every hue, who everywhere trample upon the defenceless poor, the groans and cries of whom cease not day nor night. Beneath the same Eye murderers and adulterers riot in the unholiest works of darkness. Instead of manifesting himself for the deliverance of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty, he grants these malefactors either an euthanasia, a quick and easy death, or else he lengthens out their life till at last, like ripened grain, they drop into the grave. Nowhere else are the perplexities of the divine government exhibited in so vivid colours; perplexities that now, as then, defy all human solution.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Then Job answered.—Job replies to the insinuations of…
XXIII.
(1) Then Job answered.—Job replies to the insinuations of Eliphaz with the earnest longing after God and the assertion of his own innocence; while in the twenty-fourth chapter he laments that his own case is but one of many, and that multitudes suffer from the oppression of man unavenged, as he suffers from the stroke of God.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. Job_6:2)
Vers. Job_6:2)
Vers. 1-7. Job to Eliphaz: 1. The experience of a seeker after God.
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I GREAT SORROW. (Ver. 2) Two wonders.
1. An afflicted man a seeker after God. Designed to recall men to God, (Job_36:8, 9 Isa_19:22 Jer_2:27 Hos_5:15) temporal calamity is not always attended by so blessed a result. Unaccompanied by grace, it tends to harden rather than soften the human heart, to repel rather than attract the soul"s confidence and love. Happily, however, in Job"s case its natural tendencies were corrected. With greater urgency and vehemence than before, it impelled him to inquire after God. (cf. 2Ch_15:4 2Ch_33:12 Psa_34:6 Psa_77:2 Psa_119:67 Hos_6:1 Luk_15:18)
2. A seeker after God an afflicted man. Strange that one who sought God so sincerely as Job did should have been subjected to such overwhelming tribulation. Yet the more triumphant waxed Job"s faith, the heavier seemed to fall the pressure of his misery. Notwithstanding the lofty declarations of confidence in God which had fallen from his lips, (Job_13:15 Job_19:25) his complaint still bade defiance, while Ms hand lay heavy upon his groaning (Delitzsch), refusing to let it go, because, of course, the cause of it was not removed. His physical disease was in no degree abated. The calumniations of his friends were aggravated, not ameliorated. The felt absence of God was become more intolerable than ever. Even the groaning which involuntarily escaped his lips was pronounced rebellion. But saints and seekers after God have no guarantee of exemption from trouble. Rather, trouble is to them as a refining fire. Hence the loftier their piety, the hotter may be made the furnace through which they walk. Nay, their afflictions may so abound, bodily pain, mental distress, spiritual desolation, that they are compelled to "groan, being burdened"; (2Co_5:4) but, like true saints and genuine seekers after God, they will neither complain too bitterly nor groan too heavily, but study to keep their complaint in subjection, and to make their groaning less than their suffering.
II ARDENT LONGING. (Ver. 2)
1. A seeker after God at a loss to find him. Con sidering that God desires (Act_17:27) and commands men to seek him, (Isa_4:6) and promises that they who seek shall find, (Mat_7:7) it would almost seem as if such a thing should be impossible. But Job being witness, and David, (Psa_42:2) even a saint, losing his inward consciousness of God"s presence and favour, may be unable to recover either. And if a saint, then. much more a sinner, who has never yet met with God, may find it hard to reach his seat. It is, of course, certain that true seekers will ultimately find. Only the time of finding, for wise and holy purposes, may be delayed; sometimes to try the faith or increase the earnestness of the seeker, sometimes because of sin or wilful defect in the seeker, sometimes to make known to the seeker the unchallengeable sovereignty of God in discovering himself to men.
2. A seeker after God always possessed of certain characteristics; as:
(1) Knowledge. Like Job, he may be ignorant of where God"s seat is; but he must know that God is, and has a seat. Like the Greeks who spoke to Andrew and Philip, (Joh_12:21) he may not understand how to reach the Saviour"s presence; but he must be aware that a Saviour exists. The first step in seeking God or Christ is illumination. The minimum of knowledge for a seeker after God is more now than in the days of Job. God must be known as revealed in Christ.
(2) Faith. Like Job, he must not simply know that God is and has a seat; he must believe that God is accessible to sinful men. (Heb_11:6) Besides understanding where to find God, viz. anywhere, in Christ, seated on a throne of grace, we must apprehend the way to that throne to be continually open. (2Co_5:19 Heb_4:16 Heb_10:22) Faith in this now constitutes an indispensable prerequisite for genuine seeking after God.
(3) Desire. Like Job, and like the Greeks who were anxious to see Jesus, the seeker after God must be in earnest. Those whose longings after God are as intense as were David"s (Psa_63:1 Psa_42:2) cannot always obtain access to his presence; but it is certain they who have no such warm aspirations will be denied, though they seek.
III HOLY BOLDNESS. (Vers. 4, 5) The courage of the patriarch arose from three things.
1. Well-arranged thoughts. Coming into God"s presence, and commencing to plead before God"s throne, he would set forth his words in orderly array. This implied that Job had spent much time in communing with his heart. Thoughts seldom arrange themselves spontaneously or unconsciously, rather their arrangement requires deliberate and sometimes protracted mental effort. Intelligent disposition of the soul"s ideas and emotions before pressing forward to heaven"s throne is not only demanded by the ineffable majesty of him who sits upon the throne, (Job_37:19) but is eminently conducive to the spiritual fortitude of him who as a suppliant approaches the throne. Thoroughly prepared and well-arranged words never fail to impart confidence to a speaker, as inward disorder is almost sure to overwhelm him with outward confusion.
2. Well-constructed arguments. Job meant that he was able to adduce convincing proofs of his integrity. What these were is not stated, but that he alluded to the witness of his past life may be reasonably conjectured. The best evidence of piety is the testimony of the outer walk and conversation. (Mat_7:20 Joh_15:8 Gal_5:22 1Jn_3:10) Nor is any sign so assuring to the heart before God as the consciousness of inward sincerity when supported by the argument of outward propriety. And to this the believer may legitimately appeal in his pleadings before God, like St. Peter when he said to the risen Christ, "Lord, thou knowest that I love thee". (Joh_21:17)
3. Well-assured hope. So confident is Job of having right upon his side, that he fears not to hear the decision of the Judge. In this Job was perhaps a little guilty of pride. The spirit here evinced is that of self-righteousness, rather than of trust in the mercy of God. Still, a child of God might now evince as great a confidence as Job without being open, like him, to the challenge of self-righteousness; might be able to anticipate the Judge"s decision without alarm, not because of his own personal integrity, but because of the all-sufficient merit of Jesus Christ. (cf. Job_13:18, homiletics)
IV SUBLIME CONFIDENCE. Of two things Job declares himself satisfied.
1. God"s mercy towards him. (Ver. 6) God would not confound him with the fulness of his strength, or terrify him with his majesty, (Job_9:34, q.v.) but would mercifully strengthen him to plead his cause, or, according to a more literal translation, would set his heart upon him, i.e. would regard him with affectionate attention, not only giving him a fair hearing, but dispelling his apprehensions, and enabling him to present his case with lucidity and completeness. What Job anticipated, the believer in God is promised. God will not overawe with his majesty any suppliant who comes to his throne; but will regard him with tender love; (Pro_15:8 Zec_13:9 Joh_4:23) will listen to his cries; (2Ch_7:15 Psa_34:15 Psa_145:18) will even strengthen him with might by his Spirit in the inner man. (Zec_12:10 Rom_8:26 Eph_2:18)
2. His victory through God. (Ver. 7) The sincerely upright man, having an opportunity to plead before God, would be certain of ultimate triumph over all who should seek to condemn him; and so shall the Christian believer come off victorious, when he stands before God"s throne, and be made more than a conqueror through him that loved us. (Rom_8:33-39)
Learn:
1. The first step towards blessedness is taken by man when he becomes a seeker after God.
2. A man may be getting nearer God, though all outward signs appear to proclaim the reverse.
3. The gospel has for ever rendered Job"s prayer unnecessary.
4. If a man fails to find God, he must be seeking for him in the wrong quarter or the wrong way.
5. They who come to God"s throne in earnest will find mercy to pardon, and grace to help in every time of need.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Ver. 1Ti_1:5) and can think of appearing before God, not with terror, but with confidence. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence with God". (1Jn_3:21)
II DOUBT (vers. 6-9) of the possibility of this intervention of God on his behalf. He timidly thinks of the overwhelming effect of God"s majesty upon him. (comp. Job_9:34 Job_13:21) But here, relying on the consciousness of innocence, he casts the doubt away. "Would he contend with me in his omnipotence? No; he would only attend to me" (ver. 6). It would be seen that it is a righteous man who enters into judgment with him, and Job would escape his Judge (ver. 7). But then this cheerful expectation is checked by the thought that God is nowhere to be found neither east nor west, north nor south (vers. 8, 9), although present in all quarters. (Psa_139:8-10) Without the definite revelation of the gospel, we may readily lose ourselves in a vague and aimless pantheism. God is everywhere, yet nowhere; present in all things for the intellect, found in none by the heart. It is the doctrine of the Mediator, of the Man Christ Jesus, which resolves this contradiction. God must meet us in the form of man, otherwise he is but an abstraction.
III REASON OF GOD"S WITHDRAWAL. (Vers. 10-13) According to Job, this is, that although God knows his innocence, he will not depart from his resolve not to be found of him. Vers. 10-12 contain strong assertions of his innocence. God knows Job"s wonted way or manner of life; and, if proved, he would come out like gold from the furnace. His foot has kept firmly to God"s step, God"s way he has observed, and has not turned aside, nor departed from the commandment of his lips. "More than my own law I kept the words of his mouth," i.e. more than the dictates of pleasure or self-will (ver. 12). "But he remains one, and who will turn him" from his design? (comp. Psa_33:9 Num_23:19 1Sa_15:29)
IV AWE AND HUMILITY IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. (Vers. 14-17) God will fulfil Job"s destiny, like that of many others (ver. 14). The thought of this unfathomable counsel of God through which Job must suffer fills him with fearfulness and amazement (ver. 15). It is God himself, not the mere sufferings, who has unnerved Job and overthrown him (ver. 16). It is not the darkness of his trouble (Job_22:11) nor his own hideous form (Job_19:13-15) which have stupefied him. No, it is God alone who is the cause of this stupor, who is behind these sufferings with his incomprehensible counsels.
Here, again, we see how deep is faith in the heart of Job, how inextinguishable the longing and the need for communion with God, which is life to him, and more than life l He can bear pain, he can dispense, if need be, with human sympathy; but he cannot bear the absence of God! As the plant in the cellar, so the faithful soul ever turns and struggles towards the light; and the only Light of the soul is God! J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Oh, that I knew where I might find Him.
Job_23:1-6
Oh, that I knew where I might find Him.
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The cry for restored relations with God
The language of the text is exclusively that of men on the earth,--although it also characterises the state and feelings only of some of the guilty children of men. Some among the human race have already sought God, and found Him a present help in the time of trouble. The desire expressed in the text is that of one under affliction. It is either the prayer of an awakened sinner, crying and longing for reconciliation, to God, under deep conviction, and full of sorrow and shame on account of it: or the cry of the backslider awakened anew to his danger and guilt, under Gods chastisements, remembering the sweet enjoyment of brighter days, and ardently longing for its return.
I. It implies a painful sense of distance from God. Men of no religion are far off from God, but this gives them no concern. The presence of Christ constitutes the believers joy, and he mourns nothing so much as the loss of Gods favour. Sad and comfortless as the state of distance from God must be to the believer, still he is painfully conscious of his own state, and crying like Job, Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! The occasions that most generally give birth to the complaint and cry in the text are such as these.
1. Bodily suffering, or the pressure of severe and long-continued outward calamities, may contribute to enfeeble the mind, and lead the soul to conclude that it is forsaken by its God. The dispensations of Divine providence appear so complex and difficult, that faith is unable to explore them, or hope to rise above them. The mind magnifies its distresses, and dwells on its own griefs, to the exclusion of those grounds of consolation and causes of thankfulness afforded in the many mercies that tend to alleviate their bitterness. In reality God is not more distant from the soul, though He appears to be so.
2. Another and more serious occasion of distance and desertion is sin cherished, long indulged, unrepented of, and unpardoned. This alienates the soul from God. Sin is just the wandering of the soul in its thoughts, desires, and affections from God, and God graciously makes sin itself the instrument in correcting the backslider. The righteous desert of the souls departure from God, is Gods desertion of the soul. God is really ever near to man. He is not far from any one of us. But sin indulged, whether open, secret, or presumptuous, grieves the Holy Spirit, expels Him from the temple He loved, and cheered by His presence. Let us thank God that distance is not utter desertion. When the misery of separation and distance from God is felt, the dawn of restoration and reconciliation begins.
II. As the language of earnest desire. When brought to himself the backslider rests not satisfied with fruitless complaints, but the desire of his soul is towards his God. It is one thing to be conscious of distance from God, and quite another thing to be anxious to be brought near to Him by the blood of Christ. Conviction of guilt and misery is not conversion. What avails it, to know our separation from God, unless we are brought to this desire and anxiety, Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!
III. As the language of holy freedom. The text is a way of appeal by Job to God concerning his integrity. Though he had much to say in favour of his integrity before men, he did not rest on anything in himself as the ground of his justification before God. His language expresses a resolution to avail himself of the privilege of approaching the Most High with holy freedom and humble confidence, to present his petition.
IV. As the language of hope. Job could expect little from his earthly friends. All his hopes flowed from another--an Almighty Friend. Those who wait on God, and hope in His Word, will surely not be disappointed. Then never give way to a rebellious spirit. Give not way to languor in your affections, coldness in your desires, indifference as to the Lords presence or absence, or to feebleness of faith. Let the desires of your soul be, as Davids, a panting after God. (Charles O. Stewart.)
The great problem of life
This cry of Job is represented to us in this passage as a cry for justice. He has been tortured by the strange mystery of Gods providence; he has had it brought before himself in his own painful experience, and from that has been led to look out on the world, where he sees the same mystery enlarged and intensified.
He sees wrong unredressed, evil unpunished, innocence crushed under the iron heel of oppression. He does not see clear evidences of Gods moral government of the world, and he comes back ever to the personal problem with which he is faced, that he though he is sure of his own innocence, is made to suffer, and he feels as if God had been unjust to him. He wants it explained; he would like to argue the case, and set forth his plea; he longs to be brought before Gods judgment seat and plead before Him, and give vent to all the bitter thoughts in his mind. Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. He feels Gods very presence about him on every side, ever present, but ever eluding him; everywhere near, but everywhere avoiding him. Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him. On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him; He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. It is not his own personal pain that makes the problem, except in so far as that has brought him before the deeper problem of Gods providence which he now confronts. Everything would be clear and plain if he could but come into close relations with God, and that is just what meanwhile he cannot attain. Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!
I. In perhaps a wider sense than its original application in the passage of our text, these words of Job are as the very sigh of the human heart, asking the deepest question of life. Men have always boon conscious of God, as Job was, sure that He was near, and sure also, like Job, that in Him would be the solution of every difficulty and the explanation of every mystery. The race has been haunted by God. St. Pauls words to the Athenians on Mars Hill are a true reading of history, and a true reading of human nature; that all men are so constituted by essential nature that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. It is the deepest philosophy of human history. Even when men have no definite knowledge of God they are forced by the very needs of their nature, driven by inner necessity, to reach out after God. Though, like Job, when they go forward He is not there, and backward they cannot perceive Him. On the left hand and on the right hand they cannot see Him, yet they are doomed to seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him. Man is a religious being, it is in his blood; he feels himself related to a power above him, and knows himself a spirit longing for fellowship with the Divine. Thus religion is universal, found at all stages of human history and all ages; all the varied forms of religion, all its institutions, all its sorts of worship, are witnesses to this conscious need which the race has for God. Job may assent to Zophar the Naamathites proposition that finite man cannot completely comprehend the infinite. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? But this assertion does not disprove the fact of which he is certain, that he has had fellowship with God, and has had religious experiences of which he cannot doubt. All forms of faith are witnesses to mans insatiable thirst for God, and many forms of unbelief and denial are only more pathetic witnesses still of the same fact. Many a denial of the Divine is just the bitter faith that He is a God that hideth Himself. When men come to consciousness of self they come also to consciousness of the unseen, a sense of relation to the power above them. The great problem of life is to find God; not to find happiness, not even by being satiated with that can the void be filled; but to find God; for being such as we are, with needs, longings, aspirations, we are beaten with unsatisfied desire, struck with restless fever, till we find rest in God. The true explanation is the biblical one, that man is made in the imago of God, that in spirit he is akin to the eternal Spirit, there is no great gulf fixed between God and man which cannot be bridged over. Man was created in the likeness of God, but was born a child of God. Fellowship is possible, therefore, since there is no inherent incapacity; there is something in man which corresponds to qualities in God. The conclusion, which is the instinctive faith of man, is that spirit with spirit can meet. God entered into a relation of love and fatherhood with man, man entered into a relationship of love and sonship with God. Certain it is that man can never give up the hope and the desire, and must be orphaned and desolate until he so does find God.
II. If it be true, as it is true, that man has ever sought God, it is a deeper fact still that God has ever sought man. The deep of mans desire has been answered by the deep of Gods mercy. For every reaching forth of man there has been the stooping down of God. History is more than the story of the human soul seeking God; in a truer and more profound sense still is it the record of God seeking the soul. The very fact that men have asked with some measure of belief, though struck almost with doubt at the wonder of it, Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? is because God has dwelt with men, has entered into terms of communion. The history of mans attainment is the history of Gods self-revelation. It is solely because God has been seeking man that man has stretched out groping hands if haply he might feel after Him and find Him. Faith has survived just because it justifies itself and because it embodies itself in experience. Religious history is not only the dim and blundering reaching out of mans intelligence towards the mystery of the unknown, it is rather the history of God approaching man, revealing His will to man, declaring Himself, offering relations of trust and fellowship. If Christ has given expression to the character of God, if He has revealed the Father, has He not consciously, conclusively, proved to us that the Divine attitude is that of seeking men, striving to establish permanent relations of devotion and love? He has also given us the assurance that to respond to Gods love is to know Him, the assurance that to seek Him is to find Him, so that no longer need we ask in half despair, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! Prayer, trust, worship, self-surrender, never fail of Divine response, bringing peace and hearts ease. When to the knowledge that God is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, there is added the further knowledge that God is love, we receive a guarantee--do we not?--that not in vain is our desire after Him, a guarantee that to seek Him is to find Him. Ah, the tragedy is not that men who seek should have failed to find God, but that men should not seek, that men should be content to pass through life without desiring much, or much striving, to pierce the veil of mystery. It is mans nature to seek God, we have said, but this primitive intuition can be overborne by the weight of material interest, by the mass of secondary concerns, by the lust of flesh and the lust of eye and pride of life. A thousand-fold better than this deadness of soul is it to be still unsatisfied, still turning the eyes to the light for the blissful vision; to be still in want, crying to the silent skies, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! But even that need not be our condition. If we seek God, as we surely can, as we surely do, in the face of Jesus Christ, the true picture is not man lost in the dark, not man seeking God his home with palsied steps and groping hands. The true picture is the seeking God, come in Christ to seek and save the lost. (H. Black, M. A.)
Mans cry for fellowship with God
The provision to satisfy this longing of the soul must involve--
I. A personal manifestation of God to the soul. It is not for some thing, but for some person that the soul cries. Pantheism may gratify the instinct of the speculative, or the sentiment of the poetic, but it meets not this profoundest craving of our nature.
II. A benevolent manifestation of God to the soul. For an unemotional God the soul has no affinity; for a malevolent one it has a dread. It craves for one that is kind and loving. Its cry is for the Father; nothing else will do.
III. A propitiable manifestation of God to the soul. A sense of sin presses heavily on the race. So mere benevolence will not do. God may be benevolent and yet not propitiable. Does then our Bible meet the greatest necessity of human nature? Does it give a personal, benevolent, and propitiable God? (Homilist.)
Job looking round for God
Job looks round for God, as a man might look round for an old acquaintance, an old but long-gone friend. Memory has a great ministry to discharge in life; old times come back, and whisper to us, correct us or bless us, as the ease may be. After listening to all new doctors the heart says, Where is your old friend? where the quarter whence light first dawned? recall yourself; think out the whole case. So Job would seem now to say, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! I would go round the earth to discover Him; I would fly through all the stars if I could have but one brief interview with Him; I would count no labour hard if I might see Him as I once did. We are not always benefited by a literally correct experience, a literally correct interpretation, even. Sometimes God has used other means for our illumination and release, and upbuilding in holy mysteries. So Job might have strange ideas of God, and yet those ideas might do him good. It is not our place to laugh even at idolatry. There is no easier method of provoking an unchristian laugh, or evoking an unchristian plaudit, than by railing against the gods of the heathen. Jobs ideas of God were not ours, but they were his; and to be a mans very own religion is the beginning of the right life. Only let a man with his heart hand seize some truth, hold on by some conviction, and support the same by an obedient spirit, a beneficent life, a most charitable temper, a high and prayerful desire to know all Gods will, and how grey and dim soever the dawn, the noontide shall be without a cloud, and the afternoon shall be one long quiet glory. Hold on by what you do know, and do not be laughed out of initial and incipient convictions by men who are so wise that they have become fools. Job says, Now I bethink me, God is considerate and forbearing. Will He plead against me with His great power? No; but He would put strength in me (verse 6). It is something to know so much. Job says, Bad as I am, I might be worse; after all I am alive; poor, desolated, impoverished, dispossessed of nearly everything I could once handle and claim as my own, yet still I live, and life is greater than anything life can ever have. So I am not engaged in a battle against Omnipotence; were I to fight Almightiness, why I should be crushed in one moment. The very fact that I am spared shows that although it may be God who is against me, He is not rude in His almightiness, He is not thundering upon me with His great strength; He has atmosphered Himself, and is looking in upon me by a gracious accommodation of Himself to my littleness. Let this stand as a great and gracious lesson in human training, that however great the affliction it is evident that God does not plead against us with His whole strength; if He did so, He who touches the mountains and they smoke has but to lay one finger upon us--nay, the shadow of a finger--and we should wither away. So, then, I will bless God; I will begin to reckon thus, that after all that has gone the most has been left me; I can still inquire for God, I can still even dumbly pray; I can grope, though I cannot see; I can put out my hands in the great darkness, and feel something; I am not utterly cast away. Despisest thou the riches of His goodness? Shall not the riches of His goodness lead thee to repentance? Hast thou forgotten all the instances of forbearance? Is not His very stroke of affliction dealt reluctantly? Does He not let the lifted thunder drop? Here is a side of the Divine manifestation which may be considered by the simplest minds; here is a process of spiritual reckoning which the very youngest understandings may conduct. Say to yourself, Yes, there is a good deal left; the sun still warms the earth, the earth is still willing to bring forth fruit, the air is full of life; I know there are a dozen graves dug all round me, but see how the flowers grow upon them everyone; did some angel plant them? Whence came they? Life is greater than death. The life that was in Christ abolished death, covered it with ineffable contempt, and utterly set it aside, and its place is taken up by life and immortality, on which are shining forever the whole glory of heaven. Job will yet recover. He will certainly pray; perhaps he will sing; who can tell? He begins well; he says he is not fighting Omnipotence, Omnipotence is not fighting him, and the very fact of forbearance involves the fact of mercy. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
How to find God
There are many senses in which we may speak of finding God; and in one or other of these senses it may be we have all of us yet need to find Him.
1. Some there are who will confess at once that they are at times--not always, not often perhaps, but sometimes--troubled with speculative doubts about Gods existence. So many thoughtful, earnest men around them seem to regard it as an open question whether the problems of nature may not be solved on some other hypothesis.
2. Others dislike controversy, and would rather not enter upon the question whether they have found God. These are Christians, and the first article of their creed is, I believe in God.
3. Some are ready timidly to confess that again and again they have found their faith in Gods presence fail them, when they have most needed it.
4. A happier group, by a well-ordered life of devotion, and daily attendance on the ordinances of the Church, are keeping themselves near to God. And yet even these may have a misgiving that they are growing too dependent on these outward helps for the sustaining of their faith. Jobs words may well awaken an echo in all our hearts. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! There is comfort in the fact that holy men of old felt this same desire to find God in some deeper sense than they had yet attained to. If they felt it, we need not be unduly distressed if we feel it also. How then are we to seek to find God? Intellectually or otherwise? Not to mere intellect, but to a higher faculty, the moral and spiritual faculty. When we speak of knowing a thing intellectually, we mean that we know it by demonstration of sense or reason. When we speak of knowing a thing morally or spiritually, we mean that we either know it intuitively or take it on trust. We do not mean that the evidence in this latter case is less certain than in the former; it may be far more certain. Scepticism in religion is simply that failure of faith which is sure to result from an endeavour to grasp religious truths by a faculty that was never intended to grasp them. But how am I to know what is a Divine revelation, and what is not? He who is in direct correspondence with God, holding direct intercourse with God, will not need any further evidence of Gods existence. If any here would find God, let him first go to the four Gospels, and try to see clearly there what Christ promises to do for him. Then let him take this promise on trust, as others have done, and act upon it. And if perseveres, he will sooner or later most surely find God. (Canon J. P. Norris, B. D.)
The universal cry
When Job uttered this cry he was in great distress. That God is just is a fact; that men suffer is also a fact; and both these facts are found side by side in the same universe governed by one presiding will. How to reconcile the two, how to explain human suffering under the government of a righteous Ruler, is the great problem of the Book of Job. It is a question which has occupied the thoughts of the thinking in every age. The form in which it presents itself here is this,--Is God righteous in afflicting an innocent man? The friends say there are just two ways of it. Either you are guilty or God is unjust. It is not so much the character of Job that is at stake as the character of God Himself; the Almighty Himself stands at the bar of human reason. The patriarch felt assured that there was a righteous God who would not afflict unjustly, and he cries, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! Obviously he was not ignorant of the Divine Being, not ignorant of His existence, but ignorant how He was to be approached.
I. The cry of the human soul after God. Notice the object of the cry. It is for God. It goes straight to the mark, right over all lower objects and minor aims. He felt he had come to a crisis in his life, when none but God could avail. Give me God, and I have enough. When Job uttered this cry he unconsciously struck the keynote of universal desire. It is the cry of the human race after God. It is the instinctive cry of the human soul. Nature told men that there was a God, but it could not lead them to His seat. The sages went to philosophy for an answer, but philosophy said, It is not for me. In view of this fruitless search, a question might be started, a question easier to ask than to answer,--Why did God keep Himself and His plans hidden from mankind so long? This is one of the secret things that belong to God. We cannot tell, and we need not speculate.
II. The gospel answer to the text. Christ in human form satisfies the longing of the human spirit. He is Immanuel,--God with us. You will find the Father in the Son, you will find God in Christ. This cry may come from a soul who has never known God at all, or it may come from one who has lost the sense of His favour and longs for restoration. In either case the cry can be answered only in Christ. Have you found God? If you will take Christ as your guide, He will lead you up to God. (David Merson, B. D.)
The souls inquiry after a personal God
It is characteristic of man to ask questions. Question asking proceeds from personal need, curiosity, or love of knowledge, either for its own sake or its relative usefulness. We feel that we are dependent upon others for some direction or solution of difficulties; hence we ask for direction or instruction, because the limited character of our nature, and our dependence upon one another demand it. There are questions man asks himself, in his secret communion and examination with and of himself; there are some he asks of the universe; but the greatest and gravest are those he asks direct of God in sighs and supplications both by night and day. The sentence of the text is a question which the soul, in its search after God, continually asks; which is one of the greatest questions of life.
I. The need of the soul of a personal God. The human soul ever cries for God. It never ceases in its cry, and is weary in its search and effort in seeking the absolute reality and good of life. The soul needs an object to commune with, and this it finds in a Divine personality, and nowhere else. The soul asks, Where is the living One? The soul needs security, and that is not to be found according to the language of conviction but in a personal God. The soul seeks unity, hence it seeks a personal God.
II. The soul in search after a personal God. So near is the relation between conviction of the need of God, and the search after Him, that in the degree one is felt, the other is done. The soul is not confined to one place, or one mode of means in the search.
III. The perplexity of the soul in its search for the personal God. The perplexity arises partly from the mystery of the object of search.
IV. The secret confidence of the soul in the personal God whom it seeks. There is a general confidence in Gods mercy and in His all-sufficiency. (T. Hughes.)
Craving for God
These words are the utterance of a yearning and dissatisfied soul. The words were put into the mouth of Job, the well-known sufferer, whose patience under accumulated calamities is proverbial. Perhaps Job was not a real individual, but the hero of a majestic poem, through which the writer expresses his thoughts on the world-old problem that suffering is permitted by a good God to afflict even the righteous. Nevertheless, the writer may have had some special sufferer in his eye. No man without experience could have drawn these sublime discussions from his own fancy. They reflect too truly the sorrows and perplexities of human hearts in this life of trial. This man cries out, almost in despair, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! Find whom? God, the Almighty and Eternal, the Maker and Ruler of all. What a longing! What a search! In the mere fact of that search the downcast soul proclaims its lofty nature. And whoever is prompted by his needs and sorrows to cherish this desire, is raised and bettered thereby.
I. The search for God. Among the acts possible to man only, is that he alone can search for God. Strange are the contrasts which human nature exhibits. Language cannot describe the elevation to which man is capable of rising--the lofty self-devotion, the quest for truth, above all, the earnest search for God. Of all the many things men seek, surely this is the noblest, this search for God.
II. The search for God unavailing. This is an exclamation of despair about finding God. It seems to be Jobs chief trouble that he cannot penetrate the clouds and darkness which surround his Maker.
III. The search for God rewarded. The deep, unquenchable craving of frail, suffering, sinful men to find their Maker, and to find Him their friend, is met in Jesus Christ. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)
Oh that I knew where I might find Him
As these words are often the language of a penitent heart seeking the Saviour, Comforter, and Sanctifier, inquire--
I. Who are the characters that employ this language?
1. The sinner under conviction.
2. Believers in distress.
3. Penitent backsliders.
II. Point out where the Lord may be found.
1. In His works, as a God of power.
2. In providence, as a God of wisdom and goodness.
3. In the human breast, as a God of purity and justice.
4. In the ordinances of religion, as a God of grace. It is chiefly on the throne of mercy that He is graciously found.
III. From what sources you draw arguments.
1. From His power.
2. His goodness.
3. His mercy.
4. His truth.
5. His impartiality.
6. His justice.
The text is the language of sincere regret; restless desire; guilty fear; anxious inquiry; willing submission. (J. Summerfield, A. M.)
Man desiring God
God comes only into the heart that wants Him. Do I really, with my whole heart, desire to find God, and to give myself wholly into His hands? Do not mistake, if you please. This is the starting point. If you be wrong at this point my lesson will be taught entirely in vain. Everything depends upon the tone and purpose of the heart. If there is one here, really and truly, with all the desire of the soul, longing to find God, there is no reason why He should not be found, by such a seeker, ere the conclusion of the present service. How is it with our hearts? Do they go out but partially after God? Then they will see little or nothing of Him. Do they go out with all the stress of their affection, all the passion of their love,--do they make this their one object and all-consuming purpose? Then God will be found of them; and man and his Maker shall see one another, as it were, face to face, and new life shall begin in the human soul. Let me say, truly and distinctly, that it is possible to desire God under the impulse of merely selfish fear, and that such desire after God seldom ends in any good. It is true that fear is an element in every useful ministry. We would not, for one moment, undervalue the importance of fear in certain conditions of the human mind. At the same time, it is distinctly taught in the Holy Book that men may, in certain times, under the influence of fear, seek God, and God will turn His back upon them, will shut His ears when they cry, and will not listen to the voice of their appeal. Nothing can be more distinctly revealed than this awful doctrine, that God comes to men within certain seasons and opportunities, that He lays down given conditions of approach, that He even fixes times and periods, and that the day will come when He will say, I will send a famine upon the earth. Not a famine of bread, or a thirst of water, but of hearing the Word of the Lord. When men are in great physical pain, when cholera is in the air, when smallpox is killing its thousands week by week, when wheat fields are turned into graveyards, when Gods judgments are abroad in the earth, there be many who turn their ashen faces to the heavens! What if God will not hear their cowardly prayer? When God lifts His sword, there be many that say, We would flee from this judgment. And when He comes in the last, grand, terrible development of His personality, many will cry unto the rocks, and unto the hills to hide them from His face; but the rocks and the hills will hear them not, for they will be deaf at the bidding of God! I am obliged, therefore, you see, as a Christian teacher, to make this dark side of the question very plain indeed; because there are persons who imagine that they may put off these greatest considerations of life until times of sickness, and times of withdrawment from business, and times of plague, and seasons that seem to appeal more pathetically than others to their religious nature. God has distinctly said, Because I called, and they refused; I stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; I will mock at their calamity, I will laugh at their afflictions, I will mock when their fear cometh--when their fear cometh as desolation, and judgment cometh upon them as a whirlwind! Then they will cry unto Me, but I will not hear! Now, lest any man should be under thee impression that he can call upon God at any time and under any circumstances, I wish to say, loudly, with a trumpet blast, There is a black mark at a certain part of your life; up to that you may seek God and find Him,--beyond it you may cry, and hear nothing but the echo of your own voice! How then does it stand with us in this matter of desire? Is our desire after God living, loving, intense, complete? Why, that desire itself is prayer; and the very experience of that longing brings heaven into the soul! Let me ask you again, Do you really desire to find God, to know Him, and to love Him? That desire is the beginning of the new birth; that longing is the pledge that your prayers shall be accomplished in the largest, greatest blessing that the living God can bestow upon you. Still it may be important to go a little further into this, and examine what our object is in truly desiring to find God. It may be possible that even here our motive may be mixed; and if there is the least alloy in our motive, that alloy will tell against us. The desire must be pure. There must be no admixture of vanity or self-sufficiency; it must be a desire of true, simple, undivided love. Now, how is it with the desire which we at this moment may be presumed to experience? Let me ask this question, What is your object in desiring to find God? Is it to gratify intellectual vanity? That is possible. It is quite conceivable that a man of a certain type and cast of mind shall very zealously pursue theological questions without being truly, profoundly religious. It is one thing to have an interest in scientific theology, and another tiring really and lovingly to desire God for religious purposes. Is it not perfectly conceivable that a man shall take delight in dissecting the human frame, that he may find out its anatomy and understand its construction; and yet do so without any intention ever to heal the sick, or feed the hungry, or clothe the naked? Some men seem to be born with a desire to anatomise; they like to dissect, to find out the secret of the human frame, to understand its construction and the interdependence of its several parts. So far we rejoice in their perseverance and their discoveries. But it is perfectly possible for such men to care for anatomy without caring for philanthropy; to care about anatomy, from a scientific point of view, without any ulterior desire to benefit any living creature. So it is perfectly conceivable that man shall make the study of God a kind of intellectual hobby, without his heart being stirred by deep religious concern to know God as the Father, Saviour, Sanctifier, Sovereign of the human race. I, therefore, do not beg you to excuse me in the slightest degree in putting this question so penetratingly. It is a vital question. Do you seek to know more of God simply as a scientific theological inquirer? If so, you are off the line of my observations, and the Gospel I have to preach will hardly reach you in your remote position. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Jobs thoughts concerning an absent God
Whether there ever was such a being as a speculative atheist, it may not be easy to determine; but there are two classes of atheists which are very easily found. There are some who are atheists by disposition. There are also practical atheists.
I. Jobs condition. Even today is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. In some this murmuring and repining is a natural infirmity; they seem to be constitutionally morbid and querulous. In others this is a moral infirmity, arising from pride and unbelief and discontent, against which it becomes us always carefully to guard.
II. Jobs desire. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to Iris seat! He does not express the name of God. Here we see an addition to his distress; he was now in a state of desertion. God can never be absent from His people, as to His essential presence, or even as to His spiritual presence. But He may be absent as to what our divines call His sensible presence, or the manifestation of His favour and of the designs of His dealings with us. This greatly enhances any external affliction. For the presence of God, which is always necessary, is never so sweet as it is in the day of trouble. It is a sad thing to be without the presence of God; but it is far worse to be senseless of our need of it. The desire after God arises from three causes.
1. The new nature. Persons will desire according to their conviction and their disposition.
2. Experience. When they first sought after God, they felt their need of film
3. A consciousness of their entire dependence upon Him. They feel that all their sufficiency is of God. Observe, in the case of Job, the earnestness of his desire.
III. His resolution.
1. He says, I would order my cause before Him. Which shows that the Divine presence would not overpower him, so as not to leave sense, reason, and speech.
2. He says, I would fill my mouth with arguments. Not that these are necessary to excite and move a Being who is love itself; but these are proper to affect and encourage us.
3. He says, I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would say unto me. In general, a Christian wishes to know the Divine pleasure concerning him. You will attach little importance to prayer, if you are regardless of Gods answer to it.
IV. His confidence and expectation. The power of God is great. Notice the blessedness of having this power employed for us. He will put strength in me. How dreadful must it be for God to plead against a man by His great power. (William Jay.)
Jobs appeal to God
Taking the Book of Job as a whole, it may be called a dramatic epic poem of remarkable merit, in which the author graphically discusses the general distribution of good and evil in the world, inquiring whether or not there is a righteous distribution of this good and evil here on earth, and whether or not the dealings of God with men are according to character. Job was saved from consenting to the conclusions of the three friends, through the consciousness of personal integrity and the confidence of his heart in a loving God. Jobs struggle was desperate. Those long-continued days and weeks were a trial of faith beyond our estimate. The question was not whether Job would bear his multiplied afflictions with a stoical heroism, but whether he would still turn to God, would rest in the calm confidence of his heart that God would be his justification and vindication. We now look at this storm-tossed man in his extremity, and discover him--
I. Anxious to find how he can get his cause before God for arbitration. Job illustrates what ought to be true of every man. We should be anxious to know what God thinks of us, rather than what men think of us. We should remember that One is to be our Judge who knows our heart, before whom, in the day of final assize, we are to appear for inspection, and whose recognition of our integrity will insure blessedness for us in the great hereafter.
II. We discover Job calmly confident that Gods decision of his cause will be just. He does not imagine for a moment that God will make mistakes concerning him, or that Omnipotence will take advantage of his weakness.
III. In great perplexity, because he seems to be excluded from the trial which he seeks. The lament of this man here is painful and mysterious. Jobs hope had been that God would appear somewhere. But all is night and silence. This is human experience caused by human infirmities. Life is a season of discipline, a season of education and evolution.
IV. We find Job calm in the assured watchfulness of God over him, and in his confidence of ultimate vindication. Here is supreme faith in the all-knowing and finally delivering God. Jobs faith is the worlds need. (Justin E. Twitchell.)
Where God is found
This Book of Job represents a discussion upon Gods providential relations to the world, and shows how the subject perplexed and baffled the minds of men in those early days in which it was written. God, in the book, does not give the required explanations; but, pointing out the marks of His power, wisdom, and goodness, in His natural works, leaves His hearers to the exercise of a pure and simple trust. With reference to the loss of Gods presence, over which men mourn in our day--this longing to find God and to come unto His mercy seat, which is so widespread and so unsatisfied--we must not treat it with reproof due only to moral delinquency or religious indifference; but do our best to furnish direction which reason and conscience will approve. Call to mind the circumstances under which men have been thrown into all this doubt and perplexity. Then we shall find it is not that they have been intellectually brought into a position in which it is impossible to believe in Divine communion; but that the special system with which the forms of Divine communion have, during the last few centuries, been associated, has broken down, and left men without a perfect basis for their faith, and without an intellectual justification of the act of Divine communion. If you feel this to be true, if under the sense of the worthlessness of those systems of divinity which your conscience even more than your understanding rejects, you are yet longing for Divine communion, I have now to assert that God is to be found, not through systems of divinity, or processes of logical thought, but by the simple, childlike surrender of the soul to those influences which God, through all the objects of truth, goodness, beauty, and purity, exerts directly on it. The sense of Gods presence is obtained through the pure and quiet contemplation of Divine objects. To seek our divinity merely in books and writings is to seek the living among the dead. It is only of the knowledge of God in His relations to ourselves that I speak. In our knowledge of God two elements are necessarily mingled.
1. There is the feeling which is excited within us when we come preparedly into contact with what is Divine. The soul feels Gods presence, however He may be named, and with whatever investiture He may be clothed. But then the understanding interprets the devout feeling Divine objects awaken, by representing God under such forms as its culture enables it to think out. God has appointed many objects through which He makes His revelation directly to the soul. Everything in the natural and moral world, which greatly surpasses mans comprehension or attainments, becomes the medium through which God speaks to the soul, touches its devout feeling, and so reveals Himself. You may say, It is not feeling I want,, but a justification of my feeling; a reconciliation of my feeling with the facts science, history, and criticism have taught me. Nay, it is feeling, intense, irresistible feeling, of Gods presence with us and in us that we need. No thinking can give you back the God you have lost; it is in feeling, the feeling awakened by coming into contact with God, that alone you can find Him. There is, however, one condition--a man must come with a pure heart, a free conscience, and a purpose set to do Gods will. (J. Cranbrook.)
Jobs spiritual sentiments
These words exhibit a pattern of the frame of spirit habitually felt, in a good degree, by every child of God, while he is in the posture of seeking for the presence of God, and for intimate communion with Him.
I. The different spiritual sentiments implied in this holy exclamation. Here is--
1. A solemn appeal from the unjust censures of men, to the knowledge, love, and faithfulness of God, the supreme Judge. Apostasy from God hath rendered mankind very foolish and erroneous judges in spiritual matters. The more of God there is in any mans character and exercises, the more is that man exposed to the malignant censures, not only of the world at large, but even of Christians of an inferior class. For the weakest Christians are most forward to go beyond their depths, in judging confidently of things above their knowledge. Against assaults of this kind the children of the Most High have a strong refuge. The shield of faith quenches the fiery and envenomed darts of calumny, misrepresentation, and malice.
2. An intended bold expostulation with God, in respect of the strangeness and intricacy of His dealings with His afflicted servant. It is one of the hardest conflicts in the spiritual life, when God Himself appears as a party contending with His own children. Job could discover no special reason for Gods severity against him. His faith naturally vents itself in the way of humble, yet bold expostulation.
3. A perplexing sense of distance from God. Renewed souls have such perceptions of God as are mysterious to themselves and incredible to others. When God seems to hide His face, an awful consternation, confusion, dejection, and anguish are the consequence. This situation is the more perplexing when, as was Jobs case, there is felt a very great need for the presence of God, and when all endeavours to recover it seem to be vain. Then the conclusion is sometimes rashly drawn by the people of God, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God. But in all these afflictions of His people, the Lord Himself is afflicted.
4. Jobs exclamation expresses most vehement desires after the spiritual presence of God.
5. What is particularly to be attended to is the nature of the access to God which Job desired. He was in pursuit of the most near and intimate communion with God.
II. Bring home the whole of these sentiments.
1. Such instances of deep and sober spiritual exercise furnish a convincing proof of the reality of religion, and of the certainty of the great truths with which the power of religion is so closely connected.
2. The things which have been treated of give us a view of the nature as well as of the reality of religion.
3. Such characters as that of Job carry in them the condemnation of various classes of people.
4. This subject may be applied for the encouragement of the upright. (J. Love, D. D.)
The believer under affliction
Job was justly chargeable with a disposition to self-justification, though he was not guilty of that insincerity, hypocrisy, and contempt of God which his precipitate and unfeeling friends alleged against him. This self-approving temper God took means to correct. One of the methods He used was, hiding His face from him, and leaving him to feel the wretchedness and helplessness of this state of spiritual desertion. The text may be regarded as mirroring the state of one suffering under a conscious absence of God, who longs for the returning smile of His reconciled countenance.
I. The deep, painful, and distressing feeling which these words bring before us. The language of the text is not the language of one possessing either a false security or a real and solid peace. There is a peace which disturbs the soul, a treacherous calm, the harbinger of the tempest. There is a rest which is not a healthy repose, but the torpor of one over whose members there is stealing the unfelt effects of that lifeless inactivity which so often precedes a second death. Those who are the victims of this fatal insensibility see no danger, and therefore fear no evil. They apprehend no change, and so prepare against no danger. How different is the state implied in the text! The mind, aroused from its carelessness, finds itself wretched and miserable, poor and blind and naked. It knows no peace; it has no comforter. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! is the language of such a spirit in the hour of its dimness and darkness and perplexity. The language is even more truly descriptive of the feeling of one who, having known the grace of God in truth, has lost his sense of the Divine favour, and walks in heaviness under the chastening hand and frowning countenance of his Heavenly Father.
II. The ardent desire. The first symptom of returning health and soundness in the mind is that restlessness which urges the soul to flee again unto its God. Satan has recourse to various artifices for the purpose of diverting the desires into another channel. When God is absent from you, do not rest until He return to you, as the God of your salvation.
III. Holy resolution. I would order my cause before Him. There is an important sense in which a sinner may order his cause before God; and there are irresistible arguments which he is authorised to advance, and which he is assured will be favourably received. Combined with self-abasement, there should be confidence in the mercy of that God to whom you so reverently draw nigh. Alas! how many there are who will not give themselves the trouble earnestly to desire and diligently to seek the Lord! (Stephen Bridge, A. M.)
Pleading with God
God hath chosen His people in the furnace of affliction. The greatest saints are often the greatest sufferers.
I. Where shall I find God? Where is His mercy seat? Whore doth He graciously reveal Himself to those who seek Him? I know that I may find Him in nature. The world, the universe of worlds, are the works of His hands. We may find Him in the Bible, in the secret place of prayer, and in my own heart.
II. How shall I approach him? Sinner that I am, how shall I order my cause before a righteous and holy Judge? Prayer is the appointed method, the duty enjoined upon all, the universal condition of forgiveness and salvation. Why is prayer made the condition of the blessing? Because it is the confession of my need, and the declaration of my desire; the acknowledgment of my helpless dependency, and the expression of my humble trust in His almighty goodness. But all prayer must be offered through the mediation of Gods beloved Son. And we must come with sincerity.
III. What plea must I employ? Shall I plead the dignity of my rank, or the merit of my work, or the purity of my heart? I will plead His glorious name, and His unspeakable gift, and His great and precious promises. I will plead the manifestation of His mercy to others, and the numberless instances of His grace to myself.
IV. And what answer shall I receive? Will God disregard my suit? No. He will put strength in me. He will show me what is in my favour; suggest to my mind additional and irrefutable arguments. I shall know the words that He will answer me. (J. Cross, D. D.)
Jobs appeal to God
This passage opens with a statement of Jobs dissatisfied condition of mind (verses 1, 2), followed by a wish that he might find God and defend himself before Him (verses 3-7); and it concludes with a lament that he is not able to do so (verses 8-10). In thinking over this passage, remember two things--
1. The abstract question of the possibility of any man being absolutely innocent in the sight of God is not raised here. Men are divided into two great classes--those who (however imperfectly) seek to serve God and do right, and those who live in selfishness and sin. The former class are called the righteous. In the relative sense, Jobs claim as to his own character was true.
2. We are not to find in Job, as he is here exhibited, a model for ourselves when we are afflicted. Try to separate in Jobs condition those things in which he was right from those things in which he was wrong. He was right--
1. In his consciousness of innocence.
2. In using his reason on the great problem of suffering.
3. In wanting to know Gods opinion of him.
4. In his desire to be just before God.
5. In holding fast to his belief in God.
6. Job believed in justice as an essential element in the character of God, even though he did not see how God was just in the present instance.
Job was wrong--
1. In his imperfect theory of suffering--wrong, that is, in the sense of being mistaken.
2. In his restless desire to know all the reasons for Gods dealings with him.
3. In wanting to have God bring Himself down to a level of equality with him, laying aside His omniscience, and listening, as though He were only a human judge, to Job.
4. And Job was plainly wrong in his impatient fooling towards God (verse 2). (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Job 23, 24
XX.
WHERE IS ELOAH?
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Job 23, 24
JOB SPEAKS
THE obscure couplet with which Job begins appears to involve some reference to his whole condition alike of body and mind.
"Again today, my plaint, my rebellion!
The hand upon me is heavier than my groanings."
I must speak of my trouble and you will count it rebellion. Yet, if I moan and sigh, my pain and weariness are more than excuse. The crisis of faith is with him, a protracted misery, and hope hangs trembling in the balance. The false accusations of Eliphaz are in his mind; but they provoke only a feeling of weary discontent. What men say does not trouble him much. He is troubled because of that which God refuses to do or say. Many indeed are the afflictions of the righteous. But every case like his own obscures the providence of God. Job does not entirely deny the contention of his friends that unless suffering comes as a punishment of sin there is no reason for it. Hence, even though he maintains with strong conviction that the good are often poor and afflicted while the wicked prosper, yet he does not thereby clear up the matter. He must admit to himself that he is condemned by the events of life. And against the testimony of outward circumstance he makes appeal in the audience chamber of the King.
Has the Most High forgotten to be righteous for a time? When the generous and true are brought into sore straits, is the great Friend of truth neglecting His task as Governor of the world? That would indeed plunge life into profound darkness. And it seems to be even so. Job seeks deliverance from this mystery which has emerged in his own experience. He would lay his cause before Him who alone can explain.
"Oh that I knew where I might find Him,
That I might come even to His seat!
I would order my cause before Him,
And fill my mouth with arguments.
I would know the words which He would answer me
And understand what He would say unto me."
Present to Jobs mind here is the thought that he is under condemnation, and along with this the conviction that his trial is not over. It is natural that his mind should hover between these ideas, holding strongly to the hope that judgment, if already passed, will be revised whet the facts are fully known. Now this course of thought is altogether in the darkness. But what are the principles unknown to Job, through ignorance of which he has to languish in doubt? Partly, as we long ago saw the explanation lies in the use of trial and affliction as the means of deepening spiritual life. They give gravity and therewith the possibility of power to our existence. Even yet Job had not realised that one always kept in the primrose path, untouched by the keen air of "misfortune" although he had, to begin, a pious disposition and a blameless record, would be worth little: the end to God or to mankind. And the necessity for the discipline of affliction and disappointment, even as it explains the smaller troubles, explains also the greatest. Let ill be heaped on ill, disaster on disaster, disease on bereavement, misery on sorrow, while stage by stage the life goes down into deeper circles of gloom and pain, it may acquire, it will acquire, if faith and faithfulness towards God remain, massiveness, strength, and dignity for the highest spiritual service. But there is another principle, not yet considered, which enters into the problem and still more lightens up the valley of experience which to Job appeared so dark. The poem touches the fringe of this principle again and again, but never states it. The author says that men were born to trouble. He made Job suffer more because he had his integrity to maintain than if he had been guilty of transgressions by acknowledging which he might have pacified his friends: The burden lay heavily upon Job because he was a conscientious man, a true man, and could not accept any make believe in religion. But just where another step would have carried him into the light of blessed acquiescence in the will of God the power failed, he could not advance. Perhaps the genuineness and simplicity of his character would have been impaired if he had thought of it. and we like him better because he did not. The truth, however, is that Job was suffering for others, that he was, by the grace of God, a martyr, and so far forth in the spirit and position of that suffering Servant of Jehovah of whom we read in the prophecies of Isaiah.
The righteous sufferers, the martyrs, what are they? Always the vanguard of humanity. Where they go and the prints of their bleeding feet are left, there is the way of improvement, of civilisation, of religion. The most successful man, preacher or journalist or statesman, is popularly supposed to be leading the world in the right path. Where the crowd goes shouting after him, is that not the way to advance? Do not believe it. Look for a teacher, a journalist, a statesman who is not so successful as he might be, because he will, at all hazards, be true. The Christian world does not yet know the best in life, thought, and morality for the best. He who sacrifices position and esteem to righteousness, he who will not bow down to the great idol at the sound of sackbut and psaltery, observe where that man is going, try to understand what he has in his mind. Those who under defeat or neglect remain steadfast in faith have the secrets we need to know. To the ranks even of the afflicted and broken the author of Job turned for an example of witness bearing to high ideas and the faith in God which brings salvation. But he wrought in the shadow, and his hero is unconscious of his high calling. Had Job seen the principles of Divine providence which made him a helper of human faith, we should not now hear him cry for an opportunity of pleading his cause before God.
"Would He contend with me in His mighty power?
Nay, but He would give heed to me.
Then an upright man would reason with Him;
So should I get free forever from my Judge."
It is in a sense startling to hear this confident expectation of acquittal at the bar of God. The common notion is that the only part possible to man in his natural state is to fear the judgment to come and dread the hour that shall bring him to the Divine tribunal. From the ordinary point of view the language of Job here is dangerous, if not profane. He longs to meet the Judge; he believes that he could so state his case that the Judge would listen and be convinced. The Almighty would not contend with him any longer as his powerful antagonist, but would pronounce him innocent and set him at liberty forever. Can mortal man vindicate himself before the bar of the Most High? Is not every one condemned by the law of nature and of conscience, much more by Him who knoweth all things? And yet this man who believes he would be acquitted by the great King has already been declared "perfect and upright, one that feareth God and escheweth evil." Take the declaration of the Almighty Himself in the opening scenes of the book, and Job is found what he claims to be. Under the influence of that Divine grace which the sincere and upright may enjoy he has been a faithful servant and has earned the approbation of his Judge. It is by faith he is made righteous. Religion and love of the Divine law have been his guides; he has followed them; and what one has done may not others do? Our book is concerned not so much with the corruption of human nature, as with the vindication of the grace of God given to human nature. Corrupt and vile as humanity often is, imperfect and spiritually ignorant as it always is, the writer of this book is not engaged with that view. He directs attention to the virtuous and honourable elements and shows Gods new creation in which He may take delight.
We shall indeed find that after the Almighty has spoken out of the storm, Job says, "I repudiate my words and repent in dust and ashes." So he appears to come at last to the confession which, from one point of view, he ought to have made at the first. But those words of penitence imply no acknowledgment of iniquity after all. They are confession of ignorant judgment. Job admits with sorrow that he has ventured too far in his attempt to understand the ways of the Almighty, that he has spoken without knowledge of the universal providence he had vainly sought to fathom.
The authors intention plainly is to justify Job in his desire for the opportunity of pleading his cause, that is, to justify the claim of the human reason to comprehend. It is not an offence to him that much of the Divine working is profoundly difficult to interpret. He acknowledges in humility that God is greater than man, that there are secrets with the Almighty which the human mind cannot penetrate. But so far as suffering and sorrow are appointed to a man and enter into his life, he is considered to have the right of inquiry regarding them, an inherent claim on God to explain them. This may be held the error of the author which he himself has to confess when he comes to the Divine interlocution. There he seems to allow the majesty of the Omnipotent to silence the questions of human reason. But this is really a confession that his own knowledge does not suffice, that he shares the ignorance of Job as well as his cry for light. The universe is vaster than he or any of the Old Testament age could even imagine. The destinies of man form part of a Divine order extending through the immeasurable spaces and the developments of eternal ages.
Once more Job perceives or seems to perceive that access to the presence of the Judge is denied. The sense of condemnation shuts him in like prison walls and he finds no way to the audience chamber. The bright sun moves calmly from east to west; the gleaming stars, the cold moon in their turn glide silently over the vault of heaven. Is not God on high? Yet man sees no form, hears no sound.
"Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet;
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."
But Job is not able to conceive a spiritual presence without shape or voice.
"Behold, I go forward, but He is not there;
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him:
On the left hand where He doth work, but I behold Him not:
He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him."
Nature, thou hast taught this man by thy light and thy darkness, thy glorious sun and thy storms, the clear shining after rain, the sprouting corn and the clusters of the vine, by the power of mans will and the daring love and justice of mans heart. In all thou hast been a revealer. But thou hidest whom thou dost reveal. To cover in thought the multiplicity of, thy energies in earth and sky and sea, in fowl and brute and man, in storm and sunshine, in reason, in imagination, in will and love and hope; -to attach these one by one to the idea of a Being almighty, infinite, eternal, and so to conceive this God of the universe-it is, we may say, a superhuman task. Job breaks down in the effort to realise the great God. I took behind me, into the past. There are the footprints of Eloah when He passed by. In the silence an echo of His step may be heard; but God is not there. On the right hand, away beyond the hills that shut in the horizon, on the left hand where the ways leads to Damascus and the distant north-not there can I see His form; nor out yonder where day breaks in the east. And when I travel forward in imagination, I who said that my Redeemer shall stand upon the earth, when I strive to conceive His form, still, in utter human incapacity, I fail. "Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself."
And yet, Jobs conviction of his own uprightness, is it not Gods witness to his spirit? Can he not be content with that? To have such a testimony is to have the very verdict he desire. Well does Boethius, a writer of the old world though he belonged to the Christian age, press beyond Job where he writes:
"He is always Almighty, because He always wills good and never any evil. He is always equally gracious. By His Divine power He is everywhere present. The Eternal and Almighty always sits on the throne of His power. Thence He is able to see all, and renders to every one with justice, according to his works. Therefore it is. not in vain that we have hope in God; for He changes not as we do. But pray ye to Him humbly, for He is very bountiful and very merciful. Hate and fly from evil as ye best may. Love virtues and follow them. Ye have great need that ye always do well, for ye always in the presence of the Eternal and Almighty God do all that ye do. He beholds it all, and He will recompense it all."
Amiel, on the other hand, would fain apply to Job a reflection which has occurred to himself in one of the moods that come to a man disappointed, impatient of his own limitations. In his journal, under date January 29th, 1866, he writes:
"It is but our secret self-love which is set upon this favour from on high; such may be our desire, but such is not the will of God. We are to be exercised, humbled, tried and tormented to the end. It is our patience which is the touchstone of our virtue. To bear with life even when illusion and hope are gone; to accept this position of perpetual war, while at the same time loving only peace; to stay patiently in the world, even when it repels us as a place of low company and seems to us a mere arena of bad passions; to remain faithful to ones own faith without breaking with the followers of false gods; to make no attempt to escape from the human hospital, long-suffering and patient as Job upon his dunghill; -this is duty."
An evil mood prompts Amiel to write thus. A thousand times rather would one hear him crying like Job on the great Judge and Redeemer and complaining that the Goal hides Himself. It is not in bare self-love or self-pity Job seeks acquittal at the bar of God; but in the defence of conscience, the spiritual treasure of mankind and our very life. No doubt his own personal justification bulks largely with Job, for he has strong individuality. He will not be overborne. He stands at bay against his three friends and the unseen adversary. But he loves integrity, the virtue, first; and for himself he cares as the representative of that which the Spirit of God gives to faithful men. He may cry, therefore, he may defend himself, he may complain; and God will not cast him off.
"For He knoweth the way that I take;
If He tried me, I should come forth as gold.
My foot hath held fast to His steps,
His way have I kept, and not turned aside.
I have not gone back from the commandments of His lips;
I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my needful food."
Bravely, not in mere vaunt he speaks, and it is good to hear him still able to make such a claim. Why do we not also hold fast to the garment of our Divine Friend? Why do we not realise and exhibit the resolute godliness that anticipates judgment: "If He tried me, I should come forth as gold"? The psalmists of Israel stood thus on their faith; and not in vain, surely, has Christ called us to be like our Father who is in heaven.
But again from brave affirmation Job falls back exhausted.
Oh thou Hereafter! on whose shore I stand-
Waiting each toppling moment to engulf me.
What am I? Say thou Present! say thou Past!
Ye three wise children of Eternity-
A life?-A death?-and an immortal?-All?
Is this the threefold mystery of man?
The lower, darker Trinity of earth?
It is vain to ask.
Nought answers me-not God.
The air grows thick and dark.
The sky comes down.
The sun draws round him streaky clouds-like God
Gleaning up wrath.
Hope hath leapt off my heart,
Like a false sibyl, fear-smote, from her seat,
And overturned it.
So, as Bailey makes his Festus speak, might Job have spoken here. For now it seems to him that to call on God is fruitless. Eloah is of one mind. His will is steadfast, immovable. Death is in the cup and death will come. On this God has determined. Nor is it in Jobs case alone so sore a doom is performed by the Almighty. Many such things are with Him. The waves of trouble roll up from the deep dark sea and go over the head of the sufferer. He lies faint and desolate once more. The light fades, and with a deep sigh because he ever came to life he shuts his lips.
Natural religion ends always with a sigh. The sense of God found in the order of the universe, the dim vision of God which comes in conscience, moral life and duty, in fear and hope and love, in the longing for justice and truth-these avail much; but they leave us at the end desiring something they cannot give. The Unknown God whom men ignorantly worshipped had to be revealed by the life and truth and power of the Man Christ Jesus. Not without this revelation, which is above and beyond nature, can our eager quest end in satisfying knowledge. In Christ alone the righteousness that justifies, the love that compassionates, the wisdom that enlightens are brought into the range of our experience and communicated through reason to faith.
In chapter 24 there is a development of the reasoning contained in Jobs reply to Zophar in the second colloquy, and there is also a closer examination of the nature and results of evildoing than has yet been attempted. In the course of his acute and careful discrimination Job allows something to his friends side of the argument, but all the more emphasises the series of vivid touches by which the prosperous tyrant is represented. He modifies to some extent his opinion previously expressed that all goes well with the wicked. He finds that certain classes of miscreants do come to confusion, and he separates these from the others, at the same time separating himself beyond question from the oppressor on this side and the murderer and adulterer on that. Accepting the limits of discussion chosen by the friends he exhausts the matter between himself and them. By the distinctions now made and the choice offered, Job arrests personal accusation, and of that we hear no more.
Continuing the idea of a Divine assize which has governed his thought throughout this reply, Job asks why it should not be held openly from time to time in the worlds history.
"Why are times not set by the Almighty?
And why do not they who know Him see His days?"
Emerson says the world is full of judgment days; Job thinks it is not, but ought to be. Passing from his own desire to have access to the bar of God and plead there, he now thinks of an open court, a public vindication of Gods rule. The Great Assize is never proclaimed. Ages go by; the Righteous One never appears. All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Men struggling, sinning, suffering, doubt or deny the existence of a moral Ruler. They ask, Who ever saw this God? If He exists, He is so separate from the world by His own choice that there is no need to consider Him. In pride or in sorrow men raise the question. But no God means no justice, no truth, no penetration of the real by the ideal; and thought cannot rest there.
With great vigour and large knowledge of the world the writer makes Job point out the facts of human violence and crime, of human condonation and punishment. Look at the oppressors and those who cringe under them, the despots never brought to justice, but on the contrary growing in power through the fear and misery of their serfs. Already we have seen how perilous it is to speak falsely for God. Now we see, on the other hand, that whoever speaks truly of the facts of human experience prepares the way for a true knowledge of God. Those who have been looking in vain for indications of Divine justice and grace are to learn that not in deliverance from the poverty and trouble of this world but in some other way they must realise Gods redemption. The writer of the book is seeking after that kingdom which is not meat and drink nor long life and happiness, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Observe first, says Job, the base and cruel men who remove landmarks and claim as their own a neighbours heritage, who drive into their pastures flocks that are not theirs, who even take away the one ass of the fatherless and the one ox the widow has for ploughing her scanty fields, who thus with a high hand overbear all the defenceless people within their reach. Zophar had charged Job with similar crimes, and no direct reply was given to the accusation. Now, speaking strongly of the iniquity of such deeds, Job makes his accusers feel their injustice towards him. There are men who do such things. I have seen them, wondered at them, been amazed that they were not struck down by the hand of God. My distress is that I cannot understand how to reconcile their immunity from punishment with my faith in Him whom I have served and trusted as my Friend.
The next picture, from the fifth to the eighth verse (Job_24:5-8) , shows in contrast to the tyrants pride and cruelty the lot of those who suffer at his hands. Deprived of their land and their flocks, herding together in common danger and misery like wild asses, they have to seek for their food such roots and wild fruits as can be found here and there in the wilderness. Half enslaved now by the man who took away their land they are driven to the task of harvesting his fodder and gathering the gleanings of his grapes. Naked they lie in the field, huddling together for warmth, and out among the hills they are wet with the impetuous rams, crouching in vain under the ledges of the rock for shelter.
Worse things too are done, greater sufferings than these have to be endured. Men there are who pluck the fatherless child from the mothers breast, claiming the poor little life as a pledge. Miserable debtors, faint with hunger, have to carry the oppressors sheaves of corn. They have to grind at the oil presses, and with never a cluster to slake their thirst tread the grapes in the hot sun. Nor is it only in the country cruelties are practised. Perhaps in Egypt the writer has seen what he makes Job describe, the misery of city life. In the city the dying groan uncared for, and the soul of the wounded crieth out. Universal are the scenes of social iniquity. The world is full of injustice. And to Job the sting of it all is that "God regardeth not the wrong."
Men talk nowadays as if the penury and distress prevalent in our large towns proved the churches to be unworthy of their name and place. It may be so. If this can be proved, let it be proved; and if the institution called The Church cannot justify its existence and its Christianity where it should do so by freeing the poor from oppression and securing their rights to the weak, then let it go to the wall. But here is Job carrying the accusation a stage farther, carrying it, with what may appear blasphemous audacity, to the throne of God. He has no church to blame, for there is no church. Or, he himself represents what church there is. And as a witness for God, what does he find to be his portion? Behold him, where many a servant of Divine righteousness has been in past times and is now, down in the depths, poorest of the poor, bereaved, diseased, scorned, misunderstood, hopeless. Why is there suffering? Why are there many in our cities outcasts of society, such as society is? Jobs case is a partial explanation; and here the church is not to blame. Pariahs of society, we say. If society consists to any great extent of oppressors who are enjoying wealth unjustly gained, one is not so sure that there is any need to pity those who are excluded from society. Am I trying to make out that it may be well there are oppressors, because oppression is not the worst thing for a brave soul? No: I am only using the logic of the Book of Job in justifying Divine providence. The church is criticised and by many in these days condemned as worthless because it is not banishing poverty. Perhaps it might be more in the way of duty and more likely to succeed if it sought to banish excessive wealth. Are we of the twentieth Christian century to hold still by the error of Eliphaz and the rest of Jobs friends? Are we to imagine that those whom the gospel blesses it must of necessity enrich, so that in their turn they may be tempted to act the Pharisee? Let us be sure God knows how to govern His world. Let us not doubt His justice because many are very poor who have been guilty of no crimes and many very rich who have been distinguished by no virtues. It is our mistake to think that all would be well if no bitter cries were heard in the midnight streets and every one were secured against penury. While the church is partly to blame for the state of things, the salvation of society will not be found in any earthly socialism. On that side lies a slough as deep as the other from which it professes to save. The large Divine justice and humanity which the world needs are those which Christ alone has taught, Christ to whom property was only something to deal with on the way to spiritual good, -humility, holiness, love, and faith.
The emphatic "These" with which Job_24:13 begins must be taken as referring to the murderer and adulterer immediately to be described. Quite distinct from the strong oppressors who maintain themselves in high position are these cowardly miscreants who "rebel against the light" (Job_24:13), who "in the dark dig through houses" and "know not the light" (Job_24:16), to whom "the morning is as the shadow of death," whose "portion is cursed in the earth." The passage contains Jobs admission that there are vile transgressors of human and Divine law whose unrighteousness is broken as a tree (Job_24:20). Without giving up his main contention as to high-handed wickedness prospering in the world he can admit this; nay, asserting it, he strengthens his position against the arguments of his friends. The murderer who rising towards daybreak waylays and kills the poor and needy for the sake of their scanty belongings, the adulterer who waits for the twilight, disguising his face, and the thief who in the dark digs through the clay wall of a house these do find the punishment of their treacherous and disgusting crimes in this life. The coward who is guilty of such sin is loathed even by the mother who bore him and has to skulk in by ways, familiar with the terrors of the shadow of death, daring, not to turn in the way of the vineyards to enjoy their fruit. The description of these reprobates ends with the twenty-first verse, and then there is a return to the "mighty" and the Divine support they appear to enjoy.
The interpretation of Job_24:18-21 which makes them "either actually in part the work of a popular hand, or a parody after the popular manner by Job himself," has no sufficient ground. To affirm that the passage is introduced ironically and that Job_24:22 resumes the real history of the murderer, the adulterer, and the thief is to neglect the distinction between those "who rebel against the light" and the mighty who live in the eye of God. The natural interpretation is that which makes the whole a serious argument against the creed of the friends. In their eagerness to convict Job they have failed to distinguish between men whose base crimes bring them under social reprobation and the proud oppressors who prosper through very arrogance. Regarding these the fact still holds that apparently they are under the protection of Heaven.
Yet He sustaineth the mighty by His power,
They rise up though they despaired of life.
He giveth them to be safe, and they are unheld,
And His eyes are upon their ways.
They rise high: in a moment they are not;
They are brought low, like all others gathered in.
And cut off as the tops of corn.
If not-who then will make me a liar,
And to nothing bring my speech?
Is the daring right-defying evildoer wasted by disease, preyed upon by terror? Not so. When he appears to have been crushed, suddenly he starts up again in new vigour, and when he dies, it is not prematurely but in the ripeness of full age. With this reaffirmation of the mystery of Gods dealings Job challenges his friends. They have his final judgment. The victory he gains is that of one who will be true at all hazards. Perhaps in the background of his thought is the vision of a redemption not only of his own life but of all those broken by the injustice and cruelty of this earth.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Ceases directly to address his friends. His present speech…
JOB’S THIRD REPLY TO ELIPHAZ
Ceases directly to address his friends. His present speech rather a soliloquy. Takes no notice of the charges laid against him by Eliphaz. Laments the want of access to God in order to plead his cause before Him. Expresses his consciousness of integrity and obedience to the Divine will, as well as his solemn awe at the absolute sovereignity of God, and the mysterious character of His dealings with him.
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I. Complains of the continuance of his troubles and the view still taken of his conduct under it (Job_23:2). “Even to-day [after all I have already suffered] is my complaint bitter (or, ‘even to-day [after all I have asserted of my innocence] is my speech [regarded as] rebellion’); my stroke is heavier than my groaning” (or, is [viewed as] heavy on account of my groaning). Expresses either his own sorrowful experience, or the views of his friends regarding it. His troubles now of some weeks, or perhaps months, continuance. No relief as yet either to his mental distress or physical disease. Observe—
1. Protracted trouble worst to endure. The spirit worn out and exhausted by continued suffering. David’s complaint—“Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me” (Psa_32:4). The misery of the lost that time brings no change. Eternity the only lane that has no turning. As the tree falls, so it lies.
2. An aggravation of trouble when complaint is construed into rebellion. Job’s complaint perhaps not always entirely free from it. His spirit not always what it was in ch. 1 and
2. To complain under such sufferings only human. Bitterness of complaint not always rebelliousness of spirit. Bitter complaint consistent with meekness and submission. A bitter cry heard on the cross from the lips of the only spotless sufferer (Mat_27:46). Job alone conscious of the depth of his distress. The heart knoweth its own bitterness.
3. Grace forbids not to groan under trouble, but puts a bridle upon the lips. Job’s groanings frequent but restrained. He is a conqueror, not who never groans under protracted trouble, but who holds out patiently to the end. Terrible conflict sometimes to be maintained—
(1) Against suffering;
(2) Against sin;
(3) Against suffering and sinning at the same time.
II. Longs for free access to God (Job_23:3). “O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat. I would order my cause before him, I would fill my mouth with arguments [in proving myself an innocent sufferer]; I would know [without fear of the result] the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me” [in answer to my arguments, and in reference to my character and the cause of my suffering]. Perhaps his answer to the exhortation of Eliphaz (ch. Job_22:21). God so familiar to Job’s thoughts as to be spoken of without being named. His life, like Enoch’s, a walking with God. Observe—
1. No uncommon thing for one who walks with God to be at times without free access to Him. God, for wise purposes, hides Himself at times even from His own (Jer_14:8). No finding God but as He reveals Himself. Want of access in time of trouble a special trial of faith and patience.
2. Access to God the privilege of believers. A time for finding God (Psa_32:6; Isa_55:6). The contrary implied (Pro_1:24-29). God found nowhere but in Christ. Christ the way to the Father (Joh_14:6). Free access to God for sinners through Him and His shed blood (Heb_4:15-16; Heb_10:19-22. The Holy Spirit given to believers in order to their free access and approach to God through Christ (Eph_2:18). The spirit of grace and of supplication (Zec_10:12); of adoption, crying: Abba Father (Gal_4:6). Helps infirmities of the saints, making inward intercession for them with groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom_8:26).
3. God not always found immediately (Pro_8:34-35; Luk_18:17). Yet always found where there is earnestness, humility, and faith in seeking Him (Isa_45:9; Jer_29:13). In the time of Job, the way to God through Christ still comparatively obscure, and the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of supplication and adoption, still comparatively withheld. God found the sooner the more we are humbled under a sense of sin and unworthiness. Job’s desire still rather to have access to God as a righteous man, in order to have his innocence affirmed, than as a sinner to have his sins forgiven. God reveals Himself to the humble and contrite, not the self-righteous (Isa_66:2; Luk_18:10-14).
Job still persuaded of God’s favourable regard (Job_23:6). “Will he plead against me (overawe me or put me down) with his great power [as unable to prevail by words]? No, but he would put strength in me” (enabling me to plead my cause successfully; or, “he would give heed to me,” affording a gracious and impartial hearing to my case). God the opposite of the Unjust Judge in the Parable. Not only hearkens to our pleading but gives strength to plead. So the Divine angel wrestling with Jacob at Penuel (Gen_32:24-30).
His confidence as to the result (Job_23:7). “There (in such a case—on being admitted to His tribunal) the righteous might dispute with him (the innocent man—referring to himself—might freely plead his cause); so should I be delivered for ever (come off victorious) from my judge.”
(1) God’s throne at once one of justice and grace.
(2) The comfort of true and tried believers that they shall obtain a favourable verdict from God. Believers have—(i.) The testimony of a good conscience; (ii.) The consciousness of a personal interest in Christ as their Surety and Advocate with the Father (1Jn_3:21; 1Jn_2:1). The believer not absolutely righteous in himself, but in Christ the Righteous One his Head and Representative (Rom_5:14; 2Co_5:21). The confidence of Messiah, as God’s righteous servant transferred to His believing members (Isa_50:5-9; Rom_8:32-34).
(3) A small matter that man condemns if God approves (1Co_4:3).
III. Laments his inability to find God as he desired (Job_23:8). “Behold, I go forward (or, ‘to the east’) but he is not there; and backward (or, ‘to the west’), but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand (or, on the north) where he doth work (the north being the more populous part of the world, the region of stars and constellations and the birthplace of storms and tempests), but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand (or, on the south, where all is solitude and waste), but I cannot see him.” Observe—
1. A believer, while in darkness and trouble, makes continual attempts to find God (Son_3:2). Nothing satisfies a living soul but God Himself (Psa_63:1-2).
2. God found anywhere with humility, earnestness, and faith; without them, nowhere. Found neither in solitude nor society unless He graciously reveals Himself in Christ through the Spirit. God’s absolute presence everywhere; His gracious manifested presence only as He is pleased to afford it. The latter promised to faithful believers (Joh_14:21-23). God’s dealings with men in Providence with a view to their seeking Him, feeling after Him, and finding Him (Act_17:26-27).
3. God often graciously near us when we are without sense or consciousness of His presence. Job’s case now like that of Hagar in the Wilderness (Gen_16:13; Gen_21:19).
4. Prayer answered at the best time and in the best way. Job’s desire ultimately granted after Elihu’s speech had prepard him for it. Then no longer has a case to plead, but conscious of personal unworthiness and the Divine perfection, is able to leave it entirely in the Lord’s hands. Our own spirit generally the greatest hindrance to our prayers being answered.
5. God’s manifested and enjoyed presence the greatest happiness. Happy when everything in nature, sunrise and sunset, storm and calm, “prompts with remembrance of a present God.”
“His presence who made all so fair, perceived,
Makes all still fairer.”
IV. Comforts himself with the thought of the Divine omniscience and the assurance of ultimate triumph (Job_23:10). “But he knoweth the way that I take (Margin: ‘that is with me,’—all my experience and conduct in this affliction, as well as all my previous course of life); when he hath tried me [sufficiently by these troubles; or, simply, ‘he hath tried me, viz., by these present sufferings], I shall come forth, out of this furnace of affliction, or out of this probation to which I am now subjected] as gold” [comes out of the fire that tries and purifies it, refined from the dross of remaining corruption, and freed from all charges and suspicions as to my character and conduct]. Observe—
1. The mark of an upright believer to rejoice that God is acquainted with all his ways.
2. A believer’s comfort under affliction and reproach, to know that God is perfectly acquainted both with his character and experience. If in trouble we cannot see God, it should be our comfort that God sees us, and knows all about us. Hagar’s happy discovery in the wilderness: “Thou God seest me” (Gen_16:13).
3. Our great comfort, when reproached by men, to know that our conduct is approved by God. Our main concern, therefore, ought to be to obtain that approval. “Let them curse, but bless Thou” (Psa_119:28).
4. God tries and proves all his children (Psa_11:5; Jer_20:12). The desire of a sound believer to be tried by God (Psa_17:3; Psa_26:2; Psa_139:23). A believer’s trials and afflictions often only the divinely intended means of proving his principles and faith (1Pe_1:7; Jas_1:12; Deu_8:2).
5. The result of a true believer’s trials certain. This result threefold:
(1) The justification of his faith;
(2) The confirmation of his hope;
(3) The purification of his love (Rom_5:4, &c.; Isa_27:9; Heb_12:10-11; Dan_12:10).
6. Genuine believers like gold.
(1) Precious (Lam_4:2; Isa_43:4);
(2) Rare (Mat_7:14; Luk_12:32);
(3) Usually found mixed with earth and dross (Isa_1:25);
(4) Subjected to the fire of purification (Zec_13:9); 1Pe_1:7;
(5) Able to endure the fire (1Co_3:12;
(6) Ultimately made perfectly pure (Isa_1:25).
V. Declares the ground of his assurance (Job_23:11-12). That ground the consciousness of his character and conduct (1Jn_3:21). Job conscious of—
1. Persevering obedience to God’s will (Job_23:11). “My foot hath held his steps (followed faithfully and perseveringly the steps he prescribed to me, and which were pleasing in his sight); his ways have I kept, and not declined: neither have I gone back from the commandments of his lips.” God’s steps not only prescribed by Him, but trodden by Himself. “Be ye followers of God, as dear children.” “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Eph_5:1; 1Pe_1:16. Luk_6:36). Especially trodden by God manifest in the flesh (Joh_13:15; Eph_5:2; Php_2:5; 1Pe_2:21; 1Jn_2:6). Those steps marked in the Scriptures (1Th_4:2). Observe—
(1) The proof of sincerity not merely to put our feet in God’s steps, but to keep them there; not only to enter upon God’s way, but not to decline or turn aside from it.
(2) God’s way to be kept, not our own;
(3) Many temptations to decline from God’s way. These are—(i.) From the world; (ii.) From our own heart. Sometimes the frowns of the world, sometimes its smiles, prove temptations. Hence Agur’s prayer (Pro_30:8-9).
(4) Possible for a man to keep God’s way, and not decline from it. True generally, though not absolutely. “Not a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not.” “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves” (Pro_7:20; 1Jn_1:8). In a general sense, possible with Paul to live in all good conscience before God (Act_23:1). So David, as typical of Christ (Psa_18:21-23); Hezekiah (2Ki_18:6; 2Ki_20:3); Josiah (2Ki_22:2; 2Ki_23:25); the writer of Psalms 119. (Daniel?) (Psa_119:22; Psa_119:31; Psa_119:51; Psa_119:55-56). God’s Word given and to be attended to for this purpose (Jos_1:7-8; Psa_119:11). Requires—(i.) Reflection. (Pro_4:26; Psa_119:59; (ii.) Resolution (Psa_119:106); (iii.) Courage; (iv.) Watchfulness; (v.) Dependence on Divine strength; (vi.) Prayer.
(5) Job in the Old, an example to believers in the New Testament dispensation. Much more light and grace vouchsafed in the latter than in the former. The Gospel dispensation especially the dispensation of the Spirit (2Co_3:8-11). Hence a still higher and holier life to be expected. Believers to be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph_5:18).
2. High esteem for the words of God (Job_23:12). “I have esteemed (Hebrew: ‘hidden, or treasured up’) the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Margin: “My appointed portion;” or, “than my own purpose,” when these have come in collision). Words from God’s mouth known in all ages. God, at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past to the fathers (Heb_1:1). The words of God’s mouth treasured up in the Scriptures of truth (Deu_31:19; Deu_31:22; Deu_31:24; Isa_30:8; Hab_2:2). Spoken and preserved as the rule of faith and practice. To be—
(1) Highly esteemed as our most precious treasure;
(2) Chosen and adopted as the only rule of our faith and practice;
(3) Carefully treasured up in memory and heart;
(4) Held fast and persevered in.
Reasons for highly esteeming God’s Word.
(1) Its source,—God Himself;
(2) Its nature and character—(i.) Pure; (ii.) True; (iii.) Efficacious.
(3) Its tendency and end. The Word of God is—(i.) A means of convincing of sin and error (Psa_19:11; Heb_4:12); (ii.) A means of conversion (Psa_19:7); (iii.) The Holy Spirit’s instrument in regeneration (Jas_1:18); 1Pe_1:23); (iv.) Means of spiritual enlightenment (Psa_19:8; Psa_119:130); (v.) Directory as to duty and the way of salvation (2Ti_3:16; Joh_5:39); (vi.) Means of spiritual comfort, refreshment, and delight (Psa_119:50; Psa_119:54; Psa_119:111; Psa_19:8; Psa_19:10; Jer_15:16; (vii.) Means of sanctification (Joh_15:3; Joh_17:17; 2Co_3:18); (viii.) Means of spiritual fruitfulness (Joh_15:7-8); (ix.) Means of perfecting Christian character (2Ti_3:17); (x.) Means of preparing for usefulness (2Ti_3:17).
Evidences of highly esteeming God’s Word—(i.) When it is attentively read or heard (Pro_8:34; Joh_5:39; (ii.) When seriously and frequently pondered (Luk_2:19); (iii.) When carefully treasured up in the memory (Psa_119:11); (iv.) When preferred to earthly comforts, possessions, liberty, even life itself; (v.) When our own views, purposes, and practices are given up because in opposition to its teachings; (vi.) When suffering and loss are preferred to the violation of its precepts.
Examples of such esteem: David (Psa_19:10; Psa_119:97); Jeremiah (Job_15:16); Daniel (Dan_6:5; Dan_6:10); Mary (Luk_10:39-42). “I had rather be without meat, drink, light, everything than Mat_11:28.”—Selneccer. “I would not for all the world that Joh_17:24 had been left out of the Bible.”—Baxter. “My soul hath found inexpressibly more sweetness and satisfaction in a single line of the Bible, than in all the pleasures found in the things of the world, since the creation, could equal.”—John Brown of Haddington. “I would not live in Paradise without the Word, and could live in hell with it.—Luther.
God’s Word to be esteemed more than our “necessary food,” His Word the food of the soul, and necessary unto health and vigour (1Pe_2:2). The spiritual part of our nature of greater consequence than the material. Man’s life not sustained by bread alone, but by every word of God (Mat_5:4; Deu_8:3). God’s favour better than life. Spiritual refreshment sweeter and more valuable than corporeal. Better for the soul to be satisfied from God’s Word than for the body to be satisfied from the best spread table. “The flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life” (Joh_6:63). Man’s soul can no more dispense with spiritual than the body with material food. A famine of the Word of God a much greater calamity than a famine of bread (Amo_8:11).
VI. Recals with awe the unchangeableness and absolute sovereignty of God (Job_23:13). “But he is of one mind (or, ‘truly He is one,’ the only Supreme Ruler and Potentate; or, ‘He is one and the same’ [in purpose], i.e. unchangeable; or, when he is [set] on any one [object or purpose]) who can turn Him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. And he performeth the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things (either such sovereign and mysterious purposes and proceedings in relation to His creatures, or such severe dealings in relation to Job himself), are with Him. Therefore am I troubled at His presence [in my thoughts, or at His dealings with me]; when I consider [His majesty, power, and sovereignty], I am afraid of Him.” Observe—
1. God the only Potentate or supreme Ruler of the universe (1Ti_6:15). Rules and works according to His will. None able to influence, restrain, check, or counteract His procedure.
2. God unchangeable in His purposes. Ever like Himself. The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Free from the inconstancy and variableness adhering to creatures. The Father of lights, without variableness or shadow of turning (Jas_1:17). Is of one mind, character, and purpose. Hence our safety and comfort. “I am the Lord; I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Mal_3:6). God neither fickle in Himself, nor capable of being influenced by persons or events so as to change His purpose. The history of the universe eternally planned and mapped out by His infinite mind, in full harmony with the freedom of the creature’s will and the operation of second causes, which are included in it. Eternity, with all its actualities and possibilities, every moment open to His all-seeing view. His being one eternal NOW. Unnecessary and impossible for a Being, omniscient and omnipotent, all-holy, all-wise, and all-good, to change His purpose. Such change at any time only apparent. Ascribed to Him in condescension to our capacity. A change in His external procedure no change in His eternal plan.
3. God irresistible in His purposes. “I will work, and who shall let it” (Isa_43:13). God as irresistible in His power as He is immutable in His purpose. Nothing too hard for the Lord. For creatures to resist His will is for thorns and briars to oppose a consuming fire. God as able to execute, as He is wise to construct, His plan. The creature’s safety, happiness, and success, in falling in with the Creator’s will.
4. God’s purposes extend to all His creatures. No creature so insignificant but has his lot “appointed” for him. Nothing in the universe left to chance. The fall of a sparrow under His goverance as truly as the wreck of a world. Nothing either too minute or too vast for an infinite mind to direct or an almighty hand to control. Creatures and events linked with each other in His purpose throughout the universe, the chain extending from one eternity to another. The combination of a thousand events necessary to raise Joseph to his designed elevation, in order, among many other things, “to save much people alive” (Gen_50:20).
5. God’s Being, Purposes, and Providence such as to beget deep reverential awe. Too deep and mysterious for man’s faculties to fathom or comprehend. The constant nearness of such a Being to us, our intimate relation to, and absolute dependence upon, Him, overwhelming. Our comfort that He is at once infinitely wise and holy, and just and good. The interests of all His creatures safe in His hands. Only disobedience and rebellion can interfere with the creature’s happiness. God revealed in the Gospel in the most amiable possible light as love itself, and as giving the most unequivocal evidence of His character as such, in assuming our nature, obeying His own law, and enduring the utmost penalty of our disobedience, in order to our eternal redemption (1Jn_3:16; 1Jn_4:8-10).
6. Fear the natural effect of thoughts of God viewed apart from Christ and His work of redemption. Man inwardly and secretly conscious of sin and alienation from God. Fear, Peter’s first feeling on the apprehension of Christ’s Divine character, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luk_5:8).
VII. Returns to his own particular case (Job_23:16). “For God maketh my heart soft [with fear and dismay (Jos_2:11)], and the Almighty troubleth (or ‘confoundeth’) me [by His mysterious and apparently cruel procedure]: because I was not cut off [by death] before the darkness [of these calamities came], neither hath he covered the darkness (Heb. ‘thick darkness’ of such accumulated trouble) from my eyes” [by hiding me in the tomb]. Observe—
1. God able by His providence to make the stoutest heart soft with fear. Able also by His grace to make the hardest heart soft with penitence and love. Often makes the softness of fear from the iron rod of the law a precursor and preparative to the softness of love from the golden sceptre of the Gospel.
2. God able to trouble and confound the wisest and most daring by His mysterious and righteous dealings (Exo_14:24; Exo_8:19).
3. God’s dealings with ourselves often such as we are unable to comprehend.
4. A mystery that a benevolent and Almighty Being brings men into the world who are destined to suffer. But—
(1) No suffering which is not in some way the consequence of sinning.
(2) All things made by God for Himself and for His own glory. In a way unknown to us, every creature made to contribute to the end of its creation. Perhaps God’s highest glory hereafter from those who suffer most here. God’s grace often greatly glorified by patient suffering even in this life. A patient, submissive, and thankful sufferer here probably one of the brightest jewels in the cabinet of God hereafter.
(3) Suffering the appointed path to glory (Act_14:22; Rom_8:17). Probably the greatest sufferer in time the loudest singer in eternity. The crown of thorns preparatory to the crown of glory. As with the Head, so with the members (Luk_24:26; Rom_8:17).
(4) The sufferings of one made to contribute to the benefit of another. Paul’s testimony in reference to himself, applicable to believers in general (Col_1:24). The members thus made to share with the Head. Probably the happiness, moral excellence, and mutual love of redeemed men greatly increased by such a Divine arrangement.
(5) The wisdom and the love of God in bringing Job into the world where he had so much to suffer, long ago made manifest both to himself and others.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain We have here:
Job 23:3
We have here:
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I. The search for God. Of all the many things men seek, surely this is the noblest—the search for God. "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" There speaks a man eager in the highest of all pursuits. Yours, too, is the capacity to seek for God. Have you, amid your many quests, ever wished to find Him? or is it true that you do not even wish or want to find God?
II. The search for God unavailing. Here, in the Bible, the very book which professes to tell us about God, and in the words of a writer as earnest and devout as this, we find this exclamation of despair about finding God, this exceeding bitter cry: "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" It seems to be Job’s chief trouble that he cannot penetrate the clouds and darkness which surround his Maker. What a high, sublime desire for a troubled man to cherish! "Oh that I might come even to God’s seat!" Imagine the prayer granted. Should we like it to be granted to us, to rest there?
III. The search for God rewarded. The Bible has more for us on this subject than this cry of Job’s. There is a progress in its many pages, the product of many ages and of successive revelations. It is one of the chief revelations of the New Testament that the deep, unquenchable, and before unsatisfied craving of frail, suffering, sinful men to find their Maker, and to find Him their Friend, is met in Jesus Christ.
T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 298.
Job 23:3
I. God comes only into the heart that wants Him. All that God says—though He be clothed with omnipotence and have at His girdle the keys of all worlds—is, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock." God does not force His way into the human heart. Except a man desire with his whole heart and strength to find God, no promise is given in the living word that God will be found.
II. This desire on our part is in answer to the desire of God. We love God because He first loved us. If we desire God, it is because He hath first desired us. His love comes up from unbeginning time, and goes on to unending eternity. There is nothing in our hearts that is good, and true, and tender that is not inspired by God the Holy Ghost.
III. We must seek God as men who know there is no other help for us. If there be the least distraction of feeling or affection on our part as to this point, we cannot find God. If we would really and truly find God, we must go to Him as men who have lost all right of standing up before Him. No man is allowed to stand before God on equal terms. We must desire God with a true heart, with an unmixed love, and then He will come to us and be our God.
IV. No man can find but God unto perfection. We must not suppose that we have concluded our studies of the Divine nature. In proportion as we are really religious we shall be the first to resent the suggestion that we have done more than but begin our studies of the Divine person, the Divine law, and the Divine grace.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 37.
References: Job 23:3, Job 23:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 700; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 231. Job 23:6.—Ibid., vol. iii., No. 108. Job 23:8, Job 23:9.—J. Burton, Christian Life and Truth, p. 344. Job 23:8, Job 23:10.—J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons, No. 56. Job 23:11, Job 23:12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1526. Job 23:13.—Ibid., vol. vii., No. 406. Job 23:16, Job 23:17.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 436. Job 23—S. Cox, Ibid., 1st series, vol. viii., p. 161; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 304. Job 24:1.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 94. Job 24:13.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 130.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Job's Seventh Speech (Job 23, 24)
Job's Seventh Speech (Job 23, 24)
Job makes but slight reference to the remarks of Eliphaz, but continues to brood over the mysteries of God's dealings with himself (Job 23), and with mankind (Job 24). All seems to betoken a God that hideth Himself. Yet he is evidently calmer and more trustful in God's justice than in earlier speeches.
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1-7. Job longs that he may find God and plead his cause before Him, confident that He wifl acquit him of guilt.
2b. RM 'My hand is heavy upon my groaning,' i.e. I suppress it as much as I can.
6. Render, 'Would He contend with me with great force? Nay, He would hear me!' A truer conception of God's character than e.g. in Job 9.
7a. Lit. 'Then a righteous man would be pleading with him,' i.e. then it would appear that the man who pleads with Him is righteous (Davidson).
8, 9. The bright vision fades. God ever escapes his search.
8. Forward.. backward] better,' east'. 'west.'
9. Left.. right] better, 'north'. 'south.' In ancient times the cardinal points were described by facing the east.
10a. RM 'For he knoweth the way that is with me'; i.e. my innocence.
11. Declined] RV 'turned aside.'
12b. LXX better, 'In my breast I have stored up his words.'
13-17. Job returns to the old tormenting idea that God must be resolved to hold him guilty, since he suffers so much in spite of his innocence.
14b. Job is not the only victim of the inscrutable actions of Providence.
16. Soft] RV 'faint.'
17. RM 'For I am not dismayed because of the darkness, not because thick darkness covereth my face.' Job means that his sufferings do not distress him so much as the fact that it is God who so mysteriously sends them without just cause.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain i.e. coast.
island
i.e. coast.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain CHAPTERS 23-24 Job’s Reply
CHAPTERS 23-24 Job’s Reply
1. O that I knew where I may find Him (Job 23:1-8)
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2. Trusting yet doubting (Job 23:10-17)
3. Hath God failed? (Job 24:1-12)
4. Job’s further testimony as to the wicked (Job 24:13-25)
Job 23:1-9. Job here does not disprove at once the false charges of Eliphaz. He can afford to wait till later, till their mouths are completely silenced. Then he speaks the final word. He acknowledgeth that he is still rebellious. His hand which is upon him is heavier than all his groanings. Then that outburst which reveals the longing of his tried and tempest-tossed soul--”Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might even come to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments.” Then in blinded self-righteousness he speaks a bold word: “I would know the words He would answer to me, and understand what He would say to me.” He is so sure of it all that he declares “He would give heed to me.” How different it was when the Lord did speak and Job’s lips are sealed, only to open in expression of deepest self-abhorrence. Yet even in the words he speaks here, still in the dark as to the reason of his suffering, he demonstrates that he is not the defiant wicked man, but one who longs for God.
Job 23:10-17. Trusting yet doubting expresseth the sentiment of what he says next. Trust is expressed in the beautiful utterance, “But He knoweth the way that I take; when He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.” Yet it is self-vindication which speaks next, not in God’s presence, but to clear himself before his friends. “My foot held fast to His steps.” Doubt follows for he still considers God, not his friend, but his enemy.
Job 24:1-12. The rendering of the opening verse is difficult to make. It has been paraphrased in this wise: “Since, then, events from the Almighty are not hid, why do not they who love Him know His ways?” This perhaps expresseth the true meaning of his thought. He shows what so often happens on the earth and which seemingly indicates a failure of God in His righteous government. Why is it all? And never before in the history of the race has Job’s charge of the failure of God been so prominent as in our evil days.
From city and from houses groans ascend;
With shrieks those being murdered cry for help
Yet God regards not this enormity.
Job 24:13-25. He describes the paths of the wicked again and yet they seem to escape the retribution in this life which they so well deserve. They even have security. And Job still is haunted by the thought that in these facts there is found an evidence that God is favorable to them. Death surely comes to them “yet a little while and they are gone” but what comes after death he does not mention. Then boldly he raiseth himself up and says, “And if it be not so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech of no account?” What an assertion that all he declared is infallibly true!
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Job Desires a Judicial Decision of God
Job Desires a Judicial Decision of God
v. 1. Then Job answered and said,
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v. 2. Even today is my complaint bitter, full of defiance, maintaining its attitude of opposition against the admonitions of Eliphaz; my stroke is heavier than my groaning, his hand was weighing down heavily upon his groaning, he was constrained once more to break forth in moaning.
v. 3. Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat, come before God’s judgment-seat and present his plea, make his defense.
v. 4. I would order my cause before Him, stating in order the reasons for his plea, and fill my mouth with arguments, with objections, with proofs for the justice of his cause.
v. 5. I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would say unto me, this knowledge enabling him to make his defense successfully.
v. 6. Will He plead against me with His great power, making use of His omnipotence to overthrow the contention of Job? No; but He would put strength in me, regard Job favorably. He feels confident that, if he could only find God and cause Him to take up his case, He would give him a hearing, not letting His omnipotent majesty stand in the way.
v. 7. There the righteous might dispute with Him, he who pleads would be shown to be a righteous man; so should I be delivered forever from my Judge, he would escape condemnation on the part of the Judge by virtue of his uprightness. With all evidences of weakness Job still clung to his trust in the Lord—a type for all those in affliction.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Even today my complaint is bitter
Even today my complaint is bitter
Here "Even today" emphasizes that his friends arguments have not changed Job's situation at all. AT: "In spite of what you have said, my complaint is still bitter"
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my complaint is bitter
Job speaks of his unanswered complaint against God as if it was a bitter taste in his mouth. AT: "my unanswered complaint is as bad as bitter food in my mouth" (See: Idiom)
my hand ... heavy because of my groaning
Possible meanings are 1) "I can barely lift my hand because of my groaning" or 2) "God's hand continues to make me suffer in spite of my groaning" where "hand" refers to God's power to punish. (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Job
groan
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.